Better Clay courter: Federer or Djokovic

La_Para · May 22, 2014

Federer:
2009 French Open champion
Four runner-up trophies at Roland Garros
10 career clay-court titles (appearing in 33 finals)
Six Masters 1000 titles (Hamburg 2002, 04-05, 07; Madrid 2009, 12)
76.6 winning percentage on clay, and 80 percent at Roland Garros

Taken from:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2016578-breaking-down-roger-federers-clay-court-legacy

Djokovic:
has won nine of his 44 career titles on clay.
Five Masters 1000 titles (Rome 08, 11, 14, Monte Carlo 2013, Madrid 11)
One runner-up trophy at Roland Garros
77.4 winning percentage on clay, and 80 percent at Roland Garros
Does better against Nadal? (Didn't know if this is relevant. If it isn't just ignore it)

To start the discussion I've thought of three questions for you to answer:

Who do you think is the better clay courter in terms of results at the moment?
Will that change if Djokovic wins RG this year?
Who do you think has the highest peak on the surface?

PS. I had quite some difficulty finding Djokovic stats, please correct me if I've made a mistake.

Enjoy

SpinToWin · May 22, 2014

1: Federer
2: No, Federer still has the edge in Masters 1000 titles.
3: Federer. He played close to his peak level in the RG 2011 SF and beat absolute peak Djokovic quite comfortably.

tennisaddict · May 22, 2014

I will wait to answer the question when Novak reaches the FO final 5 times.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

Djokovic has 5 master titles on clay (not 4): 3 Rome, 1 Madrid and 1 M-C.
My feeling is that as long as Djoko doesn't win RG, you can't pick him over Fed but if he wins RG, then it will be a no brainer because he would have won all the big clay events (3 masters + slam) and no amount of Hamburg titles could make up for the fact that Fed never won M-C or Rome.

Fiji · May 22, 2014

The one with 5 RG finals.

Djokporto fan · May 22, 2014

SpinToWin said:
1: Federer
2: No, Federer still has the edge in Masters 1000 titles.
3: Federer. He played close to his peak level in the RG 2011 SF and beat absolute peak Djokovic quite comfortably.

2 federrer have no edge over atp masters 1000 ,djokovic is far better

cc0509 · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Djokovic has 5 master titles on clay (not 4): 3 Rome, 1 Madrid and 1 M-C.
My feeling is that as long as Djoko doesn't win RG, you can't pick him over Fed but if he wins RG, then it will be a no brainer because he would have won all the big clay events (3 masters + slam) and no amount of Hamburg titles could make up for the fact that Fed never won M-C or Rome.

But Federer has reached the FO final five times and Djokovic only one. You have to look at slam results before Masters 1000 titles. That is the golden rule in tennis.

JanowiczJ · May 22, 2014

Federer, because of that 2011 semis. Not only it added one more final to Federer but prevented Nole's first RG title.

The 'tie' advantage goes to Federer, so answering point '2', Nope. Djoko needs 2 RG to surpass Federer. He'll easily surpass him at the Masters, tho.

Djokporto fan · May 22, 2014

federer cant beat rafa* on clay exp. hamburg ,djoko can
*CC goat

Fiji · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
But Federer has reached the FO final five times and Djokovic only one. You have to look at slam results before Masters 1000 titles. That is the golden rule in tennis.

I concur.

slam results beats ms results.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
But Federer has reached the FO final five times and Djokovic only one. You have to look at slam results before Masters 1000 titles. That is the golden rule in tennis.

Nope. There is NO way to argue that winning a bunch of Hamburg (a lot of which the best clay players did not participate in) + RG once is superior to winning ALL major clay events. Forget about finals. Achievements > consistency when it comes to evaluating success on a surface.

La_Para · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Djokovic has 5 master titles on clay (not 4): 3 Rome, 1 Madrid and 1 M-C.
My feeling is that as long as Djoko doesn't win RG, you can't pick him over Fed but if he wins RG, then it will be a no brainer because he would have won all the big clay events (3 masters + slam) and no amount of Hamburg titles could make up for the fact that Fed never won M-C or Rome.

I see, I'll edit that then.
Thanks

mike danny · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
But Federer has reached the FO final five times and Djokovic only one. You have to look at slam results before Masters 1000 titles. That is the golden rule in tennis.

But he did face Nadal in a lost of SF. He would have reached the final in 2007, 2008 and 2013 had he had Nadal on the opposite side of the draw.

So he would now have 4 FO finals without Rafa in the semis

Fiji · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Nope. There is NO way to argue that winning a bunch of Hamburg (a lot of which the best clay players did not participate in) + RG once is superior to winning ALL major clay events. Forget about finals. Achievements > consistency when it comes to evaluating success on a surface.

