20 years ago, the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal rivalry exploded in Rome

Two decades later, the clothes they wore on that long, bright, warm, legendary afternoon in Rome seem to say it all.

Roger Federer was in traditional tennis whites and a collared shirt. When he didn’t have his (also white) headband on, his hair was neatly trimmed and parted on the right. The 24-year-old top seed was playing the 2006 final at the Foro Italico, but he wouldn’t have looked out of place doing the same thing, on the same court, in 1946, or 1956, or 1966.

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Something similar could not be said of his opponent, 19-year-old Rafael Nadal. This was the Rafa of the calf-length pirate pants, the highlighter-green sleeveless shirt, the untamed shoulder-length hair, the biceps. If Federer was a blast from tennis’s understated past, Nadal looked like a visitor from its fluorescent future.

By that spring, their rivalry had been bubbling along for two years. Federer was No. 1 in the world, 7-0 in Grand Slam finals, and in the middle of the finest of his many fine seasons. He would go 92-5 that year. But Nadal was the lone thorn in his side, and that thorn was starting to hurt. Rafa had won four of their first five meetings, including a Roland Garros semifinal the previous year. On May 14, 2006, over five hours and five sets in the Foro’s old center court, their cold war finally turned hot.

It’s rare for a non-Grand Slam match to be recognized as a landmark occasion, but that final was immediately seen as the beginning of something new in the men’s game.

“We have lift-off,” Tennis Magazine asserted.

“Federer-Nadal is starting to have that Ali-Frazier ring,” the New York Times prophesied.

“Fantastic finish in Rome,” USA Today blared.

Fans and media agreed, this clash of opposites was what the sport needed. Borg-McEnroe, Evert-Navratilova, Sampras-Agassi: Tennis, that symbolic duel, is at its best when there’s a tug-of-war between two top players, preferably opposites. Now we had a stylish Swiss and a swashbuckling Spaniard who looked ready to carry on that tradition.

In most ways, those prophecies proved correct. Rome was the Big Bang of a tennis universe that we’re still living in today. With Novak Djokovic, Federer and Nadal would form the Big 3 and go on a run of unprecedented dominance that more than fulfilled all of their youthful promise.

This is a day I cannot forget. What really hit me was how big the respect was between the two guys. The intensity of that match was really unbelievable. Sergio Palmieri, Rome tournament director and longtime player-agent

That day at the Foro, and over the next few years, Roger and Rafa would also help bring clay-court tennis to a level of prominence it hadn’t enjoyed before, especially in the United States. The mandatory tournaments now known as the Masters Series, which was started by the ATP in 2000, guaranteed for the first time that top players faced off in big tour events like Rome on a regular basis.

Tennis Channel, launched in 2003, allowed fans in the U.S. to watch the European clay swing in its entirety, also for the first time. The structures were in place for a rivalry like Federer-Nadal to become a year-long, multi-surface affair.

In one important way, though, Roger and Rafa defied the expectations of their supporters at the time. In the spring of 2006, their relationship could have gone the way that many fans wanted, the way of McEnroe and Connors and the cantankerous bad boys of the past. There were strains between Roger and Rafa that spring that could have split them further and made them true antagonists. But that’s not the path they chose.

“This is a day I cannot forget,” said Rome tournament director and longtime player-agent Sergio Palmieri in a soft voice of awe, as he looked back on the 2006 final. “What really hit me was how big the respect was between the two guys. The intensity of that match was really unbelievable.”

To watch the 2006 Rome final today is to feel its hothouse intensity all over again. Here was one of those rare moments when the sport’s future seemed at stake.

The match was played in the Foro Italico’s old, intimate, wooden, and now-demolished Campo Centrale, a stadium with no room for a luxury suite, let alone a Jumbotron. It was so intimate, there wasn’t much room for Roger and Rafa to maneuver as they backed each other up with topspin missiles and slid past the doubles alleys to track them down. The playing surface was a tight rectangle, and the presence of the excitable Italian fans a few feet away heightened the inevitable tension of a match between the world’s No. 1 and 2 players.

For his part, Nadal used every inch of clay available to him, and maybe a few inches that weren’t. Still a teenager, he was a rawer, spryer, more spontaneous and fearless version of the philosophical wise man who would compete into his mid-30s. This was the Rafa who was happy to stand at the back of the court and run like mad, never slowing or tiring. This was the Rafa who transformed every ball he hit into a flying topspin buzzsaw. This was the Rafa who grunted loudly during points and leaped high in celebration after them.

On the other side of the net, Federer, with his one-handed backhand, all-court savvy, serene demeanor, and artistic racquet-work, was the throwback who connected the modern power game with the grace and finesse of its past. That day he walked with the confidence, and the agitation, of a king facing his possible usurper.

