Talk:Federer–Nadal rivalry/Archive 1

On Non-Clay Surfaces
In the Breakdown of the rivalry section, there is the following piece of text.

Thus Federer, who has accumulated 7 hard court and 5 grass court Grand Slams since July 2003, does not have as many opportunities to exert his dominance over Nadal on non-clay surfaces.

I'd rather have that this article sticks to facts instead of speculation. There is no way of knowing if Federer would have the same results against Nadal on non-clay as Nadal has against him on clay. 78.27.12.212 (talk) 08:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It is a fact that in the non-clay tournaments RF has usually reached the final, but RN has not, and since they have been the number one and two seeds RF has not had the opportunity to beat RN– someone else gets there before him. Look at the preponderence of clay matches in the list of their encounters. On another note, what on earth does "storied" mean?!  almost - instinct 11:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It is indeed a fact that Nadal did not reach as many finals on other surfaces than clay as Federer did, but you can not conclude from that that Federer would beat Nadal if he had reached the finals of some of these tournaments.78.40.198.101 (talk) 09:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The paragraph on non-clay speculation should be removed. Please share your opinions on your blog.


 * Breakdown of the rivarly seems to assume that Federed would have won possible hard court finals. Actually their hard court and grass matches tend to be close which is not always the case in clay. Assuming a ratio 3/2 for Federer on hard court they would have needed to play 45 games on hard court to be even overall. Please limit yourself to present the data and publish your original research in the discussion page or elsewhere as needed. 131.142.144.204 (talk) 17:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Breakdown of the rivalry:

Meanwhile, as Federer routinely dominates the ATP Tour's hardcourt and grasscourt seasons,

This is not true as of 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.142.152.85 (talk) 12:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Federer dominated Nadal on hard court and grass court. Nadal could not even reach final in hard courts, it means federer could beat Nadal much easier than He would beat him if Nadal can reach final, considering Roger dominated all grass and hard courts. Roger got serious mono virus in 2008 which makes his muscle all shrinked, but He still leads nadal head to head on hard court and grass court until now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.217.32 (talk) 17:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

clean-up needed
This article needs clean-up - especially the last section. It reads as if written by some blogger. I and many love the matches between the two players, but this wikipedia article is supposed to be neutral, void of weasel words and opinions, and just be encyclopedic. Please do some clean-up on this article. Thanks ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 22:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep
I think it is good to have this great collectoin of (((Federer versus Nadal)) it is give great informatoin about those two champions    July07,2008 8am  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.162.130.92 (talk) 05:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Needs rewriting
This article needs rewriting. 131.142.144.204 (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * An explanation of what specific parts of the article needs rewriting and what's wrong with those parts that rewriting would be needed would be much more helpful than just saying that the "article needs rewriting". —Lowellian (reply) 02:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Or better yet, try rewriting it yourself. Armchair info guy (talk) 00:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

(opinion) This article is very good.
Seeing that this article is qualified as one that should be deleted, I'd like to say my opinion about it:

It may seem "strange" to find an article about a "rivality", but the truth is that the rivality between those two world-number-one players (yes, Nadal actually is virtual number one) is one of the bests in last history of sports. A lot of people is being interesed lately not the latest duels between them, but on the first ones, when Nadal was totally unknown (I mean Miami) and most of the people does not remember that ones.

Maybe it has not the adequated tone like it says but it gives a great and interesting information. I would never delete this, since for me, this has been the most interesting article on wikipedia since the start of 2008. Please do not delete it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.184.66.225 (talk) 23:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess you refer to the Tone box at the top. That box is actually not a suggestion to delete the article but just to change the tone or style of the article. There are other boxes for suggested deletions (see Deletion policy). PrimeHunter (talk) 02:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The "www.informationtennis.com" link
Isn't this spam? In this case, please delete the reference plus my comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.184.66.225 (talk) 04:28, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I rewrote and reorganized the entire article
I spent a number of hours today rewriting and reorganizing this entire article. I haven't submitted the changes yet, as I need to proof-read and add some references tomorrow. But I wanted to give the editing community here a heads up on the new version of this page I will submit tomorrow.

