A Rivalry Plucked From Fiction
Nadal, Federer and the (D)Joker
This is a guest post from my good friend Tom, no stranger to the blog. I’m no tennis fan (though my book club, including Tom, is meeting for a U.S. Open summit in New York late this summer) but even I enjoyed this breakdown of greatness. Thanks Tom!
I wrote this in 2024 in the weeks following Rafael Nadal’s retirement. The 2025 French Open—the first one without Rafa—stirred up a lot of the same emotions I felt when I first wrote this piece. Those feelings were accentuated in the masterpiece final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who are quickly establishing themselves as the new faces of the game, showing shades of the Nadal-Federer rivalry. Big thanks to Michael for being kind enough to feature this on the blog.
Also, you have to believe me when I say I wrote this without having read the David Foster Wallace piece, Roger Federer as Religious Experience. Seriously. It was only after I shared this with a few friends that I learned about it and it left me feeling kind of silly; He talks about some of the same things, and then some, much more eloquently, obviously. Do yourself a favor–as I wish I had done–and read it at your earliest convenience.
In his book The Anatomy of Story, screenwriter John Truby lays out the characteristics of a compelling relationship between a hero and their opponent. Though they might have different motivations, means, or abilities, opposing characters compete for the same goal, and a story arises through their conflict. The opponent is the most effective means of defining the hero; we learn about the hero through how they interact with and react to the opponent. The more compelling the opponent, the more we learn about the hero, and the better the story is. Truby says:
“Create an opponent who wants the same goal as the hero and who is exceptionally good at attacking your hero's greatest weakness.”
Michael Tucker, whose YouTube Channel, “Lessons from the Screenplay” I really enjoy, takes this idea and maps it onto Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. The story revolves around Batman, the Joker, and the battle for their shared goal, the “Soul of Gotham City.”
Midway through the movie, the Joker finds himself in an interrogation room with Batman, who is trying to beat information on the whereabouts of two hostages out of him. After receiving a few brutal blows to the head, the Joker delivers a withering line through laughter: “You have nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength.” As Tucker explains, the Joker is exploiting Batman’s moral code of refusing to kill, thereby nullifying Batman’s power of intimidation. Batman could easily end the Joker’s reign of terror by killing him, but he can’t bring himself to do it. It’s a great demonstration of Truby’s rule. The targeted and specific attacks on Batman’s weaknesses push the limit of his resolve and force him to change as a character in order to win the battle for Gotham’s soul. The climax of the movie has a few hundred lives at stake–there is no doomsday weapon that will destroy the entire city–but it’s much more engaging than your average superhero movie when put into the context of the actions and motivations of the characters that have pushed the plot to that point.
I grew up watching a lot of tennis. My mom, who has played all her life, ensured that the TV was tuned to the later rounds of every grand slam. We were up late watching the US Open, up early for Wimbledon and the French, and sometimes up in the middle of the night for the Australian Open (or at least watching the replay the next day). My brother, dad, and I didn’t have a say in the matter; if a tournament was on, we would be watching. Men’s, women’s, singles, doubles—it made no difference.
This was in the mid 2000s. We had the privilege of watching Serena Williams dominate a sport in a way that we may never see again. We watched the Bryan brothers showcase their twin telepathy on the doubles court. And on the men’s side, we breathlessly watched one of the greatest sports rivalries ever unfold between Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal.
Each held the record for most men’s grand slam titles at one time. Each ended the other’s record-breaking winstreak on their respective best surfaces. Tournament after tournament, these two were on a collision course from opposite sides of the bracket. Occasionally, a challenger would pull off an upset and prevent the two from meeting. Occasionally. Together, they won 11 consecutive majors, from the 2005 French Open to the 2007 US Open, and six consecutive majors on two other occasions. Through the course of their careers, they played forty matches against each other, with many of their battles hung in the annals of tennis history. Their 5-set showdown in the 2008 Wimbledon final is regarded by many to be the greatest tennis match of all time.
I’ve recently picked tennis back up after years of not playing. Naturally, I’ve been spending a lot of time watching pro highlights, lessons, and swing analysis videos. But I find myself returning to old footage of those head-to-head clashes of Federer and Nadal. Watching them play is hypnotic [Editors note: watch the video above]. Their styles complemented each other so well: a showdown between artist and warrior. Cursed—or blessed—to be contemporaries, each would have been the best player in the world by a wide margin and would have racked up countless more titles if not for the other.
Federer was the embodiment of a graceful player. Boasting a flawless compact forehand, a pretty one-handed backhand, and incredible feel at the net, he could easily control the pace of play against his opponents. He possessed an incredible ball striking ability and computer-like shot selection. He moved around the court effortlessly with no wasted movements, always seeming to be in the perfect place at the right time. He made it look easy. His flat and penetrating groundstrokes found their marks with sharpshooter precision, lending his game well to faster surfaces like hardcourts and grass. He holds the record of eight Wimbledon titles and a joint-record of five US Open titles. As a clean-shaven Swiss guy who dressed smart, his persona and game exuded elegance. He looked right at home in those Rolex ads.
