Apart from the Olympic title have Nadal presently any other advantage ahead of Djokovic?
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TimHenmanATG
Hall of Fame
Rafa is an agnostic atheist.
Novak is an eccentric weirdo who believes in mystical "airs" over natural geological formations, the body's "natural power to heal itself" (kids die of cancer, mate), and got "diagnosed" for a purported gluten allergy by a self-styled "guru" rubbing bread on his abdomen.
I think that Nadal's association with reality completely eclipses Djokovic's deluded copium, and that history will look upon their careers in the same light...
Novak is an eccentric weirdo who believes in mystical "airs" over natural geological formations, the body's "natural power to heal itself" (kids die of cancer, mate), and got "diagnosed" for a purported gluten allergy by a self-styled "guru" rubbing bread on his abdomen.
I think that Nadal's association with reality completely eclipses Djokovic's deluded copium, and that history will look upon their careers in the same light...
nolefam_2024
Talk Tennis Guru
What is copium ? Isn't it for losers. Novak is not a loser. He won.
Better use other words to show your disdain for the GOAT.
TimHenmanATG
Hall of Fame
"Copium" is just humorous internet slang for the concept of psychologically "coping" with life's harsh realities by creating a more comforting ideal in one's mind...
Poisoned Slice
Bionic Poster
@TheNachoMan
I do my GI as a knockout. Bret Hart won the latest, beating Muta in the final, Chono in the semi, Fujinami in the quarter, Steven Regal in round 2 and Tenzan in round 1. Fair to say the Hitman is getting looked after.
I do my GI as a knockout. Bret Hart won the latest, beating Muta in the final, Chono in the semi, Fujinami in the quarter, Steven Regal in round 2 and Tenzan in round 1. Fair to say the Hitman is getting looked after.
Terenigma
G.O.A.T.
As amusing as this topic is (and it is) Nadal fans should take comfort in the fact that in every single posters lifetimes on this forum, Nadal's clay achievements will NEVER be surpassed. Especially his RG record. Yeah sure Djokovic has pretty much every record outside of clay and is a better player overall but it's not like Rafa has nothing. I feel more sorry for Federer fans these days than i do Nadal fans. His legacy has all been wiped away.
Tennfan123
Legend
Slow day at Nolefam HQ, I see.
GoatNo1
Professional
W is more complicate. nole has 3-1 and 3-0 in finals as H2H, better W% and W20 put a big asterisk in all that. because, fed was injured and nole won 2 previous and 2 after that one. and never get chans to play it when he was enorm favorit for the title.
GoatNo1
Professional
and yet, despite all this, nole has preserved his health far better than rafa, or any other player in the history of tennis!
TimHenmanATG
Hall of Fame
Drawing simplistic conclusions from highly variable data is the hallmark of cheap thinking.
nolefam_2024
Talk Tennis Guru
Yes but it's for losers.
Out of Nadal and Djokovic I can only say Nadal as a loser. He even proved it during his last interview.
TheNachoMan
Legend
nolefam_2024
Talk Tennis Guru
Your every comment is a cheap thinking as shown by poster above. Hatred will give you nothing.
jackson vile
G.O.A.T.
Careful what you write, Novak might just snatch RG from Nadal’s little hands.
How do you say; Don’t count the bottles of vodka until you’ve milked the potatoes?
How do you say; Don’t count the bottles of vodka until you’ve milked the potatoes?
Poisoned Slice
Bionic Poster
Martina Navratilova's title winning record would have made Inoki blush.
TheNachoMan
Legend
Hogan was fighting PRIDE fighters while Martina dominated. What an inspiration.
TimHenmanATG
Hall of Fame
The slang may have originated amongst "losers", but it's used ironically by "normal" people in this day and age...
Agree completely, I just wanted to emphasize significance of slam finals... beside what you mentioned above, there's also win percentage where Nole leads, one more title in '24 will bring him to 90%, second best, equal as Sampras. Let's wait to see how will next season start to unwrap, by next Wimby it's possible that no Fedal fans will be present discuss this matter
Breakpointerer
Legend
Pat Rafter is a nobody? You know that he has one more Slam than Goran?
That won’t last. Novak should easily get to 15 AO by the time he retires.
THUNDERVOLLEY
G.O.A.T.
