Rafael Nadal's 10 most memorable matches
To celebrate the end of Rafael Nadal’s historic career at this week’s Davis Cup Final 8, ATPTour.com is publishing a series of articles paying tribute to the Spaniard.
Rafael Nadal lit up courts around the world during his 21-year career, with the Spaniard one of the top competitors in the history of the game.
The 37-year-old relished a battle and so often came out on top due to his unparalleled fighting spirit, relentless determination and unwavering commitment to every point. As he prepares for his final tour-level event, the 2024 Davis Cup Final 8, he has stepped onto court 1,307 times, coming out as the winner on 1,080 occasions.
ATPTour.com looks back at 10 of Nadal’s most memorable matches, featuring Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Guillermo Coria, Ivan Ljubicic, Andy Roddick, Fernando Verdasco and Daniil Medvedev.
[ATP APP]2004 Davis Cup Final
Rafael Nadal d. Andy Roddick 6-7 (6), 6-2, 7-6 (6), 6-2
In 2004, Rafael Nadal was a fresh-faced 18-year-old who had started to make early waves in the sport. The Spaniard had won his maiden ATP Tour title on clay in Sopot in August before earning a standout victory against Roger Federer in the third round in Miami.
However, his breakthrough moment arguably came in his final match of the season. Competing in front of 27,000 fans inside the Olympic Stadium in Seville, Nadal faced American Andy Roddick in the Davis Cup Final. Roddick was No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings at the time and had dispatched Nadal for the loss of just seven games at the US Open in September.
In the leadup, Spanish captain Jordi Arrese was expected to select 2003 Roland Garros champion Juan Carlos Ferrero for the Roddick clash, but controversially picked Nadal to play the rubber. After Nadal lost the first set, it looked like Arresse’s decision may backfire. That was until the Spaniard rolled off the second set, saved a set point in the third set to lead before he flew through the fourth to earn a 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-6(6), 6-2 win.
As if he could see into the future, Roddick was full of praise for Nadal following the match.
“I just ran into someone who played too well,” said Roddick. “Every once in a while people come along and they’re big-match players. I think you either have it or you don’t, regardless of age.”
2005 Rome final
Rafael Nadal d. Guillermo Coria 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(6)
In 2005, Guillermo Coria was one of the best clay-court players in the world. The Argentine reached five ATP Masters 1000 finals on the surface across 2003 and 2004, winning in Hamburg and Monte-Carlo. Nadal and Coria entered the 2005 title match in Rome off the back of a final meeting in Monte-Carlo one month earlier, when the Spaniard defeated Coria in four sets to win his first ATP Masters 1000 title.
Their meeting in the Italian capital was a lung-busting epic that encompassed Nadal’s game at that stage of his career. The Spaniard was red-hot in the first and third sets but, at 18 years old, could go off the boil for extended periods. Nadal lost control of his forehand in the second set and was erratic for large parts of the fourth and fifth set, falling 0-3 behind in the decider.
However, at 0-3, 0/30 the Spaniard struck a forehand winner and went on to hold serve. Playing with a renewed sense of intensity, Nadal broke back and forced a tie-break. From 5/1 ahead, he briefly stumbled before sealing victory on his third match point when Coria pushed a volley long.
Nadal, who fell to his back after victory, described the final as “one of the toughest matches” of his career.
Photo Credit: Ian Walton/Getty Images
2005 Madrid final
Rafael Nadal d. Ivan Ljubicic 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(3)
Rafael Nadal finished his 2005 season on home soil in Madrid, having captured a staggering 10 tour-level titles earlier in the season. The then-19-year-old won seven trophies on clay in 2005, including his maiden major at Roland Garros, but was also starting to prove himself on hard courts – the surface the Mutua Madrid Open was played on from 2002-2008 – winning in Montreal and Beijing.
Entering the final in Madrid, Nadal was facing a red-hot Ivan Ljubicic, who had won his past two tournaments in Metz and Vienna, respectively. At a time when ATP Masters 1000 finals were best-of-five sets, Ljubicic struck 32 aces to race into a two-set advantage, with his big serve and sharp groundstrokes effective indoors.
Nadal refused to fade, fighting back to level the match before he recovered from a break down in the fifth set to eventually triumph in the tie-break when Ljubicic netted a forehand. It was the first time the Spaniard had won from two sets to love down, encompassing the fighting spirit fans became accustomed to seeing during his 21-year career.