Disagree. Very few players have reached 5 RG finals.

Federer, Lendl and Wilander have 5 RG finals

Borg has 6 finals and Nadal has 8 finals. The Clay GOATs.

Wake me up when Djokovic reaches 5 RG finals.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

On top of that, even currently, Djoko has a higher winning % on clay careerwise than Fed: 78% vs Fed: 76.4% (Djoko comes right after Vilas for winning % on clay, he's #6 overall, Fed doesn't even make top 10)

Fiji · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
But he did face Nadal in a lost of SF. He would have reached the final in 2007, 2008 and 2013 had he had Nadal on the opposite side of the draw.

So he would now have 4 FO finals without Rafa in the semis

So? Federer would have 6 finals without Nadal as well as 6 RG titles, as many as Borg.

Without Nadal, Federer would be Borglike.

Fiji · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
On top of that, even currently, Djoko has a higher winning % on clay careerwise than Fed: 78% vs Fed: 76.4% (Djoko comes right after Vilas for winning % on clay, he's #6 overall, Fed doesn't even make top 10)

He is 6 years younger. Wait til he gets older and his winning percentage will look worst.

cc0509 · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Nope. There is NO way to argue that winning a bunch of Hamburg (a lot of which the best clay players did not participate in) + RG once is superior to winning ALL major clay events. Forget about finals. Achievements > consistency when it comes to evaluating success on a surface.

I disagree. You always look at slam results BEFORE anything else. Reaching five FO finals is looked at before the Masters achievements.

cc0509 · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
But he did face Nadal in a lost of SF. He would have reached the final in 2007, 2008 and 2013 had he had Nadal on the opposite side of the draw.

So he would now have 4 FO finals without Rafa in the semis

You can't look at "what would have happened" when assessing a tennis player's career. You can only look at what did happen and what did happen was that Federer reached five FO finals and Djokovic only one so far.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
I disagree. You always look at slam results BEFORE anything else. Reaching five FO finals is looked at before the Masters achievements.

Finals < titles regardless. + Djoko lost 5 times to Rafa as well. The only reason why the losses didn't happen in finals is ranking. Not relevant.

cc0509 · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
On top of that, even currently, Djoko has a higher winning % on clay careerwise than Fed: 78% vs Fed: 76.4% (Djoko comes right after Vilas for winning % on clay, he's #6 overall, Fed doesn't even make top 10)

Winning % is the very last stat I would look at.

uliks · May 22, 2014

Federer in 2. Whaterver the question...

cc0509 · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Finals < titles regardless. + Djoko lost 5 times to Rafa as well. The only reason why the losses didn't happen in finals is ranking. Not relevant.

I disagree with you on this one.

mike danny · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
You can't look at "what would have happened" when assessing a tennis player's career. You can only look at what did happen and what did happen was that Federer reached five FO finals and Djokovic only one so far.

I agree. But if Fed encountered Nadal in the semis in all those years he lost in the final, he would also have only 1 FO final to his name.

In a way Fed was very lucky Nadal was no.2 during his domination instead of no.3 or no.4. Otherwise we would have been asking "Will Federer ever reach a FO final?" back in 2006-2008

NatF · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
On top of that, even currently, Djoko has a higher winning % on clay careerwise than Fed: 78% vs Fed: 76.4% (Djoko comes right after Vilas for winning % on clay, he's #6 overall, Fed doesn't even make top 10)

You do realize this is heavily due to age? Federer's win percentage on clay has been dropping, he was top 10 at one point. Djokovic also has the luxury of taking on a declining Nadal, Federer would take this Nadal of the guy he met in all those clay finals any day.

I think peak level wise it's close but Djokovic needs a FO title plus either more masters or finals at the French to overtake Federer.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
Winning % is the very last stat I would look at.

When comparing 2 players you have to compare everything: titles, winning % and consistency. You cannot place Fed above a player who would show superior results in 2 out of the 3 categories, no matter how many finals.
Anyway, not sure what we're arguing about since Novak has never won RG which automatically gives Fed the lead...

mike danny · May 22, 2014

NatF said:
You do realize this is heavily due to age? Federer's win percentage on clay has been dropping, he was top 10 at one point. Djokovic also has the luxury of taking on a declining Nadal, Federer would take this Nadal of the guy he met in all those clay finals any day.

I think peak level wise it's close but Djokovic needs a FO title plus either more masters or finals at the French to overtake Federer.

In a way I agree. I think Federer in his 2006 Rome form would have also beaten this Rafa at Rome last week

cc0509 · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
When comparing 2 players you have to compare everything: titles, winning % and consistency. You cannot place Fed above a player who would show superior results in 2 out of the 3 categories, no matter how many finals.
Anyway, not sure what we're arguing about since Novak has never won RG which automatically gives Fed the lead...

