When Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer lock horns in their first hardcourt Grand Slam final, the biggest key to victory will be the ability to turn weaknesses into strengths. The nineteenth matchup between these two tennis titans will be defined by the attitudes and adjustments of the mighty Mallorcan and the sublime Swiss.

First, let’s look at the challenges facing Nadal on Sunday in Rod Laver Arena. The world No. 1–who will face Federer with a top ranking for the first time (Fed, in turn, will be playing Rafa with a “(2)” beside his name for the first time)–was going to have to shorten points in this would-be matchup, regardless of more specific circumstances. When placed on a hard surface–faster now than the grass of Wimbledon–Nadal lacks the time he enjoys on other surfaces. This is why Nadal has lost his last two hardcourt matches to Federer, in the 2006 and 2007 Masters Cup semifinals. If a so-called “Fedal” final ever materialized at the Australian or U.S. Open, Rafa had to know that shorter points and flattened-out forehands would need to be brought to the battle. Now, however, the world of hypotheticals has become the realm of reality, and so–in addition to the pure Xs and Os of the matchup–Nadal has to contend with his holistic well-being.

As the countdown to “Nadal-Federer XIX” (that’s a tribute to Super Bowl XLIII, which will be played 16 hours after Rafa and Fed do their thing in Australia) intensifies, the need for Rafa to drill his shots has become particularly obvious. On the night of February 1, 2009, the 22-year-old Spaniard is more aware than ever of the need to be aggressive from the ground, because his body and mind need to be engaged in this match from the moment the first ball is struck.

As physically taxing as his 5-hour, 14-minute semifinal classic against Fernando Verdasco proved to be, Nadal–the most physical player in men’s tennis–will compete for every point in a match of such pronounced magnitude. Nadal’s physical hunger shouldn’t be questioned, but what merits concern in the Rafa camp is the ability of the top seed to play a more offensive game on a fast surface, and thereby send a message to the formidable Swiss foe on the other side of the net. The mental side of this match is the truly daunting problem for Nadal, who–in addition to playing a grueling match on Friday night–also had to endure the mental strain of playing a countryman (Verdasco) whom he respects. Rafa openly admitted that, at love-40 in Verdasco’s final service game, he began to cry due to the overwhelming tension of the moment. The hard-fought win featured incredibly punishing tennis, but for one more day, the muscular No. 1 will be able to throw his body into the fray. The hard part for Rafa is to find the mental clarity needed to regroup from the emotions of the Verdasco match and execute a more forceful strategy against the world No. 2. Nadal will be able to run against Federer–his immense pride and relentless style won’t allow anything less–but if the Spaniard leaves balls short on the hard surface, the world-class ballstriker from Switzerland will make him pay, just as he did in the pair of Masters Cup collisions taken by Federer. It might be tempting to say that Rafa needs to keep points short for the sake of keeping his body fresh if the match goes deep into a fourth or fifth set, but the real reason Rafa needs to keep points short is that on hardcourts, the man with a 12-6 advantage in the head-to-head series is actually at a tactical disadvantage. Federer will receive a truer, lower bounce than anything he’d normally get at Roland Garros or Wimbledon, so Rafa’s normal strategy of hitting the high-kicking topspin forehand to Fed’s backhand can’t be relied upon quite as often in Australia. Rafa has to find openings early in points, and beat Federer to the punch in terms of hitting outright winners on shots that are anything less than solid. If Rafa can’t play the kind of game Verdasco used against him on Friday–namely, a higher-risk style that allows more errors in the attempt to rack up a lot of additional winners–he’ll find himself in trouble.

Now, we turn to the challenges facing Mr. Federer, who can claim a 14th Grand Slam title and tie Pete Sampras atop the all-time list with a win in this heavily-anticipated confrontation. The big challenge for Roger, as he faces his personal nemesis, is to be man enough to admit his own vulnerabilities in this matchup.

Federer has usually been content to hit a lot of backhands against Nadal. Realizing how easy it is for Nadal to spin that heavy forehand to his backhand corner, Federer has acknowledged the importance of shoring up his backhand wing. However, in the heat of match play, the willingness to hit backhands–understandable to a point–has become something of a harmful self-fulfilling prophecy for the Swiss. Federer has been so focused on the need to hit backhands against Rafa that he’s been unwilling to construct points that can feed his forehand. Some of Federer’s most vocal critics think that his biggest failing against Rafa has been a stubborn refusal to get to net, but the criticism that possesses real staying power is the view that Fed concedes far too many backhand rallies against the Nadal forehand. This paves the way for Roger’s new gameplan, which emerged in the latter sets of the 2008 Wimbledon final, arguably the greatest tennis match ever played.

