Raffa Takes First Set, 6-3

Federer hits a beautiful pass, albeit a mis-hit and Nadal is down 0-30 on his serve.... Fed is a little off-balance and misses an easy backhand (easy for me to say!).....

Nadal misses yet another forehand and it's break point. The fans sense the urgency of the moment. Nadal is shaky. A fantastic serve to Federer's forehand gets him out of one breaker. Why Federer didn't chip his backhand return at 30-40 is beyond me. Federer loses a long point: ad-Nadal.

Fed blasts a backhand cross court swinging Nadal out wide and finishes Nadal off with a forehend - deuce..... this is a key game. Roger ends the deuce point at the net - ad-Fed. Second serve. Federer blows an easy inside-out forehand: deuce.

Nadal gets pushed around again and its advantage Federer yet again.... A key second serve and Federer pushes a forehand into the net on an 85-mph serve.... Kind of a choke.

Federer then misses yet another backhand and is about to let Nadal off the hook..... But then Fed plays a fantastic point to bring things back to deuce. The same backhand that let Federer down last point allows Roger to win this one. Then another clean winner. Is Fed getting in the groove?

Nadal needs a good serve on break point here.... Second serve.... Nadal hits an amazinf forehand hooking it in the court down the line - that's strength.... Deuce. Federer misses a forehand return.... It's soon to be 3-3 first set. Sure enough a good Nadal serve wins the game... Federer has a let down it's 0-30. If Roger loses this match he can point to the 3-2 game when he failed to break Nadal's serve. Now it's 0-40. A missed backhand by Fed and it's 4-3 Nadal..... dare I say, the first set is over?

NO! just as quickly Nadal gets nervous and it's 0-40. Whoops Fed misses an easy backhand return. Nadal has only missed one first serve on break point - he just missed his second.... Federer chokes another forehand: 30-40.... and another. It's deuce.

Dude!!!! Get to net! The chair gets down and misses the call on Nadal's first serve - wonderful. Federer misses yet again. This is a little sad. All he had to do this game was to be aggressive - and he blew it.... 5-3 Nadal. It looks like Federer is giving up - is it the set or the match?

It's set point. This one's for the match. One Nadal Forehand and it's over, 6-3 Nadal. And with it, perhaps Roger's chance at winning the French.