The only thing I would have to consider is if Novak beat Nadal to win the FO, would that put Novak ahead of Federer on clay since Federer was never able to do it despite the fact that Federer made more FO finals than Novak. That is certainly a factor which could put Novak above Federer at the FO if Novak wins the title defeating Nadal.

Noelan · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Djokovic has 5 master titles on clay (not 4): 3 Rome, 1 Madrid and 1 M-C.
My feeling is that as long as Djoko doesn't win RG, you can't pick him over Fed but if he wins RG, then it will be a no brainer because he would have won all the big clay events (3 masters + slam) and no amount of Hamburg titles could make up for the fact that Fed never won M-C or Rome.

Completly agee with this.
Without RG in Novaks hands it's still Federer, once when he win it(hopefully) it has to be Novak.
No way that Federer could have 5 finals at RG that in any of them had to play SF against Rafa.Also MC and Rome >>>> than Madrid and Hamburg.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

cc0509 said:
The only thing I would have to consider is if Novak beat Nadal to win the FO, would that put Novak ahead of Federer on clay since Federer was never able to do it despite the fact that Federer made more FO finals than Novak. That is certainly a factor which could put Novak above Federer at the FO if Novak wins the title defeating Nadal.

Well, not to me. To me main factor is : 3 masters + slam (the only player to have that currently is Nadal). 0 M-C and 0 Rome is a huge argument against Fed, especially because Nadal and other top clay courters skipped Hamburg a number of years.

mike danny · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Well, not to me. To me main factor is : 3 masters + slam (the only player to have that currently is Nadal). 0 M-C and 0 Rome is a huge argument against Fed, especially because Nadal and other top clay courters skipped Hamburg a number of years.

Which top clay courters were missing during 2002-2007 when Fed won all his Hamburg titles? Because as far as i can remember he beat Coria twice(2004,2005) and also Nadal once(2007) to win 3 of his 4 Hamurg titles. He did beat the top clay courters, i don't know what you are talking about.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
Which top clay courters were missing during 2002-2007 when Fed won all his Hamburg titles? Because as far as i can remember he beat Coria twice(2004,2005) and also Nadal once(2007) to win 3 of his 4 Hamurg titles. He did beat the top clay courters, i don't know what you are talking about.

I know Rafa didn't play it in 2005, 2006.

mike danny · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
I know Rafa didn't play it in 2005, 2006.

Well have you asked yourself why? Not because Hamburg was not an important event. But because he was exhausted in both 2005 and 2006 after his Rome epics with Coria and Federer. Fatugue both times is the reason he skipped the event,since it was right after Rome at that time. Even Federer skipped the event in 2006 because of fatigue.

But in 2007 and 2008 when the best of 5 format in masters finals dissappeared, Nadal did play Hamburg and reached the final on both occassions. In those years fatigue was not an issue anymore.

2004 i am not counting it, since Coria was the top clay courter, not Nadal.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
Well have you asked yourself why? Not because Hamburg was not an important event. But because he was exhausted in both 2005 and 2006 .

Most clay specialists were exhausted for Hamburg (even when they played it) because it was the last event of a short densely packed clay season. It doesn't matter WHY Rafa didn't play it. It is obvious that his absence made the event much easier to win.

mike danny · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Most clay specialists were exhausted for Hamburg (even when they played it) because it was the last event of a short densely packed clay season. It doesn't matter WHY Rafa didn't play it. It is obvious that his absence made the event much easier to win.

True. But at the same time nobody played the epics Nadal played at Rome.

Federer was a bit lucky Nadal skipped Hamburg in 2005, but he still had to beat Coria who was another top clay courter that year.

pame · May 22, 2014

lol.... save your breath guys. veronniquem is on tunnel vision on this one and you could bring chapter and verse and the whole bible and it wouldn't make any difference. If the earth is flat, it's flat, and that's that

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
True. But at the same time nobody played the epics Nadal played at Rome.

Federer was a bit lucky Nadal skipped Hamburg in 2005, but he still had to beat Coria who was another top clay courter that year.

Sure but it doesn't matter. He still has 0 M-C and 0 Rome, which is his main handicap when compared to Djoko (on top of winning %)

mike danny · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Sure but it doesn't matter. He still has 0 M-C and 0 Rome, which is his main handicap when compared to Djoko (on top of winning %)

If Djokovic wins RG beating Nadal, i will definetely rank him above Fed on clay.

Fed missed a big opportunity not winning MC this year. It would have helped him in this debate

mike danny · May 22, 2014

Now i have a question, which IMO should deserve it's own thread.