“It was an unforgettable game, very exciting, where I remember that the public was incredible,” Nadal said ahead of the 2021 Mutua Madrid Open. “The game cost me a few months of [my] sports career. I broke my foot but it was worth it. It was worth the emotion I experienced, that made it impossible to forget. The next day I woke up lame, I couldn’t even walk.”
2006 Rome final
Rafael Nadal d. Roger Federer 6-7(0), 7-6(5), 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(5)
After simmering for two years, the rivalry between Nadal and Federer hit boiling point during a five-hour final at the Foro Italico in Rome. Nadal had won four of their first five meetings to that point, and all three on clay, but many still felt that it was just a matter of time before the World No. 1 Federer figured the teenager out, the way he had figured everyone else out over the previous two years.
For much of this five-hour match, it looked as if Federer had finally found a way to beat the world’s best dirt-baller. Yet he still lost.
The Swiss came to the net 84 times in the clash and won 64 of those points. Federer controlled the rallies with his forehand as often as he could. He sent Nadal into the sideline walls with his angles. He won the first set by playing a perfect 7/0 tie-break. He led 4-2 in the second set. He dominated the fourth set 6-2. In the fifth set, he led 4-1 and had two match points. In the deciding tiebreaker, he led 5/3. And then, after all of that, he made three errors and let Nadal run away with the last four points and the title.
It was Nadal’s 16th title as a teenager, tying him with Bjorn Borg for the record, while it was his 53rd straight win on clay, levelling Guillermo Vilas’ all-time men’s record.
2008 Wimbledon final
Rafael Nadal d. Roger Federer 6-4, 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-7(8), 9-7
Federer had beaten Nadal in two previous Wimbledon finals, but the Spaniard had gradually adapted to the surface, moving closer to the baseline, punching up his serve and taking greater risks with his groundstrokes. He won the first two sets, but Federer came back to take consecutive tie-breaks and level the match. The drama, already suffocating, was exacerbated by three rain delays, a quaint reminder that there was life before the roof came to Centre Court.
Nadal broke Federer’s serve at 7-7 in the fifth set when a forehand sailed long. Then down 0/15 at 8-7, Nadal chose to serve and volley for the first time in the match. Two winning volleys and a framed Federer backhand brought a third match point, which Federer erased with a fearless backhand return. Nadal, who converted on his fourth match point when Federer’s forehand found the net, finished the match with tears in his eyes.
The match, which ended in near-darkness at 9:15 p.m., required four hours, 48 minutes — Wimbledon’s longest final on record, going back to 1877. The triumph marked Nadal’s first title at the grass-court major and ended Federer’s five-year title streak at the All England Club. Nadal’s victory against Federer is widely considered the greatest match of all time.
Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images
2009 Australian Open semi-final
Rafael Nadal d. Fernando Verdasco 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(2), 6-7(1), 6-4
When Rafael Nadal dropped to his knees on Friday 29th January 2009, the emotional toll of his battle against Fernando Verdasco was evident across his face. The Spaniard had just moved past his countryman 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(2), 6-7(1), 6-4 after five hours and 14 minutes in the longest match in Australian Open history at the time.
With the arena’s namesake, Rod Laver — a pretty good lefty in his own right — in the crowd and Spanish flags scattered around, Nadal found his renowned defense tested to the limit as Verdasco ripped 95 winners in the semi-final clash. But while he bent, he never broke, committing fewer than 10 unforced errors in every demanding set, including just four in the fifth.
“Today was one of those matches you’re going to remember a long time,” Nadal said. “In the last game, at 0-40, I started to cry. It was too much tension. Fernando was playing, I think, at his best level. He deserved this final, too.”
With his win, Nadal reached the final and would go on to defeat Roger Federer in another five-set epic in the title match to win the Australian Open for the first time.
2009 Madrid semi-final
Rafael Nadal d. Novak Djokovic 3-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(9)
The inescapable sun, the red clay, the high altitude, the Madrid setting. The long, pitched battle, full of forays and feints, between two competitors. The life-and-death final tie-break. Nadal and Djokovic’s clash at the 2009 Mutua Madrid Open had it all.
