The main Wimbledon warm-up tournaments for the men have been played and no one’s surprised at who’s emerged as the front-runners for the most coveted prize in tennis- Roger Federer clinched his fifth title at Halle without dropping a set or even losing his serve once while Rafael Nadal captured his first career grass court title at Queen’s Club in London. Federer will be relieved to finally be back playing (and winning) on his beloved grass courts. After all, much as he will deny he's in a bit of a slump, the world’s number one player has endured a rather mediocre season thus far, winning just one minor title (Estoril) before this week and losing more matches in the last six months than he’s lost in the last two years. And even if he really didn’t think he was in the doldrums, all the press speculation about his waning aura of invincibility, coupled with suffering the most humiliating loss in a Grand Slam he’s ever had at hands of arch-nemesis Rafael Nadal in the French Open final cannot have had no negative psychological effect on him. Furthermore, don’t think for a moment that he doesn’t know that Nadal is catching up on him on grass at a more ferocious pace than he is covering the gap between them on clay. If anything, the French Open final showed that the gap is now a chasm, and the competition they beat to win their respective titles last week might well suggest Nadal could be the player to beat at Wimbledon and not Federer. Whereas Federer did not face a single opponent ranked in the top 20 en-route to the title at Halle (his opponent in the final was the 40th ranked Philipp Kohlschreiber), at Queen’s Club, Nadal quite soundly beat the 2004 and 2005 Wimbledon runner-up and world number 6 Andy Roddick in the semifinals and in a final between the champions of the first two majors of the year, he came from set point down in both sets to record a straight-sets victory over the red-hot Novak Djokovic, the third ranked player in the world.
Still, in three of the four years that Roddick won at Queen’s Club, Roger Federer went on to properly manhandle him at Wimbledon, and he did match Bjorn Borg’s record of five consecutive Wimbledon titles last year, so it’s hard not to put the Swiss master down as the favorite for the Championships. However, make no mistake about it, Rafael Nadal is riding on some serious momentum at the moment, having won his last three tournaments and bearing in mind the fact that he very nearly took down Federer in last year’s five set final, already a classic, the Spanish bull is a very close number two. The other players to watch out for will obviously be the Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, who started the year in red-hot fashion and who’s been the only player to actually push (okay, more like nudge) Nadal in the last month, and the rejuvenated Andy Roddick, who should be swinging more freely, having broken his 11-match losing streak against Federer earlier this year and notched significant victories over the big three of tennis in the spring. As for dark horses, look out for David Nalbandian (if you have trouble recognizing him, just look for the guy with a paunch) who is quickly earning the dubious title of Best Player Without a Major, local hero Andy Murray as well as the break-out stars of the season so far- Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Ernests Gulbis who reached the Australian Open final and French Open quarterfinal respectively.
