Best of the Big 3 on their weakest surface?

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Historical, not current Big 3. (Rafa/Novak/SexyRogi)

First, we must determine what is in fact their weakest surface.

With Roger, it's easy: clay

But Novak? Is it clay or grass? If it's grass, he might win this poll. But that's somewhat an unfair categorization in this context I admit, even as a Nole fan...so let's make it clay (clearly his least accomplished, despite all the masters wins over Nadal and the surface seeming to suit him)

With Nadal, is it grass or hard? Most difficult one to determine imo...I say hard courts...before you balk...remember he made 5 of 6 Wimbledon finals (and 5 in a row minus the injured 09) at 1 point and has 2 Wimbledon titles...went toe to toe with Roger is both 07 and 08 (obv winning 08, "the greatest match ever") Also his 2 major wins on grass sort of equal 4 on hard relatively speaking to measure the levels (2 opportunities at slams a year on hard) Great levels on HC at USO '10 and particularly at the USO 13 and making the AO 14 final etc...also numerous masters...but there just isn't the opportunity to get those titles on grass. It's very close, but I think you'd have to say historically hard is his weakest surface.

Considering all that, I'd say Rafa is the best on his "weakest surface" and also clearly the best on his "Strongest surface".

The difference is both Roger and Novak are still better in 2 out of 3 surfaces and 3 out of 4 slams.

An interesting contrast imo...
 
125downthemiddle said:
Historical, not current Big 3. (Rafa/Novak/SexyRogi)

First, we must determine what is in fact their weakest surface.

With Roger, it's easy: clay

But Novak? Is it clay or grass? If it's grass, he might win this poll. But that's somewhat an unfair categorization in this context I admit, even as a Nole fan...so let's make it clay (clearly his least accomplished, despite all the masters wins over Nadal and the surface seeming to suit him)

With Nadal, is it grass or hard? Most difficult one to determine imo...I say hard courts...before you balk...remember he made 5 of 6 Wimbledon finals (and 5 in a row minus the injured 09) at 1 point and has 2 Wimbledon titles...went toe to toe with Roger is both 07 and 08 (obv winning 08, "the greatest match ever") Also his 2 major wins on grass sort of equal 4 on hard relatively speaking to measure the levels (2 opportunities at slams a year on hard) Great levels on HC at USO '10 and particularly at the USO 13 and making the AO 14 final etc...also numerous masters...but there just isn't the opportunity to get those titles on grass. It's very close, but I think you'd have to say historically hard is his weakest surface.

Considering all that, I'd say Rafa is the best on his "weakest surface" and also clearly the best on his "Strongest surface".

The difference is both Roger and Novak are still better in 2 out of 3 surfaces and 3 out of 4 slams.

An interesting contrast imo...
Click to expand...

Well Nadal has been battling his body half the time and doesn't have their consistency.
 
It is sad that Djokovic and Federer have only 1 French Open title combined to show for their quite solid clay performances. Both of them, especially Fed, were denied a couple of those titles by the almighty King of clay. Remember some big name stating once "In tennis, you have hard court specialists, clay court specialists, grass court specialists... and you have Roger Federer". Also IMO, Novak is not much better on grass than he is on clay despite having 3 Wimbledons and no French Opens.
In the end, I actually think Novak's and Roger's games on clay are better than Nadal's hard court game. It is just that Novak and Roger were not so dominant on their favorite courts (hard court and grass respectively) to deny Nadal winning those Majors. Nadal though was so dominant on clay, having a combined 11-1 H2H vs Fedovic at RG, with that one loss not resulting in Novak winning it this year.
Though Nadal would be the weakest guy for me in this discussion, he has the most titles on least favorite courts to show otherwise. So this is the most contradicting statement I have ever made, but that is tennis. :confused:
 
Historically, grass was Djokovic's weakest surface. His career win/loss percentage on grass just recently surpassed his win/loss percentage on clay with the consecutive Wimbledon titles in 2014 and 2015. He no longer plays at any of the grass warmup tournaments (which he never won).

