Tennis: Vandals Play While Federer Licks Wounds

If the music did not quite die, it certainly changed with Roger Federer's semi-final defeat - and we were left with today's heavy metal men's final between Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt.

A little ungenerous to Safin it may be, but it is a final that can be characterised as the vandals making merry in the absence of the man who would reclaim the game's cultured heritage.

Safin's play is not in fact without sophistication. He deploys his immense power with more subtlety than most. In the end, though, it was the sustained violence of his hitting that broke Federer. The world number one may still play a brand of tennis that everyone else on the circuit can only aspire to, but against Safin last Thursday his game and his body gave way under the might of the Russian's challenge.

Sophistication is not a charge that can be levelled at Hewitt's game, which is as pretty as a pub brawl (which is what he seemed to be trying to emulate with his belligerent quarter-final performance against David Nalbandian, the Argentine later making the nicely understated observation that Hewitt 'is not a gentleman').

Ever since the spread of new racket technology in the 1970s, professional tennis - the men's game in particular - has been subject to a reductive process to the point where we now have what has been called a 'world style'. It is a style without the nuance of the old wooden-racket era, a style with all-court possibilities, but based firmly on power and the ability to keep on trading solid ground strokes.

Hewitt has reduced this process still further, scorning the all-court option and focusing exclusively on wearing down opponents from the back of the court. A lightweight among behemoths, he can do it effectively because he is quick of foot, sharp of eye, sure of hand and utterly, utterly determined to stay in a rally longer than the other guy. It may be aesthetically unsatisfying, but it is an approach that produces compelling contests with opponents put under extreme psychological pressure.

Some, inevitably, cope better than others with the infuriating little larrikin. Nalbandian came close to cracking, so too did his compatriot Juan Ignacio Chela, who incurred a £1,000 fine a week ago after he became so upset by Hewitt's vein-popping cries of 'C'mon' that he spat in Hewitt's direction as the players changed ends. The particular 'C'mon' that was the tipping point for Chela came when the Argentine missed an easy volley. Chela said he hated the way Hewitt celebrated. Hewitt won in four sets and moved on without a scintilla of regret over the way he had behaved.

Safin has a famously fragile temperament. On this day of his third Australian Open final in four years - he was runner-up in 2004 and 2002 - it is worth remembering he is the only person to have been deemed guilty of 'tanking' a match - that's throwing, to you and me - in a grand slam, and the incident happened at Melbourne Park. He copped a $2,000 fine after losing to Grant Stafford, a limited South African player, in straight sets. At one point, he apparently caught a valid serve by Stafford and tossed the ball back to him.

The evidence is, though, that he self-combusts; there is no blue touchpaper to which someone else can apply a flame. In fact he seems pretty impervious to outside pyrotechnics, and when he is at peace with himself and at one with his game he is capable of almost anything - even beating Federer.

If he does - as he should - pull it off this morning, in what is likely to be a red-blooded contest in front of a crowd who are partial to a little raw competitiveness, the only surprise will be that it has taken him so long to add to his first grand-slam title won in New York five years ago.