Nadal leads Federer at Wimbledon final
Dare I start to hope that Nadal can close this out? One thing I know after years and years of not being a Federer fan is that Feds can come back and bring out great play when he needs to…
Sunday’s encounter is the sixth Grand Slam title match between the No. 1-ranked Federer and No. 2 Nadal, more than for any other pair of men in the 40-year Open era.
“I think it’s quite incredible, myself,” Federer said, “that we’ve played each other so many times on so many big occasions.”
While he isn’t exactly sure where their rivalry stands in tennis annals, when discussing it Saturday, Federer did toss around names such as Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Becker, Edberg, Agassi and Sampras.
“I don’t know how it will be looked at in many years’ time, because at the moment, you are right in it, and you try to win the matches that come along against your main rival. It’s hard,” Federer said. “I know it’s something special what we’re going through at the moment.”
Some significant milestones are at stake Sunday.
Federer, who tied Bjorn Borg’s modern mark of five Wimbledon titles last year, is trying to become the first man since the 1880s to win six consecutive Wimbledon championships. When Willie Renshaw collected six successive titles from 1881-86, though, he had to play only one match during each of his defenses because the reigning champion was given a bye to the final then.
Nadal, for his part, is aiming to become the first man since Borg in 1980 to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same season. MSNBC