I think Roger is the best on his weakest surface. If not for one lone player, he'd have 4 more French Open titles and 8 more clay Masters titles.
 
125downthemiddle said:
Historical, not current Big 3. (Rafa/Novak/SexyRogi)

First, we must determine what is in fact their weakest surface.

With Roger, it's easy: clay

But Novak? Is it clay or grass? If it's grass, he might win this poll. But that's somewhat an unfair categorization in this context I admit, even as a Nole fan...so let's make it clay (clearly his least accomplished, despite all the masters wins over Nadal and the surface seeming to suit him)

With Nadal, is it grass or hard? Most difficult one to determine imo...I say hard courts...before you balk...remember he made 5 of 6 Wimbledon finals (and 5 in a row minus the injured 09) at 1 point and has 2 Wimbledon titles...went toe to toe with Roger is both 07 and 08 (obv winning 08, "the greatest match ever") Also his 2 major wins on grass sort of equal 4 on hard relatively speaking to measure the levels (2 opportunities at slams a year on hard) Great levels on HC at USO '10 and particularly at the USO 13 and making the AO 14 final etc...also numerous masters...but there just isn't the opportunity to get those titles on grass. It's very close, but I think you'd have to say historically hard is his weakest surface.

Considering all that, I'd say Rafa is the best on his "weakest surface" and also clearly the best on his "Strongest surface".

The difference is both Roger and Novak are still better in 2 out of 3 surfaces and 3 out of 4 slams.

An interesting contrast imo...
Click to expand...
Indoor is Nadal's weakest surface/conditions.
 
I think a fast surface would be Djokovic's weakest surface. But there are now no longer any fast courts, so we never see this. The closest we get is Cincinatti, which is medium fast. The fact that is the only Masters 1000 he hasn't won yet tells of this. Wimbledon and the US open are medium surfaces now - so they don't give us chance to see how he would go on a fast surface.

Yes I believe that Federer is better on clay that Nadal is indoor or Djokovic is on a fast surface.
 
Doctor/Lawyer Red Devil said:
It is sad that Djokovic and Federer have only 1 French Open title combined to show for their quite solid clay performances. Both of them, especially Fed, were denied a couple of those titles by the almighty King of clay. Remember some big name stating once "In tennis, you have hard court specialists, clay court specialists, grass court specialists... and you have Roger Federer". Also IMO, Novak is not much better on grass than he is on clay despite having 3 Wimbledons and no French Opens.
In the end, I actually think Novak's and Roger's games on clay are better than Nadal's hard court game. It is just that Novak and Roger were not so dominant on their favorite courts (hard court and grass respectively) to deny Nadal winning those Majors. Nadal though was so dominant on clay, having a combined 11-1 H2H vs Fedovic at RG, with that one loss not resulting in Novak winning it this year.
Though Nadal would be the weakest guy for me in this discussion, he has the most titles on least favorite courts to show otherwise. So this is the most contradicting statement I have ever made, but that is tennis. :confused:
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Jimmy Connors!

But Djokovic can win a couple RG's methinks.
 
mike danny said:
Well Nadal has twice as many opportunities than Roger and Novak to win on his least favorite surface considering there are 2 HC slams played every year, so he was supposed to do better than them.
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Yeah, it's interesting that Nadal has won only 5 more titles on hard courts than Federer and Djokovic have won on clay, despite around 70% of the tour being comprised of hard court tennis!
 
I seem to remember a discussion about Roger as a clay player versus Nadal as a grass player.

Many contended—and I'm sympathetic to the view—that Nadal is greater due to his extra wimbledon, but that Fred is probably better.

It's a difficult one though, and I could see arguments for any of them. It depends on how much we weigh consistency, peak levels, or just greatness in slam-numbers.
 
No doubt Nadal has done well to overcome his hard court weakness but I think it's unfair to say he is the best on his worst surface when there are 2 hard slams so he has twice the opportunity. The better question is who is the best at their worst slam IMO. Australian hard and US hard is fairly different anyways.

