20 for 20: No. 16, Federer d. Djokovic, 2011 French Open

Last year, for the 50th anniversary of TENNIS Magazine, we focused on the past. Given the tome of stories we’d told, and the trove of players and matches we’d witnessed over the past half-century, it was only natural to look back.

And it was comical to even consider doing something similar this year, for the 20th anniversary of TENNIS.com. So we’re taking the opposite approach, and instead focusing on the future. All throughout the week, we’ll be talking about what’s next for the sport, the website and much more.

It wouldn’t be an anniversary, though, without a countdown. But how do you count down events that haven’t yet happened? By predicting what will come to be.

With that said, we present TENNIS.com’s 20 for 20: Twenty matches that we’ll still be talking about twenty years from now. We’ve restricted this list to matches that have taken place in the last 10 years—or, as 20 for 20 author Steve Tignor has put it, “The Golden Decade.” (If you haven’t read our 50th Anniversary Moments or Tournament of Champions, also written by Steve, I implore you to do so.)

It has been a bountiful time for tennis since TENNIS.com’s inception, and it’s anyone’s guess what the next 20 years will bring. But we believe that each of these matches will sustain the test of time.—Ed McGrogan, Senior Editor

The hour was late, the sky was dark, and the audience in Court Philippe Chatrier was more than ready. Looking back, those were ominous signs for Novak Djokovic. It was hard to imagine a more pressure-filled moment for the 24-year-old. He was riding a six-month, 43-match win streak; one more and he would take over the No. 1 ranking for the first time, and give himself a chance to win his first French Open. Perhaps it was only right that to do it, he would have to pass the ultimate test: Beating the all-time Grand Slam champion—and the French fans’ all-time favorite champion—on what sounded very much like his home court.

The baying and chanting for Roger Federer began in the warm-up, and it breathed new, young life into the 29-year-old’s legs. He attacked the way he always has, but more revelatory that day was his scrambling defense; Federer was practically Djokovichian in his ability to slide across the court and track down balls behind the baseline. After edging a nervous Djokovic in a first-set tiebreaker, Federer stormed through the second set. While there were a few wobbles down the stretch in the fourth, he closed the upset with a trip back to his imperious heyday.

With the light dying at 9:30 P.M., Federer went up 6-3 in the tiebreaker, triple match point. But when Djokovic held his serve twice, it looked like he might prolong the match until the next day; in a fifth set, he would have been favored again. But Federer, who knew how dangerous Djokovic’s return was, didn’t let him have the chance. He fired an ace down the T, let out a bottled-up war cry of his own, and wagged his index finger toward his player’s box.

“I just felt you don’t give me such a lead and then think you can crawl back into the match,” a prideful Federer said afterward. “I knew I was probably going to close it out.”

He may not have been No. 1 anymore, but he had just reminded Djokovic, his French devotees, and the world, that he was something even better: He was still The Federer.