Looking forward

Roland Garros is coming...

And Roger Federer looks to have finally broken through perhaps his only block to winning the last of the Grand Slam tourneys, the only one that has eluded him so far.

On Sunday in Hamburg, Germany, Federer broke Rafael Nadal's streak of eighty-one consecutive clay court victories, and he did it in convincing style, humbling the Majorcan 2-6, 6-2, 6-0 to register his first victory over Nadal on that surface.

Tennis.com has an interesting article going through the bookmakers' odds of Federer winning the Grand Slam as of beating Nadal at Roland Garros (remember, it's not actually called the French Open) when the tourney starts on May 27th - though they likely won't meet until the June 10th final. The Tennis article points out that Federer's record on clay (16-5 over the past two years) is almost as good as his grass court record (24-0 over that same span, 48-0 in four years) if you take out his five clay court losses to Nadal. Clay isn't Roger's truly weak surface, it just happens that there's one other player in the whole world who is as good as him on that surface.

But if Sunday is any indication (and I'm hoping that it is), then that statement might be changing.