Why Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal Matches at US Open Series Are So Rare
It was almost a forgone conclusion that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal would not meet in the Western & Southern Open quarterfinals in Cincinnati. It’s late summer in North America where hot weather and faster hard courts have all but conspired to deny these two superpowers any meaningful rivalry chapter for the U.S. Open Series. The New York Times' Ben Rothenberg noted Feliciano Lopez ended Nadal's run at the 2015 Western & Southern Open:
It’s one of the strangest quirks to their storied rivalry that they have played 33 matches but have only met one time at Canada, Cincinnati (2013 quarterfinal) and the U.S. Open. Yes, that means no meetings at the U.S. Open in any round.
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Why have they danced around this occasion? Are they just worn-out warriors too fatigued to strap on their championship armor? Or is there more to this riddle? Tennis.com also highlighted Lopez's win over Nadal:
The Early-Careers Pattern
From 2004-07, while Federer was dominating the tennis universe as if he owned the sun, seven planets and the asteroid belt, Nadal was digging in his heels to all things clay and issuing challenges on grass. The rivalry was centered in Europe, where Nadal’s legend at Roland Garros and Federer’s dominance at Wimbledon made them global superstars.
Meanwhile, Nadal was often hit-and-miss with the North American hard-court tour. It’s not like he couldn’t compete for titles on hard courts. He was fantastic in 2005 in winning 11 titles, including late-season hard-court championships at Canada, Beijing and (hard courts) Madrid. He won big hard-court titles in 2008, even as Federer was cleaning up with his fifth U.S. Open title in a row.
So why were their ships passing in the night?
Part of this is explained with their priorities. While Nadal puts the lion’s share of his strength into the clay-court season, he is often exhausted during the second half of the year where the speedier hard courts on the New World continent are not as enticing to his skill set or because injuries have often compromised his grueling style.
Federer is historically more of an all-courts champion, and he won the Rogers Cup twice early on, but since he has rarely been in contention. Meanwhile, Nadal has bagged three of those; Federer didn’t even play in 2005, 2012-13 and 2015.
Conversely, Federer has clearly put more energy on the speedier Cincinnati courts where he has nabbed six titles. In other words, their peaks and valleys in North America often coincide.
Another Federer point is that he held up his greatness from 2004-09 in getting to the U.S. Open final each year, but Nadal was unable to get through his portion of the draws.
In their rivalry, the U.S. Open series, like the theme of a MGMT song, was fated to pretend. The W&S Open's official Twitter account noted Federer's easy win over Kevin Anderson:
The Later-Careers Pattern
By the 2009 Australian Open, in which the two rivals played one of their greatest championship fights, it looked like they would have some U.S. Open clashes as well.
Nadal’s inexplicable loss to Robin Soderling at the 2009 French Open and his subsequent knee problems seemed to take the starch out of his momentum, as well as breathe a second dominant phase into Federer.
Who would have known that Juan Martin Del Potro would deliver a crushing semifinal beatdown on Nadal?
By 2010, Federer would slowly fade, and Nadal would finally get his U.S. Open breakthrough title. Likewise in 2013, and as a role reversal of their early years, Nadal would peak for the U.S. Open title, while Federer suffered through injuries and difficulties.
There is, of course, one other major factor that has intervened on their star-crossed New World relationship.
Yes, it’s Novak Djokovic.
Nadal’s time at the top was just as soon spent in overcoming Federer as trying to fend off Djokovic’s rising superpower. For the Spaniard, this proved to be a far more difficult task in more venues, ranging from clay, all types of hard courts and one 2011 Wimbledon meeting.
For instance, even before Djokovic was a world-beater, he showed he would be trouble for Nadal, knocking him out of the 2007 Rogers Cup semifinals where Federer was waiting and then replicating this in the 2009 Cincinnati semifinals where Fedal was once again denied.
Most significantly, Djokovic knocked Federer out of the 2010 and 2011 U.S. Open semifinals when the Swiss maestro was two match points from a meeting with Nadal in the latter. That was the final nail on the U.S. Open gateway because Federer and Nadal would never really peak again while the other was also riding high.
We could also mention that Nadal sat out the complete 2012 and 2014 U.S. Open series with injuries.
So we got one fairly insignificant meeting in the 2013 Cincinnati quarterfinals, noteworthy in that Federer, for all of his struggles, took the first set off Nadal and that the Spaniard would eventually win the match and sweep the U.S. Open series, something that Federer and Djokovic have never accomplished.
Was it fate or timing?
Now here we are closing in on the 2015 U.S. Open where it’s possible that Federer and Nadal could meet in the quarterfinals or later.
Just don’t bet on it.
The tennis gods have their own interests, and they seem to have had no interest in creating a script for North America. Maybe they are too enamored with American football to invest in tennis. If 2015 does indeed break the mold, it’s not likely to produce an epic championship bout and more likely to be an anticlimactic rendezvous like the most recent overripe Djokovic-Nadal French Open quarterfinal.
But that doesn’t mean tennis fans cannot hope for one B-side meeting.
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