I'm counting down the Top 5 tennis matches I didn't see. Yes. Incredibly fascinating. You can read about the other ones below, but no links! You just got to go find them if you want.
1. Rafael Nadal v. Roger Federer, 2008 Wimbledon Final
You do not fuck with Roger Federer on grass.
In fact, up until about 2008, you could have stopped before the last 2 words and just said that you do not fuck with Roger Federer. From 2004 to 2007, Federer won 11 of 16 Grand Slam Tournaments, winning 3 each year in 2004, 2006 and 2007. That’s, um… not bad. Great players are pretty happy when they do that. Nadal did it once. Djokovic did it once. Federer did it three times. He also made it look easy.
From 2003 to 2007, Federer won 5 straight Wimbledon titles. If you don’t know, the four tennis Grand Slams are played on different surfaces. The Australian is a “soft” hard court, the French is played on red clay, Wimbledon on grass, and the U.S. Open on “hard” hard court. Each surface is different in terms of the style of play that will do well on it. Grass tends to be speedy, as the ball skips off the surface but without a lot of loft, or bounce, so you don’t have a lot of time to react and hit your normal kind of shot. This favors players who serve very well, because if you can put in a good serve, it’s going to be very hard to return. Sampras was one of the greatest servers ever, and he won Wimbledon a lot. Federer is also a phenomenal server, and he won 5 in a row from 2003 to 2007. That’s oversimplifying a bit – Federer is an all-around great tennis player – but let’s leave it here for the sake of brevity.
Federer also did well at the Australian and U.S. Opens on the hard courts (he won 5 U.S. Opens in a row too). He also did well at the French Open, reaching the Finals there each year from 2005 to 2007, but never won it because of this guy named Rafael Nadal who kept getting in his way. Nadal really, really liked playing on clay. He was born on it, raised on it, like most Spaniards. He’s won the French Open 8 times. In fact, Nadal has only ever lost at the French Open once. He’s played there 9 years, and he has a 59-1 match record.
So: it’s 2008. Federer is great on every surface, every tournament, just can’t quite figure out how to beat Nadal on clay. It seems like Nadal might prevent Federer from ever winning the French. But still, life is good. Federer has won 12 Major titles heading into 2008, and all he needs to do is win two more to tie Pete Sampras’ record of 14 all time and put his name in the conversation as the best ever to play the game. Nadal can beat him on clay, but Nadal is a clay-court specialist, not the all-around magician that Federer is. And no one else can touch him. All he has to do is win Wimbledon a 6th straight time and it’s all good. No problems. He’s beaten Nadal at Wimbledon the previous two years, even though 2007 was in 5 sets.
But… this Nadal kid. He’s, um, getting better. All the time. He gets to every ball, like a human backboard, making you hit shot after shot after shot until you finally make a mistake. And more often than not of late, he’s beating Federer wherever they play. His style gives Federer fits. At the 2008 French Open, Nadal didn’t just beat Federer, he destroyed him. It was a 6-3,6-1,6-0 mauling. He made the greatest player in the game look like a 10-year-old.
Still, it’s Wimbledon. It’s grass, it’s Federer, it’s history. You do not fuck with Federer on grass.
You see where this is going. Nadal fucked with Federer on grass.
When I think about this match, my palms start to sweat and my brain to vibrate. I cannot think of another moment that so clearly represented a total sea change, an earth shaking shift, in an entire sport. Nadal had never won a Grand Slam besides the French Open, and of all the other Majors, Wimbledon’s grass surface seemed least suited to his particular talents and style of play. People just did not win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back – they are played 1 month apart, and the French is slow and Wimbledon is fast. In the modern era, only two players had ever won those two tournaments in the same year: Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg. And the last time it had been done was 28 years earlier. Federer had won 5 straight Wimbledons and hardly seemed to break a sweat doing it. He was playing for history, for bragging rights to the pinnacle of the sport.
But you could feel Nadal coming. That shellacking he gave Federer at the French. The way he played getting into the Finals at Wimbledon. But… really? Could he do THAT? It’s hard to remember back to a time when we didn’t know, when it was happening in the moment.