Federer Roland Garros-1 title, 4 finals
Nadal Australian Open-1 title, 2 finals
Djokovic Roland Garros-0 titles, 3 finals

From that perspective Federer is actually the one who best overcame his worst slam.

I'll leave it up for debate whether those are their worst slams as opposed to the slam they've had the least success on however. Federer clearly least favors RG but you can debate Novak and Rafa's.
 
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125downthemiddle said:
Historical, not current Big 3. (Rafa/Novak/SexyRogi)

First, we must determine what is in fact their weakest surface.

With Roger, it's easy: clay

But Novak? Is it clay or grass? If it's grass, he might win this poll. But that's somewhat an unfair categorization in this context I admit, even as a Nole fan...so let's make it clay (clearly his least accomplished, despite all the masters wins over Nadal and the surface seeming to suit him)

With Nadal, is it grass or hard? Most difficult one to determine imo...I say hard courts...before you balk...remember he made 5 of 6 Wimbledon finals (and 5 in a row minus the injured 09) at 1 point and has 2 Wimbledon titles...went toe to toe with Roger is both 07 and 08 (obv winning 08, "the greatest match ever") Also his 2 major wins on grass sort of equal 4 on hard relatively speaking to measure the levels (2 opportunities at slams a year on hard) Great levels on HC at USO '10 and particularly at the USO 13 and making the AO 14 final etc...also numerous masters...but there just isn't the opportunity to get those titles on grass. It's very close, but I think you'd have to say historically hard is his weakest surface.

Considering all that, I'd say Rafa is the best on his "weakest surface" and also clearly the best on his "Strongest surface".

The difference is both Roger and Novak are still better in 2 out of 3 surfaces and 3 out of 4 slams.

An interesting contrast imo...
Click to expand...
RFistas are just gonna loooooooooooooove this thread.
 
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timnz said:
I think a fast surface would be Djokovic's weakest surface. But there are now no longer any fast courts, so we never see this. The closest we get is Cincinatti, which is medium fast. The fact that is the only Masters 1000 he hasn't won yet tells of this. Wimbledon and the US open are medium surfaces now - so they don't give us chance to see how he would go on a fast surface.

Yes I believe that Federer is better on clay that Nadal is indoor or Djokovic is on a fast surface.
Click to expand...

This.
 
Sysyphus said:
I seem to remember a discussion about Roger as a clay player versus Nadal as a grass player.

Many contended—and I'm sympathetic to the view—that Nadal is greater due to his extra wimbledon, but that Fred is probably better.

It's a difficult one though, and I could see arguments for any of them. It depends on how much we weigh consistency, peak levels, or just greatness in slam-numbers.
Click to expand...

Due to Nadal being so dominant on clay that he denied a better Roger (better on clay than Rafa is on grass) more titles? I think that's plausible, actually.
 
Rafa on clay > Federer on grass. Also the match up between them is in Rafa's favor. So it is hard to tell based on Nadal having 1 more title and being more competitive in his finals of Wimbledon that he is better. For both of them their fate in those finals largely comes down to the Nadal-Federer match up and Nadal has the edge in that, and Nadal is clearly superior on clay to anyone anywhere, even Federer on grass.

I think Rafa on grass vs Federer on grass is a toss up. Honestly I rate Federer somewhere from the 6th to 9th best clay courter of the Open Era, and I don't rate Rafa that high on grass, that would seem to favor Federer.

Then Djokovic. Wow that is complicated. Many think grass is his weakest surface yet he has 3 Wimbledons and 0 Roland Garros titles. However until he wins RG he is probably inferior to Federer on clay, and if grass were Djokovic's worst surface that by extension would put Djokovic on grass behind Federer on clay too probably.

So I would have to say Federer on clay after breaking it all down. Should Djokovic win Roland Garros it will be even harder to say.
 
mattosgrant said:
Rafa on clay > Federer on grass. Also the match up between them is in Rafa's favor. So it is hard to tell based on Nadal having 1 more title and being more competitive in his finals of Wimbledon that he is better. For both of them their fate in those finals largely comes down to the Nadal-Federer match up and Nadal has the edge in that, and Nadal is clearly superior on clay to anyone anywhere, even Federer on grass.

