Wimbledon 2018: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal primed for a fourth showdown on the hallowed grasscourts

“An epic match so close, so reflective of their competitive balance that, in the end, the true winner was the sport itself”.

This is an excerpt from Tennis Channel’s documentary, 'Strokes of Genius', taken out on the 10th anniversary of arguably the greatest tennis match ever played -- the final of 2008 Wimbledon, where Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal crossed swords.

This year, more than any in the last ten years, we have finally got a chance in our hands for the two great rivals to add another chapter to their storied rivalry with a Federer vs Nadal final topping bookmakers’ charts by some margin. And given their recent form, someone would have to play the match of his life to knock them out.

Is this a repeat of the 2008 season for Nadal?

Rafael Nadal

It is all lined up for Nadal coming to Wimbledon on the back of a record 11th French Open.

His probable quarter-final opponent is Juan Martin del Porto, who he easily dispatched in this year’s Roland Garros (semi-final) and last year’s US Open(semi-final). Returning from a devastating slump of form and two elbow surgeries, it is hard to imagine his most daunting semi-final opponent, Novak Djokovic would reach there, let alone topple him.

Getting past his dreaded opponent will be the mission for Federer and in the build-up to the Wimbledon Championships, he has showed exactly how devastating he can be on grass. He won the Stuttgart Open before losing to Borna Coric at the Halle final.

At Wimbledon too, he has ripped through his opponents and with Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic crashing out, his half of the draw is even more delicious than Nadal’s. He has a 4-0 advantage over his probable quarter-final opponent Kevin Anderson.

In all likelihood, he would be facing the big-serving Milos Raonic in the semi-finals. Raonic is another one of tennis’s next generation, promising so much but achieving so little. His record against Federer is a depressing 3-11 with his last defeat coming as recently as the final of this year’s Stuttgart Open. With such odds, no extra intelligence would be required to predict that another Fedal encounter is definitely on the cards.

The two have met 38 times in the past, with Nadal leading 23 to 15. However, if you take out 15 matches on clay, which Nadal leads by a staggering 13 to 2, you start seeing the crumbs for Federer.

Moreover, for however brutal and brilliant Nadal has been throughout the clay season (he bettered the previous record of straight sets won on clay from 36 to 50), it has taken a toll on his body. While crushing life out of his opponents, Nadal did run ragged by the physicality of top tennis and had to sit out of the Queen's Club Championships. His only preparation was the exhibition Aspall Classic in which he lost to Lucas Pouille.

Federer has been in sublime form so far

On the contrary, Federer sat out of the entire clay season, and, on return from his now established sabbatical, he has looked like a bloke chasing history. Nadal may also have tissues of scar with Federer getting the better of him in each of their last five encounters. With an Australian Open title and a return to ATP No. 1 spot soon after (for the first time since 2012), the Swiss Express with its luxurious forehand, ageless backhand, and unhurried footwork is chucking momentum by the minute.

But if there was one person to gamble on for breaking Federer’s remarkable run of continued success on grass, it would surely be Nadal, who defeated Federer in their last Wimbledon encounter which, if you ask, was that fateful evening of 2008 written in history. That match was the last of their Wimbledon trilogy and in the previous two finals, Nadal had gradually driven a wedge.

In 2006, he managed a set. In 2007, he got two and, before ‘that’ match, he had said that the only possible way of beating Federer was to break that easy rhythm of his and drive him close to despair. Nadal did exactly that by winning the first two sets 6-4, 6-4. But the master survivor that Federer is, he fought back to claim the next two. But after 4 hours and 48 minutes of rain, drama and alternatively elegant and gritty tennis, Federer was drowned in darkness and heap of the Spaniard’s joy. The scoreboard read 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7.

After ten long years however, Federer has endured and they both have somehow wound back the clock, sharing the last six Majors between them. So much has changed since then. Djokovic, Wawrinka and Andy Murray have peaked and slumped, but the fascination of this rivalry just never ends.

Two geniuses have aged and faltered but have made their way back to the top. The All England Tennis Club offers perhaps the best and the last chance for a sequel to their fancied trilogy. Their rivalry can be described as an artist with an aggression vs a warrior with a fighting spirit, a surgeon vs a butcher, a poet’s dream vs a competitor’s embodiment. With England already in the FIFA World Cup semi-finals and the World Cup final starting merely two hours after the start of Wimbledon’s final, it will be fitting that Fedal with all the artistry of their contrasting styles, churn out yet another classic to the joy of tennis fans around the globe.

In the 'Strokes of Genius', the 2008 final match’s chair umpire Pascal Maria says that, "At one stage, I thought this match should never end. We don't want a winner, we want two winners. Let's stop it and we'll give them two trophies the next day, they both start again next year".

These matches should never end. For the sake of people. And Tennis.

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