Phoenix1983
G.O.A.T.
His record is indeed 8/9 - you might be forgetting that one of the golds was stripped due to one of his team mates doping.
ESPN voters choose Nadal as most dominant athlete (individual or team) of the 21st century
- Thread starter octogon
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His record is indeed 8/9 - you might be forgetting that one of the golds was stripped due to one of his team mates doping.
TripleATeam
G.O.A.T.
True, I did forget that and while it is true that that's a loss, Bolt was far and away the fastest in that whole relay. Still 8/9 gives you 89%.
Actually, if you look at career win/loss percentages of the Big 3, across all surfaces, it turns out Nadal actually has the dominant percentage numbers:
Career Win/Loss %- Overall
Nadal 83.2%
Djokovic 83.0 %
Federer 82.1%
Grand Slam Win/Loss %
Nadal 87.6%
Djokovic 87.0%
Federer 86.9%
Masters 1000 Win/Loss %
Nadal 82.9%
Djokovic 81.8%
Federer 77.9%
If you take their win/loss percentages across their entire careers across all surfaces, Nadal statistically has actually been the most dominant player of the Big 3 over their careers, across the tour, with all surfaces taken into account. The other two may have had more dominant individual seasons, but overall across their careers Nadal wins more across all surfaces, and loses less.
So it's not even a stretch to say Nadal is the most dominant tennis player full stop, irrespective of surface. Though there are many different ways to argue who was more dominant in aggregate terms over all surfaces. It is inarguable that nobody dominated any surface more comprehensively than Nadal did clay.
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In terms of career win/loss percentages across all surfaces, Nadal actually is the most dominant player out of the Big 3.
You can break it down different ways...individual seasons, career win/loss % etc to give it to a different member of the Big 3....but Nadal has his own legitimate case to be regarded as the most dominant player across all surfaces on aggregate.
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Deleted member 770948
Guest
A couple of days ago I saw the Nadal-Bolt poll, and a graph showing Nadal was leading 70% to 30% with a day remaining.
Is there anywhere I can see the end result of that?
I should have taken a screenshot, but I decided to wait until the poll was closed, but when I returned to the same location it said Nadal had won but the graph had disappeared.
Is there anywhere I can see the end result of that?
I should have taken a screenshot, but I decided to wait until the poll was closed, but when I returned to the same location it said Nadal had won but the graph had disappeared.
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
In that case, no one is dominant across surfaces with Federer and Djokovic only having 1 slam each on clay. Federer is not that dominant on grass because he's only got one more title than Sampras and on hard court he's only got one more than Nadal at the USO and Djokovic has only 2 more AO titles than Federer.
Nadal is the only one dominant on a surface.
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
ESPN Fan Vote: Rafael Nadal beats Usain Bolt in search for most dominant in 21st century
Here's how our fans voted in all the round of polls to decide sport's most dominant star.
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DeathStrike
Guest
From a Marketing perspective Nadal > Novak, reality is as great a player as he is he doesn't really capture imaginations
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
In that case, why did ESPN include Nadal in the poll if his clay dominance is not well known?
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
No. Because Nadal is the only tennis player dominant in anything.
I think the final poll result was 73% to 27% for Nadal.
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Deleted member 758560
Guest
the message wasn't about whether he's dominant on a single surface or not... it was about overall dominance and if a tennis player is not dominant enough across all surfaces he hardly could be in that poll (he didn't dominate all disciplines (i.e. surfaces) he played in, unlike bolt who dominated every discipline he participated in, besides nadal' dominance on clay doesn't annul the other guys' dominance on their surfaces, it only means that his dominance is higher than their's
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Deleted member 770948
Guest
I posted that a few hours ago on the Nadal News thread.
ESPN Fan Vote: Rafael Nadal beats Usain Bolt in search for most dominant in 21st century
Here's how our fans voted in all the round of polls to decide sport's most dominant star.www.espn.co.uk
I'm looking for the bar graph of the Nadal-Bolt poll.
But thank you for replying anyway.
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On aggregate, across all surfaces for the Big 3, Nadal has the highest overall career win/ loss percentage, the highest win/loss % in slams and the highest win/loss % in Masters 1000s. Across all surfaces.
Technically, Nadal is the most dominant tennis player across all surfaces (not just clay), if you calculate it by Win/Loss %.
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Deleted member 758560
Guest
i was talking not about that
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
He has not and it shows your complete bias that you cannot admit the truth. In complete dominance over the whole tour, it is Federer >Djokovic > Nadal. Case pretty much closed on that as the weeks at #1 is dead giveaway on it as well. Percentages do not tell the complete story, especially when he sat out mutiple Slams during his prime while they rarely missed a Slam. He also skipped so many hardcourt tournaments and was ghost in the fall year after year. That's how his percentages remain higher than theirs because he sure has not outperformed them at AO, Wimbledon and USO when you combine the results.
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Men lie, women lie and fanboys lie. Numbers don't lie.
