Nadal makes it a dark day for Federer at Wimbledon

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 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 grasp in a mere evening.

Nadal won and Federer lost, but it didn't cut quite that simply after 4 hours 48 minutes and one rain-delayed start and two rain interruptions and two match points in the fourth set and a fifth set that lasted 75 minutes and threatened to storm right into a Monday restart.

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 -- to get technical about it -- it ended his run of Wimbledon titles at five, just as Bjorn Borg's run ended in a sixth final in 1981. It ended his grass-court winning streak at 65. It ended 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 also ennobled him and displayed his champion's innards. It showed him digging out from a two-set deficit after he'd lost the last five games of the second set and looked hopeless.

It showed him trailing, 5-2, 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 brilliant backhand passing shot up the line to counter a brilliant Nadal passing shot up the line just when Federer and everyone else thought Nadal might've won.

"I'm very happy but at the same time sorry for him because he deserved to win the match, too," Nadal said, an outright reflection of a comment Federer made last year after beating Nadal in an outstanding final by 6-2 in the fifth set.

Then, somewhere between marvel and gloaming and exasperation at 8-7 to Nadal in the fifth set, the match had Federer thwarting a third match point with a cross-court backhand return worthy of violins. Finally, when Federer plunked a cross-court forehand into the net on the fourth match point, Nadal collapsed.