WIMBLEDON, England -- With darkness fast encroaching on Centre Court at 9:16 p.m. Wimbledon time Sunday and all manner of doubt hanging in the air, a 22-year-old human blast furnace from the Spanish island of Mallorca suddenly splayed on the grass behind the baseline in celebration and made his first attempts at comprehension.
Comprehension might take some time for Rafael Nadal, and for Roger Federer, and for those who attended one of the greatest matches in tennis history, a 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7 gem too chockablock with twists to fathom in a mere evening.
Nadal won and Federer lost, but it didn't cut quite that simply after 4 hours and 48 minutes and two rain interruptions and two Nadal match points in the fourth set and 75 stirring minutes of a fifth.
No, the longest and latest final in Wimbledon history appeared through its last three sets to have two winners, two unconquerable wills that sent the audience chanting "Roger" and "Rafa" and hurtling into the evening with no idea which way the thing might tilt.
When Federer didn't receive the trophy after once lurking two points from victory, it ended his run of Wimbledon titles at five, just as Bjorn Borg's run ended in a sixth final, in 1981 against John McEnroe. It ended his grass-court winning streak at 65, his Wimbledon winning streak at 40.
And even while he looked the picture of devastation as he labeled this "probably my hardest loss, by far," in some curious way the match supplied an unprecedented display of his champion's innards.
It showed the regal world No. 1 digging out from a two-set deficit after he'd lost the last five games of the second set to look hopeless. It showed him scratching from 2-5 in the fourth-set tiebreaker. It showed him fending off one match point in that same tiebreaker with a 127-mph service winner to the corner, and another with a stunning backhand passing shot up the line.
"I'm very happy but at the same time sorry for him because he deserve the title too, no?" Nadal said, mimicking Federer's comment last year after he beat Nadal in the fifth set of a final merely outstanding.
Then, somewhere between marvel and gloaming and exasperation and midnight, at 8-7 to Nadal in the fifth set, the match had Federer thwarting a third match point with a cross-court backhand return that sang in the dark. Finally, when Federer plunked a forehand into the net on the fourth match point, Nadal made joyful collapse.
