On the 1st of February, Men’s Singles Finals for the Australian Open Tennis Championship was supposed to be played. As many had expected and wished, the match was between the world no. 1, Rafael Nadal and world no. 2, Roger Federrer.
The match started at 2.30 PM (IST) amidst all the pre-match speculations. It was predicted to be a cliffhanger and one that would test both the champions. Federrer has in the past has won the Australian Open, the Wimbledon and the US Open and has a tally of 13 grand slams. A win here would have equaled his tally with Pete Sampras, the one with the highest titles under his belt. Nadal on his part, arguably the best men’s tennis player has won the French Open and last year, broke into Federrer’s home (court) and stole the Wimbledon in an epic final. A win here would have extended his dominance over Fedderrer and given him his maiden slam on synthetic courts. The buildup was too feisty for me to miss the match even at the cost of a Sunday evening.
The match started with Nadal breaking Fedrrer’s serve and the later returned the favor soon. After close to 4.5 hours of seesaw battle Nadal triumphed in a match which can be easily termed as a legend. Very difficult to compare this with the one they played in June last year on grass.
I am not writing this ‘piece’, to describe the win. I am writing this just because I am enthralled at the quality of the match that was played in Melbourne today. There was a Nadal who had spent 5.5 hours on court on Friday in a country that is suffering heat-wave of magnitude that it has never seen before. And a Roger Federrer who had played almost perfect tennis in the last 2 rounds on his way to the finals. The result was just a formality, someone had to win. But the way the match was played was like Beethoven composing a masterpiece.
Nadal and Federrer were not playing for a win. They were playing to dominate the other. None of them wanted the Australian Open, they had their ego’s to please. At the end, the difference was small. Federrer played to regina his dominance where as Nadal played not to lose. Such was the relentlessness of Nadal that he chased down everything that Federrer had to offer. He scampered through every point and in the process forced Federrer to scamper. There would have been no inch on the court where the ball would not have landed and still each of them was chased down. If Federrer was sheer brilliance, Nadal was all precision with grit and determination.
These 2 legends play the game in a different planet and they belong there. Others in tennis today are sheer numbers to fill. Thanks to these 2 great warriors for giving me an opportunity to watch what I saw today, a match that forced me to key in these words. Hope to see these two toil out on the red clays at Rolland Garros.
