The final major of the tennis season kicks off Monday at Flushing Meadows, and the big storyline — predictably — revolves around Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
A Nadal victory at the U.S. Open would be perhaps his most valuable title. It would give him three major victories in 2010, complete his career Grand Slam and cement Rafa as the player of the year for the second time in three years. Meanwhile, a win in New York would salvage an otherwise rough year for King Roger, who began the season with a promising win at the Australian Open but then bowed out in the quarterfinals at both the French Open and Wimbledon.
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In what must seem like an off year for him, Federer already is assured of an eighth straight season with at least one major victory. He’s the best singles player of all time, and yet Nadal is charging fast. A win at the U.S. Open would give him nine major championships before his 25th birthday — seven fewer than Federer currently has but one more than Federer had at that age.
It now becomes impossible to mention one without the other. Nadal and Federer have jointly dominated men’s tennis for the past six years, winning 20 of the 23 Grand Slam events since the beginning of the 2005 season. Tennis experts have analyzed and scrutinized the dynamic of their rivalry so much that we somehow lose track of how truly incredible they’ve been. They point to the 24-year-old Nadal’s rise and logically assume the 29-year-old Federer must be falling (his rate of victory is trailing off, and it must be because his game is slipping).
In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Federer, mind you, has won four of the 11 Grand Slam events of the past three years. In 2008 he won the U.S. Open and was runner-up at the French Open and Wimbledon. Any other player on the planet would kill for that kind of off year. Nadal’s ascent and Federer’s downshift are intertwined all right. But it isn’t because Nadal is hitting his prime and Federer is breaking down; it’s because Federer didn’t have a rival of comparable ability for years. Now he does, and the sport is better for it.
