Nadal a towering presence in France

Victory was easy for Rafael Nadal, who obliterated world No. 1 Roger Federer, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, to win his fourth straight French Open. (Regis Duvignau/Reuters)

PARIS - The reign from Spain falls mainly on a plain called Roland Garros.

But it might as well have been acid rain as far as a tennis player named Roger Federer is concerned. Helpless and battered, defenseless on that crimson plain, he seemed a prizefighter awaiting the knockout punch - and you wanted to shout, "Stop the fight!" But it doesn't work that way in tennis, regardless of the similarities.

At that juncture, the Spaniard whose reign continues in France - El Rey of Clay Rafael Nadal - was belting his way through the man who wears No. 1, 6-1, 2-0 on a fourth break of serve, and the French Open championship clearly was going to be his for a fourth consecutive year.

But for Federer, the brilliant Swiss who has owned the tennis world since 2004, it would get horrifically worse. After merely 1 hour and 48 minutes of punishment, Federer - his mistakes mounting along with Nadal's winners - the man with 12 major titles in the bank, was savaged, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.

Never had a No. 1 been flattened so thoroughly in a major final. In a way, it brought back John McEnroe's 6-1, 6-1, 6-2, mugging of Jimmy Connors in the 1984 Wimbledon final, though Connors was past his prime. Only one guy has been manhandled as roughly in the final of this 83-year-old tournament: American Brian Gottfried, crushed by another lefty, Argentine Guillermo Vilas, 6-0, 6-3, 6-0, in 1977.

Federer was last bageled in 1999, by Byron Black at Queen's, and Pat Rafter here.

Federer wore black as did his lady friend, Mirka Vavrinek. An unintentional premonition?

A Swiss journalist said, "This means a weekend of mourning at home because the Swiss football [soccer] team lost to the Czech Republic, 1-0."

For a moment Federer thought he "had a little chance," and the stunned full-house gathering of 14,845 clapped enthusiastically, hoping to revive him. It was 3-3 and a break point with Nadal serving in the second set. However, the muscle man from Mallorca denied the breaker with a dainty drop shot, concluding a 16-shot exchange. Whereupon it seemed that the Eiffel Tower fell on Federer. Points went by . . . games went by like cars on the high-speed TGV French trains. The last nine games and a 28th straight triumph on Parisian earth belonged to Nadal.

That equaled the local record set by the Swede, Bjorn Borg, in winning four titles in a row (1978 through '81). Borg, 52, white-haired and fit, showed up to hand the trophy to Nadal.

Now the Borg-Nadal comparisons begin. Both defensive paragons of topspin and slick footwork that kept them ever in position to deliver, they overflowed with competitive juices. But Borg, working with a wooden racket and strings that can't measure up to the current high-tech stuff, couldn't deliver the torrents of wicked spin that flow from Nadal's racket. Still, let's wait until Nadal wins three more French titles to surpass Borg's total before declaring him the all-time clay court maestro.

Federer has been anointed as the greatest player of all time by many who apparently neglect to include the French as part of the tennis sphere. Federer is zero for 10 in the tournaments staged in Rafaland and otherwise known as the French Open.

Everybody has the proverbial bad day at the office, but for Federer, the rectangular, dirt-floored office burned down around him. Nadal was the man with the torch. Lighting fires everywhere, he was seldom out of reach of Federer's best shots, sending them back in double-digit exchanges to end the points with either his winner or Federer's error.

"I don't believe this match," Nadal said, shaking his head and long dark tresses. "How do I feel? I still feel like [the] No. 2 that I am. But I never played better. I was aggressive, inside the court."

Even though receiving 12 feet behind the baseline, he was quick to move up to the line to launch those terrible spinning shots - topspin, slice, sidespin - keeping Federer constantly uncomfortable. He hit one God-awful inside-out forehand that could only be called snaky - wiggling, shimmying, curling just beyond Federer's reach.

In a sentence, Nadal is better than ever, merely 22 as of last Tuesday, and Federer isn't, even though nearing only 27. Federer denies decline (only one tournament victory this year, a mediocre Lisbon) - but it began showing at the Australian Open where he lost his title to Novak Djokovic, and was fortunate to beat a lesser Serb, Janko Tipsarevic.

"Rafa is harder to play against," he said. "The way he played, hardly any unforced errors [seven]. He was stronger, getting more aggressive, stronger than me."

Could you say a match went downhill after one game? I didn't think so, but Nadal fractured Federer's serve for openers - and the rest was watching an all-time great struggle with no chance, getting nowhere with whatever he tried.

After two weeks of wet, chilly, overcast weather the sun appeared as Federer blew a volley (one of numerous), and lost the first set. It was a Spanish sun shining on the young reignmaker of the Parisian plain.