I think Rafa on grass vs Federer on grass is a toss up. Honestly I rate Federer somewhere from the 6th to 9th best clay courter of the Open Era, and I don't rate Rafa that high on grass, that would seem to favor Federer.

Then Djokovic. Wow that is complicated. Many think grass is his weakest surface yet he has 3 Wimbledons and 0 Roland Garros titles. However until he wins RG he is probably inferior to Federer on clay, and if grass were Djokovic's worst surface that by extension would put Djokovic on grass behind Federer on clay too probably.

So I would have to say Federer on clay after breaking it all down. Should Djokovic win Roland Garros it will be even harder to say.
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He sure does. 23-10 is often referred to as "that embarrassing annihilation of the alleged GOAT". Not to mention 9-2 in slams.

I just wonder why Nieminen, Verdasco, and other talented lefties always lose to RF.

You're right about Djokovic. Him not having FO makes things complicated, HOWEVER he is the best player in Open Era in a particular slam to not have won. 3 finales, 3 semis, 2 quarters.
 
Federer clay - French Open 1 win , 4 runner-ups

Nadal indoor - WTF 0 wins, 2 runner-ups

Djokovic fast surface (no tournaments to see, however medium fast Cincinatti ) 0 wins, 5 runner-ups

Federer is ahead
 
mattosgrant said:
Rafa on clay > Federer on grass. Also the match up between them is in Rafa's favor. So it is hard to tell based on Nadal having 1 more title and being more competitive in his finals of Wimbledon that he is better. For both of them their fate in those finals largely comes down to the Nadal-Federer match up and Nadal has the edge in that, and Nadal is clearly superior on clay to anyone anywhere, even Federer on grass.

I think Rafa on grass vs Federer on grass is a toss up. Honestly I rate Federer somewhere from the 6th to 9th best clay courter of the Open Era, and I don't rate Rafa that high on grass, that would seem to favor Federer.

Then Djokovic. Wow that is complicated. Many think grass is his weakest surface yet he has 3 Wimbledons and 0 Roland Garros titles. However until he wins RG he is probably inferior to Federer on clay, and if grass were Djokovic's worst surface that by extension would put Djokovic on grass behind Federer on clay too probably.

So I would have to say Federer on clay after breaking it all down. Should Djokovic win Roland Garros it will be even harder to say.
Click to expand...

But isn't it easier to be ranked 6th on clay than on grass, simply because most of the all time greats had games suited for fast surfaces. I mean, on clay you have 5 players clearly above the others by achievements ontly: Nadal, Borg, Lendl, Wilander, and Kuerten. Behind them, it becomes pretty hard to find a concensual ranking, we are looking at the like of specialist like Muster and Bruguera or generalist like Agassi, Djokovic and Federer.

However on grass you have Sampras, Federer, Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Becker, Djokovic, Newcombe, Edberg. To enter the open era grass top 10, you need to reach the level of player who are overall all time great, which isn't necessary to be a top 10 on clay.
 
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timnz said:
I think a fast surface would be Djokovic's weakest surface. But there are now no longer any fast courts, so we never see this. The closest we get is Cincinatti, which is medium fast. The fact that is the only Masters 1000 he hasn't won yet tells of this. Wimbledon and the US open are medium surfaces now - so they don't give us chance to see how he would go on a fast surface.

Yes I believe that Federer is better on clay that Nadal is indoor or Djokovic is on a fast surface.
Click to expand...

Rogers Cup uses the same surface as Cincy, and Djokovic has won that three times. Shanghai is also a medium-fast court; two more titles for Djoker there. He also has 4 Dubai titles.

But of course we see comments like this. Also whenever Djokovic wins any tournament you can expect comments about the surface being too slow.
 
