Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal unite for the first time on a doubles court. This was the sport’s equivalent of a solar eclipse.
Swiss Federer and Spaniard Nadal, who have won a combined 35 Grand Slam titles, are part of a Europe side playing a World team over three days.
The sight of singles contenders in doubles harness is increasingly rare these days, especially on a men’s tour that involves best-of-five-set matches at slams. Federer had not played with a partner for fully two years, since pairing up with Stan Wawrinka in the Davis Cup, and that sense of unfamiliarity was not hard to spot.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal took care of business in their singles matches before teaming up in an eagerly anticipated doubles pairing to extend Europe’s lead over players from the rest of the world in the inaugural Laver Cup on Saturday.
https://twitter.com/rogerfederer/status/911730314623385600/photo/1
Given their combined age of 67, Federer and Nadal teamed up to represent Team Europe against Team World comprising Jack Sock and Sam Querrey. For 81 minutes, the world of tennis stopped and stared, analysed and gawked as Federer and Nadal played on the same side of the court, shared tactics and had plenty of fist bumps to pass around. In the end, the duo won 6-4, 1-6, 10-5 to extend Europe’s lead after Day 2 to 9-3. Day 3 of the Laver Cup will see matches be worth 3 points each which gives Team World a slender chance of making a comeback. The team first to 13 points will win the inaugural competition.
Just testing @RafaelNadal's reaction time, obviously 🙄 pic.twitter.com/IATmeZacCJ
— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) September 24, 2017
After the match, Nadal said: “It was an unforgettable day, after the history behind us to be on the same part of the court fighting for the team is something we enjoyed a lot.”
Federer added: “For me, personally, it is a great moment too. We only ever practised once together, back at the World Tour Finals, so we don’t show each other a lot. We will always be rivals. But this was something very special, it was an absolute pleasure being on the court with Rafa and seeing his decision-making process.”