Australian Open 2012 Final: Previewing Rafael Nadal vs. Novak Djokovic

Another Nadal-Djokovic final has been set up.

After Nadal beat Federer convincingly, and Djokovic managed to pull out a 7-5 win in the fifth set over Andy Murray, this matchup is upon us yet again.

Rafa has dropped two sets and Novak has dropped three, and both men have been in pain at some stage in this tournament. 

According to Tennis.com, Nadal had this to say:

"

Sunday afternoon, 24 hours to play my first match, I was in my room crying because I believe I didn't had the chance to play Melbourne. So it was a very, very tough situation for me, these hours. Two weeks later I am here in the finals, so is a dream for me because having very bad expectations 24 hours before the first match, and now two weeks later I am playing well.

"

Rafa has been playing all of his matches with his knee heavily taped, but as one of the masters of playing through pain, he's been cruising. 

Djokovic's being hurt was less clear, because it appeared that he was hurting at some point in his epic semifinal clash with Andy Murray. The Daily Mail wrote: "There is a tiny bit of speculation that Djokovic may have picked up some kind of injury. He isn't moving quite as freely out there as you might expect."

Even if he did hurt himself in some way or the other, Novak managed to go for over an impressive four hours to get his place in the final.

If you're interested, here's how each of the players got to the final (but feel free to skip it and go on to the next thing):

	Nadal	Djokovic
First Round	def. Alex Kuznetsov 6-4, 6-1, 6-1	def. Paolo Lorenzi 6-2, 6-0, 6-0
Second Round	def. Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-3, 6-4	def. Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-2, 6-1
Third Round	def. Lukas Lacko 6-2, 6-4, 6-2	def. Nicolas Mahut 6-0, 6-1, 6-1
Round of 16	def. Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-4, 6-2	def. Lleyton Hewitt 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3
Quarterfinals	def. Tomas Berdych 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6), 6-4, 6-3	def. David Ferrer 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-1
Semifinals	def. Roger Federer 6-7 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (5), 6-4	def. Andy Murray 6-3, 3-6, 6-7 (4), 6-1, 7-5

Let's now look at these guys' past matches.

Last year, Djokovic was dominant and won three slams, but the Spaniard didn't manage to beat the Serb in six encounters.

Nadal was struggling so much with Djokovic that he tried many different strategies to win, including moonballing to Novak's backhand (the Serb was delighted and stepped in, took the ball early and pounded backhand winners).

Two of their six matches were in slam finals: first at Wimbledon, and then at the US Open. Nadal could only manage to win the third set in each one.

Djokovic is getting to Nadal so much that Rafa has added a few extra grams to his racket, a move geared to help him deal with Djokovic. This extra weight not only helps his groundstrokes, but his serve as well, which has been much better than usual this Australian Open.

It's telling that the only two sets that Nadal has lost were in tiebreaks (against Berdych and Federer), which means that he isn't getting broken too often.

It's tough to assess how Djokovic will be in the final, given that he had such a long, tiring match against Murray. However, in the earlier rounds, he looked a bit more impressive than Nadal, with more emphatic scorelines to show for it.

Pretty much everything is working for Djokovic; there are no weaknesses in his game at all. So, in order for Nadal to beat him, the Spaniard has to hit through Nole.

What worked for Federer against Nadal was hitting a slightly loopy ball to Rafa's backhand— almost like Roger giving his rival a taste of his own medicine—but for some reason he did not execute this strategy routinely, despite the fact that it was yielding results.

That's something that Djokovic will certainly try, and don't be surprised if there are a lot of backhand-to-backhand rallies over the course of the final.

The key for Nadal, in my opinion, is winning free points. For so many years, critics have attacked the Mallorcan for his mediocre serve, which is consistent, but not powerful. As mentioned earlier, however, he has been serving well, and if he wants to win, he will need all the free points he can get.

The key for Djokovic is to hit to Nadal's backhand consistently, and hope that it will break down at some point.

If the match goes long, I think it favors Nadal, who will have had a two-day rest after a shorter match, because Djokovic played an extremely long match and only got one day's rest.

Prediction

It's tough to say who the favorite is, so I'm not sure whether I'm being bold or not. Anyway, I think that Djokovic will capture his fifth slam, and win in four sets again, as he has in the last two slam finals.

It will definitely be a great match, and if Rafa loses, he will go down fighting. 

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