Everyone points to the rivalry of men’s tennis today as Federer vs. Nadal.  After epic meetings in the finals of the French, Wimbledon, and Australian, it’s easy to see why everyone case so much about this.

However, when all is said and done, they may point to the rivalry between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal as the rivalry that begins to be mentioned in the same hushed reverence as McEnroe-Borg or possibly in the pantheon of all tennis rivalries, Navratilova vs. Evert.

Consider these numbers.  Djokovic and Nadal have met each other 20 times in their rivalry.  All but one of these matches took place in the last 3 years, that is the years 2007-2009, including 6 times this year.

Contrast that with Federer and Nadal who have aslo met 20 times, but only twice this year (the Australian Open final and the Madrid final).  They’ve been playing each other since 2004 and have essentially 2 more years in their rivalry to play the bulk of their matches.

This speaks a lot to both Federer and Nadal.  Federer, in particular, has had problems making finals that aren’t Grand Slams.  Given the two have been ranked 1 and 2 since sometime in 2005, the only way they can meet is in the finals, this presents problems when one or the other can’t reach there.  Federer’s problems come from his usual rivals, Murray and Djokovic, but at times, other players have taken Federer down.

Until the last few years, Nadal has had problems making later rounds on faster surfaces.  Whether it’s his the suitability of his game to the faster speeds, or whether it’s because Nadal’s body always seems to break down shortly after Wimbledon, Nadal had had a tougher time making the later rounds once the surface turned quicker.  Nadal had a breakthrough of sorts in 2008 when he reached the US Open semifinals, then won the Australian Open this year, in an epic 5-setter against Federer.

Much like the Federer-Nadal rivalry, the Djokovic-Nadal rivalry is lopsided in favor of the Spaniard.  Prior to today’s match, Nadal lead the rivalry a gaudy 14-5.  Nadal leads rival Federer, 13-7.  But much like the Federer rivalry, Djokovic’s losses primarily come on clay.  Or more properly, the only wins Djokovic has had over Nadal have been on faster courts, primarily hard courts.  Nadal dominates Djokovic on clay, at least in head-to-head, and has wins over him on grass, and tends to split matches on hardcourts.  Djokovic can’t help that he’s arguably the 3rd best clay courter playing today.

But, 2009 marked a turning point for Djokovic.  Djokovic played Nadal in clay on Monte Carlo (finals), Rome (finals), and Madrid (semifinals).  Arguably, Madrid was one of the best matches played this year, with Djokovic having pushed Nadal on his best surface to match points before the resilient Mallorcan managed to snatch victory from Novak’s eager claws.  The victory proved a Pyrrhic.  Although one was declared winner, it could be argued that both lost that day.  The physical wear and tear of playing Djokovic may have made Nadal vulnerable not only to Federer the next day, but to his shocking loss to then unheralded Robin Soderling in the fourth round of the French Open.  For Djokovic, that loss had to hurt, and he lost uncharacteristically early to Philipp Kohlschreiber in the 3rd round of the French.

Since then, Djokovic played Nadal in Cincinnati, a rather lopsided win, 6-1, 6-4.  To be fair, Nadal had come off of a long break since the French and that was the second tournament he had played since returning.

The two nearly met again in the last Masters 1000 event, Shanghai.  However, Djokovic found himself in a dogfight against Nikolay Davydenko and lost to him in 3 sets and it was Davydenko, not Djokovic, that beat Nadal in the finals.

Today, the two players squared off in the latest in their rivalry.  On paper, Djokovic was favored.  He had won Beijing.  He reached the Shanghai semifinals.  He beat Roger Federer in his hometown event, Basel.  He had been playing very solid indoors as he normally does.  Rafael Nadal, on the other hand, had struggled to get to the semifinals.  He had barely gotten past compatriot, Nicolas Almagro, who had 5 match points on his serve and not a tiebreaker either.  Nadal also had to break Tommy Robredo who was serving out the match in the following round.

Nadal played his best match against the Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, beating him 7-5, 7-5 in the quarters, primarily attacking Tsonga’s comparatively weaker backhand.

Let’s just say this match wasn’t even close.  For all the build-up, Djokovic played a set of sublime tennis.  The commentators wondered why Nadal kept playing to Djokovic’s backhand, arguably his stronger side.  Djokovic hit one shot to perfection.  Whenever Nadal would hit what appeared to be a neutral shot up the middle, shaded a bit to the backhand, Djokovic would pulverize this shot inside out to the right sideline.  Many times, Nadal simply couldn’t run it down.

If the semifinal match between Djokovic and Davydenko in Shanghai showed anything, it showed that these two play similar styles, but Djokovic (this match excepting) tends to do most things better, especially serve and hit with power.  Djokovic may have taken a lesson from Davydenko on how to play Nadal by observing the finals.

In particular, Djokovic started hitting his groundstrokes shorter.  Rather than hit deep to the baseline, most of Djokovic’s shots were landing just inside the service line.  In all levels of tennis but the very best, this strategy tends to be punished.  However, the pros hit so hard, and Nadal is so reluctant to come to net on all but the best approaches, that this wasn’t a problem.  Indeed, it may have been intentional.

Let me explain.  Nadal, with his high arcing ball, prefers to hit balls much higher.  His strike zone is way up.  It’s possible that lower balls give him more trouble, especially low with pace.  Combined with Djokovic’s ability to generate angles, this provided a recipe very similar to Davydenko, but played with even more efficient ruthlessness.

After breaking Nadal twice in the first set, Djokovic cooled down some in the second set.  He engineered one break in the middle of the second set, and although errors crept in Djokovic’s game, they mostly occurred on Nadal’s serve.  Indeed, Djokovic never faced break point, while Djokovic broke Nadal each of the 3 times he had break point on Nadal’s serve.

The serve proved critical.  Djokovic won 83% of first serves and 62% of second serves.  Nadal, by contrast, won 56% of his first serves and 46% of his second serves.  But the key difference was winners.  Djokovic hit 31 winners, nearly 3 times the number Nadal made, but only had 14 unforced errors to Nadal’s miserly 8 errors.

So was Nadal at his best?  It’s still questionable.  He can clearly still beat players that are ranked lower, but he’s lately become vulnerable to players like Djokovic and del Potro.  The question is whether this is just rust or whether it’s something more permanent.

In the meanwhile, in the match that most treated as the de-facto final, Djokovic finally came out on top in a beatdown that you rarely get on the world number 2.