Every once in a generation, tennis produces a rivalry that transcends the sport itself.

The kind of rivalry that hogs magazine covers. The kind of rivalry that puts butts, both celebrity and civilian, in the seats.

The kind of rivalry, without which, this great sport of ours would fade into background noise.

The late 70’s and early 80’s had the Ice and Fire show.

Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi lit up the 90’s with their all-American duel.

The dawn of the millennium saw the rise of a pony-tailed Swiss man. Although he trimmed his locks a few years in, his dominance only grew, seemingly unchallenged. But sure enough, as the cliche goes, for every Superman there is a Lex Luthor, ready with the kryptonite. Rafa Nadal and Federer combined to give us a rivalry that, although statistically lopsided, produced some of the most memorable YouTube fodder moments this sport has ever seen.

All of which leads us to 2016 and a new battle that rules the roost.

Novak Djokovic is coming off a 2015 that in it’s clinicality and superiority will go down in history as one of the greatest seasons of all time.

On Thursday, under the lights of the Rod Laver Arena, he’ll meet a familiar face.

Someone who’s game he would know like the back of his hand.

Let’s back up a bit shall we?

Starting the year with a bug, Federer coughed and sneezed his way to the finals of his first tournament of the year in Brisbane, where he bowed out to a bomb-serving Milos Raonic.

Melbourne greeted a cold-free Federer and so far, as he tends to do in the earlier rounds of Slams, he has looked sharp, focused and occasionally, majestic.

A very tricky draw with players like Grigor Dimitrov, David Goffin and Tomas Berdych was navigated with consummate ease.

Djokovic on the other hand, looks like he picked up from right were he left off in 2015. He blew away everyone including an alarmingly listless Nadal in Doha.

In the blistering Aussie summer, everything proceeded according to script. And then he ran into a very determined Gilles Simon.

The Frenchman’s constant change of pace and direction allied with his willingness to run down every ball frustrated Djokovic no end. The match went the distance and by the time the match clock went past 4 hours, the best player in the world had registered an eye-popping 100 unforced errors.

As is his wont though, Djokovic came through when it mattered the most.

Federer vs Djokovic has been a consistent fixture in the tennis calendar for some time now. These two have met each other 44 times so far and with both players registering 22 wins each, it has been edge-of-the-seat stuff.

15 of those meetings have come in the last two years (Djokovic leads 9-6), and although Federer has been the only player to have given Djokovic a run for his money day-in day-out, when it comes to Grand Slams, the Serb has always managed to find a way past the older Swiss.

You have to go all the way back to 2012 and Wimbledon to find a Slam victory for the Swiss over Djokovic.

Apart from largely nullifying Federer’s serve and thereby denying him a plethora of cheap points with a return that is firmly entrenched in the “best-ever” category, against Federer, Djokovic seems to serve as well or even better than his opponent in the key points, consistently putting in more than 70% of his first serves.

Another factor of note in this match-up is how, during the last two years, whenever Federer has won, except for a single instance, it has always been over in double quick time and in straight sets.

Federer will have to attack and dictate points from the get-go and when on song, this game plan and his all-court brilliance tends to reduce the watching populace to puddles of “ooohs” and “aaahs”.

But, in a best-of-five contest, there usually comes a point where even Federer cannot sustain it against a player who currently looks immune to any plan of attack. And at 34 years old, there is simply no coming back from a 2-set or even a 1-set deficit against Djokovic.

As a person, I admire Djokovic immensely. He has toned down his caveman victory celebrations, is gracious in victory and defeat and has matured into one of the best ambassadors the sport has had.

As a tennis player – the best in the world now by a landslide no less – I, inexplicably, do not like him one bit.

And on that fateful September night last year, when rain lashed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, 20000 New Yorkers echoed my feelings rather vociferously.

In the end though, it hardly mattered. Djokovic held aloft his 10th Slam title beating Federer in 4 sets.

What has changed since then?

Federer has parted ways with coach and childhood idol, Stefan Edberg and to near everyone’s surprise, hired Ivan Ljubicic. A former player who once bizarrely, when you think about it, was competing against these very two players only half a decade ago!

The interesting question then becomes, what specific insight can Ljubicic bring to the table? What made Federer choose him over all the other potential candidates?

Ljubicic has played a combined 20 matches against these two. His record though, isn’t very encouraging. He is a combined 5 wins to 20 losses.

By Djokovic’s own admission, Ljubicic knows his game pretty well.

Will that really matter?

Hardly.

If there were any particular weaknesses in the Djokovic game that can be consistently exploited over 3 sets, you’d think a player of Federer’s tennis IQ would’ve figured it out by now.

As the 22 – 22 split in the match up suggests, Federer knows exactly what he has to do to beat Djokovic.

Melbourne Park has been kind to the Serb. 5 out of his 10 Slams have been held aloft with the blue plexi-cushion surface under his feet. The door to his 11th is wide open and nothing less than a sensational Federer will do to slam it shut.

Prediction: Djokovic