Sampras-Bruguera 1993
Legend
I dont think he IS ranked. LOL. Hes a terrible indoor player. Always has been. 2010 was decent though. Hell I would probably put Corretja over him. He at least has a year end title. Coincidently over Nadal's coach
Nadal's indoors ATG position
- Thread starter itrium84
- Start date
vive le beau jeu !
Talk Tennis Guru
DSH
Talk Tennis Guru
Sampras was defeated on carpet and on the indoor hard court against players such as Courier, Chang, Muster, Corretja, Kuerten, among others.
Nadal from 2010, 2013 could beat any of them or at least be on equal terms.
abmk
Bionic Poster
not even close in the end. fed was clearly outplaying Nadal from the ground for almost the whole match in the YEC 2010 final. only fed was returning meh in 1st set and below par in 2nd set. once fed found the return range in the 3rd set, it was finnish for Nadal.
abmk
Bionic Poster
Actually Fed is 6-1 vs Nadal indoors
The wins:
YEC 06 semi
YEC 07 semi
YEC 10 final
YEC 11 RR
Basel 15
Shanghai 17 final (tournament was outdoors, but final was played indoors)
abmk
Bionic Poster
Davy also won vs Nadal indoors in Paris 2008. (nadal retired after losing 1st set 1-6)
So nadal is 1-2 vs davy on HC indoors
socallefty
G.O.A.T.
There must be an ATG who is worse on indoor hard courts than Nadal. He is usually a solid #2 in any ranking and so, I doubt that he is the #1 worst ATG on indoor hard courts.
Djokodalerer31
Hall of Fame
There must be an ATG who is worse on indoor hard courts than Nadal. He is usually a solid #2 in any ranking and so, I doubt that he is the #1 worst ATG on indoor hard courts.
In his entire career he won just 2 indoor titles and lost 5 indoor finals...one of those, that he won was masters in 2005, the other is some indoor clay court event nobody cares about...draw your own conclusions from that! He is not only the worst ATG on indoor courts, but he is also worse than numerous 2-4 slam winners!...in the all-time rankings he would barely be ranked in top-40! yeah...it is THAT bad...and there are only about 12 ATGs in total in tennis (aka playes with at least 6 grand slams won...)
Dominic & Andrey
Legend
Nadal s*cks on indoors, but why do you put indoors above every other surface?
Djokodalerer31
Hall of Fame
It doesn't matter how much Byull fanboys try to tell everyone how insignificant indoor courts or one's career resume! There is no excuse for someone, who positiones oneself as the GOAT to have ever won only 2 indoor courts (even though one of those two is a masters 1000 tournament...)...no matter how Nadal fans like to spin it - it doesn't look reflective of GOAT material! If he had won at least a couple of more indoors masters and at least one WTF title - i would be more inclined to give him a pass, but since it isn't the case i'm not gonna sugarcoat anything...
TheFifthSet
Legend
Lol, Fed’s rpw% was over twice as high in the two sets he won, whereas it was close in the set he lost. No BP’s faced in either winning set…can’t get a more decisive non-straight-setter than that.
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socallefty
G.O.A.T.
I think what bothers him is not the perfect conditions, but the fast and low bouncing surfaces that are prevalent in the Indoor season. His topspin is somewhat neutralized by the low bounce and he can no longer hit without good depth or just to the middle of the court while standing well behind the baseline and bother any opponents. He also struggles to break serve as often as he does on other surfaces by standing well back - when he tries to stand in like he does today, he misses too many returns to be effective. Compared to many other ATGs, he doesn’t have a big serve either and so the fast surface doesn’t help him as much to hold serve easily as it does other big servers.
He picked a style of play that is perfect for slow courts and high bouncing surfaces while being bad for low bouncing, fast courts. That’s why it is hard to pick him as the GOAT unless he has a huge Slam title lead compared to someone like Djokovic who has a much more balanced game suited for all surfaces. Djokovic has a bigger serve, can return on the rise against big servers, can rally on the rise and take time away from oppponents, can hit flatter when needed to take advantage of the fast surface, has incredible precision to hit closer to the sidelines or with depth to bother opponents etc. He has also become pretty effective coming to the net to end points late in his career.
TheFifthSet
Legend
Ok, most people have laughed it off but I’ll actually try to do this…setting the cut-off at OE since almost every great player from the 50s-mid 60s and earlier was more accomplished indoors…
Clearly better:
Federer
Sampras
McEnroe
Djokovic
Becker
Murray
Krajicek
Connors
Laver
Rosewall
Roche
Lendl
Nalby
Edberg
Borg
Stich
Safin
Delpo
Tsonga
Kuerten
Courier
Davydenko
Agassi
Zverev (sorry, I hate it too).