That is true. Djokovic has an impressive history of 10 AO titles, but its still edged out by Nadal at the French Open.
pirhaksar
Professional
lol when you put it like that
BauerAlmeida
Hall of Fame
This.
I might give slam H2H importance if it was a similar case as to Federer-Murray back in the day (before Federer turned it around entirely), but since over half of the matches were at Nadal's pet slam can't give much importance to that.
But he dominated a slam and surface in a way nobody else ever did. That is bigger than the Olympic Gold imo.
Underdog
Professional
Let me put some perspective.
Djokovic played 5 RG finals when Nadal played the event - 12, 14, 15, 20, 21 (I can’t count ‘16, because Nadal wasn’t defeated, he withdrawn). They met in every one of those tournaments.
Nadal played the same 5 AO finals when Djokovic played the event - 09, 12, 14, 17, 19. They only met twice.
You should consider that when Novak was off, he wasn’t there waiting for Rafael with a good chance of losing. The opposite is true for Rafael as even in his ‘15 slump he met Djokovic. Nadal was always there. Never dodged.
Keep that in mind.
Underdog
Professional
Please consider dropping those ‘20 and ‘22 USO asterisks bs. Novak got rightfully defaulted on his own doings and then he simply chose not to play. Yes, they were good opportunities, especially 20, but he wasn’t prevented from playing or keep playing because of something he had no control over.
He made his choice.
I'd say the big advantage is having a record that will probably never be broken for all time. 14 RG titles. I can see any other record in tennis being broken, including obviously all of Novak's records but I'd bet everything I own that no one will even come close in any of our lifetimes to Rafa's 14 titles at a single slam
GoatNo1
Professional
the right perspective is as this:
RG as rafas best and noles worst slam - 56% the other 3 slams together - 44% (AO, noles best and rafas worst slam - 11%, W - 17%, USO - 17%)
Underdog
Professional
Again, perspective:
Nadal played 5 Wimbledon finals when Djokovic played the event to a defeat - 06, 07, 08, 10, 11. They met twice.
Djokovic played 6 Wimbledon finals when Nadal played the event to a defeat - 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19. They met twice
So, only once more Djokovic went all the way and Nadal didn’t meet him along than the opposite.
The clear difference comes in the USO, but then again, they’re tied 4-4 there.
Nadal played 5 Wimbledon finals when Djokovic played the event to a defeat - 06, 07, 08, 10, 11. They met twice.
Djokovic played 6 Wimbledon finals when Nadal played the event to a defeat - 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19. They met twice
So, only once more Djokovic went all the way and Nadal didn’t meet him along than the opposite.
The clear difference comes in the USO, but then again, they’re tied 4-4 there.
Razer
Legend
On Grass he is nothing compared to Goran.
We are not discussing their overall stature, overall Rafter is more accomplished and one of the top players of the 90s. However on Grass Goran's title defines him, not his losing efforts to Sampras. Rafter could never win wimbledon. Most people globally only look at titles and judge.
Razer
Legend
Not 100% wiped .... He still has the wimbledon record all to himself.
He has the US open record too but it is shared, so I dont discuss much of that, the real legacy of Federer is his Wimbledon, once that gets beaten, then it is a big problem.
It is upto Alcaraz now to save Federer's dignity, nobody else can protect it, not Nadal, not Federer himself, not Sir Andrew, not 90s gen..... no one..... only Alcaraz
BauerAlmeida
Hall of Fame
Lol, Djokovic has been constantly making finals since 2011 and Nadal losing to nobodies. Only in 2016, 2021 and this year he was absent. Bringing up 2006 when Djokovic was outside the top 20 is hilarious.
BauerAlmeida
Hall of Fame
You can, you don't want to. Just like you have no problem counting AO 2009 for Djokovic.
Underdog
Professional
Different situations. At ‘09 AO, Djokovic was losing to Roddick when he withdrew. Nadal didn’t get defeated, he withdrew between matches because of injury. Discarding 09 would be almost the same as discarding 21 because Nadal got injured mid-match.
Underdog
Professional
Well, Nadal was constantly making finals prior to 2011 when Djokovic was subpar. I don’t see why a period should prevail over the other.
As to ‘06 Djokovic, although he’s a great, great player, he can’t be let off the hook for being a late bloomer (to his career standards). If at an age at which Nadal was already Slam champion he was outside the top 20, there’s nothing I can do about it.
