Part 2: I ranked every* Big Three Grand Slam tennis match because nothing is more urgent right now
*Federer vs. Nadal, Nadal vs. Djokovic and Djokovic vs. Federer
Part one: No. 48-26 | Part two: No. 25-11 | Part three: No. 10-1
Pointless endeavor, resumed. As previously explained, I recently rabbit-holed a few of the more famous Grand Slam matches involving the male players colloquially known as the Big Three: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. I kept going until I’d revisited all 48 meetings in major tournaments (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) in which two of them played each other, spanning the 16 years in which their careers intersected at slams, from 2006-2022.
Substack’s gentle suggestions about the quantity of text tolerated by most email clients convinced me to break this list into three parts. Matches 48-26 are in part one, along with an outline of the methodology I used. In short, I rewatched as many as I could find and assigned a 1-to-5 score in seven categories (a perfect score would be 35):
Consensus in the tennis world;
The stakes of the match going in;
Historical significance and GOAT/slam-race implications of the result;
Suspense/drama in the match itself;
Length of the match by sets;
Overall quality of play;
Relative amount of individually memorable moments.
Scientific? Sure as hell not. Fun? Yes…(*applies air quotes). Necessary? The most, arguably. So let’s pick up where we left off…
25. 2019 Wimbledon SF: Federer d. Nadal (7-6, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4)
One last time with feeling. Roger and Rafa’s first Wimbledon meeting since you-know-when ended up being their last-ever match. I regret to report it was not a classic. But perhaps more improbably, it was also not a letdown. There was a crackling atmosphere, a handful of highlight-reel moments, mutually solid shotmaking that hummed with the intelligence of age and suspense down to the final seconds (Roger needed five match points to finish the job). This match neither made nor rewrote history, but it did just fine as a greatest-hits encore.
Rating: 26 (out of 35)
3 (reputation), 4 (stakes), 5 (GOAT/history), 3 (drama), 4 (length), 4 (quality), 3 (moments)
23. 2011 Wimbledon F: Djokovic d. Nadal (6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3)
Novak’s win had the feeling of inevitability, even after Rafa stormed back to take the third set. (Was there anything more inevitable in tennis than Djokovic still winning after his opponent snags set three?) Novak was in the middle of an all-time-great season, having lost just a single match to this point in 2011 (falling to Federer in the French semis) before surging toward his first Wimbledon title and, with this victory, the No. 1 ranking. It is tempting to call this the moment Novak fully escaped his role as a third wheel, but there are so many commanding performances during the early 2010s that it is hard to identify any single victory as that catalyst.
Rating: 26
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 3 (drama), 4 (length), 4 (qual), 3 (moments)
22. 2008 US Open SF: Federer d. Djokovic (6-3, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2)
This was a huge win for Roger following his loss to Novak earlier that season in Australia, his drubbing by Nadal at Roland Garros and coming up inches short in THE MATCH at that year’s Wimbledon, en route to his only major of 2008 (a shockingly lean season for him at the time). And he definitely brought the goods to what would be his last championship U.S. Open run — check out the highlight reel stunner in S3G12, where he returns an overhead with an impossible-seeming lob.
Historians looking to untangle the Djokovic/Federer/Ashe crowd dynamic have a lot to work with here. At just their second U.S. Open meeting, the difference in applause is already stark. As unfair as it might be, I do think people tend to forget that a lot of Novak’s issues with fans were self-inflicted, especially early on and especially at Flushing Meadows. In the previous round, for instance, he had started a bunch of shit with Andy Roddick, still the last American man to win a major, which is surely not the best way to endear oneself to stadiums full of piss-drunk New Yorkers.
