The Greatest Tennis Matches Ever Played

May 20, 2025

The floodlights go out and the clay is laid down. The battered grass is returned while the cement is repainted with its playing lines. The 2012 tennis season comes to a close with the last official tournaments. The best ATP players meet in London to play the ATP Masters Cup, which pits the eight biggest names of the season against each other. The tournament is played head-to-head and with the last remaining arguments, and a necessary assessment is made of yesterday.

Everyone will notice the disappearance of Rafa Nadal at this year-end event, and it will be impossible not to dream of the serious warning his health has given him. Andy Murray's campaign, finally victorious in major titles like Olympic gold and the US Open, will rightly be highlighted, a well worked and patient burst of success that arrives neither late nor on time. Nor will the work of Roger Federer be forgotten far from fading at 31, he returned to the top of the rankings for much of the season, mainly due to his Wimbledon title.

Rafa Nadal at the Summit

As for number one Novak Djokovic, his season has been remarkable once again, even though it was impossible to match the unattainable year of 2011. He secured victories in Australia, the finals in Paris and New York, and won the Masters 1000s in Miami, Toronto, and Shanghai. Furthermore, it's important not to forget David Ferrer, the most successful player of the year in terms of number of matches won and titles achieved, with Ferrer increasingly positioned among the magnificent four who precede him.

Rounding out the list of contenders are other Masters Cup regulars, such as Juan Martín del Potro, whose return to practice is now a reality Tomas Berdych, who must be singled out for his position among the top players for several seasons now Jo Wilfred Tsonga, another eagerly established player and Janko Tipsarevic, who last year was already among the contenders, albeit at the last minute. Regardless of who advances with the latest titles at stake the Masters Cup and Davis Cup we can already describe the 2012 season as remarkable.

An Out of this World Semifinal

Continuing with this assessment of the season, it's an interesting exercise to choose which match was the best of the entire year. Perhaps one of the Grand Slam finals? A Masters 1000 match? A Davis Cup match? This selection, being capricious and always personal and debatable, doesn't represent any measure of global significance, but it does broadly indicate some of the key aspects of the year. We'll choose the most memorable ATP tennis match of the 2012 season, and we'll also select the most notable match from each of the last four seasons, as a way of creating a comprehensive map over time.

What remains is a mosaic, a sketch of the recent tennis landscape, and at a glance, it will tell us where the sport has been moving in the last few years. In chronological order, the best matches are as follows: Nadal took over Paris very early, at just 19 years old. He would do so many more times in the future, but Rafa always had more desire to win the tournament he most wanted to win, and that was the grass-court Grand Slam: Wimbledon.

The Never Ending Match

Despite his presumed lack of experience on this surface, Rafa quickly became competitive. In 2006, he played his first final, repeating this feat four more times in the following six years. In that first edition in '06, he couldn't do anything to Federer, who overwhelmed him, but in 2007, Rafa came really close, taking the lead to the fifth set but crumbling in the final set, also against the Swiss champion. The third rematch came the following year, and that had to be the decisive attempt.

The 2008 final also featured Roger Federer as an opponent. Nadal knew exactly where the key to winning lay: "I had learned the lesson from the defeat twelve months earlier and was clear that my concentration wasn't going to let me down; anything else could let me down, but my head, no It was 4 hours and 48 minutes of relentless fighting. He started it late, as the dreaded rain would arrive in the final minutes before the match began. Once it began, the dark clouds would never abandon him, always suspicious throughout the afternoon.

Conclusion

Nadal made it through the first two sets, further improving his break points. He stubbornly hit Roger's backhand, following this game plan in an organized manner. Rafa was ahead, mostly because he knew how to deal better with the great moments, but Roger kept it great and did succeed in tying two balanced sets, winning them in the tiebreak and even saving two set balls. Even then the confrontation had arrived at an imperial height, the All England Club audience was thrilled and still waiting for the last set.

In the fifth set the battle was also epic, even having a rain stoppage, the second interruption after a downpour in the third set. Everything seemed to be going around in circles. Nadal arrived in 2009 in full adulthood. He dressed for the event and replaced the pirate pants and sleeveless top with a more modest and less childish outfit, presumably the most beautiful uniform Nike has ever organized for the Balearic tennis player. When he walked into the US Open '09, the Balearic tennis player was rock solid number one, and his excellent 2008 performance backed him up.

Search This Blog

Empower Edge Corporation