Federev
Legend
Why would you “punish” Novak cause he loses in more finals than losing in lower rounds- as if failing to win more rounds is better?
“Honey, I’m so proud you came in last instead of getting the silver!!!”
“Thanks Mom!!”
Nonsense.
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Razer
Legend
Tennis doesn't have a silver medal and bronze. The plate you get for being a losing finalist is a consolation prize only because you reached that far, they give something so that you dont feel bad. However that plate is worthless. Only the Trophy matters....
CoolCoolCool
Hall of Fame
How does that change the fact that losing in the final is a better result than losing earlier in the tournament?
Razer
Legend
From the perspective of the fans/audience it is better for a player to lose early and I will explain why, this is because if you've come that far then you better deliver on the big stage when you perform in the front of the audience cause you will be judged if you lose. This is also because there are players like Sampras, Nadal who if cross the QF raise their level more, but there are guys like Federer who are as great in round 1 as they are in round SF, less prone to upsets early but as they reach the last stage they have been beaten more times as well. Or look at Murray, he reached so many Semis but has how many slams now? It is not like was stopped all the time by Big 3, he was stopped by others too, why was that? Because his base level was high but his peak is low.
So in simple words, reaching more SF/F could be an indication of a higher base level but the world judges you on a higher peak, that is why John Mcenroe will always be the superior US open player to Lendl despite Lendl having a winner h2h over him at USO & more finals too, but who has more us open titles ? Only the titles count.
So it does not matter if Novak reached more finals and lost more like Lendl, he failed to win more titles, that is all that counts. Ohh and yes he has a losing h2h too, but lets keep that aside, as long as title counts are EQUAL then are dead EQUAL, if you wanna still split between them then the H2H will come into play, not the losing finals.
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Aestheticsaboveallelse
Legend
USO is Djokovics worst... the reason he lacks RG success is because of Nadal just like everyone else lol. Nadal hogs it all
GoatNo1
Professional
Just no
I will stretch further in the argument. Me not playing a grand slam is better than anyone losing in the finals. There you go. Lol
Aestheticsaboveallelse
Legend
Yes, Djokovic is about as good at RG as he is at wimbledon
CoolCoolCool
Hall of Fame
He's better at USO. It's just the competition was overall tougher at USO because most players perform better on HC.
InsideOut900
Legend
Nadal has 14 titles and 2 years where they met and Nadal lost (2015/2021).
Pencil in 2009 and 2017 AO as the losses Novak would have had to Nadal that are the equivalent of 2015/2021 (even though Nadal was the clear favorite in 2021 regardless).
That's 10 meetings in 16 RG editions vs. 4 meetings in 12 AO editions.
So 62.5% of the times the could have reasonably met in RG vs. 33.3% of the times in AO.
RG 2023 and AO 2022 cancel each other out as one winning at the favorite event of the other.
So we are left with Nadal outperforming Djoko at AO 05 and Djoko outperforming Nadal at RG 16.
Nadal had a more injury issues than Novak, it's true, but he doesn't deserve a pass when people aggressively use the H2H in his favor just because he skipped events that Novak won.
So we can easily say they met grossly twice as much in RG as in AO based on projected expectations starting with 2005.
James_Bolt
Rookie
If they have the same number of titles, then the number of finals is the tiebreaker.
- There no extra point awarded for H2H to a specific player. (Beating Federer or beating the world number 200 at the same stage of a tournament give the same amount of point).
- No player start a season with H2H goals. But they start with a goal of winning or reaching F, SF, QF of a tournament.
- With H2H you cannot rank players from different generation but you can use number of W, F, SF, etc.
- A player can manipulate the H2H (lose on purpose to avoid a player). They cannot manipulate a reach to final.
- When player are announced, if their best result is reaching the final, it will be announced by the journalist (for example "Ruud, the 2 time finalist of RG" not "Ruud, the player with positive H2H with xyz)
Nadal has reached the final of ATP Finals twice, but has a negative H2H to Soderling and Blake (both never won ATP Finals). Does that mean they have been better than Nadal at ATP Finals?
Razer
Legend
When you get your ass kicked by Nadal 2 times on Arthur Ashe then more asskickings at the hands of Murray, Stan cannot be tie breakers to put your case ahead of Nadal.
To be the man you gotta beat the man or you need more titles...... PERIOD
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