Paul Newman: Grass growing on Nadal as unlikely double draws near

Thirteen months ago Rafael Nadal went on to a grass court looking as comfortable as a matador wearing a blindfold in a bullring. Today the 21-year-old Spaniard stands on the brink of his second successive Wimbledon final. At this rate the last two words of his "king of clay" moniker will soon be redundant.

Forty-eight hours after he had been within two games of going out in the third round, Nadal was the first man into the semi-finals. If the world No 2's 7-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory yesterday over Tomas Berdych lacked either the competitive and confrontational edge of his win over Robin Soderling or the brilliance of his play in coming back to beat Mikhail Youzhny, it provided further evidence of his versatility and growing mastery of grass-court tennis.

Berdych blamed the wind that swirled around the roofless Centre Court for his error-ridden display, but there was much more to Nadal's performance than his handling of what were admittedly trying conditions. Last year he looked like a clay-courter trying to adapt his game to grass; this year he is playing with the intelligence of a man who appreciates the greater subtleties of the sport's most idiosyncratic surface.

Nadal's forehand has been a devastating weapon on the clay courts which he has ruled for the past three years. The ball's lower bounce and greater speed off the grass mean it is a less effective stroke here, but the Spaniard has learned the value on grass of strokes other than those struck with sheer power: the sliced backhand that bites into the grass and stays devilishly low, the spinning ball that swerves and kicks away from an opponent or the stop volley that dies on the turf.

More than anything the French Open champion appreciates the need to construct points, to build a position of strength and then to go for the kill by attacking the net and either putting away a winning volley or forcing the opponent into mistakes. Until he made his debut at Queen's Club last year these were qualities that he had not yet acquired, but the manner of Nadal's performances over the past fortnight suggest that ultimate victory here can be only a matter of time.

Should he beat Novak Djokovic in today's semi-final - and that is by no means a foregone conclusion against a player who has already beaten him in a Masters Series final this year in Miami - Nadal will go into tomorrow's final aiming to become only the third man in the Open era, after Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.

The contrast between Nadal and Berdych was glaring. The 21-year-old Czech, 6ft 5in tall and weighing more than 14st, is a powerful man with a thunderbolt serve and one of the biggest forehands in the business. In the last month he has proved himself a formidable competitor on grass, winning the pre-Wimbledon tournament at Halle which had been Roger Federer's preserve every year before his last four triumphs at the All England Club.

For all his physical prowess, however, Berdych remains a player in the one-dimensional mould of a famous compatriot, Ivan Lendl. He is at ease cracking ground strokes from behind the baseline, but whenever the tempo changes or he has to move forward he looks instantly uncomfortable. At times he volleyed like a man playing with a shovel rather than a racket and played drop shots with the finesse of a tree surgeon rather than a brain surgeon. His backhand in particular was devoid of any subtlety.

The Czech never came to terms with the buffeting wind. He put only 58 per cent of his first serves in court (Nadal had a 77 per cent success rate) and was frequently flummoxed as the ball changed direction; while Berdych flailed clumsily at the ball, Nadal was sufficiently nimble to adjust his feet and his stroke. Their respective reactions were similar after a surprisingly high number of bad bounces.

Perhaps Berdych knew it was not going to be his day when the umpire had to ink out one sponsor's name too many on his cap before the start. He had two break points in the opening game, but Nadal saved them both and then broke the world No 11 at the first time of asking. By the end of the match he had broken Berdych four times which was one more than the Czech had suffered in his four previous matches put together.

Berdych's impressive record in tie-breaks here - he had won six out of seven in the previous four rounds - was also dented at the end of a competitive first set in which he had broken back at 0-2. Two backhand errors on his own serve helped Nadal into a 5-0 lead and another rounded off the set.

A break in the opening game was all Nadal needed to win the second set, by which time Berdych's limitations had become clear. It was never a match high on entertainment value and by the start of the third set there were only 12 people left in the Royal Box; lunch was clearly a more attractive option. Berdych was broken again in the first game of the third set and Nadal broke again to lead 4-1 and end any hope of a revival.

"I didn't like those conditions on the court," Berdych said. "It's not good for tennis at all. The result just depends on who can play better in those conditions - and that's not me. I still have a lot to learn about playing in such windy conditions. It was impossible to serve well in this weather."

Nadal agreed the conditions had been tough. "It affected him, especially his serve," he said. "I tried to concentrate all the time, to stay positive and to be constantly moving. I didn't want to stop moving because the ball was moving so much from one side to the other."

He added: "This was a very good victory. I'm very happy about my Wimbledon. Not just because I'm in the semi-finals but because I've beaten very good players. [Mardy] Fish, Soderling, Youzhny and Berdych are all very tough players who are good on all surfaces, especially grass." It is hard to imagine Nadal's favourite surface ever being anything other than clay, but grass is growing on him by the day.

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