It’s play it again time for Djokovic and Nadal
RAFAEL NADAL versus Novak Djokovic. It does not quite roll off the tongue like Rafael Nadal versus Roger Federer, but it is a phrase that you have to use more often.
In fact, when they meet in tonight’s US Open final it will be their 37th match, equalling the record of John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl’s f or the most f requently witnessed headtohead since the game went fully ‘Open’ in 1968.
And given that the Spaniard and the Serb are only 27 and 26 r espectively, the all time benchmark will surely be set and the half century of meetings should be reached before they are done.
It is a testament to their amazing consistency that the pair have met so much, and also to the structure of the professional game. For all its faults, in tennis the best do get to face the best on a regular basis.
So regularly for Nadal and Djokovic that they are now ahead of the sport’s most noted rivalries of recent decades.
Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg played each other 35 times as did McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, while Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi met on 34 occasions. A curiosity is that McEnroe only met Bjorn Borg 14 times.
Andy Murray, who yesterday flew to Croatia with his GB Davis Cup t eammates to prepare f or Friday’s World Group promotion playoff, has ‘only’ played Djokovic and Nadal 19 times each.
The Djokovic - Nadal rivalry is also a tribute to their sheer durability which, in the former’s case, is bound to be tested out this evening.
It took him four hours and nine minutes t o get past Stanislas Wawrinka on Saturday, whereas the Spaniard was an easy winner over Richard Gasquet. As at Wimbledon, when he had tussled with Juan Martin Del Potro, Djokovic may have done himself some damage by getting into such a prolonged semifinal scrap.
NADAL has a newfound durability when it comes to hard courts which, it was feared a year ago, he would have to avoid completely because of the damage they do to his knees.
Yet he now has his patella tendinitis under such control that he has opted to play for Spain in the Davis Cup versus Ukraine later this week.
It would appear that the prolonged rest he gave his knees up until February has regenerated them, as has the (legal) treatment of injecting blood platelets into the affected area to assist repairing the tendon. Such has been the turnaround for him that he has won every hardcourt match he has played since returning, winning three Masters titles in North America and reaching the final here with his serve having been broken only once.
It is sometimes said that hard courts are not his favoured surface, but that i s more applicable to indoor play.
Outdoors, other players would kill to have his type of achievement in this environment.
Nadal, who leads the series 2115, has to be considered the clear favourite for the match.
Since the run of losing seven straight finals to Djokovic throughout 2011 to last year’s Australian Open final he has changed the momentum of their meetings to the point where he has won five out of the last six.
Djokovic’s remarkable fighting spirit got him through against Wawrinka, but along the way he suffered major dips in performance. His frustration was such that he was swearing in Serbian at coach Marian Vajda and received a warning for being coached from the stands.
But the evercautious Nadal, admitted: ‘I would prefer to play someone else, we don’t have to be stupid about this. I prefer to play someone I have better chances against.
‘But always we play exciting matches, we take our games to the limit and it is difficult for both of us. When you are involved in these kind of matches it makes you feel special.’
Although the Barclays World Tour Finals are to come in November, whoever wins this match will be able to stake a fair claim to have been the most successful player of 2013, as they will own two Grand Slams. Whoever wins , the big surprise will be if it does not turn into a long, attritional battle determined by who is the last man standing.