Federer’s wins have all come on grass at Wimbledon and on hard courts at the Australian and U.S. Opens, but Federer developed his game to compete in all four major tournaments, including the French Open, played on clay.
Clay-court tennis requires adjustments to every aspect of the game. Players must use completely different techniques based on the way the ball spins and bounces and the player's feet slide across the surface when hitting each shot.
The pace of play is drastically slower and shots and strategies that work well on grass or hard courts will get you killed on clay. Winning on both surfaces is something few players ever do, and most don’t even try. In the past 30 years, only Agassi and Borg have won both the French Open and Wimbledon.
By 2005, Federer was close to becoming the top player on clay, reaching the finals at the French Open. A win there would put him on a clear course to have 16, 17, 18 majors by now. But something happened that slowed him down.
Something that Jordan, Tiger or most any other great never encountered. It wasn’t injury, issues in his personal life or loss of interest. It was another Great. An 18-year old, left-handed Spaniard named Rafael Nadal.
Nadal emerged in 2005, smothering his opponents with pure strength, stamina and athleticism, a style entirely different from Federer’s finesse and control. When he beat Federer at the French in 2005, few saw him as anything more than next European clay court phenom.
Then in 2006, he did the unexpected making the finals of Wimbledon, where he lost to Federer. The same thing would happen again in 2007: Nadal beat Federer in the French, Federer beat Nadal at Wimbledon. For the first time anybody could remember, the two best players were the two best players regardless of what surface they were playing on.
The lines of clay and grass court specialization had gotten blurry.
In 2008, Nadal beat Federer in the French and Wimbledon, the first player since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win both in the same year. Nadal also won the gold-medal at the Olympics in China that year. We were seeing Greatness. Again.
Tennis, it appeared, was giving us the rarest, most unlikely phenomenon in the sports cosmos: two Greats at the same time. Two Jordans, two Tigers competing against each other with equal talent and determination.
Neither showing any indication that they would be pushed aside. Both proving that they would elevate their play to the highest possible limit to win.
At 22, Nadal is only getting better. At 27, Federer still has several good years left, and proved he is playing with the same dominance as at any time in his career by winning the U.S. Open last year and the semi-finals in Australia on Monday night.
Realistically, these two could compete against each other for another five years, or more. They are currently on a collision course to face each other again in the Australian Open finals this coming Sunday.
Nearly everyone who watched the Wimbledon final last year agreed it was one of the greatest matches ever played. If you watched, you saw how special the next few years of this rivalry will be. If you didn’t, it's time you start watching.
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