TENNIS/French Open: In science they call it entropy, the tendency for the universe to attain a state of chaos. You drop a glass and it shatters. Stars explode and planets die, writes Johnny Wattersonat Roland Garros
For two weeks now at Roland Garros there has been turmoil, players have muddled through a cluttered, frenetic draw. One hundred and twenty-eight bodies started and day-by-day they disappeared, fell injured, got beaten, dissipated off into the tennis world to make new tournaments or to mend themselves.
From that free-for-all, order returned as yesterday Paris got what it wanted. It coughed up what the boffins had desired and had predicted, a Roger Federer final against Rafael Nadal.
After 13 days of dark horses, winning streaks and shattered dreams, the sport arrived where everyone believed it should with the best clay court player in the world facing perhaps the best player ever. Nadal, never beaten at Roland Garros, goes for his third successive title shot with Federer contesting a record eighth straight Grand Slam final.
It leaves tennis where it has been before, exactly 12 months ago, when Nadal won the second of his French Open championships as Federer stood poised to etch his image on the game's history. Since then the Swiss number one has been hoovering up everything of worth. After falling here to Nadal, he continued on to win at Wimbledon, then the US Open and at this year's Australian Open.
But again the physical and mental colossus that is Nadal stands firmly in the way of his winning all four Slams, which only six players have ever done; in the way of his holding all four Slams in the same calendar year, which only the great Rod Laver and Don Budge have ever achieved; and in the way of his claiming a first French Open title.
And yesterday his passage to this point was again not without occasional pained expression as Nikolay Davydenko demonstrated why he is the world's number four player. The lugubrious looking but humorous Russian, who is becoming known as the Marxist with the Groucho lines, fell in three sets.
Had he from somewhere acquired a heavier serve, he could well have caused more anxiety than twice taking the number one to tie-breaks in sets two and three and twice losing them.
While at times Federer also found his first serve difficult to find, he was wily enough to produce it on the big points. Crazily, though, he faced 11 break points in the first set. For a player of such control that was unruly. But he managed it and handed over his serve just once for 7-5. It was almost unjust as Davydenko in that time faced two break points and lost both.
Bizarrely, Federer had to catch up in all three sets after going a break down, with Davydenko serving for the set twice, in the second and third. It was that sort of match.
"I didn't have a great amount of first serve percentage but I had them when I needed them," said Federer. "And usually they came over break points during the tie-breakers."
An exchange of service games in the second set sent it to the first tiebreak where Federer built to 6-5. On serve, he boomed one up the middle but Davydenko fumbled the return and with it the second set. Two sets ahead and Federer was seemingly in control but as he dipped to 3-5 in the third, thoughts rushed to a four- or five-set match. Again he came up big. In the ninth game he took Davydenko's serve on the sixth break point of the game for 5-4 as it built towards the inevitable tiebreak.
Naturally, he sweated the bigger points better.
"I need to work on my serve," added Federer. "But it was a beautiful match, highly physical and I had great pleasure."
Those are not the words that spring to mind when he considers Nadal, whose muscular superiority worked over Serbia's Novak Djokovic. The Spanish 21-year-old shook off his tracksuit and reiterated the size of his biceps and of the gap between him and the rest of the pack. He is in the final without dropping a set.
But Djokovic gamely fought early on. Although Nadal sped to 5-2, the Serb levelled the first set at 5-5 before "Rafa" broke him again and served out. Just one service break in the second set was sufficient for Nadal and even then a miss-hit set him up with three break points. Still Djokovic, even with admirably rounded game, couldn't deal with the relentlessly high tempo of Nadal. In the third set the inevitable collapse arrived, Nadal racing to the first four games and winning the set and match 6-2.
"Always the same question," said Nadal on facing the great Federer. "I know I'm playing the best in the world. I am playing one of the greatest in history, But I have played the best clay court season of my career. The level of tennis is the best of my career."
Translated Nadal always sounds overly simple. But be sure, from Federer's rigorously ordered mind and game, the Spaniard will be seeking to bring chaos.
FEDERER v NADAL
Roger Federer
Age:25
World Rank:1
Titles won:48 Grand Slams: 10
Roland Garros win-loss:26-8
2007 Clay court win-loss:16-2
Road to final:bt M Russell 6-4, 6-2, 6-4; bt T Ascione 6-1, 6-2, 7-6; bt P Starace 6-2, 6-3, 6-0; bt M Youzhny 7-6, 6-4, 6-4; bt T Robredo 7-5, 1-6, 6-1, 6-2;bt N Davydenko 7-5, 7-6, 7-6.
Rafael Nadal
Age:21
World Rank:2
Titles won:21
Grand Slams:2
Roland Garros win-loss:20-0
2007 Clay court win-loss:25-1
Road to final:bt JM del Potro 7-5, 6-3, 6-2; bt F Cipolla 6-2, 6-1, 6-4;bt A Montanes 6-1, 6-3, 6-2; bt L Hewitt 6-3, 6-1, 7-6; bt C Moya 6-4, 6-3, 6-0; bt N Djokovic 7-5, 6-4, 6-2.