Both players came out firing. Nadal broke Federer’s serve in the 3rd game, and from there clung by his fingernails to outlast Federer in service hold after service hold and take the first set in 10 games, 6-4. This was the first set Federer had lost at Wimbledon in 2008 – he’d played 6 matches up till then, and won each one handily in straight sets.
Federer has been in this match the whole time, though, and proves it by breaking Nadal’s serve in the 2nd game of the 2nd set to go up 2-0. But Nadal breaks back at 4-3, holds serve for 4-4. With momentum swinging firmly in his direction, he breaks Federer again for a 5-4 lead, and serves out the set 6-4.
Now the crowd is buzzing, back on its heels, shaking its collective head. Federer has never been down 2 sets to love in a Grand Slam final, ever. No one in history has ever come back from 2 sets down to win Wimbledon. It seems like Nadal is unstoppable today.
The 3rd set turns into a war. Neither player can break the other’s serve now. They trade point after brilliant point, game after brilliant game, but neither can gain the advantage and it goes to a tie-break at 6 games apiece, 6-6. In a tie-break, they play one continuous series of points. First one to win 7 points with at least a 2-point advantage wins the tie-break, and with it, the set . It’s tightly contested but Federer pulls it out 7-5. Nadal still leads 2 sets to one, but Federer is in the match.
4th set. Again, brilliant play, neither can gain an edge. Federer refuses to give Nadal an inch on his serve, but the upstart Spaniard is playing just as hard, just as tooth and nail. Again they end up tied 6 games to 6 and head into a tie-break. It will be legendary. I can’t improve on this description by Les Roopoanarine in The Guardian:
If you missed that, twice during the tie-break, Nadal had a chance to win the whole tournament. A single misstep from Federer, one great shot from Nadal, and it would have been over. Federer wouldn’t give up, played his usual level of gobstopping, and into the 5th set they go. This is the kind of thing that could shatter Nadal mentally – to have the match, the whole championship, on his racket, only to see it slip away and have to face another grinding set of tennis.
In the 5th set at Wimbledon, there are no tie-breaks. The players play until somebody wins by winning at least 6 games, and with a margin of at least 2 games. Once – not too long ago – a couple of guys played 118 games in the 5th set before one of them finally won it with a ludicrous score of 60 games to 58 games. The point being, in the 5th set, one of Nadal or Federer will have to break the other’s service game at some point to win the match. There hasn’t been a break of serve since the 2nd set, about 3 hours ago.
Their play, unbelievably, gets better. They go toe to toe like a couple of powerful, drunk and strangely graceful sailors. At 5-5, Federer serving, Nadal gets two break points. Federer promptly erases them both with an unreturnable serve, followed by one of his trademark forehand lasers. They trade 4 more games, reaching 7-7. At 15-40, Nadal has 2 break points but Federer fights them both off to get to deuce. Nadal gets another break point, Federer denies him again. Finally, on the 4th break point of the game, Federer sends a shot long and Nadal is up 8-7 and serving for the match.
During his service game, Nadal serves and volleys, not once, but twice. I won’t waste time explaining why this is amazing, except to say that he almost never does this, ever. He hasn’t done it in this match once previously. The game is hard fought, but finally after 4 hours and 40-odd minutes of play, in the twilight gloaming, Nadal wins the match and gains new stature in the tennis world.
6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7
Nadal transcendent, Federer despondent, the tennis landscape shattered, tennis fans everywhere exhausted, spent, and fumbling through long-forgotten drawers looking for an after-match cigarette.
CODA: Let us not feel too bad for Federer. As if we would anyway, but still. Two months later he would win his 13 Major at the U.S. Open (Nadal lost to someone else in the semis). But after four years, Nadal would wrest the top spot from Federer anyway and end 2008 with the #1 ranking. At the Australian Open in 2009, Nadal beat Federer in 5 sets for the championship, and Federer broke down crying afterward. This is a guy renowned for unflappability. Crying on camera. He realized that he had played 3 of the last 4 Majors against Nadal and lost every time, on three different surfaces – clay, grass and hard court. Like everyone else in the world, Federer was starting to wonder if he would ever have an answer to Nadal, if the torch had firmly been passed. But then Nadal lost his only French Open match of his lifetime in an early round, Federer capitalized and won his 14th Major there, the only time he’s won the French and giving him his career Grand Slam. One month later he broke Sampras’ record and claimed his 15th Major at Wimbledon, also joining Laver, Borg and Nadal as the only players ever to win the French and Wimbledon back to back. So Federer is doing fine.
