French Open 2008 - Finals recap

Four games: What is the Swiss word for "annihilation"?

Four games is all it took, and Rafael Nadal rubber-stamped, underlined, and highlighted his complete dominance on the red clay by winning the 2008 French Open. That is how many games the world number ONE player, Roger Federer of Switzerland, was able to take off the now four-time French Open Champion.

On Thursday last week, I did a post looking forward to the Men's Final, which at that stage was undecided. I'd hoped for a Federer-Nadal rematch of the last two Finals, and so it turned out. But what did not materialize was an epic battle between number 1 and 2. Instead, it was a rout, a brutal dismembering of Federer, who is called the greatest ever, by Rafael Nadal, who must without doubt be the greatest ever, on this particular surface.

The statistics - telling the story of the carnage in Paris

The stats from the match are remarkable, even if taken in isolation. Consider the following:

• 35 Unforced errors compared to SEVEN
• Only five points won on the second serve in the WHOLE MATCH
• 31% of points won when receiving serve, compared to 60% by opponent
• 52 points won in the match, compared to 92
• Only managed to see FOUR break points, compared to 17

Those stats would be remarkable enough in any game, but when you consider that it's Roger Federer whose numbers are shown first in the above list, compared to Nadal's, then you get an idea of the total domination enjoyed by the Spaniard. Federer only won 5 points on his second serve in the whole match, and won almost half the number of points won by Nadal.

If those numbers don't tell the story, then these do:

6-1, 6-3, 6-0

because that was the final score. When was the last time the world number ONE managed to win only four games in any match, let alone a big final? And when last did a world number one get bumped to love in any set of a competitve match? It was a truly remarkable match, for reasons I really did not expect last week. I expected a Nadal victory, sure, but the manner of the win was quite eye-opening.

Implications of the result: Doubt and confidence

It leaves Federer in pretty much the same place he's been every June for the last four years - contemplating the only Grand Slam to elude him, and wondering how on earth he is going to even compete with, let alone beat, Nadal. The last two finals have been much closer - four sets last year, and he was competitive for most of the match, bar one set. This year, six games in the second set gave the neutral and Swiss fans hope, because Federer fought back from a break down, and then threatened to break again. But that was the sum of his resistance and pretty soon, the heavy hitting and precision by Nadal, combined with a wild forehand by Federer, counted for too much.

Once Nadal broke to go 5-3 clear in the second, he never looked back, winning the final eight games, handing Federer his worst defeat since his arrival as tennis' number one, and so the truth is that Federer is probably not in the same place he usually is in June - he's much further back.

As for Nadal, he now heads into the grass court season having built his legacy yet again. He suffered only 1 defeat all season on the clay, and that was largely due to blisters that prevented him from walking, let alone running. For the rest of the year, he was challenged, but always responded, and then on the biggest stage, he simply blasted everyone away.

Consider that in all his matches in this tournament, he made only 98 unforced errors! In 21 sets of play, that's fewer than 5 mistakes a set (I am a little sceptical of those numbers, to be honest, but the point is, Federer made 35 in three sets today). He doesn't miss, chases everything down, hits with power, accuracy and aggression, and the opponent has little choice but to become increasingly desperate in trying to win points, let alone games.

Consider also that he lost only 22 games in his last four rounds - 3 to Verdasco, 3 to Almagro, 12 to Djokovic (he must have played poorly that match!), and now 4 to Federer - and you get an idea of how utterly superior he has been.

He goes into the Wimbledon campaign on a serious high then. Last year, he pushed Federer to five sets in the final, and that will give him heart. Add today's whitewash third set to that, and you have the makings of a real challenge to Federer's crown on grass. What may ultimately determine the outcome at Wimbledon is the draw, because Djokovic will be the "floating" seed in third, and he will either play Federer or Nadal in a big semi-final. Whoever avoids Djokovic therefore has to win only really one BIG game, and if that is Nadal, then I'd say the odds are pretty close to 50-50.

Then again, Federer may have given himself a close to 50% chance of winning this final. He never knew what hit him.

Last word on the ladies: Ivanovic claims number 1 and maiden Slam

On the ladies' side, it was Serbia's Ana Ivanovic who triumphed in a nervy final against first time finallist Dinara Safina of Russia. The game was not particularly memorable, as both ladies seemed very hesitant and there were numerous errors. In the end, it was experience and slightly superior athleticism that won out, and Ivanovic crowned her new number 1 ranking with her first Grand Slam title.

Please stop the reliance/dependence relationships - you're all big girls and boys...

