WIMBLEDON:AFTER ALMOST two weeks of Wimbledon, the mountains have finally conquered the foothills. Four familiar faces, each one of them a history-maker or record-breaker, will take part in the final two games of this year's championships.
Rafael Nadal's left arm pummelled Rainer Schuettler out of the draw and title-holder Roger Federer advanced to his sixth successive Centre Court final, defeating the crowd favourite Marat Safin in three sets.
Two other champions, the Williams sisters, play each other today on Centre Court for the third time, the younger Serena hoping to wrest a title from Venus, as she has done five times in their last six Grand Slam final meetings.
Yesterday's play was a triumph, once again, of the exalted talents of the world's two best players, Federer and Nadal. Both came through their semi-finals with predictable ease, arriving at the point many would have foreseen for them 12 days ago. Once again Federer disguised his win and accomplished it with seemingly little effort; the Spaniard won with withering power and control.
No players have come close to matching them, and though yesterday Nadal showed a couple of moments of frailty in not finishing off his 32-year-old German opponent as quickly as he might, the two meet in the final with almost pristine records.
Federer steps on court not having dropped a set; Nadal has dropped just one, during his second-round defeat of Latvia's Ernests Gulbis.
Federer was first through the gates of Centre Court, suppressing the surly Russian, Marat Safin 6-3, 7-6, 6-4, but for once he found himself on the wrong end of the crowd. Safin has blown like a fresh breeze through the draw, and while few held out hope of him caning Federer, his big game was expected to slow down the champion.
Like many things in Safin's colourful career, that did not materialise. The big Russian had not enough top matches in his system to dent Federer's game or rattle his confidence.
"He's playing well. He's playing solid. Doesn't do anything fancy," said Safin. "Just plays how he needs to be able to win. He has a couple of shots when he's under pressure. Important moments. That's what he takes advantage of.
"The beginning was terrible," he added warming to one his favourite topics - Marat's misery. "I should have at least stayed with him a little bit longer."
The first set took only 24 minutes as the Swiss held Safin to just three games. The second set was better but Safin was getting almost nothing from Federer's service games and his big-tournament play was insufficiently honed, letting him down a number of times.
Federer won the second set on a tiebreak and from that low point there was no return. Coming back from two sets down in a Wimbledon semi-final against Federer would stretch even a fantastic imagination like that of Safin. He finally bowed out 6-4 in the third in 102 minutes.
While Federer was precision and economy, Nadal was effort and power. He sped to a 23-minute first set, took almost an hour to win the second on a tiebreak and then restored normal service with a 6-4 third - all in just a minute over two hours.
Nadal now seeks his first Wimbledon title, Federer his sixth and one that would take him beyond Bjorn Borg's mark, and one short of Pete Sampras's record 14 Grand Slams.
"The two of them will be the greatest tennis players in history," observed Safin. "Because Nadal hasn't lost a match on clay since I don't know, since he was 10, maybe. And Federer is going for his sixth Wimbledon. He's definitely going to pass the 14 Grand Slams. I hope for him.
"So I guess I can say to my kids that I played against him."
