![]() ![]() Had Nadal won the final he subsequently contested in Melbourne against Stan Wawrinka, he would now be within two grand slam titles of Federer’s 17-strong haul. ![]() Not since early 2014, when Nadal saw off the Swiss maestro in straight sets in the Australian Open semi-finals, have the two men crossed rackets. Today’s contest, in the final of the Swiss Indoors in Basel, has been a long time in the making. But make no mistake, Federer-Nadal remains one of the most evocative match-ups in world sport, a fact that naturally owes much to that epic final they contested at Wimbledon in 2008. And, come the final reckoning, the Serb’s rivalry with Nadal – the most prolific of the open era as well as one of the closest, this year’s results notwithstanding, with Nadal leading by a single victory over the course of their 45 encounters – may well have the greater bearing on which of the three men comes to be regarded as the greatest player of all time. Novak Djokovic may have elbowed both men aside with his remarkable dominance of the men’s game over the past 12 months. Nadal may have won the previous five meetings between the two, not to mention all but 10 of the 33 matches they have contested since the Spaniard first got the better of Federer as a largely unheralded 17-year-old back in 2004. The bare facts of a rivalry that has perhaps defined the careers of both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal barely begin to tell the story. ![]()
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