How Nadal’s great rivalries defined an unforgettable era

New Delhi: You grow up listening to family and friends talk about how great sport was in their era. The memories, a mixture of tinted flashbacks and emotions, always make things seem a little greater than they perhaps really were.
Each era, however, has a common thread that defines it. Records and rivalries are the two things that draw people in and keep them there. They also serve as markers for the future.
But years from now, the wise men will look back at this golden age, when Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic ruled the courts, and say that this era is where, perhaps, the buck truly stopped. For, how do you top three of the greatest players ever, fighting tooth and nail… losing, winning, evolving and almost forcing fans to pick one side?
Nadal was crucial in getting the era started because before he arrived on the scene as a fresh-faced 15-year-old in 2002, Federer was an unstoppable winning machine. The Swiss ace made it look ridiculously easy and while it was boring at times, it was at least beautifully boring.
It took Nadal a couple of years to find his feet and then suddenly, in 2005, he got going. The Spaniard won the French Open on debut and his 11 trophies for the year were the most for any teenager in ATP history.
Now, suddenly, questions were being asked of Federer; questions that had never been asked before. For a while, the Swiss star stood his ground.
Federer lost to Nadal at the French Open in 2006 before winning the rematch at Wimbledon. The following year saw a repeat of the results. And then, 2008 came along.
Few tennis fans will ever forget July 6th, 2008. At 9:16pm local time, in the fading light, Nadal dropped his racquet and himself to the ground and screamed his lungs out. He had finally conquered Wimbledon and Federer.
It felt like Nadal was all set to dominate the game, just as once Federer had. And for a couple of years, he did that as well. But little did he know that another player was getting all set to upset the applecart.
Nadal got under Federer’s skin very early in his career. The Spaniard’s grit, determination, never-give-up attitude was completely at odds with the twinkle-toed brilliance that seemed to flow out of the Swiss player. The contrast created all the magic.
Djokovic, however, started off very differently. Of the first 18 matches that he played against Nadal, the Serbian won just four. This would have been a body blow to many players but not to Djokovic. He was made of sterner stuff.
If Nadal was the kryptonite to Federer, Djokovic suddenly upped his fitness levels (his famous gluten-free diet helped) to storm back into the reckoning. To many, Federer vs Nadal was art but Nadal vs Djokovic was a brutal cutback to reality. It was two fighters going at each other until only one was left standing.
By this time, the Federer vs Nadal rivalry seemed to be petering out. After 25 matches between the two, Nadal was comfortably ahead with 17 wins. But Djokovic started catching up. One stepped down and the other stepped up. Nadal was the bridge, yet it was their collective evolution that kept the rivalries (and the sport) on the boil.
Nadal and Federer ended up playing each other 40 times, with the former leading 24-16 overall but it was only in the second half of his career that Federer, the oldest of the trio, managed to close the gap. The late surge saw him win seven of their last eight matches. By the end though, they seemed more friends than rivals.
Nadal and Djokovic were at it for a long time, going all the way back to 2006. No two male players have faced each other as many times as them (60). Djokovic is the only player to have beaten Nadal in all four Grand Slams. Of their 60 meetings, 27 matches have been on hard courts with Djokovic leading 20–7, 29 on clay with Nadal leading 20–9, and 4 on grass where they are tied 2–2. They had their surfaces and they ruled with an iron fist on them.
Nadal’s retirement will finally bring the curtains down on a stage that few could have dreamt up. It is rare that the best of all time appear in the same time frame and rarer still to see them clash over and over again.
Basketball superstars Larry Bird and Magic Johnson met just three times in the NBA Finals during the 13 years that their careers crossed. Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought only three times, just once for the heavyweight title. Golfing greats Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson hardly ever reached the back nine together in contention at a Major.
But tennis fans had the privilege of watching 100 matches of the very best trying their hardest to bring the other down. They were so good that if you got used to it, as many of us did, everything else seemed like a climb down of sorts.
So, maybe when you are a little older and dip into your memories and talk about this era, don’t be surprised if your assertions brook no arguments. For the world had never seen rivalries like this before and in all likelihood, it won’t see them after this either.