Nadal Keen for Federer Wimbledon Duel, Regrets No US Open Clash

London, Jul 11 (AFP) Rafael Nadal looked ahead Wednesday to the latest chapter in his "unique" rivalry with Roger Federer at Wimbledon but regretted that the two heavyweights may never slug it out at the US Open.

Nadal and Federer will meet for the 40th time on Friday in the semi-finals at Wimbledon, in what will be the pair's fourth meeting at the All England Club.

Federer won the 2006 and 2007 finals before Nadal claimed the 2008 title in a five-set epic.

At Roland Garros, the pair have clashed six times while they have met on four occasions at the Australian Open.

But when it comes to the season's final Grand Slam in New York, the two have never managed to face off on the 24,000-capacity Arthur Ashe Stadium, the sport's largest arena.

That's despite Federer having five titles at the US Open while Nadal has three.

The 32-year-old Spaniard said that as much as he has enjoyed their rivalry at Wimbledon, the New York gap in their head-to-head record was a source of regret.

"We played a lot of good matches. Here in this tournament we played two great finals, 2007 and 2008. Have been two emotional matches.

"Personally, 2008 was a little bit more emotional for me. But I appreciate the fact that I was part of the 2007, too.

"Then we played a lot of matches all around the world. Only in New York we didn't play. That's the only bad news."

Two-time Wimbledon champion Nadal was written off as a grass court force when he failed to get beyond the fourth round at the tournament between 2012 and 2017.

However, he came agonisingly close to the final in 2018 when he lost to Novak Djokovic in a five-hour, 16-minute semi-final.

"To play against Roger always is a unique situation. Excited to be back on this court against him after 11 years," added Nadal.

"Always I say the same -- the opportunities to play against each other every time are less, but we are still here. After tomorrow we going to have another chance." (AFP) APA APA 07110947 NNNN at gully cricket, and in later years, watching every ball of every important cricket match from the best box at the pavilion end, the book says.

“Even as cricket remained his passion, his eye was set on the blind alleys of crime in downtown Mumbai.”

According to the author, Dawood's influence on the Pakistan cricket team has been an open secret for over a decade now. “His name has also cropped up in scandals in neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.”

As the police went through the cricket dossiers, they came across the Sharad Shetty era, which ended in 2003, when cricketers would regularly wine-and-dine with mafia lords and the seeds of match-fixing were first sown in the official records of law enforcers, he says.

“By 2010, the windfalls from this cricketing business had reached a critical mass. It had prompted the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) to issue an alert that funding for terror was drying up and the only two options available for the underworld to fund terror were hawala and cricket,” the author writes.

“The IB also claimed that the underworld did not invest money in the game directly, but looked to invest in it through its stooges. The operation was made to look legitimate in nature and would be a great challenge to track,” he says.

He is of the view that the much-glamourised IPL, in retrospect, was perhaps the perfect stage to set up a multi-crore ‘enterprize' of such a nature.

“Not only were there ample opportunities and staggering amounts of money to be made, but the result of a match played between a glamorous mix of players from countries around the world made it look like a confirmed jackpot win on a free lottery ticket for the underworld,” he argues.

“As the Special Cell reached the end of the Dawood files, they couldn't help but hope for poetic justice: that maybe one day, the sport that he loved most in the world would be the route to extradite him back to India,” the author says.

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