Fedal Rivalry

[Backspin1183]

It sucks for us Nadal fans to see him lose yet another match to Roger. That being said, it's good for their rivalry to have Federer have some more wins. Before 2017, it looked like this rivalry was over. Federer's resurgence in 2017 and winning their most important match of the year, the AO final, has brought life back to their legendary rivalry. Now no one in their right mind is gonna say that this is a lopsided rivalry. Federer has made sure of it by now.

Although Roger looks very comfortable against Nadal right now, I have no doubt that Nadal will beat him again. If Federer could find ways to beat Nadal, Nadal will also find a way to beat him again. Here's hoping this rivalry has some more memorable matches before it dies a nature death (with the retirement of either player).

 

[NatF]

The scorelines of their matches have usually been closer than the h2h tally would suggest.

These two have produced the most classic matches out of any rivalry for decades. Hopefully they have a couple more in them as well.

 

[Waspsting]

Although Roger looks very comfortable against Nadal right now, I have no doubt that Nadal will beat him again. If Federer could find ways to beat Nadal, Nadal will also find a way to beat him again.

You're probably right. But... something seems to have changed here.

They used to go into matches with about 50-50 prospects (outside clay, of course where Nadal was a heavy favourite, say 80-20)

50-50 was a bit flattering to Rafa... match up, mental issues filling in the gap of Federer's on-court superiority (meaning he was a significantly better hard/grass courter - they certainly weren't equals)

Unless Federer's level drops drastically, I don't see Nadal winning say, 3 in a row again

He can snatch a win here and there but he appears to now be a firm underdog ... which he never was in the past

 

[Towser83]

It's kind of a shame though that there wasn't much of a period where it was really even. At the end of 2007 it was 8-6 to Nadal. Apart from that it's been all Nadal and now this year all Federer. Would be cool if they had enough years left where Fed could close the H2H and from that point on they'd match up so evenly that you'd never know who'd win. But that won't happen. That's the only thing about the rivalry that's a drawback even now. Of course I'm not complaining about the Federer wins, long may it continue.