July 5th, 2008 | 
Author: The Wimbledon Final match of Men between Federer and Nadal held tomorrow. All Tennis fans are waiting for the final match.
Top-ranked Roger Federer and No. 2 Rafael Nadal won in straight sets today to advance to the Wimbledon tenn
is final for the third consecutive year.
Five-time champion Federer defeated unseeded Marat Safin of Russia 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 in the opening semifinal at the All England in southwest London. Nadal then beat Rainer Schuettler of Germany 6-1, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.
Federer will be attempting to better Bjorn Borg’s open-era record of five straight titles from 1976-80 at the only grass- court Grand Slam in two days. Nadal, who beat the Swiss in the final of last month’s French Open, is seeking his first Wimbledon title.
“I am very happy for being in this final for another time,” Nadal told the BBC after the match. “I’ll try to play my best tennis on Sunday, it’s the only way.”
The last time the same men’s matchup was played three years in a row at Wimbledon was 1988-1990, when Boris Becker met Stefan Edberg. Edberg won in 1988 and 1990.
Nadal and Federer have also paired off in the French Open final for the past three years. Bill Tilden and Bill Johnston were mated in the final of the U.S. Open four consecutive times, from 1922 to 1925. No men’s pair has faced off three times in a row in the Australian Open.
Victory in the final would move the 26-year-old Federer within one of Pete Sampras’s record 14 Grand Slam singles titles.
Safin, a former top-ranked played who had slumped to 75th in the world partly due to a knee injury, started the match nervously, dropping his serve in the second game as Federer took a 3-0 lead.
Tie-Breaker
Both men then held serve, with Federer, making his 17th straight Grand Slam semifinal, taking the set with a 108 miles- per-hour ace on his first set point. Safin regularly served over 125 miles per hour in the match.
The second set went to a tie-breaker after both men held serve throughout. Federer built a 4-1 lead, then converted his second set point with another ace.
The third set also started on serve. Trailing 5-4, Safin smashed his racket on his chair, which got him a code violation from the umpire.
With Safin serving to stay in the match, Federer got his first match point after the Russian hit a ball wide. He took it with a backhand passing shot, jumping for joy and shouting “Yes.”
“I was able to break him in the first game of the match and in the last game of the match,” Federer told a news conference. “I think in between I was just really consistent, didn’t really give him too many chances. It was a perfect match for me.”
Too Much
Nadal, 22, proved too much for the 32-year-old Schuettler, who had needed two days to beat France’s Arnaud Clement in a five-set quarterfinal that lasted 5 hours and 12 minutes and finished yesterday.
Nadal’s heavy top-spin ground strokes proved too much for the German in a 22-minute first set. The Spaniard converted his first set point as Schuettler dumped a forehand in the net.
Nadal then was broken in the second set and would trail 5-3. He then fought back to force the tie-breaker, which he won 7-3 when Schuettler hit a backhand wide.
In the third set, Nadal
raced to a 4-2 lead. After both men held serve, Nadal attacked Schuettler’s service, hitting a return winner for 0-30. Nadal would then have three match points and failed to convert any, at one point hitting an easy shot in the net with the court wide open.
Serving for the match at 5-4, the Spaniard held three more match points when he hit an unretrievable forehand winner. He converted his fourth match point with a service winner, raising both arms.
“Today it wasn’t my best match here, but anyways I won in three sets,” Nadal said. “Right now I have on the other side of the net the best player in the world, Roger Federer. I feel I have to play very well to have chances to win. He is playing well, but I am playing well too.”
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aStcVpBJicHQ
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