French Open: Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic breeze through

FOR the fourth straight time in a Grand Slam final it will be Novak Djokovic v Rafael Nadal. That Nadal won his French Open semi-final in a breeze against David Ferrer was no shock. That Djokovic ran into only a wisp of a challenge from Roger Federer – well, that came as a bigger surprise. Djokovic eased to a 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 win that never felt like a close contest.

Tomorrow, Djokovic will meet Nadal and someone will make history: either the Sapniard will win his seventh French Open to break the record he shares with Bjorn Borg or Djokovic will become the first man in 43 years to win four straight Grand Slam tournaments. And while they’ll have trouble putting on a better show than their last Grand Slam final – the nearly six-hour, five-set drama Djokovic won at the Australian Open – it shouldn’t be hard to stage a more competitive day of tennis than what happened in the semi-finals.

“I know I have to be playing consistently well on a very high level to win a best-of-five against Nadal here,” Djokovic said. “It’s the ultimate challenge. But I believe today was my best match of 2012 Roland Garros for me. I raised my game when I needed to. That’s something that gives me confidence before the final.”

The key stat in Djokovic’s win was Federer’s 46 unforced errors to 17 for Djokovic. Federer, a 16-time major championship winner, struggled with the conditions on yet another windy day at Roland Garros as well as the pressure of having to go for big shots to get anything past his top-seeded Serbian opponent.

“It was difficult to attack,” Federer said. “And being defensive – I could have waited a little. But if I were to do this, I was playing for him. I was not here to play a good match but to win the match, so I had to hit the balls. It was a bit disappointing today.”

Serving to stay in the first set, Federer missed four forehands over the span of five points en route to the loss.

He came out in the second set and overcame a 0-40 deficit in the first game, including swatting away a volley winner after Djokovic chased down a lob and hit it between his legs as part of a 38-shot rally that wound up as the best point of the match. Federer broke Djokovic again for a 3-0 lead and it appeared a possible repeat of last year’s thrilling US Open semi-final, in which Djokovic saved two match points to win a five-setter, might be in store. Instead, Djokovic won 13 of the next 18 games to avenge his last loss in a Grand Slam tournament – a four-set loss to Federer here last year at the same stage of the French Open.

“When you come back from double break down against a player like Federer, it’s a success, a great achievement,” Djokovic said. “But I can’t allow myself to have that many ups and downs, especially in the next match.”

Since his loss to Federer last year, Djokovic has won 27 straight Grand Slam matches, matching Federer for second place on the Open era list. Another win would give Djokovic the non-calendar-year Grand Slam, and if he were to follow that with a win in the first round of Wimbledon, he would share the record with Rod Laver, the last man to win the four biggest tournaments in a row.