Dubai: This year’s final Major looks very much like a soap opera sans some of its stars. And even those who are around are definitely not going to be entering on their very best form.
A troublesome elbow has made two-time champion Novak Djokovic already pack off his kit for the remainder of the season.
Champion in 2012, Andy Murray announced an last minute withdrawal on Saturday night because of his hip injury that had troubled him at Wimbledon.
Stan Wawrinka, who has blossomed into a more all-round competitor, will also not be there defending the crown he won in 2016.
That leaves two of the game’s most durable warriors — Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer — as the most likely candidates to clash in the final.
Incredulous as it may seem, the rivalry between the current No. 1 Nadal and the suave Federer stretches over 13 years and 37 matches. But the two have never ever met at the US Open!
Nadal is a former two-time champion in New York following his titles in 2010 and 2013, while Federer held sway on five successive occasions from 2004 to 2008.
Just when it seemed that we had enough of both, 2017 has so far been the year when tennis has gone back to the future. For the very first time since 2010, the first three Slams of the season have been shared by both — the Swiss with the Australian Open and Wimbledon even as Nadal settled in with a record tenth crown on the red clay of Paris.
No doubt, the pair has taken tennis to new heights and over nearly a decade and a half has in turn lifted each other’s game to levels never seen before. Federer has more Slams than any other male player in the history of the sport with 19, while Nadal is in second with 15.
But for all it matters, the Spaniard leads the overall head-to-head 23-14 and has delivered consistently on the big stage by winning nine of the pair’s 12 Grand Slam matches so far.
Those statistics aside, it has been the on-court rivalry between the duo that has been inspiring, more like a dormant volcano, while elevating them both as possibly among the greatest in modern-day tennis.
Their on-court tussles now belong to history, and these can be loosely split into five phases depending on what stages both were during the past 13 years on the ATP World Tour.
It was in March 2004, and barely a week after Federer had won the second of eight titles at the Dubai Tennis Championships, that the two met for the very first time in Miami. Federer was 22 and already a pronounced multiple Grand Slam champion. Nadal by contrast was just 17 and taking his first tentative steps in the sport. The young Spaniard went on to win the match 6-3, 6-3 and everyone took notice.
By the end of 2005, Federer had five Grand Slam titles, but a year later, the two players had sort of settled into a bit of a pattern where the Swiss number one had his name on pretty much all of the high-profile grass and hard court titles while Nadal would be scampering about for anything on clay.
The next stage saw the Spaniard finding a new self-belief with each meeting against Federer bringing out the best from him. Nadal won three clay court finals in 2006, including the French Open. But Nadal’s major heartache was that he lost in four sets at Wimbledon. However, this was the turning point for him as it was the first time-ever that Nadal had advanced further than the third round on the hallowed grass of SW19.
From 2007 to 2009 tennis fans got to witness the high point of the Nadal-Federer rivalry and along with it their on-court battles took their breath away. Federer was No. 1 and Nadal was No. 2 — positions that they clung on till 2010 — a record sequence in the history of the ATP Rankings. Such was their dominance that among themselves they contested five Grand Slam finals between 2007 and 2009, with Nadal winning four of them — with the evident highlight being the Spaniard’s rather one-sided 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 decimation of Federer in the 2008 Roland Garros finale.
And as the years rolled by, their rivalry blossomed into an endearing tale — everyone wanted to be part of this great tennis happening. Who can forget that epic final at Wimbledon in the first week of July 2008 when an imperious Nadal won in five sets after four hours and 48 minutes to finally dethrone King Federer on his own turf.
Nadal had truly arrived and the tennis world raved.
And then, everything fell apart for Nadal as he battled severe knee problems, and much of 2009 was wiped out. Federer went on to win his only crown at Roland Garros and doubled up his joy by winning Wimbledon yet again to take his Slams to 15 — one clear of record-holder Pete Sampras.
By 2010 Nadal made his way back with three Majors. Ironically, none of these were against Federer. And when Djokovic powered his way through winning three of the four Slams in 2011, meetings between Nadal and Federer became even rare. By the time the duo met — 2011 French Open final followed by the Australian Open semi-finals of 2012 and 2014 — it was always Nadal ending on the winning side.
In the past two seasons it has been a new rivalry between Djokovic and Murray that took centre-stage, but this has not managed to capture the imagination of the tennis world like how a Federer-Nadal meeting has. The current season has witnessed a re-birth of this rivalry, the only difference being that the Swiss has managed to overpower Nadal on all three occasions they’ve met this year — the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Miami.
So, if Federer’s back holds up and Nadal can stay injury-free, then we can have no worry whatsoever that we may once again witness one of those most endearing sporting highlights of all time at the finale on September 10.
