Events / Editor / 14 May 2007 /

The Masters Series hits Hamburg big time today with Rafael Nadal as unstoppable as a juggernaut on an autobahn.
Nadal yesterday won the Italian Masters in Rome to take his winning streak on clay to 77 matches - a record run on any tennis surface.

The world number two's 6-2 6-2 final victory over Fernando Gonzalez means he has now won three of the five Masters so far this year and his Rome triumph made him the first player in the Open era to win three consecutive titles at Foro Italica. In fact, his Rome record now stands 17-0.

On his way to victory he also showed that there was nothing wrong with his stamina. He took three and a half hours to beat Nikolay Davydenko in the semi-finals but needed less than half that time to overcome Chilean Gonzalez - 84 minutes to be precise.

That avenged his quarter-finals defeat by Gonzalez in the Australian Open and since Melbourne Nadal has played six tournaments. Of those he won the Masters titles in Indian Wells, Monte Carlo, and now Rome as well as the Barcelona title.
The two blips were quarter-final exits in Dubai against Mikhail Youzhny and in Miami against Novak Djokovic. He made both of them pay for that by beating them in Rome this last week.

For the record this was his fourth ATP title of the year and he has dropped just one set on clay so far this season in 15 matches.

He has now won all 16 clay court finals he has contested and Rome gave him his ninth ATP Masters series title in all.
The next target is a Hamburg final for the first time and the second seed has a first-round bye so he can have a well-earned breather as the players swing into action today and tomorrow.

His second-round opponent will be the fast-improving Benjamin Becker if the German can dispose of qualifier Oscar Hernandez of Spain in their first-round clash tomorrow (Tues). Hernandez won their only previous meeting but Becker is now ranked 43 to his 79.
Nadal was trading at 1.62 with Betfair to win the Hamburg title.

Contrast this rich vein of form with the trials and tribulations of Roger Federer. Since his awesome triumph in Melbourne, when he didn't drop a set in retaining the Australian title, little has gone right for the world No 1.

Yes, he won the Dubai event at the end of February when he returned to action but then came those two consecutive defeats by Guillermo Canas in Indian Wells and Miami followed by Nadal's win over him in the Monte Carlo Masters final 6-4 6-4 and last week's flop to Filippo Volandri.

In Hamburg, where he has won the title in 2002, 2004 and 2005, he starts with a second-round clash against qualifier Juan Monaco of Argentina or Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia. Either of them would be a walk in the park - normally.
Federer has never met Monaco while Hrbaty leads Federer 2-0 from meetings in 2000 and 2004.

If things go right he could expect to meet Croatian seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic in the quarter-finals and a hungry young fourth seed Djokovic, the Serbian who will be 20 a week tomorrow (Tuesday May 22) in the semi-finals.

But following his embarrassing defeat by Volandri in the quarter-finals on Friday - when he made an amazing 44 unforced errors - he has parted company with coach Tony Roche, who had come over from Australia especially to orchestrate his preparations for his French Open challenge.

They had been together for two and a half years but described the split as mutual.
And don't read too much into it. Federer has coped without a coach before - and with great success. The last time this happened was in 2003 when he split with the LTA's new man Peter Lundgren.

He went through the whole of the next year without a coach - and won three Grand Slams.
But Federer will have to steady the ship quickly if he is to get himself into the right shape to stop Nadal making it three French Open titles in a row in the week of his 21st birthday.

In 2005 Nadal beat Federer in the semi-finals on the way to his first French win and last year he dropped the first set before beating him in four sets in the final.

First things first, though. Federer isn't about to find all the skills that has made him such an impressive world number one desert him forever. Once he gets this form glitch out of his system then even Nadal had better watch out. But he might have to wait till the grass of Wimbledon for everything to click back into gear.

Of the other contenders in Hamburg, Volandri, the man who beat him in Rome, faces a tough first round against Britain's Andy Murray, the ninth seed who will want to make up for an early exit in Rome and give himself a happy 20th birthday present tomorrow. Volandri won their only meeting on clay last year in Rome while Murray won on the Doha hard courts earlier this year. Murray was trading at 36 with Betfair to win.

Keep any eye out for Canas as well. At last he is in the main draw without having to qualify. He starts his bid against fellow Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela.

They are 2-2 in head to heads, Chela going 2-0 up with wins on clay in 2002 and 2004 but Canas has won on hard court in Indian Wells in 2005 and on clay in the Costa Do Sauipe semi-finals earlier this year when he won the title.
Canas has now soared to number 21 in the world to Chela's No 23 in the world. Canas was trading at 1.57 to beat Chela.

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