Beijing is also playing on Deco turf the same surface as in Dubai , Novak has 5 of them, but yeah his weakest surface is fast ,whatewer RF cult crew said:rolleyes:. Few mentioned Shangai here as a fast court until Rogie the Great won it 2014
 
Djokovic2011 said:
Yeah, it's interesting that Nadal has won only 5 more titles on hard courts than Federer and Djokovic have won on clay, despite around 70% of the tour being comprised of hard court tennis!
Click to expand...

It is also interesting that Nadal has more Slams than Djokovic when there is only 1 GS on his favorite surface as opposed to 2 for Nole.

Imagine if there were 2 Slams on clay ;)
 
vanioMan said:
It is also interesting that Nadal has more Slams than Djokovic when there is only 1 GS on his favorite surface as opposed to 2 for Nole.

Imagine if there were 2 Slams on clay ;)
Click to expand...
If you want to play that game bear in mind that it would be better for Novak and worse for your boy as he would skipped a half of them due to injuries , overplaying whatever he has when skips majors.
 
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vanioMan said:
It is also interesting that Nadal has more Slams than Djokovic when there is only 1 GS on his favorite surface as opposed to 2 for Nole.

Imagine if there were 2 Slams on clay ;)
Click to expand...
I'd like to think if there were more slams played on clay that more players would become proficient on it, hence less slams for Rafa vanio. ;)
 
Doctor/Lawyer Red Devil said:
It is sad that Djokovic and Federer have only 1 French Open title combined to show for their quite solid clay performances. Both of them, especially Fed, were denied a couple of those titles by the almighty King of clay. Remember some big name stating once "In tennis, you have hard court specialists, clay court specialists, grass court specialists... and you have Roger Federer". Also IMO, Novak is not much better on grass than he is on clay despite having 3 Wimbledons and no French Opens.
In the end, I actually think Novak's and Roger's games on clay are better than Nadal's hard court game. It is just that Novak and Roger were not so dominant on their favorite courts (hard court and grass respectively) to deny Nadal winning those Majors. Nadal though was so dominant on clay, having a combined 11-1 H2H vs Fedovic at RG, with that one loss not resulting in Novak winning it this year.
Though Nadal would be the weakest guy for me in this discussion, he has the most titles on least favorite courts to show otherwise. So this is the most contradicting statement I have ever made, but that is tennis. :confused:
Click to expand...

Sad? More like scary how good the King was :D
 
Noelan said:
If you want to play that game bear in mind that it would be better for Novak and worse for your boy as he would skipped a half of them due to injuries , overplaying whatever he has when skips majors.
Click to expand...

Noelan said:
If you want to play that game bear in mind that it would be better for Novak and worse for your boy as he would skipped a half of them due to injuries , overplaying whatever he has when skips majors.
Click to expand...

Lol, you wish. Nadal of 2005-2010 skipped 2 GS and Federer was his only competition on clay. He won 5 GS on clay during that period, which easily could've been 8 if there were 2 per year. Who was going to stop him? We all saw Nadal far from his peak beat Novak in 2013 and 2014. Pre 2010dal would carve him up on clay.
 
timnz said:
I think a fast surface would be Djokovic's weakest surface. But there are now no longer any fast courts, so we never see this. The closest we get is Cincinatti, which is medium fast. The fact that is the only Masters 1000 he hasn't won yet tells of this. Wimbledon and the US open are medium surfaces now - so they don't give us chance to see how he would go on a fast surface.

Yes I believe that Federer is better on clay that Nadal is indoor or Djokovic is on a fast surface.
Click to expand...
Djokovic is very good at WTF. That's definitely not a slow hard court. Neither is grass (slow).

Nadal is by far the weakest indoor's, and comparing the weakest surfaces, he's in dead last for the weakest surface comparison.
 
RanchDressing said:
Djokovic is very good at WTF. That's definitely not a slow hard court. Neither is grass (slow).

