Grand Slam Professional Tennis Predictions and Picks by Nick Bollettieri. US Open, French Open, Wimbledon, Australian Open

For the third straight year, Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer in the finals at Monte Carlo. Nadal has now won this Masters Series event four straight years! Nadal won the match 7-5, 7-5 and is now 7-1 against Federer on  clay and 9-6 against him overall. Nadal has now won 98 of his last 99 matches on clay, with the lone loss coming in the finals at Hamburg last year against Federer.

This wasn’t an easy victory for Nadal. Federer broke Nadal to go up 4-3 in the first set and got out to a blistering 4-0 lead in the second set. Each time he blew it, only to see Nadal come back and win. What really surprised me was Federer’s change of tactic in the second set. To get to 4-0, Federer was standing on or near the baseline and was taking the ball early and dictating play. All of a sudden, he started standing 6-8 feet behind the baseline and letting Nadal control the action. It was the sort of wrong move that you don’t see Federer make very much.

To me, that was the difference in the match. Nadal gained the upper hand, and never looked back. Obviously, it didn’t help that Federer had 44 unforced errors and was broken six times, but in the grand scheme of things he will still in the match after all that.

Heading into the rest of the clay court season (and the French Open), Federer cannot expect to win if he standing that far behind the baseline. He needs to come back in closer to the baseline and take the ball early like he was doing against Nadal. If he does this, I am sure he will be fine. If not, we could see the continuation of his “slow-start.”