In the final three sets of that epic encounter, Federer used his backhand down the line to the deuce court, which steered the ball to Rafa’s backhand corner and thereby set up the forehand. In a weird but real way, Federer gained strength by acknowledging his weakness. He lost that match, but his comeback gained him newfound respect in the tennis world. Sunday in Melbourne, that tactic–if used well–could deliver a piece of history, and erase much of the sting created by the loss in suburban London last July.

Nadal. Federer. Two giants possess incredible tennis strengths. Their matchup in Melbourne will therefore depend on how they handle their weaknesses.

Twin brothers and second seeded Men’s Doubles Team Bob and Mike Bryan have struck gold again. The bookmaker favorite and formidable American doubles team outplayed third seeded challengers Mahesh Bhupathi of India and Bahamian Mark Knowles in a fierce three set final 6-2, 5-7, 6-0. Spectators were left wondering what it takes to beat the American look-alikes. Bhupathi and Knowles threw everything they had at the twins, but the Americans beat back every salvo.

With the Williams sister’s dominance in the Women’s Doubles event, Americans have swept the doubles championships in Melbourne. Siblings seem to be the paring trend in doubles events. The Bryans have made a career and healthy livelihood of playing together. Now the proud possessors of seven Grand Slam Doubles titles and with seven runner-up finishes, there is no disputing the family’s dominance in Men’s Doubles.

Against Bhupathi and Knowles, the Bryans committed only 2 unforced errors and had no double faults. Statistically, the brothers were models of consistency. That consistency marks the key to their success. Individually, they are solid, but not outstanding, singles players, but together they are superlative, seemingly knowing their court positioning and shot selection without communicating. While quick hands help in Men’s Doubles, there is no substitute for proper shot selection and court positioning. The Bryans cut off angles and force teams to play to their strengths.

After breaking Bhupathi and Knowles in set one, the first set was sealed. The third seed rocked back on their heels until the beginning of the second set, where their play stabilized. Bhupathi made two sterling volleys to break Mike Bryan and even the sets at one each.

The Bryans had a mini-strategy session and came out forcefully for the pivotal third set. Well-placed returns kept the Bhupathi-Knowles team on the baseline as the Bryans won more than 60% of the receiving points in the final set to seal the championship and solidify their number one world ranking. At the outset of the Australian Open, bookmakers favored the Bryans and will certainly favor them at the French Open. With only the U.S. Open Doubles Championship under their belts in 2008, the American team was anxious to regain their form in Australia.

Bhupathi, who is also a mixed doubles finalist along with Sania Mirza at Melbourne, complimented the Bryans, declaring them the best doubles tam in the world. Like the rest of the field, Bhupathi and Knowles had no answers for the Bryans. The brothers lost only two sets in the tournament and were hardest pressed by American teammates Bobby Reynolds and Rajeey Ram in the round of sixteen. Reynolds and Ram pushed the Bryans to the limit in the 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 match.

While the Bryans never look over-powering, they always look smooth. The Australian Championship perfectly illustrates their balance coordination. These brothers know how to play together and once again appear to be the team to beat in Men’s Doubles.

It might not have been painless, but it sure was quick. Serena Williams wasted no time in reducing Dinara Safina to tears. In just 58 minutes, the American captured her fourth Australian Open women’s singles championship by dismantling her Russian opponent, 6-0, 6-3, before a packed house at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.

The match began in perfect weather conditions, after a brutal heat wave finally left the scene of an eventful Australian summer. Between the painted lines, Williams’s level of play in this title tilt suggested that the extreme temperatures earlier in the week had hindered her performance, particularly in the first open-air set of her heat-interrupted quarterfinal match against Svetlana Kuznetsova. Given the 82-degree Fahrenheit (28 Celsius) temperature at the start of this match, a far cry from the 104 F/40 C reading that marked the Kuznetsova contest, Serena looked like a player who had fully and finally returned to her comfort zone.