My reasons for rewriting and reorganizing are as follows. Most importantly, the current article doesn't adequately convey the importance of their rivalry. There is a wealth of great info here, but it's not well organized and flows poorly. Thus, it's hard to get an adequate feel for the match-to-match, year-by-year, and overall sequence of events. I believe my new article is a big improvement in these respects.

Of course I will not be changing everything. The match list and head-to-head breakdown will stay largely as is. Plus I incorporated the vast majority of facts embedded in the current article while adding a few others I deem important. And yes, I did my best to be objective with NPOV.

--Armchair info guy (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You might put something from Category:Under-construction templates at top of the article. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * okay, I'll add the tag. Thanks for mentioning this, as I'm still learning the ropes around here. --Armchair info guy (talk) 15:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Finally finished it tonight. Or at least, finished rewriting the Intro plus an exhaustive History section. I didn't have time to rewrite the Analysis section but tagged it for Cleanup instead. I also reorganized everything. --Armchair info guy (talk) 05:07, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Today I edited my major submission. I added 2 more colossal items to the Intro list of compelling features of their rivalry. I also removed their lone doubles match since it's insignificant. --Armchair info guy (talk) 16:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Great work, Armchair info. 62.57.239.100 (talk) 21:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Armchair info guy (talk) 18:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, great article. Thank you for your contribution. --213.39.187.8 (talk) 09:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The doubles match is at least as significant as their exhibition matches. Or perhaps it is "insignificant" because Federer's team lost? 66.31.120.26 (talk) 07:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Nope, it's insignificant because it has absolutely zero impact on their rivalry, whereas the exhibitions have at least some significance in that they're a result of the rivalry. Not significant enough to warrant mention in the history section, though. --Armchair info guy (talk) 08:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Finally finished an entirely new Analysis section. --Armchair info guy (talk) 23:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Rewriting needed
The last paragraph of the 2008 section sounds like it's been run through a computer translator. 98.222.57.31 (talk) 19:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In the time it took to write this comment you could've rewritten the paragraph yourself. Armchair info guy (talk) 00:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Removed 4 pics and 2008 rankings points table
I removed the 4 pics in the 2006 and 2007 sections. The reasons are: 1) each is an individual pic (much better to have both men in each pic, like the fantastic photo in the intro), 2) each pic is in their respective individual pages, 3) both of Nadal 's pics were victory celebrations while Fed's pics were both from matches he lost - not "neutral" enough.

I also removed the 2008 week-by-week rankings table because it's superfluous info - the text alone suffices for this article. Plus it takes up too much space and is thus visual clutter in my opinion.

But I really, really like the Wimby photo in the intro. Thanks for adding that one.

--Armchair info guy (talk) 11:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It could do with a few more pictures though - perhaps someone could create a derivative file of two pictures from Wikimedia Commons, and add that? As for the rankings table, I like this feature (I'd even like to see it done from every week since their first match, or the start of 2004), but agree that it takes up too much room. Perhaps it could be made in smaller font, or in collapsable form (won't affect the text unless shown):


 * Good ideas. More pics probably would be nice, but again only if both guys are in them. I like the suggestion about collapsable rankings tables for each year - but they should be in a small font and placed at the end of each year's section, not nestled at the side. --Armchair info guy (talk) 00:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

For comparison sake, here's a few lines of the same ranking table in small font (a needless c&p hassle to do more than a few):

Armchair info guy (talk) 00:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay - original idea has been modified to perfection then, I guess. I'll try and get it done within the next week. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 18:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

regarding combined Grand Slam titles
I'm writing this because there has been some contention over how this should be covered in the article. User:Supertigerman‎ inserted paragraphs into both the 2007 and 2008 history sections detailing their combined 4year and 5year hauls. Personally, I think this info belongs in the intro, so I removed both of them and instead wrote the following in the intro:

