Following Rafael Nadal's thrilling comeback in the 2022 Australian Open Final, there has been a lot of discussion about where this final ranks compared to other great grand slam finals.
Whilst there always is some recency bias involved, there is no doubt that last Sunday night's match was within the top ten grand slam finals of all time.
What was most impressive of all about this win, however, wasn't the match itself or any of the rounds prior. Instead, it was the fact that 'Rafa' fought through the toughest of adversity to take home his record-breaking 21st grand slam title.
As he revealed in his interview following his big win, "A month and a half ago I didn't know if I would play tennis again at a professional level due to various factors, including the problems I've had with my foot and with COVID."
In order to determine which grand slam final matches since 2000 have been the best, we look through two different criteria:
1. The quality of the match
2. The length of the match (has to be a 5-setter)
3. What it meant for the world of tennis with breaking records etc
Here's our top ten.
4. 2009 Wimbledon Final: Roger Federer (SUI) vs Andy Roddick (USA)
Scoreline: 5–7, 7–6(8–6), 7–6(7–5), 3–6, 16–14
Like many of the other finals in here, this was a battle between a heavy favourite (Federer) and an underdog (Roddick).
In saying this, it was always going to be tricky for Federer to break Roddick's world-class serve. This proved to be the case with Roddick slamming down ace after ace, accumulating 27 in total.
However, astonishingly, Federer served the lights out with a career-high 50 aces.
Breaks of serve were extremely hard to come by and in the first four sets Roddick managed to win the only two, translating to his two winning sets. Meanwhile, Federer won two very tight tiebreaks where all that was needed was a mini-break.
Ultimately, it came down to a decider where the best server would win. Finally, after 30 games in the last set (more than three times the amount in the set prior) Federer went on to win one of the longest matches in history taking home his 15th grand slam in the process. Such a win saw Federer overcome Pete Sampras' record of 14, putting him first on the all-time list.
