Today's men's Wimbledon final was something I have never seen before. After being delayed by rain, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer squared off in the finals, a rematch from the French Open finals (Nadal won) and a rematch of the last two Wimbledon finals (Federer won both, and 5 in a row.)
Federer is a machine and has won 40 matches in a row at the All England Club as well as an unbelievable 65 in a row on grass. Going into the finals Federer had not dropped a set this tournment, so he was expected to cruse to his 6th Wimbledon in a row.
But Nadal took an early lead winning the first two sets 6-4 and 6-4. Up by a few games in the 3rd set, the sky opened and there was an hour and a half rain delay. (This is when the Tank called me about the need for retractable roofs, next year Centre Court will have one.)
After the rain delay, facing 1 game from elimination, Federer fought back. He forced a tie-breaker in the 3rd and won that, then fought back again, facing two championship points in the fourth and forced yet another tie-breaker, which he also won. Now it was down to a fifth and decisive final set and Federer was on a roll.
But Nadal would never say die and fought back. Neither side broke each other in hours. Night was coming and there are no lights on Centre Court. When the match looked all tied up, rain fell again.
After the delay, the match continued and was tied up. No tie-breakers in the last match. At the 4:16 mark, the match surpassed Conners-McEnroe in 1982 in longest final every played (not counting the rain). Nadal finally broke Federer after about 4:30 of play and went up 7-6 in the last set to serve for the victory. It was only the 4th break of the match for Nadal (Federer only broke Nadal once). It was almost completely dark, about 9:15pm in London, a Wimbledon match never went this late. With the match about to be called for darkness and with two more match points served up, Nadal finally won the match, becoming the first person to win both Wimbledon and the French Open in the same year since Bjorn Borg did it in 1980 (who was there to congratulate Nadal.)
Forget Conners-McEnroe, this is the most exciting match I have ever watched.
Congratulations to Rafael Nadal!
Posted by Steve, in awe.