They have combined to win Grand Slam titles in an unprecedented fashion, capturing 15 of the last 16 (9 for Federer, 6 for Nadal) from the 2005 French Open through the 2009 Australian Open. This includes an all-time record 11 consecutive titles from the 2005 French Open through the 2007 US Open. Furthermore, Federer won three titles in 2004, increasing the total to 18 of the last 21. They have also dominated elsewhere, such as combining for 19 of the 27 Masters Series titles (10 for Federer, 9 for Nadal) from 2005–2007.

Note that I emphasize 2005-present because that's when the rivalry began, which of course is what the article is about. But I did also mention Fed's 3 titles in 2004. I feel that there's no need to mention previous duos (Samp-Agassi, Borg-Mac, etc) as it clearly states that Fed-Nadal set the record, and the many other records mentioned in this article don't mention previous record holders. --Armchair info guy (talk) 16:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

New Resource for Fed/Nadal Rivalry Article
The ATP released an excellent piece that we should work to incorporate in this article. It is a retrospective of every Nadal/Federer encounter with a brief summary of each match's highlights and notable facts: Rafa and Roger: The Rivalry—Alger82 (talk) 02:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess your link should be Rafa & Roger: The Rivalry. It's an updated version of Roger & Rafa: The Rivalry which I added to external links in July and it's cited 3 times. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Update needed
Given recent events a update of the analysis is needed. I'm sure there are many new incites from experts considering this rivalry. 141.153.196.28 (talk) 05:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The entire Analysis essay should be removed, as it consists of nothing but opinion, speculation, and spin. 66.31.120.26 (talk) 07:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. That's why I rewrote it and submitted it today. --Armchair info guy (talk) 22:55, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Article Name
Why is the article named Federer-Nadal rivalry instead of Nadal-Federer rivalry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.49.44.136 (talk) 17:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Good question. This page details how the decision was made. --Armchair info guy (talk) 23:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks as if the article was named Federer-Nadal rivalry alphabetically. But why is there a article named Sampras-Agassi rivalry instead of Agassi-Sampras rivalry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maj dhk (talk • contribs) 07:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Great Article
Just wanted to say that I think great work has been done on this article. It's been used as a general 'rivalry' template at Williams Sisters rivalry and (especially since it's the first article I've had a hand in getting off the ground) I don't think it could've been done without this page. If you get a chance please stop by and give your feedback. Alonsornunez (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Attn: TennisGrandSlam
I consider your section blanking to be vandalism, as I labeled it in my revert, for the following reasons:
 * 1) You blanked a well-sourced section that is an important part of the rivalry, namely analyzing what their personal relationship is and the competitive dynamic involved.
 * 2) You loosely throw around the terms "opionion pieces" and "blogs" without considering who's writing them. Peter Bodo and Steve Tignor are well-respected tennis analysts who blog in an official capaicty for Tennis Magazine's website. Their opinions matter.

Thus, I'm reverting your blanking for the second time. Please do not do this again. --Armchair info guy (talk) 17:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:LTRD and WP:SPS don't apply in this case. --Armchair info guy (talk) 00:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I removed your 3 tags - neutrality, peacocking, fancruft - because I don't see how any of them apply. What specifically do you take issue with? --Armchair info guy (talk) 03:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Long-winded, verbose, contentitious, opinionated quotes like the following which are devioid of any "factual" information do not belong in an encyclopediac article:

"Think about it: Who set the bar for Rafa? Who painted the baseline of greatness for him? Who handled himself with the kind of statesmanlike dignity that a good, obedient, eager and intelligent young learner might want to emulate? Isn't it odd, at some level, that this rivalry has been utterly free of acrimony, given the way that Jimmy Connors trash-talked Bjorn Borg, and John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl took every opportunity to express their mutual antipathy? Rafa may have eclipsed his mentor, but I believe that while he's well aware of the situation and proud of what he's accomplished, he's not inclined to think of it in those terms. There's a lot more than good manners, tact and a kindly disposition at work in this; there's also a certain purity of spirit. Nobody appreciates [Federer] more than Rafa does, because nobody has done more for him than Federer."

