soderling serving to stay in the match @ 5-3

easy hold to 5-4

nadal serving for the championship:

runs soderling around and forces a bh error into the net, 15-0

sod goes for a big bh return but hits it into the net again, 30-0

another bh return error, this one pulled wide on a 2nd serve, 40-0, and 3 championship points

yet another bh into the net, and nadal takes it

6-4, 6-2, 6-4, in 2 hours and 18 minutes.

quick analysis:

robin was horribad for pretty much all of the big points. first set was ugly from both, but the next two were worse from sod and a bit better from nadal.

the media will probably try to make this look like nadal dictated and flat out dominated the entire match, but the truth is the match was on soderlings racket and he just couldn't do it. way too many ufe's (he was baited into a good portion of them), a completely horrible day serving, and just some really poor decisions. nadal pretty much just had to stay in the points and wait for the errors, or wait for soderling to try and attack his backhand and hit the ball long/use it to run him around

sods footwork, court coverage, court positioning, and anticipation were also sub-standard and deteriorated as the match wore on.

nadal served and changed the pace during the rallies extremely well. he also kept soderling from getting into a rhythm by not hitting too many short balls and not letting him rip that inside out forehand. attacked the backhand, and when he did go for the forehand it was usually deep or out wide enough that sod couldn't get planted and rip winners (which he tried to do most of the match anyway)

twice now soderling played a good match then gets to finals and dries hot

Love me some Rafa.

Good to see him get #1 Ranking.