I'm just wondering if anyone can think of anything in tennis history that comes close to comparing to the Fed v. Nadal rivalry? Federer has been so dominant in the slams the past three years, and Nadal has been so dominant at the one slam that has escaped him.

This is three straight years now for Nadal at RG and three straight years that Fed has not lost to anyone other than Nadal.

Of course, there are other great champions who have famously failed to win one of the slams, like Pete at RG or Lendl at Wimbledon. But there were several players who could beat Sampras on clay on a good day, and Lendl had trouble with several of the better grass court players of his day. Federer - Nadal seems to be a rather unique rivalry at the moment.

It also strikes me with their respective record breaking runs on the different surfaces happening at the same time!!! Im not sure if anything like that has happened before

What is also great is that it seems like they have a lot of mutual respect for each other, something that doesn't tend to be the case amongst the fans of the two players.

Obvioulsy, this is a technology side-effect. The grass and clay game was not as specialised before the large frame/graphite rackets. So no rivalry could be so similar before the graphite time. Post small frame time, only Agassi managed to win both the French and Wimbledon but strangely enough he only won one of each, so it can almost be considered like a freak occurence if you compare it to let's say Lendl who won the French 3/4 times and got to the Wimbledon final twice. Of course even worse for Federer.

Federer is simply extremely unlucky to have the best ever clay player come and spoil his GS opportunities during his very short peak time.

could you imagine what Fed's roll of honor would be like without Nadal?
Even Rod Lavers records would have been completely overshadowed.
Nadal will end up as the most influential man in Rogers career, in a negative way, in fact; he is already. But the same can be said about Roger by a dozen of other players

And Nadal would be number one without Rog so it goes both ways.

A different discussion, but Nadal has a pretty sizeable lead over Roger in the YTD Race points. A surprise early exit by Fed in either of the remaining slams and Nadal could take the No. 1 spot this year.

Just as a footnote to what's been said, the rivalry is made all the more remarkable as we have Nadal breaking Federer's hard court streak of 56 in Dubai, and Federer breaking Nadal's clay court streak of 81 in Hamburg. One would almost want to see Nadal break Federer's four-year winning streak at the All-England Club and then have Federer come back and return the favour in Paris next year just for more of that kind of symmetry. Of course, I only say 'almost.' B)

steady on there!!

It's funny.. a few rafa fans have said 'ok, if Fed's due a win over Rafa at RG at some stage, then that's ok.. but just not this year please?!!'

I'd say the same re: Fed at Wimlbedon this year..! :lol:

how about they do a little bit of breaking of each others' winning streaks next year? or the year after next instead? ;)

I've seen a few posters of various boards mention this.I can't see it happening until next year at the earliest.I mean it's possible that if Rafa is a better player he could give Fed a tight run in the race rankings,but to do that he will need 1200 points or more.
Basically he needs to beat Roger in the US open series to do this.

As for the entry ranking,he's 2300 points behind,and that's a scenario that most likely won't happen as Rafa would have to win probably the USOPEN and either the Masters or Wimbledon.Plus Roger would have to go out twice early in these events.

Just can't see him mentally falling apart yet,in some ways I just think it will make him more determined to win.

Yes I think from now rafa may have to share some of the points with Djoko and maybe Davydenko.