The Champions are here!!!!!!

The 122nd Championships came to the most magnificent of conclusions in near-darkness on Centre Court as Spain’s Rafael Nadal brought the five-time champion Roger Federer crashing to earth in the longest, and quite possibly the finest, men’s final in the history of The All England Club.

It was the 22-year-old Nadal, rather than Federer, who fell prone on the turf as flash bulbs went off in the gloom, in joyous celebration of capturing the title he has always said means more to him than any other. Nadal is only the second Spaniard, after Manolo Santana in 1966, to become Wimbledon’s Gentlemen’s Singles Champion, and it was fitting that Santana should witness this historic occasion from the Royal Box.

Though the final day was one of rain, gusting wind and a distinctly un-summer chill, the 2008 Championships were generally blessed with fine weather, while the skeletal outline of the nearly-completed roof over Centre Court was a stark reminder that next year the British climate will be irrelevant, at least on one of the All England Club’s courts.

For instance, the sun shone throughout the women’s final on the previous day in the third contest between the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, in the past seven years. Serena had won in 2002 and 2003 but this time Venus was the victor, and deservedly so. The defending champion clocked up her fifth Wimbledon victory of the century – five in nine years, a truly marvelous accomplishment, which she emphasised in her 7-5, 6-4 win by shattering the Wimbledon women’s speed record with a serve of 129mph.

The American sisters had demonstrated familiar consistency and determination as they focused on dominating the women’s singles for another year while all around them the higher seeds were tumbling.

It was a disastrous Championships for the newly-emerging tennis nation, Serbia, as Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, the number one and two seeds, crashed out in the third and fourth rounds respectively. Ivanovic, fresh from her triumph at the French Open, was confounded and defeated by Zheng Jie, a diminutive Chinese wild card entrant who had missed most of 2007 through ankle surgery but had been a 2006 doubles champion at Wimbledon.

Zheng, who marched into the semi-finals before falling to Serena Williams’s firepower, had warmed hearts by saying she intended to donate her prize money to the Chinese earthquake relief fund.

The 2006 champion, Amelie Mauresmo, down at 29th among the seeds, was also a victim of the Serena juggernaut, while the third-seed and 2004 champion Maria Sharapova got no further than the second round, knocked out by compatriot Alla Kudryavtseva. The only other former champion in the women’s field, Lindsay Davenport, on more of a sentimental return than a serious tilt at the title, was forced to withdraw from her second round match because of a knee injury.

Serbia’s other reigning Grand Slam champion, Novak Djokovic, fared no better in the men’s event. The Australian Open title holder, expected to challenge Federer in the top half of the draw, crashed and burned against Marat Safin, the Russian who had almost made a career out of criticising tennis on grass.

Perhaps history, as well as Nadal, was against Federer as he battled to recover from the loss of the first two sets. Such a feat has not been accomplished since Henri Cochet came from two down against fellow Frenchman Jean Borotra in 1927.

The final was so nearly done and dusted more than an hour earlier, Nadal holding and missing two Championship points in the fourth set tie-break. A resolution at that moment would have allowed Nadal to get away to the Champions’ Dinner in London before heading off next morning to play the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart, an event on the clay surface which Nadal rightly calls his own after four successive Roland Garros victories.

Now, in his third straight Wimbledon final, and having come so close last year, Nadal can also lay claim to fame on grass. Federer’s 65-match winning streak on the surface – which included his pre-Wimbledon title in Halle – is over. You can’t say Federer was not warned, though.

Nadal delighted with ‘amazing’ win

Rafael Nadal claimed his first Wimbledon title in epic fashion on Centre Court with a five-set victory over Roger Federer.

So now we know. For 65 matches spanning six years we have wondered who could possibly be the man to stop Roger Federer on grass, and at Wimbledon. Did such a player exist, or was Federer’s elegant supremacy such that the mere idea was the stuff of ridiculous imagination?

Nadal joins da special club ”Rod Laver, Andre Agassi and Bjorn Borg” who have won Grand Slam titles on clay and grass.

How appropriate that was after the iron man of tennis had defeated five-times champion Roger Federer 6-4 6-4 6-7 (5/7) 6-7 (8/10) 9-7 in one of the greatest finals in Wimbledon history.

The scoreboard twinkled 9.16pm in the gloaming after a truly gladiatorial battle which lasted four hours and 48 minutes, the longest-ever Wimbledon final, and which was punctuated by two rain breaks and deluged with tension and suspense.

The 22-year-old Majorcan already has four successive French Open victories, but this is his most glittering prize. Three weeks ago at Queen’s he became the first Spaniard to take a grass court title in 36 years. But it is 42 years since a player from his nation conquered the lawns of SW19.

Twelve months ago here, he became the only person to have taken Federer to five sets since his grass court streak began in the ancient days of 2003. This year so many voices publicly proclaimed him champion before a ball was struck. But he was facing a man who was bidding to make history, by becoming the first player in 122 years to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon six times in succession. Federer was decreed to be at his most vulnerable, yet no one else here had been able unburden Federer of so much as a set in the whole fortnight. The only outcome no one could envisage was an anti-climax.

He grasped the first point of the match with a powerful forehand, and it prompted not only long applause but a great murmuring ripple through the crowd, as if some sensational piece of news was being passed among them. Even the sun peered out from the dark skies above, unable to resist the lure of the action.

Moments later the ripple was a roar of astonishment. The match was three games old, but already the Spaniard had a break, and Federer never got it back. It felt as if the mental burden of that Roland Garros evisceration was casting a shadow.

The shadow grew longer when Nadal came back from 1-4 down to take the second 6-4. Federer, the grass court king, was two sets down. If that seemed unreal, it was positively eerie when at 3-3 in the third, Nadal galloped to 0-40.

They felt very much like match points – but all went by. On such chances great matches might hinge. An 80-minute break for rain saw Federer renewed, as if he had remembered that all he had to fear was fear itself. From being dangerously near defeat, he took the set on the tie-break.

The fourth set tie-break was a thing of heart-stopping beauty – heart-stopping in its tension, beautiful in its quality. Twice Nadal held Championship point, and twice heaven passed him by on the other side. Federer took it to a fifth, and here at last Nadal’s destiny lay waiting.

There is no sound like the roar of the Centre Court crowd as it tumbles on to the turf. The great wave of it crashed over Nadal. Was there ever such a final as this? The king is dead; long live the king.