Nice post.
Couple of points though..
You said that only a handful of people have called Rafa an overall GOAT contender but I have even heard commentators call him that. That said, one was Jmac who proclaims a new GOAT every 3 days.
Point two is you said Rafa has been injured a lot during the WTF but I think many of those were made up or exaggerated to give him an out/excuse at the WTF. I find it cowardly myself. He is NEVER injured during the clay season yet always has a problem at the WTF...very suspicious.
Indoor is not a surface but its certainly a large part of the season. There is the Hardcourt/clay/grass/indoor structure of the tour.
1/4 of the season Rafa is relatively inept at.
I still do think only a handful of people actually think Rafa is the overall GOAT. Sure, a lot of people say it, but I don't think many actually think it or would believe it if they thought it through.
Commentators are particularly guilty of overhyping players, because that's their job. Any one of the big four would hit a backhand smash and the commentators would proclaim it's the most difficult shot ever, yet I've seen journeymen hit similar quality backhand overheads without so much as a peep from them. JMac's "Rafa has the best volleys" is another example of that sort of thing (that said, I do think he's a close second behind Fed amongst the Big 4 but that's not really saying much).
Rafa's record at the WTF and how it correlates with his clay season is something I see that gets brought up often. The argument as I understand it is that since he is never injured during the clay swing (which is almost never except in 2003 / 2004 / 2009 / 2016), then he must be faking his injuries or at the very least exaggerating when he skips the second half of the season or loses early.
That's one way to look at it, but tbh it's a lot simpler to see it the way I see it: Rafa knows wins on clay are a sure thing provided he is fit enough to play, so he goes all in during the clay swing (skipping tournaments if he needs to in order to ensure he is well enough to play by the time it starts) then sees everything post RG as a bonus if he is still fit enough to play. It's like his health has a very limited "pool" and since clay is almost a guaranteed win provided he's playing well, he uses up 90% of his budget there and sees where the remaining 10% gets him. It's not that different from Fed skipping clay in 2017 and 2018--because he knows that part of the season will make too much of a dent in his body. Unfortunately for Rafa, that same part of the season is the bit he's best at, so he doesn't have a choice other than to just keep at it and hope his body doesn't implode again after RG.
Sometimes, he's healthier for longer than usual (most recently 2017); other times not so much (most recently 2018). Even if he's fine after clay, I think his clay schedule leaves his body rather fragile and susceptible to injury, and that is exacerbated by the brutal effect of HCs on joints in combination with the intensity and physicality of Rafa's style. Hell, even Fed had to have a surgery in his knee, and Rafa's got that foot condition that he sort of "fixed" by wearing special shoes that as a side effect put extra stress on his knee.
Anyway I don't think Rafa's the type to chicken out from matches--for instance, he kept showing up in 2009, 2011, 2015, and 2017 even though he was being routinely beaten by one player (2011, 2017) or by the whole field (2009, 2015). In 2015 he didn't have any major injuries; just played like garbage and yet still showed up for his drubbing. His best results that year were ironically during the indoor HC swing where he showed up to get drubbed yet again by a peak Djokovic. Yes, Rafa does have a record of playing like a chicken once a match
starts (eg AO 2019), and I do think a lot of his withdrawals from tournaments are partly preventative and not completely rehabilitative in nature.
But what are we suggesting if we decide that withdrawals for injury prevention or in anticipation of injury are cowardly? We are saying that an athlete should withdraw only after they've already injured themselves, and that if they have a niggling little thing that has a good chance of snowballing into a proper injury, they should play anyway and then withdraw after they've injured themselves. I think we'd both agree that is an unreasonable thing to expect, even from a professional.
Edit: removed a typo
