Nadal Poised For a Major Breakthrough

WIMBLEDON, England, June 22 -- Nearly three decades have passed since the last man triumphed in what is deemed the toughest turnaround in tennis -- following a French Open championship slugged out on tortuously slow clay courts with a victory on the fickle grass of Wimbledon just four weeks later.

That player was Bjorn Borg, the stoic Swede who wasn't rattled by the radically different timing, footwork and mind-set demanded by each surface.

So when Borg -- who won both tournaments three years running beginning in 1978 -- predicted last month that Spain's Rafael Nadal would accomplish the same feat this year, capping his French Open rout of world No. 1 Roger Federer with a Wimbledon championship, it carried unusual weight.

Nadal was particularly humbled, given his admiration for Federer, who hasn't lost on grass since 2002, and his respect for Borg, who won five Wimbledons and six French Opens before abruptly retiring in 1983.

"Well, Bjorn is a special person," said Nadal, whose English is still evolving. "And when Bjorn say something, everybody listen. I only can say, 'Thanks.' But, you know, Bjorn is no magic."

Indeed, Borg is not magic. But some are beginning to see glimmers of magic in Nadal.

The Spaniard, who turned 22 earlier this month, has been peerless on clay since 2005, when he won the first of his four consecutive French Opens. But his command of the surface continues to improve, and he so thoroughly trounced Federer in this year's French Open final, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, that he apologized during the awards ceremony afterward.

Nadal brought a new aggression to his clay-court game, attacking Federer rather than simply outlasting him with topspin-laden groundstrokes from behind the baseline. The result left Federer looking outmatched and out of sorts, spraying errors and telegraphing defeat with his body language from the outset.

The lopsided outcome suggested two things.

First, coming on the heels of uncharacteristic losses earlier in the season, it revealed a vulnerability in Federer that hadn't been seen since he seized the world No. 1 ranking in February 2004.

Second, it underscored Nadal's zeal to develop his skills further, slough off the mantle of "clay-court specialist" and be regarded as an all-around champion. To that end, Nadal took another leap forward the next week, defeating Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic in succession to win the first grass-court title of his career, the Stella Artois Championship in suburban London.

All of this begs the question, as Wimbledon gets under way at the All England club on Monday, of whether the men's game, which has been ruled by Federer for more than four years, is witnessing a changing of the guard.