In Strokes of Genius, Wertheim revisits Nadal’s five-set, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-7(8), 9-7 triumph in shot-by-shot detail, all the while taking us into the locker room, into the Friends’ Box and into the minds of the Nos. 1-2 players in the world.

“This match had it all,” Wertheim writes. “Skill, courage, self-sufficiency, sportsmanship, grace, discipline, gallantry, poise, intelligence, injury, recovery, fibrillations of momentum, even acts of God.

The match was also significant for what it lacked.

Melodrama, pornographic trash talk, cheating. There was neither a scoreboard telling fans when to clap nor a public address announcer with a cartoonishly baritone voice. No cheerleaders, no goofy mascots, no booing, no piped in music during breaks in play or unnaturally peppy men firing T-shirts into the crowd via air cannon.”

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Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played