Hewitt
Rusedski
Henman
Ivanisevic
Kafelnikov
Enqvist
Nastase
Tanner
Newcombe
Smith
Medvedev
Ashe
Gerulaitis
Similar level/arguably better in some cases:
Roddick
Korda
Dimitrov
Corretja
Wilander
Mayotte
Berdych
Ferrer
Gottfried
Fibak
Gilbert
Rosset
Mayer
Soderling
Kriek
Dibbs
Haas
Grosjean
Jarryd
Chang
Ferreira
Solomon
Larsson
Stockton
Tsits
Forget (almost forgot )
Arguably FAA if he wins Paris…
Probably a few I’m leaving out…as it stands now, Nadal is borderline Top 50 in the OE at best.
Clearly better:
Federer
Sampras
McEnroe
Djokovic
Becker
Murray
Krajicek
Connors
Laver
Rosewall
Roche
Lendl
Nalby
Edberg
Borg
Stich
Safin
Delpo
Tsonga
Kuerten
Courier
Davydenko
Agassi
Zverev (sorry, I hate it too).
Hewitt
Rusedski
Henman
Ivanisevic
Kafelnikov
Enqvist
Nastase
Tanner
Newcombe
Smith
Medvedev
Ashe
Gerulaitis
Similar level/arguably better in some cases:
Roddick
Korda
Dimitrov
Corretja
Wilander
Mayotte
Berdych
Ferrer
Gottfried
Fibak
Gilbert
Rosset
Mayer
Soderling
Kriek
Dibbs
Haas
Grosjean
Jarryd
Chang
Ferreira
Solomon
Larsson
Stockton
Tsits
Forget (almost forgot
)Arguably FAA if he wins Paris…
Probably a few I’m leaving out…as it stands now, Nadal is borderline Top 50 in the OE at best.
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RS
Bionic Poster
Correct.
WarriorRafa
Hall of Fame
Its less about indoor and more about the low bounce of the post US Open tournament surfaces.
jl809
Hall of Fame
2nd list is some decent trolling but 1st list is unironically totally on point. I might take Tsonga off it but other than that it’s bulletproofOk, most people have laughed it off but I’ll actually try to do this…setting the cut-off at OE since almost every great player from the 50s-mid 60s and earlier was more accomplished indoors…
Clearly better:
Federer
Sampras
McEnroe
Djokovic
Becker
Murray
Krajicek
Connors
Laver
Rosewall
Roche
Lendl
Nalby
Edberg
Borg
Stich
Safin
Delpo
Tsonga
Kuerten
Courier
Davydenko
Agassi
Zverev (sorry, I hate it too).
Hewitt
Rusedski
Henman
Ivanisevic
Kafelnikov
Corretja
Enqvist
Nastase
Tanner
Newcombe
Smith
Medvedev
Ashe
Gerulaitis
Similar level/arguably better in some cases:
Roddick
Korda
Dimitrov
Wilander
Mayotte
Berdych
Ferrer
Gottfried
Fibak
Gilbert
Rosset
Mayer
Soderling
Kriek
Dibbs
Haas
Grosjean
Jarryd
Chang
Ferreira
Solomon
Larsson
Stockton
Tsits
Forget (almost forgot
Arguably FAA if he wins Paris…
Probably a few I’m leaving out…as it stands now, Nadal is borderline Top 50 in the OE at best.
TearTheRoofOff
G.O.A.T.
But this is totally propaganda, mate, there's a thread and everything.
RS
Bionic Poster
Pain released out my system.
TheFifthSet
Legend
thanks!
Lolz, might have read as trolling but I don’t think Rafa has done enough to clearly separate himself from most on the second list. The two finals are good, but most don’t have the benefit of getting a shot every year they’re healthy—but it’s still a point to the good accomplishments-wise.
Fair enough on Tsonga, I’d say he’s better but there’s room for doubt. Paris ‘08 is an underrated win though, probably the best indoor tournament either man has played. Then you have the big gap in overall indoor tournament wins (13 > 1, but surely Nadal would have snatched many more if he prioritized 250’s) and Tsonga reached 1 WTF final in only 3 attempts.