But… WHAT ABOUT ME? Yes, I missed most of this match. I throw up in my mouth every time I think about it. The worst part? I don’t even clearly remember why. My best recollection is that we had someone visiting us for the weekend, someone not a tennis fan (will never do this again). I got up early and went to my in-laws' place to watch the first set, then Federer was up a break in the 2nd, and then my merciless wife, whom I love dearly but on this day, failed me like a deadbeat dad, made me leave to play host to our friends – friends whose identities I have steadfastly expunged from all memory. I missed the rest of the match, and ended up watching the 5th set later via DVR through decidedly blurred vision and grinding of teeth. I can live with having missed the other matches on this list. But this one… I may never forgive myself for.
I guarantee you this: on Wimbledon Finals weekend this year, my ass will be parked in front of a television, and it will not be moved.
Here are highlights from the entire Nadal-Federer match, but really, they don’t do it justice. The whole thing is available on YouTube if you have the stamina.
Next up in a day or two: Honorable Mentions, plus… Whither the Ladies?
1. Rafael Nadal v. Roger Federer, 2008 Wimbledon Final
You do not fuck with Roger Federer on grass.
In fact, up until about 2008, you could have stopped before the last 2 words and just said that you do not fuck with Roger Federer. From 2004 to 2007, Federer won 11 of 16 Grand Slam Tournaments, winning 3 each year in 2004, 2006 and 2007. That’s, um… not bad. Great players are pretty happy when they do that. Nadal did it once. Djokovic did it once. Federer did it three times. He also made it look easy.
From 2003 to 2007, Federer won 5 straight Wimbledon titles. If you don’t know, the four tennis Grand Slams are played on different surfaces. The Australian is a “soft” hard court, the French is played on red clay, Wimbledon on grass, and the U.S. Open on “hard” hard court. Each surface is different in terms of the style of play that will do well on it. Grass tends to be speedy, as the ball skips off the surface but without a lot of loft, or bounce, so you don’t have a lot of time to react and hit your normal kind of shot. This favors players who serve very well, because if you can put in a good serve, it’s going to be very hard to return. Sampras was one of the greatest servers ever, and he won Wimbledon a lot. Federer is also a phenomenal server, and he won 5 in a row from 2003 to 2007. That’s oversimplifying a bit – Federer is an all-around great tennis player – but let’s leave it here for the sake of brevity.
Federer also did well at the Australian and U.S. Opens on the hard courts (he won 5 U.S. Opens in a row too). He also did well at the French Open, reaching the Finals there each year from 2005 to 2007, but never won it because of this guy named Rafael Nadal who kept getting in his way. Nadal really, really liked playing on clay. He was born on it, raised on it, like most Spaniards. He’s won the French Open 8 times. In fact, Nadal has only ever lost at the French Open once. He’s played there 9 years, and he has a 59-1 match record.
So: it’s 2008. Federer is great on every surface, every tournament, just can’t quite figure out how to beat Nadal on clay. It seems like Nadal might prevent Federer from ever winning the French. But still, life is good. Federer has won 12 Major titles heading into 2008, and all he needs to do is win two more to tie Pete Sampras’ record of 14 all time and put his name in the conversation as the best ever to play the game. Nadal can beat him on clay, but Nadal is a clay-court specialist, not the all-around magician that Federer is. And no one else can touch him. All he has to do is win Wimbledon a 6th straight time and it’s all good. No problems. He’s beaten Nadal at Wimbledon the previous two years, even though 2007 was in 5 sets.
But… this Nadal kid. He’s, um, getting better. All the time. He gets to every ball, like a human backboard, making you hit shot after shot after shot until you finally make a mistake. And more often than not of late, he’s beating Federer wherever they play. His style gives Federer fits. At the 2008 French Open, Nadal didn’t just beat Federer, he destroyed him. It was a 6-3,6-1,6-0 mauling. He made the greatest player in the game look like a 10-year-old.
Still, it’s Wimbledon. It’s grass, it’s Federer, it’s history. You do not fuck with Federer on grass.
You see where this is going. Nadal fucked with Federer on grass.