Nadal dressed like a pirate, grunted loudly with every shot, and played like a wind-up toy that was wound too tightly. An aggressive behind-the-baseline lefty, he twisted his body like a pretzel to uncoil on the ball with astounding power. Whereas Federer made the game look easy, Nadal made it look like a grueling contest of brute force. He would rip winners out of thin air from defensive positions. His wicked forehand is regarded by many to be the best in the history of the game. The whiplike movements of his wrists and arms generated enormous topspin on his groundstrokes, which caused the ball to sink and kick high into the air off the bounce. Tennis researcher John Yandell has analyzed the spin rates of tennis balls hit at full force by several of the game’s top players. Most of the players he’s measured generated spin rates between 2,000 to 3,000 rpm. He’s clocked Nadal forehands as high as 4,900 rpm. Such spin-drenched shots forced his opponents to play deeper and hit weaker shots from above their preferred “strike zone”, at which point Nadal would capitalize and run them ragged around the court. His style of play was tailor-made for slower, more spin-sensitive clay courts, earning him the moniker of “King of Clay.” 14 of his 22 grand slam titles were won at the French Open, the only grand slam to be played on the surface.
Federer’s one-handed backhand was a bit of an oddity. It was an elegant shot—his down-the-line passing backhand is my favorite shot in all of tennis—but the one-handed backhand is not favored at the highest level of the game today. About 80% of pros use a two-handed backhand for its superior stability and control. To the extent that Federer had a weakness in his game, it was his high backhand. Due to the mechanics of a one-handed swing, it was more difficult for him to get on top of high balls and hit with the same drive as if he was hitting them at chest-level or below. Balls above his strike zone forced him to play softer, loftier shots or a shallow slice, creating offensive openings for his opponents. Often, he would even step around the ball to hit his stronger forehand, opening up much more of the court for opponents to hit winners into.
As a left-handed player, Nadal’s best shot—his topspin-heavy crosscourt forehand, one of the best shots ever of its kind—naturally targeted Federer’s weakest shot. He would send looping balls to Federer’s high backhand over and over and over again, waiting for a weak shot to punish. And it was a strategy that worked extremely well. On clay, where his forehand was most potent, Nadal boasted an astonishing 14-2 record against Federer.
“Create an opponent who wants the same goal as the hero and who is exceptionally good at attacking your hero's greatest weakness.”
They were a Trubian pair, plucked out of fiction. Nadal was the perfect opponent for Federer—It's what made watching them so compelling. Federer, regarded as the more well-rounded player, dictated the pace of play against other opponents, but Nadal constantly kept him on the defensive by repeatedly hammering the ball to his Achilles Heel. Nadal’s vicious groundstrokes reached corners of the court that his opponents couldn’t, but Federer’s uncanny positioning and movement were the best retort the game had to offer. They were great foils, showing how different the game could look at the top level. Ultimately, Nadal had the edge on their head-to-head record, having won 24 of their 40 matches, but Federer maintained a winning record on grass and hardcourt.
What is perhaps most surprising about their rivalry is the deep level of respect they have for one another. Though they traded minor slights early in their rivalry, the majority of their time as contemporaries was characterized by reverence and even friendship—far from the acrimony that might be expected from generational rivals. They both seemed acutely aware that their legacies were inextricably linked, and embraced the rivalry as something that was larger than either one of them, all to the benefit of the game. They leveraged their rivalry to put on numerous charity matches, and seemed to have a good time together off the court. They shared the doubles court for the last match of Federer’s career at the 2022 Laver Cup, which came with its fair share of misty eyes from both of them.
It’d be a disservice not to mention Novak Djokovic while talking about Federer and Nadal. Coincidentally nicknamed “The Djoker,” he emerged onto the scene a few years later, around 2010, officially ushering in the “Big Three” era. It took him a few years to start his ascendency in earnest, but the heights he has reached as a player and his sustained dominance are resolute. There is no weak part of his game: he wins because he’s technically better than his opponents in every facet of the game. He’s the supervillain doomsday weapon, and he has all the accolades to show for it. He’s gone on to surpass both Federer and Nadal for the outright record of men’s slam titles, establishing himself as the game’s greatest player pretty uncontroversially.
He has his share of classic matches against Federer, Nadal, and others, but I can’t help but find it sort of dull. He has incredible physical ability and superhuman talent, which can and should be appreciated, but there isn’t the same flicker of magic of the Federer-Nadal rivalry. He is beyond fiction.
In a heartwarming letter to Nadal commemorating his retirement in late 2024, Federer said, “You challenged me in ways no one else could.” He credited Nadal for making him reimagine his game, going as far as changing his racket head size in an attempt to gain an edge. Federer closed the message by saying, “And you know what, Rafa, you made me enjoy the game even more.” I think he was speaking for us all there.