"The Battle of The Surfaces"

This was just a flat-out brilliant idea on so many levels:

Take two current tennis champions - Roger Federer, a four time Wimbledon champion on the grass court, and Rafael Nedal,   a two-time French Open winner on clay - and have them square off on a $1.6 million customized half-clay, half-grass court on the island of Mallorca.

As I write this, the "Battle of the Surfaces" is still in progress.  But from looking at the score - 7-5 (Nedal),6-4 (Federer) and 6-6 in the third the match has lived up to all of the hype.

For tennis fans, this event is one of those - "Wouldn't it be amazing if...." once in a lifetime events.   It doesn't really matter who actually wins, just that it happened.

The real winner in all of this?

The Balearic Islands tourism bureau who footed the bill.

One thing is for sure - no matter who wins, there will definitely be a re-match

Comments

[Ian]

Way cool. Although I believe the real winners are Federer and Nedal - they collect the big appearance fees.

[claire]

Clever thinking on Saatchi and Saatchi's part. Reminds me of a similar event thought up by the dutch creative house KesselsKramer, where on the morning of the World Cup Final in 2004, they organized a unique football match between FIFAs two lowest ranked teams Bhutan vs Monserrat teams (202 and 203 respectively). The trophy, a trophy of two halves designed by London's FAT, meant that each captain had something to hold up, each team something to take home because at the end of the day the winner was football.