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RS
Bionic Poster
It was epic.I still remember a certain Nadal fan arguing his 2019 Davis Cup efforts was up there with the YEC
RS
Bionic Poster
ASE CIE mediocre average decent weak above average good very good bad very bad great GOAT
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Clay lover
Legend
Let's put it this way. I've always felt using even surface distribution to bring down a certain player a pretty recent invention as back in the days when Sampras won mostly on grass and fast hard and was pretty mediocre on clay and Laver won most slams on grass people had no qualms calling them the greatest. Also why should a player be discredited because he's too dominant on a surface that he won on it enough to make up the slam total? I would argue being THAT dominant is even harder than having an equal distribution. So to me detractors of Nadal using his indoors record better prove to me it's more impressive to have a better record indoors than being as dominant on clay as he is to convince me that the indoors record is such a glaring hole.
That said, Nadal fans also shouldn't get too cocky as the slam total is the only thing going for him right now. They should be honest about the WTF - I'd reckon most players value it as the second most important tournament after slams and even if it's after the Olympic Gold for some I doubt one singles Gold would be enough to offset five WTFs from Djokovic - the disparity is just too great. Nadal is also behind in terms of Masters with Djokovic having double career golden masters (sure all-surface versatility is not the end-all-be-all but still having the complete set of Masters is impressive in its own right).
In other words, I wish people could just shut up about the "skew", quit downplaying the WTF and be more objective in general, but one can only hope.
That said, Nadal fans also shouldn't get too cocky as the slam total is the only thing going for him right now. They should be honest about the WTF - I'd reckon most players value it as the second most important tournament after slams and even if it's after the Olympic Gold for some I doubt one singles Gold would be enough to offset five WTFs from Djokovic - the disparity is just too great. Nadal is also behind in terms of Masters with Djokovic having double career golden masters (sure all-surface versatility is not the end-all-be-all but still having the complete set of Masters is impressive in its own right).
In other words, I wish people could just shut up about the "skew", quit downplaying the WTF and be more objective in general, but one can only hope.
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Not many, especially if Rafa has only 2 indoor titles.
D
Deleted member 791948
Guest
Nadal is the King of taking big scalps at the Indoor ATP Finals:
Nadal beat Djokovic x2
Nadal beat Wawrinka x2
Nadal beat Murray x2
Nadal beat Tsitsipas x2
Nadal beat Federer
Nadal beat Medvedev
Nadal beat Rublev
Nadal beat Djokovic x2
Nadal beat Wawrinka x2
Nadal beat Murray x2
Nadal beat Tsitsipas x2
Nadal beat Federer
Nadal beat Medvedev
Nadal beat Rublev
Djokodalerer31
Hall of Fame
"not many" ...LOL more like NONE of them...
Hitman
Bionic Poster
ghostofMecir
Legend
This is true, but playing against this style is easiest when conditions are perfect in which ball striking can take away time. Honestly, there’s no real way to do ish what he’s done, but it’s also something to look at when he cannot win regularly when perfect ball striking conditions exist.
vive le beau jeu !
Talk Tennis Guru
Born_to_slice
Legend
Yeah, he can be a dangerous floater indoors for guys not in best form but sooner or later...
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Djokodalerer31
Hall of Fame
Ewww...Yeah, he can be a dangerous floater indoors for guys not in best form but sooner or later...
Tennfan123
Legend
Nadal have a multi slam season has triggered so many fan bases.Well, two in particular
AgassiSuperSlam11
Professional
I didn't read this entire thread so may repeat things others have said. My opinion is that Nadal is the GOAT "Outdoors ATP player" as he won 90 Outdoor ATP titles (972-173, 84.89%) and has positive H2H virtually against everyone Outdoors. In addition, old school tennis required many more BO5 finals and I'm not fully convinced that the 2010 ATP Finals would've resulted in a Fed win if it was Bo5 instead of Bo3. Moreover, Fed once blew a 2-0 lead against Nalbandian in a BO5 ATP Final so not impossible for Nadal to have won from 1-2 down. Overall, yes indoors wasn't Nadal's strong suit and that is part of my rationale why I would have difficulty rating him higher than Laver when you favor all of their accomplishments. Sorry to those 3 Nadal fans that usually troll me.
Hitman
Bionic Poster
2010 Nadal faded away in that third set, because the match with Murray took a lot of him. Federer was running away with it at that point, and Nadal really isn't known for coming back from 2-1 down against his main rivals. In a best of five with Federer, they are split 3-3 each in the fifth set. As for Nalbandian in 2005, Federer wasn't really going to play that year, he had not played any tennis due to the ankle injury he had, forcing him to miss out Madrid and Paris masters, he was on crutches just a short while earlier. It still took a fifth set from a zoning Nalbandian who is very good indoors to win....In 2010, Federer was not coming back from an injury, he was building momentum at the time, having won in Basel, don't think the comparisons are ideal personally.
