Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played

On July 6, 2008, two compelling athletes met on Wimbledon’s Centre Court in the men’s final and served up a seminal event in tennis. Roger Federer was on track to take his rightful place as the most dominant player in the history of the game. The Wimbledon champ for five years running, Federer needed only to sustain his trajectory. But in the fading daylight it was his rival, the swashbuckling Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who met the moment. Their captivating match was, according to the author, “essentially a four-hour forty-eight-minute infomercial for everything that is right about tennis—a festival of skill, accuracy, grace, strength, speed, endurance, determination, and sportsmanship.” It was also the encapsulation of a fascinating and textured rivalry, hard fought and of historic proportions.

The next year saw Roger Federer in another stunning final at Wimbledon against another opponent, Andy Roddick—but this time Federer came out on top. Once again, tennis fans returned to the debate concerning the “greatest match ever played.” As Strokes of Genius shows, the Federer-Nadal rivalry is one of the premier matchups in all of sports, and their epic battle at Wimbledon is not just one of the greatest tennis matches ever played, it is one of the greatest games of all time.