Naturally, though, the weather–while blessedly mild–wasn’t the only reason Serena felt at home on the blue plexicushion surface of Melbourne Park. Saturday’s slaughter of Safina was also the product of a player who was immersed in her element: the final Saturday of a two-week Grand Slam event. When major titles are waiting to be claimed, and her sister is not the opponent, Serena Williams is money in the bank. Her foe on this Australian evening, the No. 3 seed and a rising force in the women’s game, discovered this truth painfully and personally in the land Down Under.

There wasn’t much to analyze in a match so mercifully brief and overwhelmingly decisive. Williams took the first set in just 22 minutes, losing only 8 points, and just two of them on serve. Safina’s first set was such a train wreck that the Russian–playing in her second slam final–couldn’t win a single one of her 10 second-serve points. Once Safina double-faulted away her first service game to give the American a 2-0 lead, one of the sport’s greatest closers proceeded to slam the door on Safina’s championship hopes.

The second set was only a bit more competitive. Safina actually held serve on two occasions, but only after Serena had established complete control at 4-1. Safina’s late holds made the final scoreline appear more competitive than the match actually was, as Serena used two dominating holds of her own to close out the match before anyone’s seat was warm in Laver Arena. Making only 7 unforced errors in two sets of tennis, Serena moved into seventh place on the all-time list of women’s Grand Slam singles champions. This fourth Aussie Open crown is the tenth major title for the younger Williams sister, enabling the 27-year-old from Compton, Calif., to pass Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly and Monica Seles. With two more slams in the remainder of her legendary career, Serena could tie Billie Jean King and Suzanne Lenglen (12 titles apiece) for sixth place. That’s pretty heady company, but when one considers how dominant Williams has been in major moments over the past several years, her status in the history of her sport is legitimately lofty.

The following statement–used on many occasions to describe Serena’s career–bears repeating in the wake of this flawless display against the saddened Safina, who was seen crying on court midway through the second set: Very simply, Serena Williams is the assassin of women’s tennis in the first decade of the 21st century. Her sister might be the queen of Wimbledon, and the recently retired Justine Henin might have made the most of her abilities (not to mention her short physical frame), but Serena is and has been the stone-cold professional who simply refuses to wilt in the biggest matches and the brightest spotlights.

On a somewhat more immediate level, this Australian Open marks the fourth time that Serena has not only won Down Under, but done so after being one game away from elimination at some point in the tournament. The fighting spirit shown in middle rounds–preceding a championship master class–has become a staple of Serena’s modus operandi. The ability to survive bad matches, and then soar in title fights, has defined the competitive spirit of this champion throughout her career.

On a larger level, this wipeout of Safina, the world’s No. 3 player, is noteworthy because it lifted Serena’s record in Grand Slam finals to a sterling 10-3. Serena’s detractors do–to a certain extent–have a valid point in wondering why the younger (and better) Williams sister hasn’t reached more slam finals, but when Serena does overcome middle-round messiness to reach the final weekend of a major tournament, she very rarely misses the mark. In a sport full of headcases (think of the aforementioned Kuznetsova) and shrinking violets (Lindsay Davenport, who always went deep into majors but very rarely won them), Serena is one of the few female tennis players who has shown the ability to consistently thrive in the pressure-packed environment of a championship match. Her sister and Henin are the only other players who could be counted on to regularly handle huge moments with grace and composure.

Speaking of grace and composure, those two qualities were missing for Safina, but while Marat Safin’s younger sister fell short in a bid for her first major title, the entirety of the 2009 Australian Open should be viewed in a distinctly positive way by the 22-year-old who is still learning how to deal with the pressure of being a high seed. The past two weeks rarely witnessed Safina’s best stuff, but an ample supply of determination–not to mention the even greater psychological frailty of fourth-round foe Alize Cornet–enabled Safina to reach another slam final. With yet another one of these experiences under her belt, Safina–besides walking away with a hefty runner-up paycheck in excess of $700,000–now has a better chance of handling her nerves when she reaches her next major final. This loss was ugly and dispiriting when viewed in isolation, but the ability to merely reach the final makes this tournament a forward-moving moment in Safina’s steadily progressing career.

In the end, Dinara Safina gained a learning experience on a brief Saturday evening in Melbourne. Serena Williams gained something much more from her hour of power: Grand Slam title number 10, and an even higher place in the history of women’s tennis.

Country mates and experienced mixed doubles performers Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi of India stormed past the Czech entry of Iveta Benesova and Lukas Diouhy 6-4, 6-1 in a semi-final match at Melbourne. Mirza and Bhupathi will play France’s Nathalie Dechy and Israel’s Andy Ram who disposed of Spaniards Anabel Medina Garriques and Tommy Robredo 7-6, 6-4 in the other tight, hard-fought semi-final.

