I waited a day and a half to write this for you DVR folks.

I am a fan of Nadal. He is fun to watch and obviously works very, very hard for what he achieves and deserves his accolades. But I am a Federer man and have been for years.

I watched the Australian Open Final live from 3:30 to 8:00 or so on Sunday morning. It was an up and down match with Nadal playing high-level tennis despite a 5-hour match two days earlier. Federer struggled with his serve pretty much the whole match but still managed to win two sets, one of which was the fourth set.

With a win Federer would tie the record for the most major tournament championships (tying another of my heroes, Pete Sampras). Also he would prevent Nadal from dominating a new surface - hard court - while reintroducing his name as a potential returner to the #1 ranking.

Didn't happen. This wasn't surprising to anyone who has watched Nadal over the past few years. What was surprising and sad to watch was the nature of the fifth set. It seemed that Roger just plain crumbled under the pressure. From the very start of the set he was spraying unforced errors around and seemed "psyched out". It wasn't a matter of Nadal playing dominantly at that point. Federer beat himself from the start of the fifth set. It was sad to watch from a hero of mine.

Hate to say it, but to this fan Federer became a much more distant #2 on Sunday.