Who did Nadal affect the most on clay? Federer or Djokovic?

Vcore89 · May 22, 2014

Federer's run at RG compared to Djokovic? Isn't it clear?

Phoenix1983 · May 22, 2014

At the moment, you have to consider Federer the greater.

However if Djokovic wins RG, defeating Nadal in the process, he becomes greater.

Fiji · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
Now i have a question, which IMO should deserve it's own thread.

Who did Nadal affect the most on clay? Federer or Djokovic?

Federer, of course. How many RG finals lost? Exactly.

Omega_7000 · May 22, 2014

veroniquem said:
Nope. There is NO way to argue that winning a bunch of Hamburg (a lot of which the best clay players did not participate in) + RG once is superior to winning ALL major clay events. Forget about finals. Achievements > consistency when it comes to evaluating success on a surface.

But H2H is still greater than number of majors won and duration of # 1 ranking? :roll:

vladap · May 22, 2014

without the Coupe des Mousquetaires in Djoko's hands this discussion is pointless

edk1512 · May 22, 2014

If Novak wins a RG title beating Rafa along the way, then to me he is the better player. If he doesn't, then it doesn't matter even if he wins 5 FOs without facing Rafa. Fed would have won the same amount without playing Rafa too.

veroniquem · May 22, 2014

Omega_7000 said:
But H2H is still greater than number of majors won and duration of # 1 ranking? :roll:

Of course not.

Chanwan · May 22, 2014

mike danny said:
But he did face Nadal in a lost of SF. He would have reached the final in 2007, 2008 and 2013 had he had Nadal on the opposite side of the draw.

So he would now have 4 FO finals without Rafa in the semis

Would he beat Fed in 07? No.
08? Maybe.

mike danny · May 22, 2014

Chanwan said:
Would he beat Fed in 07? No.
08? Maybe.

But he would reached the final in 2007. That was the point.

As for 2008 even that one is debatable.

Chanwan · May 22, 2014

La_Para said:
To start the discussion I've thought of three questions for you to answer:

Who do you think is the better clay courter in terms of results at the moment?

Will that change if Djokovic wins RG this year?

Who do you think has the highest peak on the surface?

This is a good thread with no obvious answers, except for the first one.
1. Fed, he's won the clay slam, that settles it.
2. They'll be neck and neck. If Novak beats Rafa in the process that would be an argument for him being greater. As well as the fact that he's already beaten Rafa 4 times on clay. Fed's RG RU's count a lot in his favor. Novak's full set in his. Matter of preference I guess.
3. Very close. Both have destroyed the clay goat for sets at a time. Fed's post peak took out Nole in 2011. But both of them can goat on the surface, when they play their best.

All in all, I still think Fed leads this and you could make that claim even if Novak wins this RG.
Fed's been a bit unlucky not to win more than one. Novak's been even more unlucky not yet winning one. But when all is said and done, I think Novak might be considered the greater clay-courter (I actually expect him to win 2 RG's in all seriousness, maybe, just maybe, even more)

mike danny · May 22, 2014

Chanwan said:
This is a good thread with no obvious answers, except for the first one.
1. Fed, he's won the clay slam, that settles it.
2. They'll be neck and neck. If Novak beats Rafa in the process that would be an argument for him being greater. As well as the fact that he's already beaten Rafa 4 times on clay. Fed's RG RU's count a lot in his favor. Novak's full set in his. Matter of preference I guess.
3. Very close. Both have destroyed the clay goat for sets at a time. Fed's post peak took out Nole in 2011. But both of them can goat on the surface, when they play their best.

All in all, I still think Fed leads this and you could make that claim even if Novak wins this RG.
Fed's been a bit unlucky not to win more than one. Novak's been even more unlucky not yet winning one. But when all is said and done, I think Novak might be considered the greater clay-courter (I actually expect him to win 2 RG's in all seriousness, maybe, just maybe, even more)

If he wins RG beating Nadal he is above Fed for me.

If he wins it without beating Nadal than he is equal with Fed, because that's exactly how Fed won his RG

Better Clay courter: Federer or Djokovic

Rookie

Talk Tennis Guru

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Legend

New User

Talk Tennis Guru

Professional

New User

Legend

Bionic Poster

Rookie

Bionic Poster

Legend

Bionic Poster

Legend

Legend

Talk Tennis Guru

Talk Tennis Guru

Bionic Poster

Talk Tennis Guru

Banned

Talk Tennis Guru

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Talk Tennis Guru

Legend

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Hall of Fame

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Bionic Poster

Talk Tennis Guru

G.O.A.T.

Legend

Legend

Professional

New User

Bionic Poster

G.O.A.T.

Bionic Poster

G.O.A.T.

Bionic Poster

Similar threads