KEY POINTS:
It took six rounds of tennis, 126 disappointed competitors, hours of waiting for the rain to stop, sweat, a few tears and some pain before the two men expected to reach the Wimbledon final duly did so on Saturday.
The top two seeds Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will meet again at a grand slam final, as they did last year here when Federer won and at the French Open last month and in 2006 when Nadal took the honours.
Grass master Federer, watched from the Centre Court's royal box by Bjorn Borg whose record of five successive Wimbledon titles the Swiss will attempt to match on Sunday, swept imperiously past Richard Gasquet 7-5 6-3 6-4.
Nadal took a while to get going but was well in command when a hobbling Novak Djokovic retired hurt with the Spaniard leading 3-6 6-1 4-1 in the second semi-final on Court One.
Medical staff were kept busy between the two show courts ministering to the feet of Gasquet and Djokovic, both of whom had covered a lot of kilometres in five-set quarter-finals on Friday.
After a championships running behind schedule following frequent rain breaks, neither looked fresh.
Federer, in contrast has enjoyed a relaxed tournament with six days off when his fourth-round opponent Tommy Haas withdrew hurt.
Nadal has worked harder and been frustrated by regular stops for the weather but his straight sets quarter-final workout on Friday against Tomas Berdych had hardly been energy-sapping.
The three-times French Open champion has demonstrated with two Wimbledon finals that he can transfer his claycourt skills to lawn tennis. On Sunday he will find out whether those skills are honed enough to upset a man who is 53 games unbeaten on the surface.
Nadal, 21, leads their head-to-heads 8-4 but his triumphs over the 25-year-old winner of 10 grand slam titles have mostly come on clay, with two on hard courts.
Nadal explained his difficulty with Federer on Saturday: "He has a very complete game. He's a very complete player. He has all the shots."
Federer was happy to have the chance of another tilt at the title.
"I played well. But maybe less dominating than I did last year. But still I'm feeling good. I've put myself in with the opportunity to win this tournament again," he said.
- REUTERS