Nadal is by far the weakest indoor's, and comparing the weakest surfaces, he's in dead last for the weakest surface comparison.
Click to expand...
The WTF is no faster than medium, some people have said it is slow medium. Wimbledon is medium. Hence neither are fast court surfaces.
 
timnz said:
The WTF is no faster than medium, some people have said it is slow medium. Wimbledon is medium. Hence neither are fast court surfaces.
Click to expand...
I don't know about wimbledon being medium... the ball still doesn't bounce nearly as high as other surfaces, but it's hard to tell. I'll take your word for it though. I'd like to play on a nice fancy new atp court some day.
 
I always find the "if more Slams were on x surface" argument to be inane.

Players know the score going into their professional careers and plan accordingly. Sometimes changes happen mid career such as the AO surface changing, but generally players prepare from the outset for the distribution of conditions that they are likely to be facing. So yeah, the whole well what is 3 Slams were on grass stuff and the like is nonsense (to my mind).
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
I always find the "if more Slams were on x surface" argument to be inane.

Players know the score going into their professional careers and plan accordingly. Sometimes changes happen mid career such as the AO surface changing, but generally players prepare from the outset for the distribution of conditions that they are likely to be facing. So yeah, the whole well what is 3 Slams were on grass stuff and the like is nonsense (to my mind).
Click to expand...

That non-sense was started by Djokovic2011 . My post was just to showcase it.
 
vanioMan said:
You revert to this because you know I'm right.

It is ok ;)
Click to expand...

How would I know about the matches that didn't happened, these things are for fanboys to combat behind keyboards/that's the reason for me saying" if you want to play that game..." I don't have nor do I need crystal ball as you and your fedal buddies here.;) It is what it is.
Thanks god I'm not permanently buthurt as some posters here.
 
RedFoe said:
You're right about Djokovic. Him not having FO makes things complicated, HOWEVER he is the best player in Open Era in a particular slam to not have won. 3 finales, 3 semis, 2 quarters.
Click to expand...

Murray at the aussie open has better results imo. 4 finals, 1 semi and 1 quarter.

As for the whole debate, it's a tough question.

I don't think we can come to a decent answer, because I think both Rafa's and Djoko's worst surface is fast HC, which there barely is nowadays. Djokovic' worst surface definitely isn't clay, if it weren't for one player, his RG results would trump his Wimbledon results. And as for Nadal, I don't think he's ever won an indoor tournament.
 
Noelan said:
How would I know about the matches that didn't happened, these things are for fanboys to combat behind keyboards/that's the reason for me saying" if you want to play that game..." I don't have nor do I need crystal ball as you and your fedal buddies here.;) It is what it is.
Thanks god I'm not permanently buthurt as some posters here.
Click to expand...

You probably mean vanioMan and MichaelNadal ;)

Red Rick said:
Murray at the aussie open has better results imo. 4 finals, 1 semi and 1 quarter.

As for the whole debate, it's a tough question.

I don't think we can come to a decent answer, because I think both Rafa's and Djoko's worst surface is fast HC, which there barely is nowadays. Djokovic' worst surface definitely isn't clay, if it weren't for one player, his RG results would trump his Wimbledon results. And as for Nadal, I don't think he's ever won an indoor tournament.
Click to expand...

Won Madrid Masters in 2005 (HC) and Sao Paulo in 2013 (clay)
 
Yeah , you two guys fitting well in that bolded part.
As for me , I'm looking forward to see Nadal in better form, so we could see some blockbusters from Novak Rafael again;)
 
Noelan said:
Yeah , you two guys fitting well in that bolded part.
As for me , I'm looking forward to see Nadal in better form, so we could see some blockbusters from Novak Rafael again;)
Click to expand...

What do you mean? Do you suggest that we know these guys in person? Or that we are actually them?

I think that's a bit harsh on your part. I wouldn't want to be linked with such low-down tr0llz.

:eek:
 
Noelan said:
Yeah , you two guys fitting well in that bolded part.
As for me , I'm looking forward to see Nadal in better form, so we could see some blockbusters from Novak Rafael again;)
Click to expand...

Lol, I haven't been butthurt over a match since the 2011 USO. It's just not that serious anymore.
 
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