The Grandstand‘s Top 10 Matches of the Year list continues with the top five, starting with the Wimbledon semifinal between Roger Federer at Rafael Nadal at No. 5.
The only thing lacking in the 40th installment of the legendary Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal rivalry was a fifth and final set.
That’s not to say this Wimbledon semifinal showdown was without drama; not at all. The zenith came with Federer serving for the match at 5-4 in the fourth. Nadal earned a break chance at 30-40–which the third-seeded Swiss saved–and then fought off two match points, both with clean winners. Federer eventually capitalized on his third chance, getting the job done after three hours and two minutes.
The eight-time champion at the All-England Club fired 14 aces compared to only one double-fault, won 25 of 33 net points, and almost doubled his unforced errors with winners (51 to 27). It was without question one of Federer’s two best performances of the year (also the Nitto ATP Finals against Novak Djokovic)…and yet it still wasn’t easy against a familiar foe who was up for the challenge on a difficult surface for this matchup.
“It’s always very, very cool to play against Rafa here, especially (because we) haven’t played in so long,” Federer noted. “It lived up to the hype, especially from coming out of the gates we were both playing very well. Then the climax at the end with the crazy last game…. It had everything at the end, which was great.
“It’s definitely, definitely going to go down as one of my favorite matches to look back at, again, because it’s Rafa, it’s at Wimbledon, the crowds were into it, great weather. I felt like I played [well] also throughout the four sets.”
“I started to play much better at the end of the match,” Nadal assessed. “But it was too late.”
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Also, Nole got super confident after that win. Until that point, he was struggling lot from slump.
Imo Djoko was very lucky to have won both 2018 and 2019 Wimbledon, as he’s helped by the organisers in 2018 and by Fed in 2019. He was getting out of a slump in 2018, and watching him the whole tournament in 2018, he had not given me the feel that’s he dominating the field at Wimbledon. It’s unlike 2011 or 2014/2015 (though he was pushed to five sets by Marin or Anderson back then, but both of them were playing on their best surface), and he certainly played better against Fed back then.
Both Rafa and Fed were a bit unfortunate not to win their respective match vs Djoko at Wimbledon; it would then be 14 Djoko, 20 Rafa and 21 Fed.
Yes, I agreed that Novak had a tremendous amount of luck at Wimby 2018 and 2019. IMO more in this year’s final than in last year’s semis. This year Fed failed spectacularly to end a match which was as good as won. Last year Novak was a tiny bit better in coping with the given circumstances than Rafa.
But in both cases we should concede tust Novak was incredibly tenacious and never gave Up.
Your last sentence is the most important one. A lot of ‘luck’ is just that. What about AO 2012, US Open 2010 against Fed ?
Nole winning all of those.
Or USO2011 against Fed? It’ seems that Djoko more lucky vs Fedal than they vs Djoko!
Or we could say Nole was unlucky at RG 2013, but Nadal fans would say otherwise…
Djoko no such luck vs Stan, other than AO2013 and USO2014 (both went five sets), he had been losing to Stan at the slams, once in five sets (AO2014), the rest of their three encounters (FO2015, USO2016, USO2019) were not so complicated.
Stan was the nemesis of Djoko at the slams, Fedal weren’t. In fact Djoko was the nemesis of Fedal at the slams in this ending decade.
Or I would say, Djoko being the nemesis of Rafa at the slams after 2013. They were 3-3 at the slams from 2011-2013; there on, Djoko seemed to have the upper hand, 3-1 Djoko from 2014-2019.