"The difference between Federer and Nadal, in broad strokes, is the difference between a performer and a fighter. ... Federer likes to fly high and fly free; but when someone successfully invades his air space, crowds him, does a different set of aerial maneuvers alongside him, he can get frustrated. That process was on display today [the 2008 French Open final]; full flight is difficult when turbulence comes into play. Performing a complicated dance move is hard when someone's grabbing at your ankles and won't let go."

"Nothing, but nothing, is as good for tennis as a great rivalry... you have the mercurial "talent" pitted against the worker; the artist with the one-handed backhand matched with the bludgeoning double-fister; the slashing, attacking stylist dug in against the dogged, recalcitrant defender; the unsophisticated, un-intellectual athlete squaring off against the world citizen."

"it is now widely believed that they are roughly equal in terms of playing ability."

"Is Nadal a worthy successor to the already-immortal Federer? Does his dogged grunting and grinding measure up to the Swiss' serene elegance? Nadal is a champion of equal, though very different, genius. If Federer makes an art out of hitting a tennis ball, Nadal makes an art out of winning a tennis match."

I highly doubt that I am wrong in this assertion. Also, regardless of the authority purporting these views, they do ultimately come from one solitary self-published source, namely the "blogs on tennis.com. And according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V#Questionable_sources :

Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources.

I would not be questioning your choice of source material were it to have come from the actual "Tennis Magazine" but not only do both "Tennis World" and "Concrete Elbow" lie outside the purview of Tennis Magazine's Editorial control, "none" of the blogged essays have ever been published or featured by relieable third party publications or indeed even the offical print version of Tennis Magazine itself. If you do want to cite Bodo and Tignor I suggest using their ESPN "Columns" and not their blogs.

That said, I am not trying to denigrate your contribution since I am really appreciative of the work you have put in assembling this article. I have therefore decided not to simply erase the entirety of those sections out of hand but instead leave the tags up so that you and possibly others can prune and edit those sections to meet Wikipedia's standards.TennisGrandSlam (talk) 06:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I have edited the section and removed the tags. Although I am still not comfortable with the nature of this section, it's imparted information at least now appears more neutral in tone and factual in content.TennisGrandSlam (talk) 19:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Been really busy lately so haven't taken time to follow up on this. Heck, I even just found out today that Rafa pulled out of Wimby. But I remembered this discussion and will get back to it probably sometime in the next week or 2. --Armchair info guy (talk) 00:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Right-handed Nadal ???
Sorry if this is not the right place to write this commentary, but seeing Nadal volleying with the right hand is highly misleading! I think the photo of Monte Carlo final has been mirrored for some reason. Can someone do something? Thank you 194.39.218.10 (talk) 09:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * New sections belong at the bottom so I moved your post. Nadal is volleying with his left hand in File:Nadal 2 Monte Carlo 2007.jpg. You are viewing him from the front so it is to your right, but to his left. If you refer to File:Federer Monte Carlo 2007.jpg then it is the right handed Federer. The images are not mirrored. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Fed Nadal AO 5th set "choke"
Which genius put a link to "Choke" for the word "unravel" in this section? HOw is that unbiased? Federer didn't choke, he was blown away in that set because he was ridiculously fatigued. You can't choke if you dont have a chance, and he didn't in that set. Choking is missing the 17 breakpoints in that FO Final, or missing the 11 ones in the Wimbledon final by slicing easy returns into the net. bob dole —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.88.22.195 (talk) 19:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Mistakes on the "Career Evolution" section.
It was OK but someone changed it and now its totally erroneous, to put an example, it says that Nadal had won 36 titles with 23 years and 30 since he has 24.

