Cup Cake

Roger Federer had his cake and ate it too. He won his fourth Masters Cup with a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 drubbing of event surprise David Ferrer in a match that lasted just over ninety minutes.

The outcome was never in doubt. Despite Ferrer's play this week, I wrote this somewhere else yesterday.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but even with how well David has played at this event, and he's played superb tennis, I can't see him winning more than four games a set in a straight-set loss.

He doesn't tend to show up for Fed.

I hope I'm wrong.

As for Raja, he'll be determined to assert his dominance and end David's run, reminding the world that he's still top dog.

I wrote somewhere else that the day this David beats Goliath, I would stop writing.

Ferrer was most definitely nervous at the start of the match. He certainly looked nervous. Missing shots he'd make in his sleep meant he was under some kind of pressure, no? He finished the match with an uncharacterstic 38 unforced errors.

Federer was most definitely playing marvelous tennis. Nothing like a massacre of Andy Roddick to restore his confidence. After that victory, Raja never looked back. Rafael Nadal didn't win as many games as Andy did, and in the first two sets, neither did David.

Rafa was more of a mental challenge, though, because of their record. But against David, whom he knew he could beat in his sleep, he was in full flight from the get go. Ferrer could't control Federer's slice and couldn't return his serve.

A Swiss flag said, "Shhhh! Genius at work." Jason Goodall said it's relatively easy to look like a genius when you know where all the balls are coming. Ferrer's tendency to hammer inside out forehands into the corner allowed Raja to camp out in the ad court and control play with his backhand, which was on fire.

He also served smartly, sending most of his first deliveries in the ad court up the T because Ferrer's backhand return is better from that side. Some of the aces Raja hit were even slow. David made almost no attempt to return them.

Make no mistake, Ferrer has gotten mentally tougher and is handling his business much better on the court. His tennis this week has been the best he's ever played (though his run in Tokyo was marvelous as well), but Federer's variety doesn't allow Ferrer to play his game at all.

I've always seen this matchup like the Federer-Hewitt matchup after Federer turned it around. Raja just has too many knives to slice the cake that Ferrer brings to the table. Raja spread the icing with a forehand winner that left David stranded in no-man's land to seal the victory in an hour and 38 minutes. Two minutes longer than his demolition of James Blake last year.

Ferrer's run to the finals moves him up to a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world. With two Spaniards ending the year in the Top 5 for the first time since I can remember, 2007 wasn't only another great year for Raja but it was also a great year for Spanish tennis.