Until recently, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal had mostly been number 1 and 2 in the world.  Nadal has slipped in and out of number 2, dropping as low as 4, but now a resounding number 1.  Because these two players have been at the top for so long, it’s meant that the only way these two players could meet is in the finals.  It’s a credit to both players that they have reached the finals so often to meet one another.

In the past year or so, this has been more of a problem.  Part of the problem was Nadal being injured between the French Open and Montreal last year.  But part of the problem was Federer simply failing to reach that many finals.

It turns out, however, that it’s not just the 1 and 2 seed that can’t meet before the finals.  Neither can the 3rd and 4th seed.  For much of the last 3 years, Murray and Djokovic have been 3 and 4 in the world.  And as 3 and 4 in the world, and with Federer making so many Slam finals, Murray and Djokovic have never met in a Slam.

Indeed, the two have met each other only 7 times.  The first four times, Djokovic won.  The last three times, Murray won.  The two last played in the finals of Miami in 2009, a match Murray won.  The best chance for both players to have met each other was Wimbledon.  Both reached the semifinals.  If both had made the finals, they may have produced a symbolic changing of the guards.  To be fair, Nadal is about the same age as Djokovic and Murray, and is likely to continue to be a problem for these two players in the upcoming years.  But, neither Djokovic nor Murray made the finals, and so this match-up will have to wait until another time.

It’s instructive to compare the two players.  Neither are really power players.  Djokovic uses his accuracy, speed, and flexibility to move the ball around.  He also is a pretty good returner.  Djokovic is a superior clay court player, perhaps the third best clay courter behind Federer and Nadal.  However, Djokovic has struggled with consistency, partly due to his health.  Djokovic says that it’s been a while since he had to retire (although he could have in the Australian), but it looms over every match he plays especially when the weather gets hot and Djokovic has to play best of 5 sets.

Djokovic has wrestled with his serve the last year, trying to find a motion that might be friendlier to his body.  Like Sharapova or perhaps Ivanovic, this change of motion has come at a price.  Djokovic found his serve being less potent than before, and he’s also struggled with double faults.  Wimbledon found Djokovic regaining some of the speed of his serve, but double-faults cost Djokovic both the second and third sets against Tomas Berdych.  It seems Djokovic is inching closer to the way he wants to play, but it’s taken him about 6 months to work this out.  He’ll want to get into match shape for the last major of the season.

Like Djokovic, Andy Murray also had a shaky 2010.  While Djokovic struggled with health and consistency, Murray struggled with motivation.  Murray started off 2010 looking faster than ever, and reached his second major final, only to find Roger Federer at the end.  Much like the Nadal match, Murray found himself in a tiebreak to extend the match another set.  And much like the Nadal match, Murray couldn’t find the strokes at the key moments to extend his chances.  Federer would again find himself a Slam winner, and this time, it was Andy Murray who shed tears, realizing that he had not produced his best tennis at the biggest moments.

Murray spent the next two weeks away from tennis.  He claimed that he hadn’t felt like this in years, but it was not an unfamiliar feeling, wondering how devoted he was to his tennis.  Murray would play decently at Indian Wells, but having been a finalist the year before, a quarterfinal loss to Soderling wasn’t what he’d hoped for.  Then, a 2nd round loss to Mardy Fish at Miami, the site where Murray does his off-season training must have been quite a low.

Murray tried to recover during the clay season, but clay is not Murray’s strong suit.  The best clay courters are either heavy spinners a la Nadal or to some extent, Djokovic, or hard hitters like Soderling or Berdych.  Neither quite describe Murray’s game.  To Murray’s credit, he’s learned to hit more spin off his shots, especially to play someone like Nadal, but he doesn’t use these spinny shots much against anyone else.  He tried to use them against Kohlschreiber, but Kohlschrieber was able to attack these shots.  Murray then worked on flattening the shots more, but he needed to build consistency to hit those shots a dozen times in a row.  In the end, he struggled about as much as he normally does on clay.  Still, it seemed to bring his game around as the grass season began.

As we head into the US Open, it will be interesting to see where each player takes their games.  The two have combined to win one title the entire year.  That title being Djokovic’s win at Dubai.  Djokovic generally does pretty well in the second half of the year, and Murray does too.  Perhaps like Nadal, both these players need to find tournament wins to motivate them to victories.

Meanwhile, with Nadal on the resurgence, and with both Djokovic and Murray trying to regain their game, both will have to spend more time waiting to ascend the throne of tennis.