It’s the Czech Tomas Berdych and Spanish Rafael Nadal in the 2010 Wimbledon Men’s Final!

Here’s the news article:

As the crowds flock into the All England Club grounds for the climax of the 2010 Championships, the men’s singles final, the vast majority will be heading through the gates with a united outlook: if we can’t have Andy Murray, let’s cheer for Rafa.

The lucky recipient of such thoughts, Rafael Nadal, is already high in the popularity stakes with British tennis followers, few of whom have forgotten the heroics of his 2008 final victory over Roger Federer in four hours 48 minutes, the longest Wimbledon final in history. Having missed the 2009 Championships because of ailing knees, Rafa is back – and back with a resounding bang.

Rafa’s style is too brutal ever to be deemed sublime; stirring, without doubt, savage and sensational, too. It certainly dashed the Murray dreams of Wimbledon glory for another 12 months in Friday’s semi-final. Now it just remains to be seen whether Rafa and his rockets can inflict serious damage on the solid base from which the Czech hunk, Tomas Berdych, has constructed such an impressive run through the field.

The statistics would indicate so, since the man from Manacor is on a six-match and 14-set winning streak against 6ft 5in Berdych, who is appearing in his first Grand Slam final having blasted his way into the last four at Roland Garros, also a first, last month.

How things have changed in a year. When Nadal missed defending his Wimbledon crown last summer, there were gloomy prognostications about the state of his knees, which had suffered massive wear and tear in his upbringing on clay. He spent nine summer weeks on the disabled list and a further 10 months without adding to his career total of 36 titles. But then came the solid ground (for Nadal) of the 2010 clay court season which brought successive titles in Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid and the French Open for the man most who has been almost unbeatable for many years on the red stuff.

Nadal’s 24-match winning streak was halted shortly after the tour’s focus switched to grass. His good pal Feliciano Lopez beat him in the Queen’s quarter-finals, and Nadal looked shaky early on at The Championships, struggling through two five-setters. But then he settled into the old rhythm and it was crystal clear against Murray that he was back to his best. If the knees were paining him it definitely didn’t show.

There is a possibility that Berdych’s cannonball serve and matching ground strokes may induce a grimace or two from the Spaniard but the Czech, whose style (but not yet winning record) is reminiscent of his compatriot Ivan Lendl will need to give himself space and time to construct the thunderbolts by keeping Nadal on the back foot.

Easier said than done, Tomas. Nadal has lost only five of his 51 matches this year, easily the best record on the men’s tour and he regained the world number one ranking from Roger Federer after winning his fifth Roland Garros crown, a ranking he will, of course, retain whatever happens in the Wimbledon final. And should the Centre Court encounter become the predicted triumphal gallop for Nadal, the Spaniard will post another high-water mark: the first Spaniard to win Wimbledon twice.

But Berdych must be confident that he can cause an upset, having reached the French Open semi-final last month and beaten Roger Federer on the way to going (at least) one stage further here. The Czech said: “I got more and more confidence after getting to the semis [in Paris]. It gave me the point of view that there really is a chance to beat all those top players.”

But he has little time for misty-eyed romance, declining to describe what has happened to him this summer as a “dream”. No, he insisted, it is all due to hard work. “What is happening is not a miracle. You need to do something to bring these good results, really hard work.”

Lendl was the last Czech to make it into the Wimbledon final in 1987, losing to Pat Cash after having also been beaten in the 1986 final by Boris Becker. You need to dip back in history to 1973 for the only previous Open era winner from that part of Europe, when the Czech Republic was part of the country known as Czechoslovakia, and Jan Kodes captured Wimbledon in what was regarded as a blighted year because of the players’ strike that summer when many top competitors opted not to turn up.

If we discount last summer as a non-starting year for Nadal, he has now reached four successive Wimbledon finals. That would put him in the same bracket as a few other big names in the Open era such as Federer, Borg, Becker, John McEnroe and Pete Sampras. All of them would endorse Rafa’s merit as one of their number, and one furthermore who needs only the US Open to complete a full set of Grand Slams, a rarity achieved only by Federer among that distinguished group.

That must wait for the autumn in New York, but for now the opportunity beckons for Rafa to add a second Wimbledon to those five French and one Australian championships. In the opinion of Murray, who should know, Nadal is the favourite today because “he’s the best player in the world”.

Nadal himself is a touch more circumspect. He pays tribute to Berdych’s form as “amazing” and says of the Czech: “Tomas is a very aggressive player, very good serve, very good flat shots from the baseline. It’s very difficult to stop him when he’s playing well, and he’s playing really well. It will be a very difficult match for me.” Then he smiled and added, “Hopefully for him, too.”

Serena Williams dominates the 2010 Wimbledon Women’s Finals!

Here’s the news from Wimbledon.org:

The only chance that Vera Zvonareva had of winning Wimbledon was if Serena Williams served poorly. Unfortunately for the Russian, it didn’t pan out that way.

Serena has served incredibly well throughout the Championships and the American continued in that rich vein of form.

She served nine aces in her 6-3, 6-2 victory, and in doing so took her tally to a record-breaking 89, which incredibly is 59 more than her nearest rival.

Amazingly she won 31 of the 33 points that she contested when she got her first serve in, which meant that Vera was always up against it.

The Russian tried to make the most of all of the looks she got at Serena’s second serve, winning 10 of the 17 points (59%) when that happened but it wasn’t enough for her to be able to garner a single break point in either set.

And then once the two players got involved in baseline rallies Serena’s superior weight of shot was evident for all to see.

And if Zvonerava ever dropped the ball short she was severely punished; the American posted perfect numbers in that regard winning all 14 of her approaches to the net.

Zvonerava needed to serve well to stand any chance and she did; making 75% of her first serves but it was only a matter of time before Serena manufactured an opportunity to break and overall she converted three of her seven break points to end up a comfortable winner.

Serena’s played well throughout the Championships but she’s served magnificently well, surely better than anybody else ever has here in SW19, and that’s the one shot that has separated her from everybody else in the draw, and because of that she thoroughly deserves to be crowned champion.