Is Federer-Nadal rivalry the greatest rivalry across all sports?
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have heard perhaps everything that they possibly can about their respective style of play. Every superlative adjective has perhaps been used, misused, reused and abused when it comes to describing the style of play of both these veterans. Quite often commentators can be spotted saying that it was a Nadalesque shot or it was played like Federer. But more often than not, Nadal and Federer are often used together because the duo is arguably the greatest sporting rivals ever. There is a segment of fans who would still not believe that the ‘Fedal’ rivalry is indeed not the biggest rivalry in Tennis itself, let alone all sports. However, all these arguments may not amount to much ground reality. If we consider all great rivalries, inside tennis itself, the rivalry between Nadal and Djokovic is one that is often claimed to be more intense and greater than rivalry between Federer and Nadal. However, Nadal-Djokovic rivalry can never as great as 'Fedal' rivalry -- neither in terms of the longevity of the battle between the two nor its terms of intensity. 'Fedal' match has happened 40 times and Nadal has won two dozen of these matches while Federer has clinched 16 of these games. Now to put things into perspective, the matches have been played for over a decade and a half and although Nadal and Djokovic have played more games against each other, in terms of longevity, they have only been battling it out for 13 years.
But let alone the longevity, Nadal and Federer battles have been fierce and competitive and thus produce more intense battles than Nadal-Djokovic duo. The main reason behind this is both Federer and Nadal are contrasting in their style of play while Nadal and Djokovic are similar.’
As far as team sports is concerned, it would be unfair to compare team sporting rivalries to individual sporting rivalries because both are completely different entities. However, many parallels could be drawn to the duo’s rivalry with other individual sport and it could well never be established conclusively that they are the greatest rivals across sports or within tennis itself. But as long as it enriches the sport, why not keep the debate alive?