The relative statures and opposing natures of Federer and Nadal in May of 2006 helped create the exquisite tautness of that final. This was a battle not just between tennis players, but between tennis philosophies. Did the Mallorcan muscleman really believe he belonged on the same court as the Swiss Maestro? Apparently so, to the dismay of traditionalists. It was obvious that Nadal’s heavy, lefty topspin was a potent weapon when aimed at Federer’s one-handed backhand. Rafa had discovered Federer’s Kryptonite. Of the five losses Federer would suffer in 2006, four of them would come at the hands of Nadal.

“He doesn’t hit the ball flat and hard,” Federer said after losing to a 17-year-old Rafa for the first time, in 2004. “It’s more with a lot of spin, which makes the ball bounce, bounce high, and that’s a struggle I had today. I tried to get out of it, but I couldn’t.”

For the next two years, Federer and much of the tennis world faithfully waited for him to find his way out of Nadal’s trap. No. 1 player that he was, Federer passed the defeats off as part of the learning process. The previous month, after losing to him in another close final in Monte Carlo, Federer maintained that he was a “step closer” to solving the Rafa riddle. Yet he also admitted that he couldn’t put his finger on why he was losing to him. “I also would like to be able to answer more clearly why it happened,” Federer said, “but I’ve got to change it next time. I’ve got to play aggressive.”

I had a couple of match points, I pulled the trigger too early. I definitely played some of the best attacking tennis on clay that I could play. But he defends so well and makes you doubt. Roger Federer

Federer lived up to his vow three weeks later in Rome. He came to the net 84 times and won 64 of those points. He controlled the rallies with his forehand rather than letting Nadal control them with his. He sent Rafa into the sideline walls with his angles. He won the first set by playing a perfect, 7-0 tiebreaker. In the fifth set, he led 4-1 and had two match points. In the deciding tiebreaker, he led 5-3. Yet after all of that, Nadal ran away with the last four points and the title.

“I had a couple of match points, I pulled the trigger too early,” Federer said. “I definitely played some of the best attacking tennis on clay that I could play. But he defends so well and makes you doubt.”

It was that doubt, which Federer didn’t feel against anyone else, that made the difference. It wouldn’t be the last time Federer pulled the trigger too early on a forehand against Rafa; over the years, the majority of Nadal’s wins over him would end with a Federer forehand miss.

Nadal, on the other hand, never had any doubt about what his strategy should be when he faced Federer. “You can’t even call it a tactic, it’s so simple,” he wrote in his autobiography, Rafa. “I play the shot that’s easier for me, and he plays the one that’s harder for him.”

Just as important was the way that Rafa approached their matches mentally. He was the first opponent to use Federer’s otherworldly reputation against him. Credit, in part, must go to a bit of reverse psychology on the part of his uncle and coach, Toni Nadal.

“Toni,” Nadal has said, “has never ceased to remind me—and I know he is right—that Federer is more technically gifted than I am.”

Toni’s words freed Rafa from having to think of himself as “better” or “worse” than Federer, and freed him from the pressure of trying to measure up to him. When he played Federer, all the younger man could do, as he has said many times, was “try my best in every moment.”

In Rome, though, Federer felt something more than doubt. For the first time, he let his frustration with not being able to beat Nadal show. During the match he looked toward the player’s box and asked, “Everything all right, Toni?” Was he was talking to his coach, Tony Roche, or his agent, Tony Godsick? No, Federer was lobbing a little sarcasm in the direction of a third Toni: Rafa’s uncle. Federer felt that he was illegally giving his nephew advice.

“He was coaching a little bit too much again today,” Federer said.

The handshake between the two was as hurried and icy as the match had been long and hot. Later, Federer called Nadal’s game “one-dimensional.” The next day, back in Mallorca, Nadal said of Federer, “He has to learn to be a gentleman even when he loses.”

Were the two about to follow in the footsteps of tennis rivals past and turn their matchup into a blood feud? Many promoters hoped the answer was yes. As the AP wrote during that year’s French Open, “It wouldn’t hurt the TV ratings or buzz factor if there were a bit of animosity—or at least a difference of opinion [between the two].”

After Rome, Federer and Nadal each withdrew from the next tournament, in Hamburg. But they couldn’t avoid each other at the Laureus Sports Awards in Barcelona at the end of May. Federer was nominated for “Sportsman of the Year,” Nadal for “Newcomer of the Year.” Each won, and each found himself applauding for the other. Maybe it was these triumphs that softened the edge, but that moment marked the end of their early dissension, and started their rivalry down a new track.

“We sat at the same table with the Princess of Spain between us,” Federer said, “and we noticed that it wasn’t such a big deal.”

Two months after Rome, Federer beat Nadal for the first time in 2006, in the Wimbledon final. Instead of an chilly encounter at the net, the most memorable image from that day was the smiling hand slap they gave each other as they circled Centre Court with their trophies.

Over the course of five hours in Rome, each man had earned the other’s respect. Nadal had always known how good Federer was; now Federer knew that Nadal wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. There was room, they discovered, for both of them at the top.