2019 Top Matches, No. 5: Federer d. Nadal, Wimbledon semifinals

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When this year’s semifinal at Wimbledon between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal began, the match that was on everyone’s minds was their classic 2008 final on Centre Court. It would be the first time since that duel in the dusk 11 years earlier that these two would meet on Centre Court.

Three hours later, when the chalk had settled on Federer’s four-set win, it no longer felt like a sequel to an epic from the increasingly distant past. Instead it felt like the continuation of the matches they had been playing since 2017, the year Federer turned their rivalry around.

Before that year’s Australian Open, Nadal led their head to head 23-11. Since then, Federer leads 5-1. The reasons for that shift in Federer’s direction were clear again in this match.

Once upon a time, Nadal could count on his lefty serve to Federer’s backhand to bail him out of trouble. Once upon a time, Nadal dominated the baseline exchanges by rolling his crosscourt forehand into Federer’s weaker one-handed backhand. Neither of those things are true anymore.

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This year, it was Federer who used his backhand to control the crosscourt rallies. He hit 51 winners to Nadal’s 32 and made just two fewer unforced errors than Rafa. This year it was Federer who won perhaps the most crucial point of the match with his backhand return. At 3-3 in the first-set tiebreaker, Nadal hit a first serve down the T in the deuce court; up to that stage, he hadn’t lost a point with that play. This time, Federer anticipated it, rifled a backhand down the middle, won the point with the following forehand, and ran out the tiebreaker 7-3.

More surprising was Federer’s ability to outlast Rafa in the long rallies. The most important came with Federer serving at 3-1 in the third set, with the match evenly poised at a set apiece, and Rafa trying to make a charge. Federer saved a break point with a short-hop backhand at the baseline, and reached game point by surviving a 25-shot rally. During this tournament, there was a lot of talk about how slowly the grass was playing; the assumption was that this would help Nadal. But this match actually featured fewer long rallies than their ’08 final, and when they did come, Federer won them.

“I won a lot of the important points in the third and fourth sets,” Federer said. “There were some brutal rallies in the key moments that went my way. I think those might have made the difference today.”

Finally, back in ’08, it had been Nadal whose game plan—work the forehand to Federer’s backhand—was crystal-clear, while Federer was never sure how much to try to attack Rafa. Today those roles were also reversed. Late-period Federer is more decisive when it comes to attacking, and that was true even after he lost the second set to Nadal. For the day, Federer was 25 of 33 at net, and he came up with some difficult, excellent volleys on some very big points.

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“I was able to stick to my game plan, stay aggressive, stay offensive,” Federer said. “I guess I also started to serve a bit better.”

If this match resembled any past Federer-Nadal contest, it was the 2017 Australian Open final, a topsy-turvy affair that didn’t reach its frenetic peak until midway through the fifth set. This one reached a similar, even more frenetic and brilliant peak late in the fourth. That’s when Nadal, fighting against what felt like inevitable defeat, finally loosened up, went on the offensive, and did whatever he could to defy his fate.

“At the end of the match I started to play better, no?” Nadal said. “But it was late.”

With Federer serving for it at 5-4, and the crowd roar coming in waves, Rafa saved four match points and earned a break point that would have leveled the set. But while Federer wavered a few times—he shanked one smash over the baseline—he remained amazingly cool amid the rising hysteria. Federer hit two aces and a volley winner in the final game, and on his fifth match point, he out-rallied Nadal one more time. So many of their past contests have ended with a Federer ground stroke flying over the baseline; this time, it was Nadal who sent his last shot long.

“It lived up to the hype,” Federer said, “especially coming out of the gates, we were both playing well. Then the climax at the end with the crazy last game...It had everything at the end, which was great, I guess. I’m just relieved it’s all over at this point.”

“It’s definitely, definitely going to go down as one of my favorite matches to look back at, again, because it’s Rafa, it’s at Wimbledon, the crowds were into it, great weather.”

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Great weather? Maybe Federer was remembering the last time these two played here, when the weather was famously not so great. This time around, the ending was also much better for Federer. When Rafa’s last shot went long, Federer threw his fist over his shoulder with a mix of joy and relief—it was a rare moment of abandonment for him.

Looking back, of course, Federer fans must watch this match with the painful knowledge of what happened to him two days later in the final against Djokovic—it was a roller coaster weekend for Federer, to say the least. A month later at the US Open, he was asked how he felt about his defeat. Federer, with a slight smile, said that he had found a way to see the positive in his Wimbledon experience.

“Sometimes you have flashbacks, things like, ‘Oh, I could have done that, should have done that,’” Federer said. “The next day, you’re having a glass of wine with your wife, thinking, ‘The semis was pretty good.’”

Pretty good, indeed. The last time I could remember seeing Federer celebrate this way was when he beat Nadal in five sets in Miami in 2005. When Nadal did the same to Federer at Wimbledon in 2008, many of us saw it as a sign that Federer’s reign at the top was coming to an end. But 11 years later, when they finally met on that court again, it was Federer who was the last one standing. It was a long time coming, but you could see it was worth the wait.