Nalbandian secures place in final

David Nalbandian, the 20-year-old Argentinian, today became the first player in the Open era to reach the men’s singles final at Wimbledon on his debut as he booked his place on Centre Court against world number one Lleyton Hewitt.

Nalbandian needed just 32 minutes to win the final set and complete his 7-6 6-4 1-6 2-6 6-2 semi-final victory over Belgium’s Xavier Malisse.

It made him only the second South American to reach the men’s final after Peru’s Alex Olmedo, who beat Rod Laver to become champion in 1959.

The victory was a remarkable turnaround of fortunes for Nalbandian who, after winning the opening two sets in which Malisse took a controversial eight-and-a-half minute time-out with chest pains yesterday afternoon, had seen his opponent hit back to completely outplay him in the next two sets.

There was all to play for when they resumed this afternoon and Nalbandian took full advantage of the hesitant, inaccurate hitting of the 21-year-old Belgian who totally failed to reproduce the form he had shown last night.

Nalbandian held serve in the opening game but Malisse, starting with two aces, broke back to level at 1-1 thanks to his third ace of the game.

Watched by Prince Philippe of Belgium, Malisse captured the first break to go 2-1 ahead, but a double fault and the loss of three points due to some wayward hitting, enabled Nalbandian to break back to love.

The Argentinian held the next game to love as Malisse could hardly get a ball in court and went 4-2 up when he converted the third break point of a game in which Malisse cancelled out an ace with a double fault.

It was the Belgian who had two break points in the seventh game but Nalbandian saved both, moving to advantage with a well-placed forehand down the line before he went 5-2 up when Malisse again hit long.

Nalbandian dropped the first point of the final game but that was Malisse’s last success as the Argentinian won four points in a row, finishing the three hour, 17 minutes match with a superb drop shot before dropping to his knees with fists clenched to salute his emotional victory.