This marks the second consecutive year the pretty Mirza has advanced to the Australian Open Mixed Doubles finals with Bhupathi, who boasts 4 Grand Slam doubles titles and has been a runner-up twice. Both players are primarily known as doubles specialists. After a disappointing 2008 season, Mirza is playing with confidence with the seasoned Bhupathi directing the show. Bhupathi is teamed with Mark Knowles in the Men’s finals and has reached the finals against the Bryan brothers.

Bhupathi and Mirza started slowly against Benevosa and Douchy trailing 3-0 before getting their bearings. In the fourth game Mirza made two paralyzing volleys and India’s finest were on their way to victory. Bhupathi began to anticipate the Czech team’s angles and intercepted many shots at the net. Mirza was efficient at playing aggressive mid-court strokes.

The match was completed in less than an hour with the second set taking just 22 minutes. With the Australian summer bearing down, short matches are at a premium in Melbourne.

Dechy and Ram’s semi-final victory was considerably more challenging. Each Dechy-Ram salvo was answered by Medina and Robredo’s brilliant play. The first set tiebreaker went to 9-7. Both teams had multiple chances to win the set. The longer the set went on, the more it seemed the winner of set one would win the match.

Israel’s Ram is a proven doubles player and his serve was the difference in the match. The ninth game in the second set was pivotal as Dechy and Ram broke Medina’s serve with a series of solid returns and aggressive net play.

The mixed doubles finals will feature two of the games great male doubles players and two graceful women. The woman who can control her net play, will most likely signal the victory. Either way, the mixed finals shapes up to be a beautiful match.

The talented and tenacious Williams sisters showed why they were so highly regarded by the bookmakers in the 2009 Australian Open. When the hard-hitting sisters get it right, they are the team to beat. In the year’s first Grand Slam, the sisters got it right and pounded Japan’s Ai Sugiyama and Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-3.

The American team used big serves and big returns to keep the Sugiyama-Hantuchova team off balance throughout the first set. Sugiyama was consistently caught behind the baseline and her improved net play was barely a factor in the opening set.

The win marked the third Australian Women’s Doubles Championship for the sister team and left the filled house wondering if any woman’s team could beat dynamic duo. Although starting slowly and losing Venus’s serve in game one, the Americans stormed back. Once they took the net, the complexion of the match changed quickly.

It was clear that the Williams sisters did not want Hantuchova’s powerful ground strokes to decide the match. In a reversal of roles, Daniela was too, often caught at net while Sugiyama covered the baseline. Meanwhile, the Americans cut volleys off and blasted net winners that had Sugiyama reeling.

Unlike most world class singles players, the Williams sisters seem to relish playing together. They congratulate each other, hold numerous on-court strategy meetings and feed off the other’s successes. Watching the sisters play is like watching well choreographed theater. They are always on the same page, in the right spot, their movements synchronized perfectly and their focus intact. These ladies know how to win and never lose sight of that goal.

Venus Williams did not have her best serve working in the finals, but her net play controlled the tempo. She never stood still and always seemed to be moving into the ball.

With the score tied at 1-1 in the second set, all four players lost their serves. Sugiyama lost a second service game to go down 3-4. Serena calmly held to put the sisters ahead at 5-3 with Hantuchova serving. The Williams’s then pounded returns that drove Sugiyama off the net. The crowd was shocked with the Americans’ efficiency. In the second set, every service game was in doubt.

Serena and Venus converted on six of eight break point opportunities and won 64 total points compared to 48 by Sugiyama and Hantuchova. The tenth seeded Williams sisters won 71% of their firsts serves compared to a disappointing 46% by the ninth seeds.

The championship is the eighth Grand Slam Doubles Championship by the Williams’s and will certainly elevate their seeding for upcoming events. They have only played in the French Open once, winning that title in 1999. Both players seemed to enjoy the doubles with Serena saying that doubles play improved her singles play.

It is amazing that the sisters have never been ranked higher than sixth in their sterling careers. Most players on the tour recognize the Venus and Serena act as a tough match to win and the least desired matchup in any tournament. The finals was played at the Rod Laver Arena and with temperatures continuing to reach record daytime highs, the roof was closed. Serena and Venus remain undefeated under the covered court.