This shows some of the issues with basing your opinions on stats.Federer: career 71% net points won - "fairly excellent volleys"
Djokovic: career 70% net points won - "garbage volleys"
I kinda want a metsman type here too
Djokovic's net approaches are in between Nadal and Federer -- he does take some risks, but not as much as Fed does.
This is WRONG
| Name | S&V Frq | S&V W% | Net Frq | Net W% |
| Edberg | 78.3 | 66.8 | 47.8 | 65.5 |
| Federer | 10.6 | 68.7 | 15.2 | 70.4 |
| Djokovic | 2.2 | 71.5 | 11.1 | 70.7 |
| Nadal | 1.4 | 77.2 | 8.7 | 73.9 |
| Djokovic last 52 | 6.5 | 75.9 | 14 | 71.7 |
Rafa literally went on to miss the rest of the year bar 2 matches at Washington, walked out of the tournament limping, he WAS injured.
Why only since 2011? Djokovic played Nadal in 2006-2010 also.
Nadal had better FH stats before that in their head to head according to the article, but Djokovic flipped it around after that once he became a more confident player. He has dominated the tour since except on clay where Nadal was better even afterwards.
Djokovic has best FH shot quality for last 52 weeks, despite the horrible 2024.
These days he can do FH-FH rallies all day long with anyone and outhit them (except possibly Carlos on some surfaces) while he loses many long BH rallies against the likes of Medvedev, Sinner and Zverev. He bails out of long BH rallies too often with drop shots these days while he stays aggressive on the FH wing.
You certainly “Excel” in tennis analysis.
In Olympics someone said his BH is still strong but fh declined, I laughed at it. His FH Serve Net play are the things that are keeping him competitive vs Sineraz.
Nadal was still right there for most of 2017-2022 when his body and form was still in somewhat tact some years to Djokovic some years to Nadal with Djokovic it was 2023 and 2024 as well as 2011 and 2015-2016 were I would say Djokovic had the bigger edge in terms of years just like Nadal did pre 2011.
A small minority makes these claims (bolded), and they're dwindling. I personally have never seen a Fed fan claim greatest volleys or greatest movement (though I have seen greatest footwork, which is a component of movement and certainly Fed's favorite component).
Fed fans were more intense but Djokovic fans stretch the arguments just as far when they engage.
What's the claim pushed here? If it's domination over the field then it's absurd. But if it's their head-to-head then not so much
Exactly
Federer: career 71% net points won - "fairly excellent volleys"
Djokovic: career 70% net points won - "garbage volleys"
Those days are long gone.
OP of this thread was making the case in another thread that Djokovic was right up there with Nadal on clay because they both had fourteen Slams on their respective surfaces.
Federer's 15% is not "a ton more" than Djokovic's 11%
It's actually a lot more. Because fed came in on his serve as well.
Just taking a look at all men's Slam winners in the last 20 years or so:
Just another day at ttw...
Rafa? I do not know the numbers but Rafa is great at the net and came in quite frequently at times.
Does not mean he is good. I do not think he is bad or good. Nothing to write home about. He has just got smarter in when to use it.Djokovic's serve and volley attempt percentage has jumped from 2.2% in his career to 6.5% now and he wins like 76% of those points, yet someone in here said he was a garbage volleyer then had the nerve to attack Djokovic fans for their lack of intellect.
Nadal has a very good win % at the net, but he only comes in to finish points that are won (8.5% vs Djokovic's 11.6%).
Nadal game is just build different.
He could have volleyed like Edberg and he still would have lost Wimbledon this year
Well he is approaching the net 14% of the time now and winning 71.7% of those points. Only Alcaraz really has better stats in the last year since the others are small sample sizes. Those are good stats but not surprising since we can clearly see his volleying skills is probably the most improved part of his game in the last few years, even more than the serve. Everything was terrible in the Wimbledon final, except the serve.
And nole pressed harder in wimby because obviously he felt his knee would not hold.
Peak Djokovic vs Peak Alcaraz 10 matches at Wimbledon?
He just played bad all around beyond serve. Didn't trust his knee enough and the approach shots just weren't good enough to be coming in that much.
You must mean this:
Even Federer said before 2011, his backhand , yes AFAIR fed said his backhand needed work and he perfected it and became unbeatable.You must mean this:
In 17 previous meetings with Nadal that were charted by Tennis Abstract, Nadal had hit 254 forehand winners to Djokovic's 221, and with 27% fewer errors. Beginning with this match in Paris, however, Djokovic flipped that completely around. In their next 30 charted matches, Djokovic hit 506 forehand winners to Nadal's 365, and with only 10% more errors.
How Novak Djokovic mastered his few faults to become the GOAT
Novak Djokovic has become perhaps the greatest men's player ever because of his ability to turn the few relative weaknesses in his game into outright strengths.www.espn.com
I just think the big 3 are levels above generally and Alcaraz is a pretty clear underdog he gets hot and cold more imo over the course of a best of 5 match and Nadal would take advantage of this. I am not considering Alcaraz in the future that hasn't happened yet we see if he can go any higher and how much.
To be clear, Djokovic did look winded towards the end of that match but that's credit to Nadal for doing the damage and tiring him out, and on Djokovic that his match fitness wasn't where it should have been in that one. The main point was that it was a close match that should have went 5 when he implied it was mostly a blowout, (which it clearly wasn't), not that Djokovic lost because he was tired.
