Shades of Tiger as Hewitt shows he can reign supreme

Nalbandian crushed between the showers as Australian's confidence, balance and timing prove him to be world's best

In the graceless, unforgiving language of modern sport it might be said that David Nalbandian, aged 20, "choked". But then history is likely to take a kindly view of this setback at the end of two of the most extraordinary weeks that Wimbledon, the old storehouse of legend, has ever known.

Certainly it is true that if Nalbandian is driven back into the obscurity out of which he leaped from Cordoba, Argentina, into the final of the greatest tournament in tennis, he can reflect that he wasn't simply caught in a mere treacherous current of the game he invaded so surprisingly. What did him in, surely, was a one-man tide of the future.

Lleyton Hewitt from Adelaide is just a year older than the man he crushed so relentlessly between the showers yesterday, but the game he plays looks as if has been drawn from the ages and packaged into a force which can dominate the courts of the world – all of them, fast, slow, whatever pace you care to set – for a good 10 years.

It is a game which wore down the last of Nalbandian's previously stunning resolve in less two hours – by 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 – and though it is undramatic in some ways, lacking, for example the thunder of Boris Becker or the sustained and riotous aggression of John McEnroe, it has a component which has always separated the great ones from those who are required to labour in their wake.

At the core of it is the soaring confidence that comes when you know you are so much better balanced, than the man across the net or the ring or standing beside you on the first tee of a great tournament. Hewitt has the balance and the timing of a sporting god, no question. It is an asset which has a relentlessly dispiriting effect on the resistance of the opposition. Britain's hero, Tim Henman, was overwhelmed by it in the semi-final and yesterday Nalbandian found it squeezing the life out of him from the first exchanges.

Hewitt confessed to just one point of "tightening". It came when he was serving for his second Grand Slam title to place alongside the US Open he won last year. "Yes, I felt tight when I thought of what this tournament meant to me, and how long it had been since Pat Cash had won it for Australia the last time." Hewitt served a double fault, but his agony was brief as Nalbandian committed another of a shoal of unforced errors and drove the ball long. Hewitt fell back into what looked like a stupor of relief, but soon enough he was marching up to the stands in the fashion of Cash and embracing his parents, the Aussie rules footballer Glynn and physical education teacher Cherilyn. "I was trying to take it all in," he recalled later, "but as I was sitting on the chair I thought, 'stuff it, I'll do what Pat Cash did'." In fact, it was clear enough, he had done rather more than his compatriot.

Cash battled to win a title against expectation. Hewitt rode the powerful sense that he was installing a new era of the game, one in which his sheer speed and adaptability suggest an ability to shape so many situations into the basis for new victories. He spoke briefly but eloquently about his seizing of a currently unchallenged status as the world's No 1 player. "When I came to Wimbledon the first time," he said, "I was trying to mix it up. I think I was playing the wrong type of game, coming to the net, chip-charging, this kind of thing. It just wasn't working. I went back and thought about it.

"I said, 'the guys have got to play extremely well to beat me from the back of the court'. I returned well, used my passing shot, my strengths as my edge, my quickness around the court. That's the way my mind began to work. I was going to be my own player, and I knew my serve could get me out of trouble."

Against such boldness of conviction, the unlikely dream of David Nalbandian fell apart, but in the man from Cordoba there had also been been plenty of evidence of the force that can come when a young player of extraordinary ability has the courage to play to his limits. "I've had some great days and I've done my best, but I know now what is required to beat somebody like Lleyton Hewitt. He is a great talent, and it will take a lot of work to get to his level," Nalbandian said.

Precisely what Hewitt's level is will, of course, take another year or two to establish. But the prospects are daunting. He is a curious mix of bravado and shyness – in many ways a Bjorn Borg with a McEnroe inside screaming to break out. The technical view is that he has much of the talent of Andre Agassi, but ultimately will prove harder to beat because he is naturally less of a risk-taker as he drops back to the baseline.

What is stunning is his capacity to pick a moment of vulnerability in an opponent and go for a shot which demands the ultimate precision of a marksman. It breaks a pattern of play, a tight rally, with shattering force and repeatedly he brought it to bear on the fragile pysche of Nalbandian.

There was in it the sense of a masterful competitor familiar to anyone who has seen Tiger Woods take hold of a golf tournament, not necessarily with the boldness of his play but with the absolute confidence with which he lays down a strategy and plays to it with the unbreakable belief that it is within his powers of execution.

Hewitt may never exert such control over his game, but there were times yesterday when the comparison was inevitable. It flowed from the conviction of a young sportsman announcing precisely why he was the best in the world, It was in the certainty that comes when you know that nature, and the force of your own ambition, has given you an unbeatable edge.