Tennis' Era of Greatness Gives Us Two Jordans, Two Tigers

Ruth. Gretzky. Ali. Montana. Phelps. Jordan. Woods.

In sports, we love nothing more than Greatness. We can’t measure it or define it, yet we all know it when we see it. The Great athletes combine superior physical and psychological abilities to do super-human things with ease and style.

They seem to go through their careers immune to serious injuries and oblivious to distractions of fame or personal life. They bring new elements to their sport that define and elevate the way it is played. Most importantly, they win, but they don’t just win—they dominate. Their closest competitors rarely even come close.

Greatness is the rarest thing in any sport, coming around maybe once in a generation—sometimes less. Consider that it’s been 10 years since Michael Jordan won his last championship, and 12 years since Tiger Woods won his first major, yet we still wonder when we will see the “next M.J.” and when someone will emerge to challenge Tiger as the world’s best golfer.

History tells us that neither will happen soon.

I’ve often wondered what the NBA would have been like in the 1990s if there had been two “Jordans” fiercely competing for those six titles, or what the PGA would look like now if there were two “Tigers” with equal focus, drive, and skill. Would each of their accomplishments be leveled out and diminished—a Greatness zero-sum game?

Would one of them succumb with their Greatness neutralized and unfulfilled? Or would each be pushed by the other to even more sublime levels of competition and performance?

For those of you with similar musings, I offer you men’s Tennis. Specifically, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

Federer is Tennis’ undisputed generational Great. The sport’s Jordan or Tiger. To understand his Greatness, you have to look at more than just his 13 major championships and consider the total impact he has had on the game, from his revolutionary style of play to his unprecedented success across the schizophrenia of Tennis’ three unique playing surfaces—grass, hard court, and clay.  

Federer began winning majors at Wimbledon in 2003. In stark contrast to the powerful serve and volley “blast and smash” play of Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and others that had dominated the game for 20 years, Federer won with a finesse style, outmaneuvering opponents with backcourt control and error-less precision.

Now, just five-and-a-half short years since Federer started winning, there is not a single serve and volley player among the top ranked players. The style of play of the entire field changed just to try to compete with Federer.

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.