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Rafael Nadal kept himself busy in April, regaining his form on clay and raising trophies at Monte Carlo and Barcelona—freakishly, his 10th time winning each. What has his rival Roger Federer been up to in the meantime? Playing corny charity matches with Bill Gates and the guitarist from Pearl Jam, and rolling through…
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Right after losing the Miami Open title to Roger Federer in straight sets Sunday, Rafael Nadal was asked how he felt about his “win.”
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Two famous rivals named Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both got hurt, and both entered rehab cocoons for most of 2016, biding their time until this January. One emerged a radiant butterfly, posting a 19-5 record on the season, playing in two championship matches—a lovely comeback by any metric. But the other one…
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Today Roger Federer let slip, like an ill-timed fart, perhaps the worst four-point sequence ever seen on his serve.
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Roberto Batista Agut did about as well as you can do against the greatest these days, pushing him to two tiebreaks in the fourth round of the Miami Open, but, just, c’mon—these fucking nonchalant volleys.
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American tennis fans should take heart: their 19-year-old prodigy Frances Tiafoe caused the GOAT some woe, at least for a little while. Tiafoe, who is creeping closer to a breakout victory over a top player, took Roger Federer to a first-set tiebreak in their second-round match at the Miami Open before falling 7-6(2),…
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“He’s laughing, he’s an asshole,” said Stan Wawrinka, clutching a runner-up trophy, crying, and looking at Roger Federer, who was, yes, laughing. That’s a playful jab between guys who go way back, ever since Federer came to hit with teenage Stan at the national tennis center in their native Switzerland, but surely…
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If you were looking forward to the heady mix of Nick Kyrgios, tennis’s Four Loko, and Roger Federer, aging like a fine wine, my condolences. Indian Wells will stay dry tonight, since Kyrgios just pulled out of this anticipated quarterfinal due to an unspecified illness.
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INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—Forget any bluster about age, resilience, rehabilitation: The story here is that Roger Federer may have solved Rafael Nadal. It’s never too late to iron out your flaws, especially if you have only one to speak of.
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INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—Juan Martin del Potro is a teddy bear with a heavy brow and a shotgun forehand, and when he gets mad in public, apparently, he hugs whoever happens to be around. Because he is a professional tennis player that person is usually a line judge. That’s what he did in a fit of rage three years ago, and…
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Today, out in the Coachella Valley, the Indian Wells Masters will begin. It’s the highest-profile tennis tournament in the world after the four Grand Slams, dropping a fat bounty of 1000 ranking points on its winners. Everyone in the tennis universe should be excited, except for Serena Williams and all her fans, after…
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Roger Federer had a bad day. In his three-set loss to Russian qualifier Evgeny Donskoy in the second round of the Dubai Tennis Championships, he blew three match points in the second set, was up 5-2 in the third, somehow let Donskoy tie the set at six games apiece, was up 5-1 in the tiebreak, and then he lost.
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The saner Roger Federer fans treated his Australian Open title as a late-night dessert—one they really didn’t expect or deserve!—snuck in before the long sleep. The more delusional might have seen it as the beginning of a late-career resurgence, promising fresh titles to come. I sat somewhere in between, high off the…
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Yesterday we argued that Federer’s unusually strong backhand anchored his Australian Open win over Rafael Nadal, and today we found a startling statistical basis for that claim. It comes courtesy of the always helpful Jeff Sackmann at TennisAbstract. Relative to other sports, tennis remains fairly data-poor, but…
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“I’m a different player due to Rafa’s presence,” Roger Federer said in a 2015 press conference, and if you needed it, yesterday’s 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 Australian Open win offered the clearest possible evidence. When your defensive-genius nemesis applies crushing pressure on you for more than a decade, you might end…
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Thirty-five-year old Roger Federer took down old rival Rafael Nadal in five sets to win the Australian Open—his 18th Grand Slam title, but his first in five years.
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This photo’s from 2005—they were about to meet in a Grand Slam for the first time, the 2005 French Open, a semifinal match Rafael Nadal won before claiming the title, his first of many. They’d then spend about a decade at the top of the game, sucking up all the available oxygen, dominating all majors in sight. Then…
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Thirty-five-year-old Roger Federer sputtered his way to the championship round of the Australian Open. Though his all-Swiss semifinal against Stan Wawrinka looked like a gutsy struggle on paper—five sets! 7-5, 6-3, 1-6, 4-6, 6-3!—it actually lasted just over three hours, and the two major inflection points were injury…
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Rafael Nadal dug around and exploited two glitches in the Milos Raonic serving machine—two successfully converted break points, that is—to win his Australian Open quarterfinal 6-4, 7-6 (7), 6-4. And now he’s surveying a field full of the prettiest one-handed backhands in all the land. Roger Federer’s got the regal…
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“It’s not so much fun,” said Tomas Berdych, the 10th seed at the Australian Open, after getting picked apart in a neat 92 minutes. “I would rather be in the stands watching than on the court.”
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