Comparing Two Professional Tennis Players: Federer and Nadal

This article aims to compare two professional tennis players namely: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The reason why I chose these two players is because of the fact that they engaged in a storied rivalry that many consider to be among the greatest in tennis history. The purpose of this paper is to compare and describe the performance of these two players over a five year period (from 2004 to 2008) using mathematics and statistics.

The following table compares the performance of the two players from 2004 to 2008:

Num.	Date	Tournament, location	Surface	Round	Winner	Federer	Nadale
1.	2004	MSM, US	Hard	R32	Nadal	0	1
2.	2005	MSM, US	Hard	Final	Federer	1	1
3.	2006	MSR, Italy	Clay	Final	Nadal	1	5
4.	2006	Wimbledon	Grass	Final	Federer	2	6
5.	2007	Fr. Open	Clay	Final	Nadal	4	8
6.	2008	MSH, Ger.	Clay	Final	Nadal	6	10
7.	2008	Wimbledon	Grass	Final	Nadal	6	12

MSM: Master Series Miami

MSR: Master Series Rome

Fr: French

MSH, Ger: Master Series Hamburg Germany

We can see from the table that the rivalry has been a huge part of both men’s careers. Federer had the most dominant four-year run in tennis history from 2000 through 2004. His overall match record was 315–24, but this included a mere 6–8 against Nadal, who was the only man to have a winning record against him. Moreover, Nadal repeatedly denied Federer a Career Grand Slam by defeating him at the French Open in 2007. Also, both men not only possess Open era records for consucative wins on a single surface — Federer on both grass, and hard courts, Nadal on clay, but all three streaks were ended by the other man. In the build-up to the "Battle of the Surfaces" exhibition match in May 2007, The New York Times said that having the "world's best" grass-court and clay-court players, respectively, facing off against each was an exciting aspect of their rivalry, and the match.

Nadal defeated Federer during each of his six title runs — five times in the final and once in a semifinal. Also, their 2008 Wimbledon final, in which Nadal was the winner, is widely considered the greatest match in tennis history.

As far as 2009, Nadal is expected to be N. 1 tennis player because he is the only tennis player who posses consecutive wins over Federer.

Sources:

Christopher Clarey (2007-05-01). "Tennis: Nadal to meet Federer in an exhibition". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/sports/01iht-arena.1.5513670.html. Retrieved Nov. 20 2009

"Head to Head player details". ATP's official site. http://www.atpworldtour.com/tennis/3/en/players/headtohead/player1=roger+federer&player2=rafael+nadal. Retrieved Nov. 19 2009

This project was completed by

Abdelfattah LAABIDI