Nadal is the undisputed winner on points (24 wins and 16 losses) of this 40-round fight that began in 2004, when the Mallorcan teenager, then 17 years old, defeated the then world number 1, five years older.
The last chapter was the Wimbledon semifinal that Federer won in 2019, an edition in which he lost in the final to Novak Djokovic.
John McEnroe-Bjorn Borg, Martina Navratilova-Chris Evert, Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi… The history of tennis is full of duels to remember that generations have marked, but none of the stature of the pulse between the Spanish and the Swiss .
“A Nadal-Federer is the best. The most emotional,” said former Spanish tennis player Álex Corretja, now a television commentator. “When you think of something historic and something unique, you think of a Nadal-Federer. It is the most spectacular rivalry in tennis and one of the greatest in sport”he added.
The high point of their rivalry was the 2008 Wimbledon final, when Nadal, defeated by the Swiss the previous year in a match that was already memorable, dethroned the winner of the five previous editions at night after almost five hours with a dream tennis on both sides of the net.
This duel is considered by many analysts to be the best in history, along with the Borg-McEnroe, on the same Center Court in 1980.
There are other peaks reached by both, such as the 2009 Australian Open final, in which Federer, defeated, could not hold back his tears at the trophy ceremony.
Nadal won in six of the nine Grand Slam finals they played, while Federer did it in three. He also wins in matches played in the majors (14-10).
His superiority in figures is mainly explained by his dominance on clay: 14 wins against two, four of them in the Roland Garros final. Federer wins on grass (3-1) and on hard courts (10-9), but not on hard outdoor courts (8-6 for Nadal).
The Federer-Nadal is the most repeated duel in a Grand Slam title match, ahead of the seven Nadal-Djokovic and the seven Djokovic-Murray.
Beyond the numbers, the opposition of styles will go down in history, like the four Borg-McEnroe that excited the public in the 80s.
Creativity and attack by the Swiss; power, defense and strategy on the Spanish side, although Federer also has privileged legs and Nadal has definitive blows, especially with his forehand.
The Spanish adopted a simple tactic to tame the Swiss. “With Federer the only thing you can do is not let him hit his backhand, force him to hit the ball high, the racket at neck height, put him under pressure.”the “Matador” noted in his autobiography.
Late in the race Federer found a way to win, closing the aggregate gap by winning the last seven matches, excluding clay.
Beyond the court, the rivalry between Nadal and Federer has been exemplary. They consider each other friends and have spent time at each other’s houses. Together they have competed in the Laver Cup, the tournament created by the Swiss in which he will end his career.
Source: Ambito
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