When I think about this match, my palms start to sweat and my brain to vibrate. I cannot think of another moment that so clearly represented a total sea change, an earth shaking shift, in an entire sport. Nadal had never won a Grand Slam besides the French Open, and of all the other Majors, Wimbledon’s grass surface seemed least suited to his particular talents and style of play. People just did not win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back – they are played 1 month apart, and the French is slow and Wimbledon is fast. In the modern era, only two players had ever won those two tournaments in the same year: Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg. And the last time it had been done was 28 years earlier. Federer had won 5 straight Wimbledons and hardly seemed to break a sweat doing it. He was playing for history, for bragging rights to the pinnacle of the sport.
But you could feel Nadal coming. That shellacking he gave Federer at the French. The way he played getting into the Finals at Wimbledon. But… really? Could he do THAT? It’s hard to remember back to a time when we didn’t know, when it was happening in the moment.
Both players came out firing. Nadal broke Federer’s serve in the 3rd game, and from there clung by his fingernails to outlast Federer in service hold after service hold and take the first set in 10 games, 6-4. This was the first set Federer had lost at Wimbledon in 2008 – he’d played 6 matches up till then, and won each one handily in straight sets.
Federer has been in this match the whole time, though, and proves it by breaking Nadal’s serve in the 2nd game of the 2nd set to go up 2-0. But Nadal breaks back at 4-3, holds serve for 4-4. With momentum swinging firmly in his direction, he breaks Federer again for a 5-4 lead, and serves out the set 6-4.
Now the crowd is buzzing, back on its heels, shaking its collective head. Federer has never been down 2 sets to love in a Grand Slam final, ever. No one in history has ever come back from 2 sets down to win Wimbledon. It seems like Nadal is unstoppable today.
The 3rd set turns into a war. Neither player can break the other’s serve now. They trade point after brilliant point, game after brilliant game, but neither can gain the advantage and it goes to a tie-break at 6 games apiece, 6-6. In a tie-break, they play one continuous series of points. First one to win 7 points with at least a 2-point advantage wins the tie-break, and with it, the set . It’s tightly contested but Federer pulls it out 7-5. Nadal still leads 2 sets to one, but Federer is in the match.
4th set. Again, brilliant play, neither can gain an edge. Federer refuses to give Nadal an inch on his serve, but the upstart Spaniard is playing just as hard, just as tooth and nail. Again they end up tied 6 games to 6 and head into a tie-break. It will be legendary. I can’t improve on this description by Les Roopoanarine in The Guardian:
“Anyone recall another fourth-set tiebreak like this in a Wimbledon final? Sensational. It begins with an acrobatic backhand smash from Nadal that's threaded down the line by Federer for an improbable winner. The Spaniard responds with a devastating forehand, and some big serving then takes him 4-1 ahead. An equally huge forehand from Federer keeps him in the Championships as the players change ends at 4-2. But a lengthy exchange then takes Nadal within two points of the title as Federer sends a backhand wide: 5-2 Nadal. Unbelievably, Nadal throws in a double fault. Worse still for the faltering Majorcan, he then nets a backhand: 5-4. A forehand winner from Federer makes it 5-5, and a service winner brings up set point. The tension is palpable. But Nadal stands firm, rallying with Federer until [Federer] puts an off forehand wide: 6-6. They change ends. Federer puts a forehand approach long: championship point Nadal! But Federer, whose serve has been his mainstay throughout the tournament, pounds down an unreturnable delivery: 7-7. Incredible. But not as incredible as what follows, a running forehand pass from Nadal to reach Championship point again; an equally astounding backhand pass from Federer to pull level at 8-8. The Swiss simply won't lie down. A forehand winner gives Federer set point at 9-8, and when Nadal then sends a backhand long, pandemonium erupts: we're in for a fifth set.”
If you missed that, twice during the tie-break, Nadal had a chance to win the whole tournament. A single misstep from Federer, one great shot from Nadal, and it would have been over. Federer wouldn’t give up, played his usual level of gobstopping, and into the 5th set they go. This is the kind of thing that could shatter Nadal mentally – to have the match, the whole championship, on his racket, only to see it slip away and have to face another grinding set of tennis.
