Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will play for more than just a spot in the men’s final when they clash at Rod Laver Arena on Thursday night.
As well as the glory of winning the match people are calling #fedal on Twitter, up for grabs is the illustrious top spot of the Australian Open ‘Social Leaderboard’, the new fan-based initiative giving tennis buffs across the globe the power to help their favourite players surge to the top of the popularity table.
If fans tweet about a player with a hashtag corresponding to their name, or simply ‘like’ any sort of content about them on the official AO website, the players accrue ranking points.
The Spaniard and the Swiss maestro have already generated waves of online buzz with 68,300 combined overall hits on Facebook and Twitter so far throughout the Open, but their numbers are set to skyrocket.
Their highly-anticipated semifinal showdown is expected to draw huge amounts of interest and discussion on social media sites, paving the way for fascinating tussle atop the Social Leaderboard.
Federer and Nadal have occupied first and second place of the interactive ladder throughout the entire tournament, with the Spaniard currently holding the top spot with 34,934 total hits.
Roger is hot on his tail, however, with 33,358 of his own.
Both men have proven they are suffering from no fan shortage, particularly Nadal who has only been knocked off the top briefly after Federer crushed Juan Martin Del Potro in the quarterfinals.
But it didn’t take long before the Spaniard regained his superior position after shooting past Tomas Berdych only hours later.
The Social Leaderboard encourages the public to turn to social media to get their favourite players to the top of the rankings and accommodates even occasional tennis fans, not just highly-passionate supporters.
“The idea behind it was that we wanted to have an area for the casual tennis viewer,” Australian Open Social Media Co-ordinator, Daniel Lattimer, said.
“During the tournament we find that a lot of people use social media to talk about the tennis, but a lot get involved just for the two weeks of the Australian Open.
“So we wanted to create an area ... to have a bit of a parallel to die-hard tennis fans who are looking at all the stats and the intricacies of the tennis.”
An extra feature of the Social Leaderboard is the interactive stats page that highlights the top-five trending players of the day and a 'trending tweets graph' over a 24-hour or seven-day span.
Wednesday night’s clash with Djokovic and Ferrer saw 6,657 related tweets sent between 8pm and 11pm, according to the graph.
To help Nadal keep his top spot of the Social Leaderboard, make sure you tweet with the hashtag #Rafa or simply ‘like’ any content on the AO website that refers to him.
For Federer to shoot up and claim first place, use the #federer tag.
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