Rating: 26
4 (rep), 3 (stakes), 4 (hist), 3 (drama), 4 (length), 4 (qual), 4 (moments)
21. 2012 Wimbledon SF: Federer d. Djokovic (6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3)
It’s funny that even back in 2012, the story was about Roger defying time to claim what seemed, for a while, like his probable final major title. This was actually his first match against Novak on grass — which despite him dumping out in the quarters the two previous years at the All England Club, was still regarded as Roger’s headquarters — but his last victory against him in a major tournament. The least riveting of their Wimbledon contests did feature some excellent shotmaking, but was thin on drama and suspense anywhere besides the third set, which Federer concluded with a triumphant overhead. (Weirdly difficult match for which to find video; the best highlight compilation is on DailyMotion, which does not embed cleanly into Substack.)
Rating: 27
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 3 (drama), 4 (length), 4 (qual), 4 (moments)
20. 2012 French Open F: Nadal d. Djokovic (6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5)
This was a wild match, characterized by repeated momentum swings, rain and a general lack of equilibrium for either player. Unfolding over two days, the 2012 RG final featured an unusually temperamental Nadal (he tussled with the umpire over conditions and the timing of weather delays), a grimly anticlimactic ending (Djokovic double-faulting on championship point) and historical stakes that more than offset the otherwise not-suspenseful tennis. Claiming his seventh French Open title, Rafa surpassed Bjorn Borg as the winningest man at Roland Garros. He also reversed course against Novak, who had beaten him in the previous three slam finals and who was gunning to become the first male player since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four major titles at once. By fending off Djokovic for another year, Nadal also avoided what his lifelong coach and uncle, Toni Nadal, called “a Grand Slam of losses” — losing to the same guy at each of the four majors. That milestone would arrive in due course.
Rating: 28
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 3 (drama), 4 (length), 4 (qual), 4 (moments)
19. 2009 US Open SF: Federer d. Djokovic (7-6, 7-5, 7-5)
Ah yes, the Tweener match. Roger’s between-the-legs pass in the final game, setting up match point following a tight contest (the highest-ranked three-setter on our list), is rightly among the most famous shots in the history of the sport. And yet, look at Djokovic’s face the moment the camera cuts to him. It shows not humiliation, not rage, not disappointment, but something more calculated and determined, as if to say, “This is the last time that happens.” If Djokovic was constructing his game specifically to disrupt the Federer-Nadal hegemony, here is where his mission crystallized.
The Tweener, I think, was to 21st Century men’s tennis what the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner was to American politics. That night, then-president Barack Obama used his time at the lectern to roast Donald Trump, who was in the audience and enjoying his first moments in the political spotlight thanks to his racist “birther” delusion. The available footage only shows the back of Trump’s head, but you just know he’s sitting there absolutely stewing, plotting revenge, using that resentment to fuel his percolating ambitions. And thus, [waves hands at everything].
This is not to directly imply any affinity or political alignment between Djokovic and Trump — although such a revelation would be…less than shocking. (Insert thinkpiece about Novak’s edgelord tendencies, the MAGA-shaped fanaticism he inspires and the symbolic congruity between the global movement toward authoritarian populism and Djokovic’s assault on the northern/western European institutionalism represented by the Federer-Nadal establishment.)
But the Tweener has produced similar historical reverberations. That moment at the net is him cursing Federer — a mystical proposition it feels like he would believe in, whether or not he actually does. Roger would go on to lose that year’s final against Juan-Martin del Potro and would never win another U.S. Open title. He would suffer demoralizing upset semifinal losses to Djokovic each of the next two years after holding match points. He would only beat Djokovic two more times at majors and never again in a final. Novak would spend much of the 2010s dominating Federer on his symbolic home turf, Centre Court, culminating in the seismic 2019 Wimbledon final, when Rog was a point away from a career-capping triumph but succumbed, yet again, to Djokovic’s (probably figurative) curse.
