5 great sportspersons and their biggest weaknesses

Roger Federer: Rafael Nadal

The Swiss legend and his Spanish archrival are close friends

It is not without reason that Roger Federer is considered the greatest tennis player to have ever lived. Everyone from tennis analysts to pundits, to Federer’s peers and his own idols, who played the game much before him, have described him as the GOAT – the greatest of all time.

His unparalleled skill has earned him 17 Grand Slams – across every surface, and a staggering 88 titles.

Federer holds most tennis records in the Open Era, a list that if one were to examine would go on forever. But there’s one opponent who seriously taxes the Swiss Maestro, and that is his friend and arch-rival Rafael Nadal. The two share a rivalry so iconic that reams of newsprint have been dedicated to analysing it, but when it comes down to the numbers, of the 34 matches the two have played against each other, it is Nadal who has won a mammoth 23 times.

Predictably, Nadal, described as the King of Clay, has trumped Federer more often than not on that surface; but he’s also taken victory over the Swiss on his own favoured surface, grass. In what shows his complete mastery of the surface, Federer has reached the final at Wimbledn ten times, a feat no other player has been able to achieve, and won 7 titles here – and with Pete Sampras is one of the only two players to have done so.

Of the pair’s last five meetings, it is Nadal who has won four; Federer has, however, won their most recent meeting, at the Swiss Indoors Basel in 2015. The pair have not yet faced off in the 2016 season, with Nadal crashing out of the Australian Open in a shock first-round ouster.

That could change, though, with the French Open around the corner and Nadal having declared a comeback of sorts with title victory at the Monte Carlo Masters on clay and the favourite to win the ongoing Barcelona Open on the same surface. Could he tax Federer, who has himself had surgery this year, on yet another occasion?