Vamos Rafael Nadal....Still the champ, Roger Federer

On Sunday evening, 11 June 2006,in the Roland Garros French Open final match, Rafael Nadal continued his winning streaks over Roger Federer by 6-1. That shows Roger Federer is not invincible. He DOES have his own NEMESIS. Head-to-head record of Rafa vs Fed since their first match (source: The Guardian with some edition):

March 2004 Miami (hard court)

Last 32, Nadal won 6-3 6-3

April 2005 Miami (hard)

Final, Federer 2-6, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3, 6-1

June 2005 French Open (clay)

Semi-final, Nadal 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3

March 2006 Dubai (hard)

Final, Nadal 2-6, 6-4, 6-4

April 2006 Monte Carlo (clay)

Final, Nadal 6-2, 6-7, 6-3, 7-6

14 May 2006 Rome, ATP (clay)

Final, Nadal 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6

11 June 2006 French Open (clay)

Final, Nadal 1-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6

Somehow, i feel sorry for Roger Federer to see him lose. However, it didn't spoil my mood that much to see him losing to Rafael Nadal or to Marat Safin (Australian Open 2005) only because first, that two opponents of his are also in the list of my favourite tennis players and secondly, it was nothing but a very entertaining, high-octane, fast-paced, tough game ever as far as tennis is concerned. OK, as far as I did feel it personally.

Roger Federer after winning the Australian Open, 29 January 2006(photo source: The Times)
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, French Open, 11 June 2006
(photo source: BBC sport )

Thanks to Goran Ivanisevic, who won his first ever Wimbledon in 2001 and retired from the game the same year, tennis has become a must-see sport for me. Of course, i did watch those previous games by John McEnroe (his funny tantrums on the court were a legend!), Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi (still think that he's one of the most brilliant tennis players), Michael Chang (that body-flying jump), Pat Rafter, those whom i remembered the most and associated with tennis. But, i must admit that i didn't find tennis that exciting, nor did i understand the whole game much. I just started to really get the grasp of the play in 1998 when my ex-housemate (and also our family friend) Salmy taught me on how this game is played, how to understand the scores and so on. It is not much different from Badminton, but it seemed to take hours and hours to watch the match.

Wimbledon gonna start at the end of this month (26 June to 9 July 2006), about the same time World Cup 2006 ends. Good thing I've got Sports Channel on Astro (malaysian digital tv). I'll talk about WC2006 on a different entry. Right now, I am still relieved from Nadal-Federer French Open final match last night.