That European spring, Nadal had reached an early career pinnacle. During the previous 12 months, he had demolished Federer in the Roland Garros final, and then clawed past him in five sets in the Wimbledon final and the Australian Open final. No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings, he won Indian Wells and was more dominant than ever on clay, winning in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, and Rome. (In 2009, Madrid was played after Rome, and a week before Roland Garros; the next year Rome and Madrid flipped on the schedule.)
Meeting in the semi-finals, the Serbian was fast out of the blocks as he sought his first clay-court win against the Spaniard. After winning the first set, Djokovic failed to close, with Nadal using the energy of the crowd to level before he rallied from 1-3 in the decider. The Spaniard started to let loose with the forehand, with the match becoming one gruelling rally after another.
Nadal found the corners with topspin forehands and Djokovic countered with flat backhand missiles of his own. Nadal saved three match points in total in the tie-break, two with haymaker forehand winners and one from a backhand error from Djokovic. He eventually sealed victory after four hours and two minutes.
2012 Australian Open final
Novak Djokovic d. Rafael Nadal 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-5
At five hours and 53 minutes, Djokovic’s 2012 Australian Open final victory against Nadal is the longest major title match in history. They were the top two seeds that year and had met in the previous two Slam finals, at Wimbledon and the US Open. Djokovic won both of those in four sets and came into this match having won seven straight against Nadal, dating back to 2010.
The Spaniard was determined to end that run on one of the sport’s biggest stages and showed tremendous fight, rallying from 3/5 in the fourth-set tie-break to force a decider. Nadal then led 4-2 in the fifth set and was 30/15 up on serve when Djokovic popped up a forehand volley, giving Nadal a wide-open court for a short backhand pass. The Spaniard somehow pushed it an inch wide and from there Djokovic broke and won four of the next five games to win the title.
Before this final, Nadal held a 133-1 record in major matches after winning the first set, but he could not drag his body over the line on a muggy Melbourne night in Melbourne against Djokovic, who moved to five major titles.
Photo Credit: PAUL CROCK/AFP via Getty Images
2013 Roland Garros semi-final
Rafael Nadal d. Novak Djokovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7(3), 9-7
A hot day at Roland Garros was the setting for another Nadal-Djokovic blockbuster that was a mirror image of their epic Australian Open final the year before. That see-saw saga in Melbourne lasted five hours and 53 minutes, and went to Djokovic, 7-5 in the fifth set. This reprise in Paris lasted four hours and 37 minutes and went to Nadal, 9-7 in the fifth set. Each match featured merciless rallies, fine shot-making, peaks and valleys from both players, and one match-changing error.
After grabbing the fourth-set tie-break, Djokovic led 4-2 in the decider and at 4-3, he touched the net after hitting what would have been a winning overhead at deuce. Nadal went onto break and then refused to lose, tracking down every ball on the Parisian clay to earn his toughest victory at Roland Garros.
“You need to love the game,” Nadal said after winning the exhilarating encounter.
Nadal went on to beat David Ferrer in straight sets in the final to win his eighth title in Paris, while Djokovic’s wait for a first Roland Garros crown went on.
2022 Australian Open final
Rafael Nadal d. Daniil Medvedev 2-6, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4, 7-5
Nadal’s never-say-die attitude has defined his historic career and his five-set victory against Daniil Medvedev in the 2022 Australian Open final optimises that.
The Spaniard did win the AO title in 2009 but had received his fair share of Melbourne heartbreak throughout his career, losing finals in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2019. For 90 minutes, it looked as if Medvedev was going to add to his pain. The 2021 US Open champ led by two-sets-to-love and looked set to put the final nails in the Nadal coffin when the Spaniard hit two unforced errors on serve to trail 2-3, 0/40.
However, Nadal did not fade as he had done in previous Aussie Open finals. A sloppy Medvedev drop shot on his final break point at 2-3 gave Nadal a lifeline, with the Spaniard going on to hold before he won the set. Nadal kept his roll going in the fourth set, and then, after a few more shifts in momentum, he found himself serving for the title at 5-4 in the fifth. He was unable to close out at the first time of asking but recomposed to quickly reel off two consecutive games, moving to 21 major titles and taking the lead in the Grand Slam race at the time.
“It was the day to give everything,” Nadal said. “I enjoyed the fight. I enjoyed the emotions. At the end have this trophy with me means everything today.”
Photo Credit: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images