Rafa's W/L record - can he sustain it?

[piece]

Originally Posted by borg number one

Folks tend to downplay Borg's winning %, but notice that at 25, Nadal is still just below Borg and as for Federer, was there ever a time when he was at 82-83% during his career (say at 25-27?). Plus, look at Borg's match totals. Even at 25-26 he had played many more matches in total than Nadal. To answer the OP's question, I do think that Nadal can sustain his winning percentage. He is now well established as a top player, not climbing the ranks. Folks forget that sometimes. It's going to be years before he really drops much in the rankings in my opinion and during these next few years, I think he'll continue to win plenty.

Don't think so. As far as I'm aware, Federer's career winning % is at its peak right now, notwithstanding the substantial drop in his yearly winning % we've seen since 2007. The reason for this is his mediocre first 4 years on tour. He's been crawling his way up from defecit he incurred from 1999-2002 ever since.

Nadal, for instance, has never had any stand-out years in terms of winning % but he's never had any horrendous ones either since he was so good at such a young age, which helps out his career % a whole lot.

[WhiskeyEE]

Rafa can't be GOAT for a few reasons

Slam count skewed too much toward clay
Masters results skewed way too much toward clay
He doesn't have any elite seasons. His best years he had an 88% winning percentage. Compare this to Fed's 2 95% seasons.

Sorry but the ONLY thing that Rafa has to even make this debatable is his winning record over Federer. If he didn't have that; rather, if Fed didn't make so many clay court finals in 2005-2009, this wouldn't even be up for debate.

Nadal is the clay GOAT and is VERY fortunate to have met Federer so many times on the surface. That's it. Sorry.

[Seth]

Originally Posted by WhiskeyEE

Rafa can't be GOAT for a few reasons

Slam count skewed too much toward clay
Masters results skewed way too much toward clay
He doesn't have any elite seasons. His best years he had an 88% winning percentage. Compare this to Fed's 2 95% seasons.

Sorry but the ONLY thing that Rafa has to even make this debatable is his winning record over Federer. If he didn't have that; rather, if Fed didn't make so many clay court finals in 2005-2009, this wouldn't even be up for debate.

Nadal is the clay GOAT and is VERY fortunate to have met Federer so many times on the surface. That's it. Sorry.

How do you square this with the argument that his winning percentage has been so consistently high rather than having a flare here and there.

[WhiskeyEE]

Originally Posted by Seth

How do you square this with the argument that his winning percentage has been so consistently high rather than having a flare here and there.

Roger's has been consistently high AND he has 3 93+% win seasons. The fact that he took a few extra years to develop into a top player doesn't mean much. Fed has won 88% of his matches since 2003. That's a nine and a half year period. That's disgustingly consistent. His average over the last 9.5 years pretty much equals Nadal's best year.

Even old man 2011 Federer with zero slams managed an 84% win percentage. Nadal's lack of an elite season shows that he never really dominated the entire tour.

In 2010, his best year, he didn't win a single non-clay masters title. Like I said, clay GOAT, not overall GOAT.

[MG1]

Originally Posted by WhiskeyEE

Roger's has been consistently high AND he has 3 93+% win seasons. The fact that he took a few extra years to develop into a top player doesn't mean much. Fed has won 88% of his matches since 2003. That's a nine and a half year period. That's disgustingly consistent. His average over the last 9.5 years pretty much equals Nadal's best year.

Even old man 2011 Federer with zero slams managed an 84% win percentage. Nadal's lack of an elite season shows that he never really dominated the entire tour.

In 2010, his best year, he didn't win a single non-clay masters title. Like I said, clay GOAT, not overall GOAT.

I'm not surprised but was not aware of bold part.

His record at the end of 2003 was 236-110... 68.20%

[tank_job]

Originally Posted by nadal_slam_king

Over the next 5 years I think Nadal will focus on clay all-year round (the South American clay events). There is no logic behind submitting to the most injury-inflicting surface that is hardcourt when you are getting toward age 30. And every player stops caring about their ranking at some point. That is when Nadal will not care about the hardcourt masters events. Mandatory, but still able to be skipped. Definitely I see him skipping the indoor season, and skip Indian Wells/Miami. Still play Canada/Cincy/US Open/AO but no other hardcourt events. More clay events, South American season. Overall W/L record will therefore stay the same or slightly improve.

That would be GREAT!!

The less we see of Nadal the better, and he'd just be giving away all those HC and grass slams to Djokovic then, and Djokovic could easily rack up as many slams as Nadal in that case.

What would make your scenario even funnier would be if Nadal got knocked out of those clay tournaments by some on fire Berdych/Murray/Djokovic/Davydenko type and didn't even manage to win those clay titles he banked on winning and skipped the entire rest of the year in favor of!!

[Lsmkenpo]

Originally Posted by tank_job

That would be GREAT!!

The less we see of Nadal the better

I like the way your thinkin here, maybe I was wrong about you.

[MG1]

better for only some people.

[crazyups]

Originally Posted by WhiskeyEE

Rafa can't be GOAT for a few reasons

Slam count skewed too much toward clay
Masters results skewed way too much toward clay
He doesn't have any elite seasons. His best years he had an 88% winning percentage. Compare this to Fed's 2 95% seasons.

Sorry but the ONLY thing that Rafa has to even make this debatable is his winning record over Federer. If he didn't have that; rather, if Fed didn't make so many clay court finals in 2005-2009, this wouldn't even be up for debate.

Nadal is the clay GOAT and is VERY fortunate to have met Federer so many times on the surface. That's it. Sorry.

Federer's slam count skewed too much towards hard court.

[MG1]

Originally Posted by crazyups

Federer's slam count skewed too much towards hard court.

nopes.. 2 out of 4 slams are on h/c its perfectly balanced.

[WhiskeyEE]

Originally Posted by crazyups

Federer's slam count skewed too much towards hard court.

56% (9/16) of his slam wins are on hard court
50% (2/4) of slams each year are played on hard court

compare this to:

60% (6/10) of Rafa's slam wins are on clay
25% (1/4) of slams each year are played on clay

sorry but no. If anything Roger's HC slam count is in perfect balance as the above poster said.