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By Franklin L. Johnson
© Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA

(July 5, 2010) Here we go again.

Another Wimbledon final is another opportunity to create a championship advertisement for our great sport instead of competitive concession.

Tennis' Raging Bull, Rafael Nadal, held up his end of the bargain and brought the physicality, power and pure passion to the Wimbledon final. Nadal exudes the visible determination Wimbledon demands with every swing he takes.

Tomas "Big Berd" Berdych brought a tame game that looked like every swing was scripting another line of his "I'm just happy to be here, all credit to Rafa" concession speech.



Talk about a beat down.

You could have turned the TV off after the opening set of Nadal's 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 thrashing of Berdych in the Wimbledon final and not missed much, apart from Rafa's celebratory somersault that reminded us of the exuberant enthusiasm this young man brings to tennis.

I completely understand that the 12th-seeded Czech was facing an immense task of trying to becomethe first man in Open Era history to knock off the world's top three-ranked players — No. 2 Roger Federer in the quarterfinals, No. 3 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals and No. 1 Nadal in the final — to win the title and that Berdych was understandably uptight contesting his first career major final.

I totally understand Rafa Nadal is one of the all-time greatest champions in our sport's glorious history. Nadal is 5-0 in his last five Grand Slam finals and at the age of 24 he joins an esteemed class of champions  —  Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Fred Perry and Ken Rosewall  — with eight career Grand Slam championships

I get it.

And don't feel the need to point out how Nadal has matured into a master of all surfaces, who needs only to win the US Open to complete the career Grand Slam.

I get it.

What I don't get is how a man who looked so focused and clear-headed in his wins over six-time champion Federer and 2008 Australian Open champion Djokovic can look so disinterested when it came time to throw down with Nadal.

Big Berd didn't come to use his flame thrower forehand and searing serve to broil the Raging Bull into hamburger and that's what the moment demanded.

I respect Tomas Berdych as a player and a man, but let's be honest: Tweety Bird shows more competitive backbone in encounters with Sylvester than Big Berd showed against Rafa yesterday.

I don't get this poor preparation for the biggest match in his career. If I had the same chance and I was Berdych, it would've been glaringly obvious to me I wasn't going to win this match playing patty-cake with Rafa.

The only shot Berdych had was to bring heat early and often and try to pummel Nadal into submission. He didn't do that.

Even worse, he didn't even try that.

Remember the bold, offensive, first-strike tennis Juan Martin del Potro played in routing Rafa, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 in the US Open final last September? Berdych needed to be bold, but he played timid tennis and Nadal stomped him.

Rafa made a single sloppy service game by Big Berd stand up for the first-set break and then Nadal consistently terrorized Berdych with his slice serve to the backhand on the ad side in the first game of the second set.



That was when Berdych needed to stand tall, take a few steps over to defend that serve to the backhand and crack a big return off a second serve to let Rafa know he meant business.

What did Berdych do? He shrank from the occasion, he never adjusted to what the tactical mastermind threw at him and Nadal nullified all of those break points to start Berdych's downhill slide with a firm push into the loser's column.

Tomas, this is the Wimbledon final! You don't win Wimbledon hoping to play some nice rallies. You win Wimbledon with ruthless tennis.

It was unforgivable for Big Berd to fail to push the second set into a tiebreaker. If Berdych had pushed Nadal into a second-set tiebreaker, anything could've happened.

Then again, Andy Murray took Nadal to the breaker and Nadal responded by putting his foot firmly down on Braveheart's windpipe, silencing the home crowd in the process.

The difference is Berdych has a bigger serve than Murray and had he took it to a tie breaker he could have used the monster serve to jump on Rafa.

But, he did none of these things.

The third set was more of the same dull effort. Big Berd, like so many of these pretenders — Soderling, Djokovic, etc.  —  didn't come to leave it on the court. He had the game to push Rafa to the limit, but he never came close to showing it.

How come he went so meekly into defeat and flocked to concession like the proverbial pigeon to a bird feeder?

Are the players so conditioned to Rafa and Roger hoovering up the major hardware they don't even think they have a chance to prevail?

One thing's for sure: Rafael Nadal came to play, to win.

Tomas Berdych came for a respectable — and predictable — result but hopefully he learned a valuable lesson: timidity will get you trampled on the tennis court when you stare down the Raging Bull.

Tennis Now contributing writer Franklin L. Johnson is a writer, poet and avid tennis player based in New York. He has covered professional tennis for three decades.