Nadal made years while the Roland Garros tournament, so in any case he could only have got 1 tournament and the number should be 37, but also he had won MonteCarlo, Rome and Madrid before having 24, so the table should say 39 on 23 and 40 on 24, and A LOT of mistakes like those. Somoene vandalized that part so hard, its totally inconsistently (that was only an example, there are a lot of situations like that for Nadal and Federer too, only the GS/years sections has a lot of errors..) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.184.104.29 (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Added analysis
Hi there!

This rivalry is very much discussed as evident in its existence. However, there are some things that I have given some thought.

At Wimbledon, something significant happened during Federer's career. To put it bluntly, the surface is freaking slow compared to the era of serve-and-volley masters such as Edberg, Becker but most prominently Sampras. When Sampras reign was ended by Federer, the courts were fast and Federer went on to win multiple titles. Sometime during Federer's Wimbledon career he stopped rushing the net and his serve became less lethal (which, in comparison, did not happen to Sampras). There are several possible reasons:

1. Slower surface - longer grass straws 2. Better return skill in opponents 3. Softer balls - slower ball speed 4. Federer's serve has declined 5. Raquet technology has improved return of serve

I even think that Federer himself said something along these lines when asked many years ago about his change of tactics. The notion better return skill in opponents is actually not that good because Federer stopped serve-and-volley altogether regardless of opponents. It is unlikely that the entire opposition would improve that drastically over a very short time. It is not that likely that Federer's serve has declined that much to change his very successful tactic because all the other players have stopped serve-and-volleying at Wimbledon as well.

In my view, this has changed the rivalry between Federer and Nadal significantly. Had the conditions been kept constant, Nadal's chances at Wimbledon would be considerably less. I'm not saying that he couldn't learn serve-and-volley consistently, but previous natural and dominant baseliners such as Wilander and Lendl really tried but never won at Wimbledon in singles. Agassi is one exception, but his return of service was unrivaled, and his overall success was limited at Wimbledon. Furthermore, he was never dominant of clay, playing with quite flat ground strokes.

This is critical to mention in a exhaustive and factual discussion on the Federer - Nadal rivalry. Even if it may sound pro-Federer, the argument stands. His greatest advantage over Nadal has somehow been removed from the game, which benefits Nadal at Wimbledon.

Smiles, Clebo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.72.161.234 (talk) 22:25, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Analysis section
The analysis section of this article has become confusing and fragmented. I am thinking about putting their relationship and the cultural impact in its own section. The analysis for hard and grass should be more summarized to look like the clay sub-section. Now it reads too much like an individual achievements list for both players and a discussion of their playing styles (which belongs in skill comparison). It should focus more clearly on the rivaly on each surface, not just mentions like: Federer won 4 times in Cincinnati. The skill comparison sub-section is also problematic. Thoughts? MakeSense64 (talk) 07:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just went ahead with some re-arrangements. Looks better already. I think we can combine "Significant aspects" with "Skill comparisons", there is a lot of overlapping info in these two sub-sections.MakeSense64 (talk) 17:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Matches Table Legend
I updated the legend for the table of their matches, so it includes the record by tournament type (grand slam, masters, etc). I realize this is a duplicate of the head-to-head section, but it feels more natural in a table format. If people really don't like it, I guess it can be reverted, but pls tell me first. Jairuscobb (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Not a rivalry
Just like to say, 'tis not a rivalry. What Nadal is to Federer is a perpetual thorn in his side, an Achilles' heel, a soft underbelly, maybe even Kryptonite to Superman if you're ok with that comparison (and there's a thousand metaphors of this kind). But it's definitely not called a rivalry, despite what most people here or anywhere else would want to call it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.91.240.175 (talk) 22:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)