When it comes to playing Rafael Nadal, things haven’t always been easy for Roger Federer.

Although their 38^th meeting ended in a 6-4, 6-3 win, his fifth in a row against his Spanish southpaw rival, Federer still trails Nadal 15 to 23 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head. The Nadal playbook has always been simple, but historically effective against Federer: use heavy topspin forehands to pound away at the weaker Federer one-handed backhand and attack the open court at the first opportunity. 

But in 2017, the Swiss has managed to flip the script.

“I think I’m maybe serving consistently better. I get easier power ever since I switched to the bigger racquet, the RF97. I feel I’m connecting better on the backhand and I’m serving good, and that consistently,” said Federer, who at one point in Sunday’s final won a service game in 52 seconds with four straight aces.

“Before I had to slice more just because the racquet was good for the slice, and it was good for the coming over, but I would always shank too many balls,” he added.

Aggressive backhand play has been a characteristic of the 36 year old’s renaissance this season, allowing him yet another dimension in his fluid, attacking style of tennis. Although his one-hander hasn’t always been a weapon, 11 of Federer’s 28 winners in the Shanghai final came off that wing.

“I think it was hard for me to consistently just keep on attacking with the backhand,” Federer said. “Today it seems almost not a problem anymore to do it.” 

In what has been one of tennis’s most storied rivalries, Nadal has often come out on top, particularly on his beloved clay courts, upon which he owns a 13-2 record against the Swiss legend – Federer admits that those matches took their toll on him in previous seasons.

“I just think I’m not so scarred like maybe I have been in the past, not that I was horribly scarred in any way, but I did lose against him sometimes, a lot of the times especially on the clay courts. I do believe I still lost that Wimbledon final in ’08 because of the French Open beatdown he gave me. It just affected my first two sets when I played him at Wimbledon.

“But, yeah, I think I have also played him well. Clearly avoiding him – not playing him on clay has helped,” added Federer. “So I’m able to stay on the hard courts or on faster courts against him, but I have been playing very well when I have faced off against him.” 

Federer’s Shanghai crown this week keeps him in contention for the year-end No.1 spot in the Emirates ATP Rankings, which would have been all but sealed for Nadal had he emerged victorious in the final. With strong results at the upcoming tournaments in Basel and Paris, Federer has the opportunity to set up a dramatic climax to the season: a fight for No.1 at the Nitto ATP Finals for the second straight year (Murray d. Djokovic in 2016 to claim the top spot.) 

Despite closing the gap with Nadal on both the No.1 ranking and in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series this season, Federer insists that they aren’t targets for him – especially in the latter metric, where the Spaniard still leads by eight wins. 

“It’s not going to happen,” said Federer bluntly on overtaking Nadal in their rivalry. “We don’t have enough years left on the tour, and we’re ranked too good that we play each other only in finals at the moment. It looks like that’s going to stay like this for a few months more. So can’t win them all against Rafa, to be honest. He’s too good of a player.

“I’m just excited I’m on a good stretch right now. Head-to-heads? Yeah, sure, I would like it to be different, but I have utmost respect for Rafa. It’s been a tough matchup for me, and I tried my best. I have played him a lot on clay in the beginning of my career. No problem. I tried. I was close on many occasions, but he’s better on clay. I try to win the other ones that I can, and this year has been great so I’m happy about it.”

Rafael Nadal lost an opportunity to earn his first Shanghai Rolex Masters title on Sunday against Roger Federer and a chance to extend his 16-match winning streak. But after capturing titles at the US Open and last week’s China Open, the Spaniard was not devastated.

“I played a fantastic tournament, having very good wins. Very pleased the way I played the whole Asian tour for me, whole China tour. Beijing, Shanghai have been a very positive two weeks for me,” Nadal said. “A lot of points, a lot of victories against great opponents. I come back with very good personal satisfaction the way that I played.”

Nadal earned his 11th and 12th victories of the season against the Top 10 in the Emirates ATP Rankings this week in Shanghai, beating No. 8 Grigor Dimitrov in the quarter-finals before ousting No. 5 Marin Cilic in the semis. But sometimes an opponent simply plays too well on a given day. And while Nadal was disappointed to lose his third final of the year against Federer, all he could do is give his rival his due.

“When somebody plays better than you, sport is not very difficult,” Nadal said. “When you play against somebody that is better than you in most of the things that really matters on this sport in this kind of surface, then it’s tougher. There is room to improve for me, and I’m going to try. But the conditions here were much better for him than for me, being honest.”

Federer broke in the first game of the match and never looked back, going through the 71-minute clash without facing break point himself. The Swiss dropped just eight points on serve.

“He played so well, I think,” Nadal admitted. “Yeah, I could do maybe some things better, but that’s it. Just he played too good. That’s my point of view. So congrats to him.”

The loss does not take away from what has been a resurgent 2017 for Nadal, winning two Grand Slams, two ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles, six titles overall and reclaiming the top spot in the rankings as he seeks to finish atop the standings for the first time since 2013, and the fourth time in his career. The 31 year old still leads Federer by 1,960 points in the rankings.

Nadal was unable to win for the first time in Shanghai, but it was not for lack of effort.

“I just play every tournament with as high motivation as possible. Would not be fair I play here with higher motivation than in Monte-Carlo because I didn’t win here and I won in Monte-Carlo 10 times,” Nadal said. “Every time I go on court I try my best. I try to play as good as I can. Sometimes I play better; sometimes I play worse. That’s all. Shanghai is an important event. I always put attention in this event. It’s true that I was not able to play as good as I would like here that often, but I already play two finals, couple of semi-finals. So was not a bad event.”

Despite Sunday’s loss, Nadal has proven he is in good form and will look to take that into the final month of the season to finish 2017 on a high note.

High-quality tennis was on display throughout the week at the Copa San Cristobal in Buenos Aires, with six of the eight seeds reaching the quarter-finals. While the $50,000 ATP Challenger Tour event is set to culminate on Sunday with an all-Argentine affair – top seed Horacio Zeballos battling third seed Nicolas Kicker – the action off the court was just as entertaining.

Challenger stars traded their racquets for paintbrushes during the player party, joining renowned artist Milo Lockett to support Foundation Red en Juego. Zeballos, Kicker, Federico Delbonis, Federico Coria, Maximo Gonzalez and Carlos Berlocq attended the fundraising event.

“We did something new in tennis during the inaugural tournament party,” said Zeballos. “There was an important artist Milo Lockett and we had a great time with him. Some players painted with him and it was a great opportunity. Hopefully we can repeat it next year.”

Red en Juego is a tennis programme that takes place in impoverished neighbourhoods of Argentina, aiming to offer children and adolescents the chance to engage in the sport. It allows them to build various life skills, including personal relationships.