Just a note on the game in general here, and it's particularly relevant to Ivanovic. Am I the only one who finds it increasingly annoying how reliant the players seem to be on their coaching staff and support teams DURING matches? I remember seeing it at the Australian Open earlier this year, and now again in France, but every time the player wins a point, they pump the fist, and look up at their box and family and coaches for some kind of telepathic support. When things go badly, the same happens - look up to the coach and support team.

Now, to me, this seems like some kind of dysfunctional "Freudian" need, when a professional player has to look for invisible help that often. Ivanovic, in all her matches, must look at her box about 150 times in the match. For everything - line calls, points won, points lost, first serves missed, crowd noise. You name it, she's looking. It was similar for Djokovic in the Australian Open.

And it was Dinara Safina who actually put it best, when in her speech at the prize-giving, congratulated Ivanovic and her team, and then said "even though the team was really annoying sometimes". I second that!

Tennis has always had this tendency to produce somewhat dodgy parent/coach-player relationships, but it seems to have gotten worse of late - I don't recall the likes of Steffi and Monica Seles being quite so dependent on people in the crowd! But watching Ivanovic's completely dependent demeanour towards her team made me pretty annoyed as a spectator too. Federer and Nadal showed the way - play the game, play the opponent, and be a big girl/boy, and look after yourself.

Bring on Wimbledon!

Ross

New World Record Women's 5000m

Tirunesh Dibaba runs 14:11.15 - New World Record!

Oslo was the venue for the second successive women's 5000m world record last night. One year ago, it was Meseret Defar of Ethiopia, who broke the old record by a massive 8 seconds. On Friday night, it was her great rival and country-woman Tirunesh Dibaba who smashed the time of Defar thanks to the most incredible final 2000m you can imagine. Her final time: 14:11.15, and a 5 second margin on the world record.

How it unfolded: Erratic pacing and an astonishing finish

But after 3000m, it had seemed absolutely impossible. Her pacing up to that point had been erratic - the first kilometer was covered in 2:48, far too fast and the effect told. The pace over the second kilometer dropped right down to 2:55, and the third was not much better - another 2:55. Having set out with the intention of reaching the 3000m mark in 8:30, they hit 3,000m in 8:38.38. That projects a finish time 14:23, and of course, they were slowing progressively at that point! There was no certainly indication of what was to come.

Then suddenly the race came to life. Dibaba's sister Ejegayehu came to her aid, and helped with the pacesetting for perhaps 600m, and then it was the Tirunesh show. She covered the fourth kilometer in 2:49, which meant she had clawed back about 2 seconds on the world record.

And then she was jet-propelled for the final 4 laps. She reeled off the following absolutely astonishing sequece of laps:

67s - 66s - 65s - 63.99s

That gave her a final mile of 4:24, which means her last 1500m was run in about 4:07. Absolutely incredible running, and with one lap to go, the record was gone. Such was the ferocity (and grace, by the way, because there cannot be a more elegant, beautiful runner than Dibaba at the moment) of her pacing that with one lap to go, she had the record in hand, having been four seconds behind the pace at 3,000m.

Her final kilometer, for those interested in the numbers, was 2:42!

Where to next for the women's 5000m event? Room for improvement?

Absolutely. Dibaba's record may in fact have less than nine hours to "live"! That is because in about 9 hours, Meseret Defar will be attempting to break it in the Prefontaine Meet in Eugene, USA. Her chances? Well, on Thursday last week I wrote that I expected Defar to be in the sort of shape to run 14:15, and it was a question of whether Dibaba was. Dibaba clearly did even better, and raised the bar much more than I think even Defar might have expected. But, Defar will be close, and the one thing she does have on her side is the likelihood of decent pacing.

That's because the usual pace-setter who was scheduled to run in Oslo reportedly jumped across the Atlantic for Defar's race, leaving Dibaba to use a rookie - that goes a long way to explaining the erratic pacing in Dibaba's race. Defar probably won't have that problem, and so the world record is most definitely on. If I had to stick my neck out, I'll predict that IF the weather conditions are good, then Defar will run faster than 14:12! (that's called hedging bets!). Seriously though, I think there's a better than 50-50 chance that Defar will reclaim the record in Eugene.

And then what? Well, I think that Dibaba will break it again. The manner of her race in Oslo, the fact that she reeled off a final kilometer of 2:42 after an up and down race suggests to me that she has perhaps 3 or 4 seconds in the bank, simply as a result of pacing strategy. But more than this, there's a belief about what she can do, and I fully expect her to be able to take the women's record down to about 14:05 within the next 12 months. She might therefore "loan out" her record to Defar in a few hours' time, but expect her to reclaim it, with interest!

