Familiar Faces Nadal & Djokovic to Meet in Australian Open Final

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The 2019 Australian Open tennis championship is winding down, and we have very familiar faces meeting in the men's final once again. It will be Novak Djokovic against Rafael Nadal. Djokovic is 31, and Nadal is 32, respectively. These two met in a huge quarterfinal match at the French Open way back in 2006. Here they are, 13 years later, with a total of 31 combined Grand Slam titles between them, and with one of them assured to walk away with yet more silverware on Sunday, after the final match.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, who came is as the 14th seed, got wiped out by a red hot Rafa Nadal, who easily dispatched with the younger Greek player, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0. It was almost scary how good Nadal was in this semi-final. Nadal has had an amazing tournament thus far, and some considered him now the new favorite over the number one seed, Djokovic, after such a convincing semi-final win. 

Yet, if anything, Novak Djokovic was even better. Djokovic spent as little time as possible in action in the second semi-final, easily dispatching 28th seeded Frenchman Lucas Pouille 6-0, 6-2, 6-2. He hardly seemed to break a sweat doing it.

Nadal reached his 25th career Grand Slam final, second only to Roger Federer, who has been to 30 Grand Slam finals on the men's side.  He has won 17 and lost 7 of the prior Grand Slam finals that he went to. But Djokovic is in third place in terms of most Grand Slam finals qualified for, and is only one behind Nadal, as this is his 24th overall Grand Slam final. He has compiled at 14-9 mark in his previous Grand Slam finals matches.

Nadal will be pursuing his 18th overall career Grand Slam title, but he will try to do something that nobody has done since Rod Laver, which is to win a double career Grand Slam. He already has won each Grand Slam at least once, but he has won all of the other Grand Slams at least twice each. But he only has won the Australian Open one time, ten years ago. He has reached the Australian Open four times since, but lost those previous three matches. Maybe the fourth time will be a charm for him to reach the elusive double career Grand Slam title, something that eluded the other men who have managed to win a career Grand Slam title in recent history - Agassi, Federer, and Djokovic. A win here would also place Nadal just two shy of Federer's record of 20 overall Grand Slam titles.

Djokovic has won 14 Grand Slam titles in all, with six of them coming at the Australian Open. He is the only men's player in recent decades to have held all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously, as he won four straight Grand Slams from July of 2015 until he was eliminated at Wimbledon in July of 2016. He also is currently tied with Pete Sampras for the third most Grand Slam championships won, although he could break that tie and move into sole possession of third place with a win. he would also move to within two of Nadal for second most ever.

It is hard to tell who exactly has the edge in this match. Nadal is the older and slightly more experienced player. While Djokovic holds the slight edge in head-to-head meetings between the two, Nadal has the advantage in head-to-head Grand Slam meetings between them. Plus, Nadal is arguably playing the best that he has ever played down under, although we should also keep in mind that Djokovic specializes at winning in Australia. He has won six Australian Opens, and has never lost in a men's final at this particular tournament. So, that makes this coming match very hard to predict.

I have said this before, but will say it again: I believe that it is a privilege as a tennis fan to be able to witness this era, with three of the greatest tennis champions of all time competing against one another. Most likely, we will not see anything quite like this again. Already, Andy Murray has effectively dropped out of the race for greatness, announcing that he will be retiring this year. Meanwhile, Federer finally looks like age might be catching up with him just a bit.

Yet, we still have Nadal and Djokovic, and they are both clearly on top of their games. Two of the greatest champs in tennis history squaring off on Sunday. We should enjoy it while we still have it. 

One chart shows how much the Big 3 have dominated men's tennis over the last 15 years Cork Gaines and Shayanne Gal, September 10, 2018:

https://www.businessinsider.com/big-3-dominate-mens-tennis-federer-djokovic-nadal-2018-9