I’ll be honest, as cherry-picked as it was (removing grass AND indoor HC? Cmon now) that 21-4 figure made me do a concerned double-take the first time I heard it in 2014 LOL. But yeah, the 13-2 on clay doing most of the damage made it a little more palatable.
I sound like a bitter Fednut but it never sat well with me how freaking often he underachieved against Ned on outdoor HC. From losing when he probably shouldn’t have even played the event in ‘04 Miami, to SOMEHOW losing when he had 1.25 DR in Dubai ‘06 (almost unheard of to have that high of a DR and still lose), to having like his 357th worst serving day out of 372 GS matches in terms of first serve percentage (I can’t remember exactly, but it was something like that) in the ‘09 AO final, to losing a set and break lead in the ‘12 AO semi and utterly bottling it on his last return game, to being visibly injured in their ‘13 IW match, to the subsequent injury/new frame-related losses that followed shortly thereafter...I always felt like his poor luck in that set of conditions (as well as some mental muggery) made for a poor representation of his ability, even within the confines of the unfavourable match-up. Nadal suffered some misfortune too (the line call in ‘05 Miami) and naturally deserves all the credit for gutting out all those wins but at the risk of channeling my inner KINGROGER I really do think it’s more than just sour grapes telling me Fed shoulda really done better, and likely does better in 99 out of 100 simulations. Does my heart good to see that he righted the ship a little from 2017-present.
