Nadal, Federer and Djokovic: an unforgettable rivalry

If the history of a sport is expressed through its rivalries, then boxing cannot be understood without Ali-Frazier; no 21st century golf without Tiger and Mickelson; no NBA without the Lakers and Celtics; no football without Madrid-Barça. You remove these factors from the equation and you are left with something else – a book without a knot. If we go to tennis, we will go to perhaps the greatest simultaneous concentration of talent in the history of a single sport. He Big Three. Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. The top three, at least by numbers, coincided in time and space. Now that the withdrawal of the Balearic Islands ends an era, since without him or Federer Djokovic’s continuity loses historical status, no matter how much he devotes himself to setting records, it is time to reconsider their shared history, the history of three competitive animals that are marked before and after. Let’s start chronologically with the Nadal-Federer dichotomy.

A clash of styles repeated 40 times, with 16 victories for the Swiss and 24 for the Spaniards. It all started in 2004 with Rafa’s 6-3 brace in the third round in Miami. The first grand final between them took place at Roland Garros in 2006. Nadal also won. Between 2006 and 2008 they played all the title matches in Paris and in Wimbledon. Federer would never have been able to decipher Manacori on Parisian soil, and his only title in Roland Garros It will happen in 2009, the year of the famous victory of the Swede Söderling over Nadal in the 1/8 finals. Rafa, on the other hand, found tickling in the Wimbledon garden.. There he won the famous 2008 final, considered by many to be the best fight the sport has ever given, almost five hours of fighting, five sets, rain delays, epic tiebreaks… In short, the most representative episode this rivalry ended with Roger’s streak of five straight wins in London.

But beyond all of the above, perhaps what best characterizes their 15 years of clashes, culminating in Federer’s victory in the 2019 Wimbledon semi-finals, and the tone in which they spoke, always respectful, always elegant, are the words they both dedicated themselves to at some point during this period. “If someone says I’m better than Roger, it means he has no idea about tennis,” Nadal said then. “In my 17-year career, Nadal is the tennis player who has influenced me the most as a player,” Federer admitted.

Djokovic, bipolar relationship

Two years after Rafa and Roger first crossed paths, a parallel rivalry was born that the Spaniard would maintain with Novak Djokovic, the team’s other mainstay. Big Three. That first chapter came in the quarterfinals of the 2006 Roland Garros and ended abruptly with the Serbian quitting in the third set after losing the first two 6-4. After this, there will be another 59 collisions between them. 31 will fall to the side Nole and 29 from Rafa, also with Paris as the final point.

Along the way, legendary battles such as the 2012 Australian Open, the longest in the history of the Grand Slam tournament, five hours and 53 minutes of confrontation on the favorite soil of tennis players. Jokeradding a third victory to his record in Melbourne; or that 2013 Roland Garros semi-final that Rafa survived an 87-minute fifth set decided by tiebreaker; or Wimbledon 2018, the Serbian’s resurgence after being hampered by elbow problems; and of course, of course, the final of Roland Garros 2014, the last between both of them basic (then they will compete in 2020, and in Australia in 2019), that Rafa chose his team to win the Musketeers Cup for the ninth time and end a run of four straight defeats to the Balkans. The epilogue was a great fight, more for what it represented than for its development (Djokovic won easily 6-1 to 6-4) in the round of 16 at the Paris Olympics.

They had a more bipolar relationship than he had with Federer, but in this case they inevitably surrendered to each other. “I played against a player who did everything perfectly. I don’t know anyone who has ever played tennis like that,” Rafa said of Novak after losing the Doha final in 2016. “I have a problem and his name is Rafa Nadal,” Djokovic said at the time.putting into words what many players have felt for over two decades. And this is a blessing, it should be added, because the truth is that none of these three unforgettable talents can be understood without the other two.

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