In the 5th set at Wimbledon, there are no tie-breaks. The players play until somebody wins by winning at least 6 games, and with a margin of at least 2 games. Once – not too long ago – a couple of guys played 118 games in the 5th set before one of them finally won it with a ludicrous score of 60 games to 58 games. The point being, in the 5th set, one of Nadal or Federer will have to break the other’s service game at some point to win the match. There hasn’t been a break of serve since the 2nd set, about 3 hours ago.
Their play, unbelievably, gets better. They go toe to toe like a couple of powerful, drunk and strangely graceful sailors. At 5-5, Federer serving, Nadal gets two break points. Federer promptly erases them both with an unreturnable serve, followed by one of his trademark forehand lasers. They trade 4 more games, reaching 7-7. At 15-40, Nadal has 2 break points but Federer fights them both off to get to deuce. Nadal gets another break point, Federer denies him again. Finally, on the 4th break point of the game, Federer sends a shot long and Nadal is up 8-7 and serving for the match.
During his service game, Nadal serves and volleys, not once, but twice. I won’t waste time explaining why this is amazing, except to say that he almost never does this, ever. He hasn’t done it in this match once previously. The game is hard fought, but finally after 4 hours and 40-odd minutes of play, in the twilight gloaming, Nadal wins the match and gains new stature in the tennis world.
6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7
Nadal transcendent, Federer despondent, the tennis landscape shattered, tennis fans everywhere exhausted, spent, and fumbling through long-forgotten drawers looking for an after-match cigarette.
CODA: Let us not feel too bad for Federer. As if we would anyway, but still. Two months later he would win his 13 Major at the U.S. Open (Nadal lost to someone else in the semis). But after four years, Nadal would wrest the top spot from Federer anyway and end 2008 with the #1 ranking. At the Australian Open in 2009, Nadal beat Federer in 5 sets for the championship, and Federer broke down crying afterward. This is a guy renowned for unflappability. Crying on camera. He realized that he had played 3 of the last 4 Majors against Nadal and lost every time, on three different surfaces – clay, grass and hard court. Like everyone else in the world, Federer was starting to wonder if he would ever have an answer to Nadal, if the torch had firmly been passed. But then Nadal lost his only French Open match of his lifetime in an early round, Federer capitalized and won his 14th Major there, the only time he’s won the French and giving him his career Grand Slam. One month later he broke Sampras’ record and claimed his 15th Major at Wimbledon, also joining Laver, Borg and Nadal as the only players ever to win the French and Wimbledon back to back. So Federer is doing fine.
But… WHAT ABOUT ME? Yes, I missed most of this match. I throw up in my mouth every time I think about it. The worst part? I don’t even clearly remember why. My best recollection is that we had someone visiting us for the weekend, someone not a tennis fan (will never do this again). I got up early and went to my in-laws' place to watch the first set, then Federer was up a break in the 2nd, and then my merciless wife, whom I love dearly but on this day, failed me like a deadbeat dad, made me leave to play host to our friends – friends whose identities I have steadfastly expunged from all memory. I missed the rest of the match, and ended up watching the 5th set later via DVR through decidedly blurred vision and grinding of teeth. I can live with having missed the other matches on this list. But this one… I may never forgive myself for.
I guarantee you this: on Wimbledon Finals weekend this year, my ass will be parked in front of a television, and it will not be moved.
Here are highlights from the entire Nadal-Federer match, but really, they don’t do it justice. The whole thing is available on YouTube if you have the stamina.
Next up in a day or two: Honorable Mentions, plus… Whither the Ladies?
I've been waiting for this post and when I saw the title I put my first up and yelled "YES"!!! What a match- I'm happy to report I saw this one too. Amazing men and amazing tennis. Cannot wait for Wimbledon this year Nadal is back in shape and it should be a battle.
ReplyDeleteI just want Murray back and firing on all cylinders. I hope the time off does him good. I don't care who wins, I want two fantastic semis and a legendary final. And I want to see every minute of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree- I route for Murray. I like him, I like him mom and I like what Ivan has done with him. I especially like that Murray's current girlfriend once broke up with him because in her works "He sits in front of the TV and plays video games all day and all night". I'm hoping the rest worked for Murray. I'm also a fan of David Ferrer and although the final of the French was not what I hoped for I was thrilled that at 31 years of age he finally made it to a final.
ReplyDelete