As you know, Spain won the Fifa World Cup yesterday for the very first time in the history of the World Cup. Congrats to Spain! You may also know that Nadal came to my country to watch his country play in the final against Holland. It was a tense final as neither of the teams was able to take advantage of several great scoring opportunities. But that is what you would expect of a match of such importance. Spain finally scored the winner when Andres Iniesta blasted the ball past the Dutch goal keeper in the second half of extra time. Nadal said the following after his country’s historic win:

“I cried like a little boy. We have to celebrate for a whole year, because this is unbelievable. It is very difficult to repeat this,” Nadal told Marca.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/42730-nadal-cries-joy-after-historic-glory

This win clearly means a huge amount to him. What does this all have to do with the Fedal rivalry? Last year Federer won the French Open and Wimbledon double, and after Wimbledon his wife gave birth to twin daughters. It is becoming uncanny how similar Rafa’s 2010 is to Roger’s 2009. Both had a bad year the previous year and had bad starts to the year, both got their act together in the clay court season, and both won the French Open/Wimbledon double. And now both had a significant event happening in their lives after Wimbledon. For both these players 2009 and 2010 must be the best year of their lives respectively so far. Nadal is obviously a huge football fanatic who played football before he took up tennis, and winning the world cup is basically on par with Federer having children.

Roger’s 2009 was amazing tennis wise because he completed the career slam and won the most major titles in history. And then he had children as well. Everything just seemed to be happening for him, just as everything is happening for Nadal this year. The reverse is also true. In 2009 Nadal had his worst year, while Federer has hit an all time low himself now. It is obvious that these two’s destinies are very much intertwined. All of this is just part of the ongoing ebb and flow of the Fedal rivalry, and Fedfanatics can take heart from it because as sure as Rafa is the one on top now, so will Roger be on top again. Does this give us a clue of what is to come for the rest of 2010 as well? Maybe. In 2009, after Roger had all the success during the middle part of the year, his form fell of somewhat towards the end of the year.

He lost to Del Potro in the final of the US Open, and the same could be true for Rafa. With the physical problems Rafa had in the past on hard courts, and with all the tennis he has played of late, this could well be the case. Nadal has also never won three majors in one year, and I think winning the major he has never won before, could be asking just a little too much. But this would also mean that Federer won’t win the US Open either, in which case we would have a new champion again. The obvious choice would be Andy Murray, but since I’m holding true to our experiment, I’m gonna keep believing that Roger will win win a 6th US Open to make this another great year for him and his fans. Incidentally I visited RF.com today, and someone there had a dream after the Australian Open with the number 6172 in it.

Someone has also posted the link to my post Like a King, Federer will Rise… on RF.com, and someone else then pointed out that the number 6172 was mentioned in that exact order in my blog post. It stands for a 6th US Open title, 17 grand slams, and 2 grand slams for the year. So lets make 6172 our number for 2010. If Roger does turn out to win the US Open(which of course he will!), then this will all fall nicely into place. So lets keep sending him those positive thoughts!

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