In terms of dominance for career win/loss percentage overall, at Grand Slams and at Masters 1000s:
Nadal >Djokovic>Federer
Aggregate, when you count all surfaces for their whole careers, Nadal is statistically the most dominant player of the 3 in win/loss stats. It only comes as a shock to you because so many myths, lies and misinformation have been put out.
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Poisoned Slice
Bionic Poster
Usain Bolt is fantastic champion and I am very proud of this moment. Praise be to the Muzziah.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
Read the edited post. How many Slams did he skip in his prime compared to them? How many hardcourt Masters in the fall did he skip compared to them? Multiple. Percentages are percentages, and since he played less matches at the Slam level and WTF level, he saved himself from losses. When you look at the aggregate of the whole tour, it is Djokovic and Federer who has cleaned house. Nadal cleaned clay.
Numbers are numbers. We can make all the excuses in the world, but those win/loss stats for the Big 3 are legitimate.
Do you see me out here crying that Federer skipped the entire clay court season for like 3 seasons to avoid getting more beatdowns from Nadal? No, because it is what it is.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
What does it matter he has a better percentages when he has less titles than them in 70% of the tour by far?
Federer was 36 years old by then so no one really cares. He played it year after year for about 17 years before that.
Like I said, there are many different ways to argue aggregate tour dominance. If you want to give it to Fed or Djokovic based on having more dominant individual seasons, you won't hear any complaints fron me. Likewise if anyone wants to give it to Nadal based on overall career win/loss percentages, slam win loss % and Masters 1000 win loss %, well they can make that case as well. They've all finished year end no.1 Five times. You can't do that without dominating the tour.
There's a reason Nadal is one slam away from being the joint US Open GOAT. And it ain't because he only does big things on Clay.
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NoleFam
Bionic Poster
Yes win loss percentages at the Slam level where he played 15 less matches than Djokovic even though he started 2 years earlier. He has played 19 less matches at the WTF although he started earlier. That's 34 matches right there without looking at the Masters. That says it all and why it doesn't matter as much as actually winning the title.
Yea the reason is because he is a great player but he has not been more dominant than Federer and Djokovic over the whole tour. That's absurd.
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It's a trade-off isn't it. Federer and Djokovic fans aren't shy of knocking Nadal for not winning the WTF, but because of constant injury, he's had far less opportunities add that title to his ledger.
The fact that he's played 15 less slam matches than Djokovic, but Djokovic has 2 less slams isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of Djokovic, is it? Djokovic should be a couple of slams ahead with all those extra opportunities to rack up slams.
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
If Rafa hadn’t missed so much time on tour he may have had about 25 slams now and far more M1000s. Even though Rafa missed the chance of getting more Ye #1s due to injury he still ties with Federer and Djokovic at 5 all.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
Well it's quite odd that he had constant injuries in the fall and hardly none in the clay season. Even when he played, his results have been lacking in those tournaments. He just didn't want to play most of the time in the fall.
It actually is when you are using his winning percentage as some barometer of dominance, when he cannot compare to Federer and Djokovic's consistency in reaching the last rounds of majors. Federer made 23 straight SFs in Slams and Djokovic made 23/24. The best Nadal did was 7 SFs in a row, which was recently, and 8/9 SFs. Saying he was more dominant over the whole tour than those guys is beyond a reach.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
Why not round it up to 30 since Nadal never loses when healthy?
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So Nadal couldn't build up some semi-finals streaks in part because he's more injury prone than the other two. That has nothing do with tour dominance. You can't be year end World no.1 FIVE times (just like Fed and Djoker) without dominating the tour for the majority of the season on those 5 occasions.
As for the injury thing. That is just you being cynical. Nadal is not one to fake anything. The man has had to deal with many injuries.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
No. He couldn't build up those streaks because he is more injury prone and he is not as good as them off clay. If so, he would have those streaks because the Slams he failed to compete in wouldn't count. He couldn't build up those types of streaks because he was losing before the SF. And if these consistent streaks have nothing to do with tour dominance then winning percentage sure as heck doesn't.
This is me being real. If you don't want to play, you have to give some type of reason so he pulls out with injury. I refuse to believe he was injured 8/15 times when Paris Masters came around.
If you say so. Semi-Final streaks are nice, but they are ultimately meaningless to someone who has won at the clip Nadal has. Not having these semi-final streaks ultimately can't have made much, if any, difference to Rafa's ability to dominate on tour, as he has 19 slams, 5 year end no. 1s, Olympic Singles Gold and the Masters 1000 record. And he can't do that with clay alone.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
SF streaks are meaningless but a winning percentage, where multiple big tournaments were skipped, is the determinant that he was the most dominant over the whole tour? Nadal has massive success and is in the top 3 all time for sure when it comes to success, but to say he is more dominant over the whole tour than Federer or Djokovic is where the line is drawn. 63% of his Slams came on clay and 71% of his Masters. That means only 37% of his Slams came in 3/4 Slams and 29% at 6/9 Masters. He can't possible be more dominant than them when you look at their records and when all things are considered.