Rating: 28
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 5 (hist), 4 (drama), 3 (length), 3 (qual), 5 (moments)
18. 2015 Wimbledon F: Djokovic d. Federer (7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3)
The least compelling of the trio of 2010s Djokovic-Federer Wimbledon finals was extremely tense for two sets before reverting to the mean. The S2 tie-break easily ranks among the best in the tournament’s history. (I think I’d put it third, behind Nadal-Federer ‘08 and Borg-McEnroe ‘80.) Here, the historical narrative flips decisively in Novak’s direction — going in, Federer still led their head to head (20-19), and they were tied 1-1 on grass and 1-1 in slam finals. That page would never turn back.
Rating: 29
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 5 (drama), 4 (length), 4 (qual), 4 (moments)
17. 2010 US Open F: Nadal d. Djokovic (6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2)
Top-of-the-mountain moment for Nadal here. With this win, arguably his best-ever performance on a hard court, he completes the career Grand Slam and secures his position as the dominant member of the trio (however briefly). Djokovic brought the goods — some of these points are utterly ridiculous, just one staggering moment after another. But following his epic semifinal against Federer — the first of two instances where Roger was one point away from setting up his never-consummated storybook final with Rafa in Queens (Ed.: ARRRGGGHHHH) — he just had a little bit less in the tank. What he did have, however, was some outstanding merch. Check out his dad in the player box rocking a Novak shirt with serious truck-stop wolf-moon energy.
Rating: 29
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 4 (drama), 4 (length), 5 (qual), 4 (moments)
16. 2013 US Open F: Nadal d. Djokovic (6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1)
Goddamn, these two. Rafa and Novak’s early-2010s U.S. Open finals are better appreciated collectively as a trilogy, because the shit they were doing on hard courts at this point in their rivalry is “Matrix”-tier. S2G7 features a staggering 54-shot rally, and Novak’s reaction after winning suggests he might have been able to claim the momentum for good. But Nadal was sublime in the last two sets — a fitting capper to his best-ever hard-court season; he’d won titles in Canada and Cincinnati and finished the year 22-0 on his third-favorite surface. As consolation, Novak took back the No. 1 ranking despite losing. (I refuse to attempt to understand how the ranking-points system works.)
Rating: 30
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 4 (drama), 4 (length), 5 (qual), 5 (moments)
15. 2011 US Open F: Djokovic d. Nadal (6-2, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1)
Naturally, the middle installment is the “Godfather Part II” of Nadal-Djokovic early-2010s U.S. Open saga, and the 2011 iteration is yet another slide in the “Djokovic becoming DJOKOVIC” Powerpoint. Capping his unearthly 2011 season, there was an air of inevitability to his run at the year’s final slam, but Nadal, not far from his own apex, wasn’t going to relinquish the penthouse suite easily. This edges out their other two U.S. Open finals because of the third set, which might be the finest set Rafa and Novak have played, placing it high on the list of best tennis sets played ever, by anyone. Toward its end, the crowd was cheering every shot before some of the rallies were even half over, perhaps because it felt as if the players’ souls were vacating their bodies and taking everyone else with them. OK, that’s a little hyperbolic, but Jesus, they were on one.
Rating: 31
5 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 4 (drama), 4 (length), 5 (qual), 5 (moments)
14. 2010 US Open SF: Djokovic d. Federer (5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5)
I Can’t Even (part one of a series). So, yes, this was the first of three — THREE — slam matches in which Federer held multiple — MULTIPLE — match points against Djokovic, only to fall in defeat [*screams into pillow]. The question for the ages, then, is did he lose them, or did Djokovic win them? Here, the answer is fairly straightforward. Both points came on Novak’s serve, and he produced impeccable tennis when it mattered. If any single 2010s Djokovic match is going to disrupt Federer’s aristocratic beauty sleep, it’s probably not this one.
Even without the dramatic ending, this was a captivating (if at times lopsided) match that featured bursts of astonishing work from both dudes. Watching Djokovic’s 2010 and 2011 semis alongside his eventual finals with Nadal underscores the size of his achievement — how he was able to adapt to both players’ games in such a tight window and eventually become the player they needed to adapt to.
