I watched most of the Wimbledon final today between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and it was a great match. Federer is ranked number one in the world, Nadal number two, and they have faced off in four of the last six "grand slam" tennis finals. Nadal dominates the clay-court French Open and Federer owns grass-court Wimbledon, winning the last five championships there. In the ATP points standings, Nadal is more than 2,000 points ahead of American Andy Roddick in third place. That's dominant.
Sports fans eat up rivalries - someone to love and someone to hate - and the ongoing Federer-Nadal battle is a great one. Today it looked like Nadal might actually topple Federer on grass, but the Spaniard lost the fifth set to Roger, 6-2. The "never won on clay/grass" dynamic makes this an even greater rivalry, probably the best in sports. Because with the Boston Red Sox getting swept in the MLB playoffs (2005), missing the playoffs altogether (2006) and dominating the American League East (2007) since 2004, their rivalry with the NY Yankees has been pretty quiet. Plus, the two teams with the best records in the NBA in 2007 did not make the finals (and could not as they are in the same conference). And the Woods-Mickelson or Woods-anybody rivalry in golf has never really come about. So let's watch tennis, right?
That probably won't happen. Other than the US Open, tennis majors are held outside the good old USA, meaning they typically are on TV here at 10:00 a.m. or earlier, or are tape delayed. Also, a Swiss vs. a Spaniard? Without an American in the mix, it's unlikely that Federer-Nadal will become like Borg-McEnroe in the United States. I really don't think it will become a big deal until one of the champs finally loses on his fave surface. But they are both dominant, young players (Federer is 25 and Nadal is 21), so this battle potentially has something else that makes rivalries great - longevity.