Great days for women's distance running

These certainly are halcyon days for women's distance running, with these two superstars from Ethiopia emerging over the last two years, and really pushing the events to the next level of racing. Now, they've started attacking the world records, which we all know were heavily tainted by drugs and Chinese women from 1993. For example, consider that in the 3000m event, the top 7 times in history are held by Chinese women, ALL IN 1993, with the next best athlete a full 15-seconds behind!

Hopefully the Ethiopians will be able to correct that lop-sided stat. As for the drugs issue, the debate rages on. Over at LetsRun.com, there's a forum discussion on whether the Ethiopian women are on drugs. I don't KNOW the answer to that one, but I strongly suspect not - of course, it can't be proven, but I think the big confounder here is that you have this population group that clearly has some genetic predispostion to running fast suddenly emerging.

The Ethiopian men emerged in the 1960's, thanks to Bikila and Wolde in the Olympic Marathons, and then much later, it was Miruts Yifter over 5,000m and 10,000m. Then of course, came Gebrselassie and now Kenenisa Bekele. The Ethiopian women, however, have had a more gradual emergence (blame cultural and social factors, perhaps?). But I think that what we are seeing now is the result of the early Ethiopian women "pioneers" - Deratu Tulu, Gete Wami, who laid down the "yellow brick road" for a group of women, led by Dibaba and Defar, to enter the fray.

And armed with their training habits, lifestyle, discipline, and some genetic "gift" that science doesn't quite understand, they're picking up where their men showed the way. Long may it continue!

Ross

Athletics previews

Three world records to fall this weekend? Distance feast on the tracks

Last weekend, it was Usain Bolt in the men's 100m event. This weekend, it's possibly the turn of the Ethiopians over the longer distances, as three world record attempts are on the cards.

Women's 5000m - musical world records?

First, in Norway, Tirunesh Dibaba has expressed her desire to go for the world 5000m record at the year's second Golden League Meeting in Oslo. Dibaba, the world 10,000m champion, certainly has the credentials to break the existing mark, held by her country-woman Meseret Defar. Those two have had perhaps the greatest rivalry on the track in many years, particularly two years ago, when they seemed to be racing down the final 100m of just about every race they ever ran in. Last year, they managed to avoid each other all year long, and it's symptomatic of their rivalry that they are racing on opposite sides of the Atlantic this weekend!

That is because Meseret Defar will then attempt the World 5,000m record at the Prefontaine Meeting in Eugene, USA, only two days later. If Dibaba can break the existing world record, she might therefore hold it for only 36 hours, until Defar once again reclaims it.

This record, incidentally, is relatively soft - 14:16.63. It was set almost exactly a year ago, in a competitive race (both 1st and 2nd broke the old mark), and is probably the weakest of all the women's world records (and probably one of the few that is not massively drug assisted). So, there is a reasonable chance of at least one, if not both, of these women going faster than the old time.

Certainly, I expect that Defar is in the kind of shape to run 14:15 or faster. The only question is whether Dibaba is also, and by how much? The record is looking very fragile as the two dominant women athletes set their sights on it. I'll bet that by Monday morning, we're reporting that record as 14:12, regardless of what happens!

Men's 10,000m - Bekele to go for it, realistic or not?

Not quite as sure is the men's 10,000m attempt, which is to be made by the current record holder, Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, also at the Pre meeting in Eugene. His race (and that of Defar) has been scheduled to take place much earlier than usual - a 9h30 start, with the main meeting to begin at 12h30. That could either indicate the both Bekele and Defar are really serious about these attempts, or it could be a strategy to build anticipation and get people in long before the real meeting starts!

And therein lies the problem - every time a great athlete like Bekele takes to the track, people will inevitably talk of world records. His manager will not do anything to discourage such talk, because the "value" of the athlete for sponsors and promoters is enormously enhanced by the anticipation of a world record. All the while, Bekele could very well be in world record shape. Then again, he may not be.

The tricky thing about 2008 is that the Olympic Games really stretches the season out, and to be in the kind of shape required for this particular record (the men's 10,000m, unlike the women's 5k, is very strong) in June is very challenging, when you think that the athletes have to again be in peak shape in late August, early September. So I suspect Bekele will probably be a little "underdone", and will likely fail in the middle kilometers.

The other problem (apart from the time of year and the strength of the record) is that pacemakers often determine the chances of success. And I don't know who the meeting organizers have lined up as pace-setters, but given the strength of the record (26:17.53, to remind you), you have to find guys who can run 13:00 fairly comfortably to set a steady, confident pace. That's likely to undermine any other aspects.

So, my prediction for the men's 10,000m:

Bekele will run the first 3,000m at world record pace, then slow down, losing perhaps 2 to 3 seconds per kilometer, with pacemakers dropping out shortly after 5,000m. He'll probably try hard to stay close to the time, but will eventually fall away and finish in about 26:30, with a fast last lap, having slowed up dramatically in the final kilometer. I fully expect to hear that the wind and weather were not perfect, but the record will live to see another day.