Rating: 31
4 (rep), 5 (stakes), 5 (hist), 5 (drama), 5 (length), 3 (qual), 4 (moments)
13. 2007 Wimbledon F: Federer d. Nadal (7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 2-6, 6-2)
It gets understandably lost in the shadow of the following year’s final, but at the time, Wimbledon ‘07 was considered a historically great match, and still is by the real heads. It’s the last hurrah of Roger’s Wimbledon title streak — five, tying Bjorn Borg — and ends with a climactic overhead in the that season’s anomalous open-air setting. (Construction on a new retractable roof began following the 2006 Championships and would not finish until 2009 — a timeline that actually had historical ramifications, given the conditions at the following year’s final.) Both players are brilliant throughout, but the real news might be that Nadal, for the first time, looks like an inevitable future champion on a non-clay surface.
Highlights aplenty from either side, but my favorite moment might be when Roger puts his warm-up pants on backwards after winning, which he doesn’t notice until during the trophy ceremony. Yes, the match that best encompasses Roger’s dominance in this era also offers a preview of his distant future as a dorky dad. Now that’s history in the making.
Rating: 31
4 (rep), 4 (stakes), 4 (hist), 5 (drama), 5 (length), 5 (qual), 4 (moments)
12. 2022 French Open QF: Nadal d. Djokovic (6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 6-7)
As it stands, it’s Rafa and Novak’s final slam meeting, which is unlikely to change — making this quarterfinal the last Big 3 match in a major tournament. (*Starts humming “Dust In the Wind.”) As such, it did not disappoint, with Nadal avenging his loss in the previous year’s ever-so-slightly more compelling semifinal. Unlike the earlier contest, this one peaked in the final set, when Djokovic raced to a 3-0 lead and Nadal rampaged back to close it out in a tiebreak, then sailed toward his final major title. So of course there were slam-race implications at the time; Nadal would extend his brief reign as Slam King, pulling ahead to 22 versus while Djokovic and Federer remained tied at 20.
Rating: 32
4 (rep), 5 (stakes), 5 (hist), 4 (drama), 4 (length), 5 (qual), 5 (moments)
11. 2021 French Open SF: Djokovic d. Nadal (3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2)
In front of a pandemic-reduced crowd of about 5,000, who were almost ejected to comply with a curfew, Rafa and Novak delivered yet another late-period classic. Nadal entered the match with the opportunity to level their head-to-head, but an iron-fisted Djokovic, who later called this “the best match that I was part of ever in Roland Garros for me” (high bar) and ranked it among the top three he’d played in his entire career (VERY high bar), was undeniable. Indeed, this is the match that prompted the entire tennis world to wonder, “Do we play the same sport as the two of them?” — a reminder that for much of the preceding decade, Novak-Rafa on clay was the most reliably mind-blowing engagement in the game. Reportedly, Djokovic still had to play a final after this instead of just being given the trophy in awed deference.
The match’s reputation as an instant classic is primarily thanks to the third set, a museum-worthy nail-biter capped by an incredible tiebreak. Rafa’s missed put-away in the late moments basically sewed up the set and, as such, the whole match, but the hour or so leading up to that point was lights-out.
Rating: 32
5 (rep), 3 (stakes), 5 (hist), 5 (drama), 4 (length), 5 (qual), 5 (moments)
Ed: Speaking of “lights out,” I’m once again getting a blinking wrap-it-up notification, which possibly I’m imagining in a state of delusion. When I close my eyes, I see only the lines of a tennis court burned into my retinas. Somebody help. Anyway, I’ll be back with the top 10 Big-Three-Versus-Big-Three slam matches. Will I stun the world of sports commentary with a scorching take on an underrated match that re-scrambles conventional wisdom, or will I just pick one of the two obvious contenders for No. 1? And if so, WHICH of the two obvious ones? Stay tuned for the juicy conclusion.