Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer enjoyed a rivalry that spanned a couple of decades, with their battles etched into tennis folklore as some of the greatest the sport has ever witnessed.<\/p>\n
Federer\u2019s<\/a> dominance at the top of men\u2019s tennis began when he won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2003 and he was an invincible winning machine until Spanish superstar Nadal emerged as his biggest rival.<\/p>\n Nadal<\/a> consistently beat Federer in the early years of their rivalry, with his brilliance on clay courts proving to be too much for the Swiss maestro to deal with.<\/p>\n The roles were reversed at the back end of their careers, as Federer devoted much of his attention to reshaping his game to repel the threats Nadal was throwing at him.<\/p>\n The end result was a story that saw Federer winning six of their last seven matches, including a memorable clash in the 2017 Australian Open and what proved to be their last meeting in the 2019 Wimbledon semi-finals.<\/p>\n Nadal was asked by former world No 1 Andy Roddick to sum up what version of Federer was the best and it was intriguing to see him select the latter stages of his career.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he was playing well, he beat me. Then when I was playing well, I beat him, especially on clay. On hard, it was always much more difficult for me,\u201d said Nadal on the Served with Andy Roddick podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThen at the end of his career, he made a step forward and he was playing much, much more aggressive.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, 2017 was the best level of his career. You felt that you were in his hands.<\/p>\n \u201cHe played very, very aggressive and his serve was so hard to read. For me, it was very difficult to predict what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Nadal went on to suggest the respect he had for Federer and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic ensured their rivalry was not converted into animosity off the court.<\/p>\n Compared: Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic past the age of 35<\/a><\/p>\n Botic van de Zandschulp reveals key to stunning Djokovic, Nadal, and Alcaraz<\/a><\/p>\n While he appeared to have a closer bond with Federer than Djokovic during his career, he hopes a positive example they set with the respect they showed each other.<\/p>\n \u201cWe, as rivals, we showed the world that we can be the biggest rivals, but at the same time we can be colleagues,\u201d he added of his battles with Federer and Djokovic.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t say best friends, but we can have a good personal relationship and I think that shows a positive example to the next generations. I am proud of that.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some way, we had a wild rivalry with Roger, Novak and myself, but at the same time didn\u2019t lose the perspective that we were human persons.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t fight against each other, we respect each other. This helps to show the new generations that you don\u2019t have to hate your opponents. You can respect, you can appreciate your opponent.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, they are an important part of your life. You don\u2019t need to hate your opponents to give your best. That\u2019s what we showed the world.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Rafael Nadal hails Novak Djokovic as \u2018the best I ever played and ever saw\u2019 in one key area<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Rafael Nadal reveals when Roger Federer was at his very best in surprise revelation<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer enjoyed a rivalry that spanned a couple of decades, with their battles etched into tennis folklore as some of the greatest the sport has ever witnessed. Federer\u2019s dominance at the top of men\u2019s tennis began when he won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2003 and he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n