Just a month ago Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, but there is another invention that is destined to surpass him. Miami, March 28, 2004: on the Masters court, the former world number 1 tennis players will challenge each other, Roger Federerand the number 34 Raphael Nadal. The first is twenty-two years old, the second is just seventeen. Here, the invention of their rivalry surpasses any social network.
The bookmakers have no doubts. Roger will win hands down. The Spaniard is too immature to think of competing in the third round of the tournament with someone who has already won Wimbledon and the Australian Open, the most prestigious pieces of the Grand Slam. Federer is also very young, but he has already shown what his regal tennis is made of, with sumptuous one-handed backhands, atomic passing shots and a very refined serve and volley.
Nadal’s name, however, began to be imprinted on the lips of the experts in those weeks: olive complexion, a headband to gather his long dark hair and two enormous arms, which are the reason for shots that resemble cannonballs. The same ones that today he will use to surprise everyone on world television.
Because Federer starts off confident and clean as always, but he quickly understands that his rival doesn’t leave a mark. Rafa is a spring. His legs, pure dynamite. He stretches out on the fateful trajectories embroidered by the sublime Swiss and neutralizes them. He comes to the net when needed, with courage, defusing his enthusiasm. He defends himself more often from the back, from where he fires hypersonic missiles.
The commentators are perplexed. The audience, stunned. How is it possible that the Miami sun sets on Roger’s kingdom? And yet the first set goes to the Spaniard, who takes it home with a peremptory 6-3. Oh well, whisper those watching, it must have been a coincidence. A moment of confusion for the swiss hero. Not at all.
Federer continues to sew his aristocratic tennis, but Nadal responds with unheard-of tribalism. The second set also ends 6-3 for him and the match ends, incredibly, after only 69 minutes. At that exact moment everyone understands that the King has just found a worthy rival. Nadal will then stop in the fourth round, defeated by the Chilean Fernando González, while the tournament will be lifted by the then world number 2, Andy Roddick.
But that day of twenty years what makes the real success, for Roger, Rafa and all the public, is the rise of that incredible contest for the most glittering seat in this sport.
Federer and Nadal would then meet forty more times. Their legend would grow hand in hand, always thinking back, with a widening smile, to that day in March in Miami when the history of tennis changed forever.