History will be kind to me because I intend to write it

Roger – over and out?

In just over three hours of blistering heat in Paris on Sunday, Rafael Nadal became the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win the French Open for three consecutive years, causing world No1, Roger Federer’s dream of winning all four Grand Slams, to crash and burn. There was, however, an inevitability about Nadal’s 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

Federer hoped to emulated Rod Laver and Don Budge in becoming only the third man to hold all four major titles at once. The 25-year-old may have amassed over $30m in career earnings; chalked up 48 career wins, including the other three Grand Slams thrice each; but this one title eludes him. It appears that the normally cool and phlegmatic Swiss is finally getting riled by the sinewy Nadal – the only man who stands between his world domination and a deserved seat at the top-table of tennis’ Hall of Fame.

Yes, we all know that the 21-year-old Spaniard has a muscular game that suits the slower clay courts and the stats speak for themselves: Nadal has won 22 career titles, 17 of which were on clay, and he is undefeated in all 21 games he has played at Roland Garros. But Sunday was particularly poignant, as the Swiss star, playing in his eighth consecutive Grand Slam final (a record), bottled it. Worst still, he looked as though he expected to lose.

He could and should have taken the crucial third set, but Nadal – a player who, unlike so many others, refused to be over-awed by Federer’s masterful technique – battled on; and after that set the game was all but over.

It has been a hard few months for Federer, and the pressure of being world No1 appears to taking its toll. He parted company with his coach of two years, Australian Tony Roche, only two weeks before the French Open. Though 61-year-old Roche, who had previously coached Patrick Rafter and Ivan Lendl to world No1 status, was not Federer’s full-time coach – he helped out for 12-15 weeks a season, mainly before Grand Slams – the decision to drop him before appearing at Ronald Garros is a puzzler. Perhaps it was a knee-jerk reaction to problems that were creeping into his game. It seems, however, that his main problems are in his head.

Federer had been enduring arguably his most testing time in over three years – he had not won in four tournaments, and lost to world No53 Filippo Volandri in Rome, before he handed Roche his P45 – but there have been other indications that Federer’s vice-like grip on tennis is weakening.

After an impressive start to the season – winning the Australian Open without dropping a set – Federer won the Dubai Open, which then took his match record to 12 wins, no loses for the season, and 41 consecutive wins overall; only five short of Guillermo Vilas’ long-standing record. An improbable defeat to Guillermo Cañas in the second round at Indian Wells put paid to Federer’s ambitions to surpass Vilas.

Federer lost again to Cañas in Florida in three sets, before losing to his clay-court nemesis Nadal in his first clay tournament of the season – the Monte Carlo Masters. After losing to Volandri 6-2, 6-4, Federer was in his worst run of form since becoming world No1 in February 2004.

Parallels can be drawn between Federer and Arsenal’s “Invincibles” of 2003-4 who, on the way to winning the Premiership, went unbeaten domestically for a record 49 games. When they finally did lose – to Manchester United 2-0 in late October 2004, in a tempestuous game, coined “pizzagate” – their confidence was completely sapped. Their fallibility realised, Arsenal played beneath their invincible selves, and became a frustrated, petulant, tense team, simply because they knew it would take a Herculean effort to regroup and go again. After the defeat to United, over the next month they drew with WBA, PSV Eindhoven, Crystal Palace, Southampton, Panathinaikos and lost to Liverpool.

Similarly, one can’t help but feel that Federer, after coming so close to breaking Vilas’ record and slipping on a metaphorical banana skin in Cañas, must have been galled and disconsolate. Uncharacteristically, excuses have begun to creep into his game: he complained about starting late after his victory against Thierry Ascione in the second-round of the French Open. Though a fair complaint, there was a new bitterness with which Federer attacked the Open’s organisers; a new tension, or nervousness, perhaps. For him to be tense is totally alien to his ethos – the antithesis to his graceful, calm and measured style of tennis.

It appears that Federer is slowly coming to terms with his own tennis mortality, and he doesn’t like it. Despite hitting back at the Hamburg Masters , where he beat Nadal on clay for the first (and only) time, the feeling was that the Spaniard was having an off day – having won the first set 6-2, Nadal then lost 6-2, 6-0. He admitted to being mentally tired, and that he lost so emphatically for the first time in 81 matches on clay, seems to support him.

Having dismissed Roche the week previous, the win in Hamburg was an emotional victory for Federer, and should have propelled him on to win in Paris. However such a purging of relief was premature. Nadal strode out onto Philippe Chatrier court with his competitive head firmly screwed on; muscles bulging and baseline top-spinners ripping up the court. After this win, the young Spaniard will only be hungry for more success. He will know that this year, with Federer low on confidence, is his best opportunity yet to wrest the Swiss’ No1 mantle from him. What price Wimbledon?

It seems fitting that the young, pioneering Spaniard has equalled Bjorn Borg’s record; certainly Roland Garros would have approved. The man eponymous with the French Open was a pioneer himself. The first Frenchman to fly across the Mediterranean, Garros was involved in the dogfights of the First World War. He developed a way of firing his machine-gun through his plane’s propellers, giving him the ability to shoot head-on.

Garros himself was fatally shot down in October 1918, proving that – like Federer – everyone’s moment comes and goes, mostly before he would like. The big question is whether the Swiss will put his disappointments of the last month or two behind him, and lock and load on Wimbledon, or whether his career is in its final descent.