By Chris Kane
While the tennis world has, once again, been deprived of seeing a now increasingly rare Rafael Nadal – Roger Federer final at the 2011 Australian Open, it will be treated to the renewing of a rivalry that has become as intense as it is frequent.
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic will meet for the 20th time overall and for the seventh time in a Grand Slam Thursday evening in the semifinals. After playing a total of five times in each of the past two years, Federer holds the career advantage with a 13-6 record overall and a 4-2 edge in Grand Slam play. However, both of Federer’s losses to Nole in Slams have a particular relevance to the upcoming match. His first loss to Djokovic (and their last meeting Down Under), was three years ago in this exact setting, the semis at the 2008 Australian Open. Novak played an aggressive style that knocked Fed back and led to a stunning straight sets victory on the way to his only major title. Djokovic’s only other win at a major against Fed came in their very last Grand Slam meeting when Fed squandered two match points before succumbing 7-5 in the fifth in the semis of last year’s US Open.
While Djokovic’s supporters have to feel good about Nole winning their last Grand Slam meeting as well as their last match in Melbourne the story doesn’t end there. Federer came away from the disappointment at the US Open seemingly highly motivated. Since that loss Roger has compiled a 31-2 mark (including a perfect 10-0 to start the year) with four titles, defeating Djokovic three times along the way. Their most recent encounter was in the semifinals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals where Federer won with relative ease 6-1, 6-4 displaying a very high level of tennis en route to capturing his fifth year end Masters title.
Heading in to tomorrow’s match Djokovic appears to be playing at top form displaying a greatly improved serve and has only dropped one set. Federer, on the other hand, has appeared to struggle at times losing a total of three sets, yet won his last match convincingly. With Nadal out of the picture Fed clearly must sense Grand Slam No. 17 is his to lose so look for the most recent installment of this rivalry to be a another classic!