Rivalry of Rivalries?

!PicBy Pete Bodo

It almost feels as if some giant machine has finally come grinding to a halt, leaving us bathed in eerie silence as we await tomorrow's French Open final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. We're seized up. Something has to break. Both men can't make history, but history won't be denied, either. One of them is destined to leave the court with his legend swollen in a big way; nobody is going to walk off with the bitter reward that comes to someone who merely spoils someone else's bid for glory.

We'll either see Djokovic become the first man since Rod Laver nearly 50 years ago to hold all four major titles at once (a "Nole Slam"), or Nadal win a record-setting seventh French Open (a "Rafa Red Clay Super Double Semi-Slam," given that Rafa already won four consecutive French Opens once in his career, and is on track to do it again). It's a unique moment in history book rivalries: Djokovic v. Rod Laver, and Nadal v. Bjorn Borg.

But let's not forget this little Djokovic v. Nadal thing, either.

This will be their 15th meeting in a tournament final. Given their proximate ages (Nadal is 26, Djokovic is 25), it's not unreasonable to expect them to meet in another 15 over the coming years. That would easily shatter the Open era record for most final confrontations, established by Ivan Lendl and one of the men who will be commentating on the upcoming final, John McEnroe. They played each other in 20 finals, and hated each other through every one of them.

The personal animosity that enlived that McEnroe/Lendl rivalry is out of fashion these days, but the Djokovic/Nadal rivarly is no less intense for lack of it. That's a good thing, too, given how often these two have locked horns; Nadal leads the general rivalry by a narrow 18-14, and the tally in finals is 7-7. Symmetry is a beautiful thing, is it no?

It's only fitting that this tiebreaker final will have such resonances, and looking to the future it may prove to be something like punching the reset button on this rivalry. For if there's a complaint about this rivalry, it's that the men have taken turns dominating each other instead of leaving us in suspense from tournament to tournament. It's taken Djokovic a little time to catch up with Nadal as a reliable champion, but that maturation process is complete. It's hard to imagine that either of these guys will ever win five, six matches in a row against each other.

Nadal won five straight finals at the start of their pas de deux, but then came Djokovic's hit-and-run 2011. When the smoke cleared, Djokovic had run off seven straight finals wins, culminating at the Australian Open early this February. Since then, Nadal has added two more wins to maintain his slim lead.

This 15-final run leapfrogs over Boris Becker and Ivan Lendl, who met 13 times, and it equals the number of finals contested between Jimmy Connors and McEnroe, who had to juggle three overlapping rivalries: one each with Borg, Lendl, and Connors. Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, joined by Becker and Stefan Edberg, are next on that list, but just one final ahead (16).

Like McEnroe, Nadal is a moonlighter when it comes to his rivalries, even if he's only had to work just two jobs. He's clashed with Federer in 19 finals, and it would be nice to see them meet in one or two sometime soon again, so they might equal or surpass the record established by Mac and Lendl. But the smart money now must be on Nadal and Djokovic taking over that top spot. They might easily do it this year, which would position this as the Open era 'rivarly of rivalries.'

Their clashes are not apt to be heavy on sub-Grand Slam events, either, at least not for the foreseeable future. One or another of the Big Three (Djokovic, Nadal, Federer) has won 29 of the last 30 majors.

You can see from this that Nadal could very easily end up in first and second place on the most-finals honor role, on top with Djokovic, in second place with Federer. In the long term, though, it will be Grand Slam meetings that most heavily influence the record. After all, that 4-1 lead Sampras built on Agassi in their meetings in majors is the first statistic that pops up in any discussion of their rivalry. In this area, Djokovic has a serious lead at Slam finals of 3-1 over Nadal, which will seem almost unfair to some Rafa fans. But there it is.

Tomorrow's finalists are already in a six-way tie for most meetings in a Grand Slam final (this being their fifth). Others who share that niche include Laver and Roy Emerson, Lendl and Mats Wilander, and Sampras and Agassi. That's not bad company. Moreover, Nadal is chasing his tail when it comes to this record, because he and Federer are already at the top of the all-time heap, with eight meetings in major finals.

And if Nadal fans feel that Djokovic's 3-1 lead in major finals is real—albeit only part of the story—they can take some comfort in the fact that Rafa is 6-2 up on Federer in their Grand Slam finals rivalry, and it's unlikely that Federer will reverse that one.