But who knows? Like the tennis (see post below), it might be completely wrong, and all three records are smashed! Whatever happens, we'll discuss it come Monday!

Ross

French Open Tennis

Roger vs Rafa: Tennis' great rivarly may come to a head


June and July are without doubt the peak of the sporting year (well, if you don't count three weeks in August that promise to be pretty spectacular!), because they bring the start of the European track and field season, the major soccer championships (Euro 2008 in this particular year), a great deal of top cycling in the build-up to the Tour de France, and of course, the French Open and Wimbledon.

And it's the French Open that I thought I'd look at briefly today. Over the past few months, The Science of Sport has become much more like the Science of Running! Apologies for that (to all those interested in the other sports, anyway), I guess it just evolves that way out of our interests, time, and readership! But today, a change of tactic, as we switch the running shoes and roads for the racquets and red clay of Roland Garros, for the year's second Grand Slam.

Roger vs Rafa: The great rivalry to continue?

OK, I'm counting my chickens here, because Roger Federer has to overcome the challenge of Gael Monfils (which I don't see posing too many problems), while Raphael Nadal has the slightly trickier prospect of getting past Novak Djokovic.

But if they do (I hope they do), then the final on Sunday should deliver (again) one of the great match-ups of tennis. Last year, Nadal beat Federer in a 4-set final, denying Federer the chance to win the Grand Slam at only the second hurdle. That possibility is already gone this year, for it was Novak Djokovic who took out the Aussie Open in January this year, and so Federer's quest for the French Open takes on a slightly different meaning. It's still the title he desperately needs to win - the "most difficult" one of all to claim, they say. And certainly, if you look at the typical line-up of entrants in the French Open, there are probably about 10 guys who could, in their year, win the French Open, versus perhaps 3 or 4 in all the other Grand Slams.

Until, that is, Raphael Nadal came on the scene. The greatest claycourt player, by a long way, of the current era, and probably the greatest ever, Nadal is the gladiator on the clay courts. His record at Roland Garros is incredible - never been beaten, some 26 games later. On the clay, even better - he was on a record winning streak of 81 matches before it was Federer who beat him in 2007. Since then, he's lost 1 more match in perhaps the last 30. Remarkable dominance, and which Federer will likely have to overcome (again, if they both overcome their semifinal opponents).

Last year's final: Strategic blowouts and ?

Last year's French Open Final between the two delivered one of the more bizarre matches of the year. The hype was certainly not over the top, it was by no means an anticlimax, but it was a peculiar match, for a number of reasons. It seemed at the time (as I wrote in a post the day after, all of one year ago), that Federer had been sucked into playing the Nadal claycourt game.

His tactical strategy was perhaps the most amazing aspect. The absolutely magnificent commentators we have been getting on the SA Supersport feed (take note Supersport - that's what commentary is supposed to be like) noted that it seemed that Federer was hell-bent on proving to the world that he could outhit Nadal from the baseline. In that 4-set match, Federer made 60 unforced errors (to Nadal's 20), and his first serve percentage was down to 30%. He had 20 break-points in the match, converted only one! Raphael Nadal at one point looked as though he might be injured, because he simply stopped chasing down balls, and he didn't play his best game, but Federer kept spraying his forehand long, wide and into the net.

Perhaps that is symptomatic of the pressure playing Nadal creates. The onus to pull of shots that are just that little bit deeper, wider and harder is bound to exact a toll on performance. But Federer, who is the most beautifully elegant player, in terms of his movement, in the game, failed last year to rise to the challenge. Perhaps this time around, it will be different?

The dark horse Djokovic

Of course, the dark horse in all this is Djokovic, a man who, in theory anyway, could win the Grand Slam before Federer (barring that tournament at Wimbledon, which will be a little tricky to win!) He's the "floating" seed in the draw, and the way the French Open draw worked out this year, he actually helps Federer, by virtue of the fact that he takes Nadal in the semi-final. That means not only that Federer's passage to the final is easier, but that Nadal and Djokovic get to slug it out with each other before moving onto the inevitable meeting with Federer. Fortunately, a two day break in the Slams means fatigue is not a major concern, but still, the mental and physical effort of playing two huge matches to win must count against one of these two.

I know I'm hoping for a Nadal-Federer final, just to see a repeat of last year's match, and maybe, a change of strategy that challenges the Spaniard's dominance.

Of course, now that I've written all this, any bets that Monfils beats Federer, and Djokovic beats Nadal, and neither of the big two are even playing Sunday! Regardless, I'll give my two cents' worth on Monday!

Ross