AgassiSuperSlam11
Professional
I have a very simplistic view that the "mental aspect" plays a major role in Sports and performance in general. This is why Djokovic himself admitted that he got Becker as a coach because he felt to overtake both Fed and Nadal, he needed that extra mental toughness. Nadal had won his last 3 BO5 matches (HC, Grass, Clay) coming into that Final against Fed and had won 6 out of the last 7 against Fed. After Fed lost the 2nd set in that 2010 ATP FInal he now must think, "Now I need to win 2 more sets against the guy who beat me 6 out of the last 7. We'll never know what would've happened if it was Bo5 instead of Bo3. Unfortunately, the same can be said about many other tournaments that were watered down from Bo5 to Bo3.
Hitman
Bionic Poster
It still doesn't change the point that Nadal had played a long match the day before against Murray, and was exhausted in that third set, which is why Federer ran all over him. Nadal had all the momentum heading into the third set also, it was a one set match at that point, but Rafa couldn't keep up the intensity. Everyone pointed to Murray taking away his legs, and there being no rest day in between. Those slams matches you mention, Nadal at least had one day to rest before the final, that was not going happen here. He had already played Djokovic, Roddick and Murray in a row, he was feeling it. So, no, I don't think a tired Nadal was beating him in a best of five, when on a surface more suited to his game, in Madrid 2009 on clay, he could not do anything to Federer after a similar long match.
AgassiSuperSlam11
Professional
If Fed starts making UE errors, you'll be surprised how a second wind comes. My favorite NBA player was Isiah Thomas and just watch what he did in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals against the Lakers with one leg. The guy scored 43 points (including 25 in 1 quarter) with an injured ankle and of course you have Michael Jordan in the "Flu game." Not impossible for an athlete to overcome physical difficulty with mental strength. In fact, how many thought Nadal would win the 2022 AO Final after losing the first two sets to Med? These feats are usually improbable but not impossible.
Hitman
Bionic Poster
Well, considering Nadal's record when trailing 2-1 down in sets in slams leaving a lot to be desired, and that Federer is in fact 3-3 with Nadal in the fifth set, and Nadal feeling it in the legs, I don't personally agree.
You mentioned Medvedev 2022....do you know the last time Nadal did that was in W 2007 against Youzhny, which was 15 years earlier? It's not something that is part of the pattern for Nadal, it is a very rare thing indeed. He is a better front runner.
blauerton
Rookie
He did win. He won.
AgassiSuperSlam11
Professional
Context is always important in comparative analysis. We are talking Nadal vs Fed here. Fed lost his last 3 Bo5 matches and 6 out of the last 7 to Nadal coming into Final. Perhaps he loses in four sets if he knew entering that match, he needed to win 3 out of 5 against Nadal. Remember, Fed blew 2 Championship points in a Bo5 Rome Final against Nadal. Moreover, was 3-8 against Nadal in BO5 which included a very fortunate win in the 2005 Miami Final. Nonetheless, the result still remains a Fed win.
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Hitman
Bionic Poster
I agree context is important and I appreciate that is what you are trying to bring here. But in the talk about Nadal v Federer, keep in mind also, that Federer indoor was 2-0 against Nadal, with zero sets lost. Just saying that changing it all to BO5 drastically changes that isn't entirely true, especially considering that both Wimbledon and AO finals went all the way to the fifth set, and Nadal had a lot more rest, especially before the AO 2009 final in comparison to having no rest coming into WTF final.
What you need to remember is that Federer's group played first, so Federer rested on Friday, while Nadal played back to back Friday and Saturday, and his match was the late match on Saturday, as he was playing Murray at home and the match went 3 hours plus. Best of five or not, Nadal legs were going in that third set, otherwise ask yourself, he had one set left to play, he had done all the hard work, he had all the momentum, why did he drop so badly just before the finish line? And how can he even have recovered and put in two MORE sets after that to win, when it became obvious Federer's balls were not coming back.
In the fifth set, it is 3-3 between them, means that Nadal has no distinct advantage in it going that far, his ideal is a four set win, but that clearly wasn't going to happen in the WTF 2010 final, as he was crushed 6-1 in the third set. So the law of averages in every way were going to work against him.
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