Yet, yet....Nadal is more sucessful on every other surface at Grand Slam level, than Federer and Djokovic are on clay.
I'm pretty sure Nadal also has a better grand slam distribution spread than Djokovic as well.
Djokovic has 11 hardcourt slams, 5 Grass Slams, and 1 clay slam
Nadal has 12 Clay Slams, 5 hardcourt slams and 2 Grass slams.
Djokovic is super-reliant on hardcourts to make up his numbers. Difference is, you don't see Nadal fans constantly crying about his reliance on one surface to pile up slams.
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
There are 4 Slams. Nadal at AO is equal to Djokovic and Federer at RG. Saying he is more successful on every surface is cheating since there are two hard Slams and one clay Slam.
He doesn't.
Djokovic's spread is more relative to the layout of the tour since hardcourt is the dominant surface. Clay is only 1/3 or 1/4 of the season.
As he should be since hardcourt makes up about 65-70% of the tour. Djokovic has 5 Wimbledons. You have to add both Nadal's totals at the hard Slams to equal that. Dude just quit the nonsense.
LOL!
If there were two clay slams, you'd just change tack, and be crying about how unfair it was that Nadal got two chances to win a slam on his favorite surface.
Someone needs to quit this nonsense, but it ain't me. Haha!
NoleFam
Bionic Poster
No, actually I wouldn't. This has been the layout for over 30 years before anyone even knew these guys existed so they had time morph their games from the beginning to the way the tour is designed. Nadal chose clay and it has worked for him, so that's that. So this idea of what's fair and what's not really doesn't hold up, since it's up to them to change the way they play to succeed.
Yea it is you, since you seem to think Nadal is more dominant over the whole tour than Mr. 18/19 Slam finals reached and Mr. NCYGS and Golden Masters holder. You are just way too biased.
Well you can make the argument but it depends what the factors are and of course high profile sports are going to get the advantage. For instance, here in NZ we had this rowing team Hamish Bond and Eric Murray that won back to back gold medals at the Olympics, 6 straight world championships. As far as I know, they never lost a race. How can you get more dominant than never losing? But then it's difficult to compare because a sport like tennis has a much bigger playing pool
I don't think I'm being bias. I think you are just being too stubborn.
Like I said, they all have seperate and legitimate cases for having the most "dominance". I can accept arguments for the other two, just as I can see the legitimacy in the argument that Rafa has on aggregate been the most dominant of the 3 over their entire careers.
Djokovic has the Golden Masters and NCYGS. Wonderful achievements by Nole! Congrats. Nadal has the Career Golden Slam and is the only one of the Big 3 to have won multiple Grand Slams on every surface. You ignore Nadal's own huge versatility feats on tour because they don't fit your played out narrative of him being a flat-track clay monster only.
Nadal has his career win/loss % stats as well, which you can try and devalue, but they do exist. You can argue dominance for any of them.
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NoleFam
Bionic Poster
I'm done arguing about this. What you said just isn't true, and it's more than obvious.
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Deleted member 758560
Guest
what huge versatility when out of their pet slams djo has 9, ralph - 7
what huge versatility when out of their pet slams djo has 9, ralph - 7
Yet somehow, Nadal is the only one to have won multiple Grand Slams on every surface.
Versatile.
MichaelNadal
Bionic Poster
ADuck
Legend
Nadal is actually the most versatile when you go by surface, when you go by the tour composition he's not though. It doesn't matter anyway because it's up to each player to build their game in a way which will accrue them the most number of titles on tour. Fed's game has yielded him 20, Nadal 19, Djokovic 17. The versatility arguments are just redirection and smoke in mirror arguments.
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
Maybe I should have said at least 25.
clayqueen
Bionic Poster
Pet slams! That's a new one.what huge versatility when out of their pet slams djo has 9, ralph - 7
Nadal has missed 10 slams, due to injury, since he turned pro, Djokovic has missed 1; so Djokovic has had more opportunities to win slams.
Rafa beat the King of grass and then world number 1 in the greatest match of all time on grass to win the title in 2008. That says something. Had he not been seeded according to an arbitrary formula, which has now been discontinued, who knows how many Wimbledon titles he would have won?
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Raiden
Hall of Fame
Bullsh*t
His dominance is true only on clay / or alternatively speaking only on certain tournaments — just as this thread's OP item (the ESPN graph also goes out of its way to point out)
On other surfaces he isn't even third best.
Nadal skipped way too many of them to be counted as dominant.
The comparison I made was with pentathlon, not the 100m or 200m sprint. If you want to draw that comparison, then let’s just say that 15 years of domination in a single athletics event like the 100m would raise more suspicion than praise.
Since there isn’t the same level of suspicion, maybe pentathlon is a better fit.
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Let me say it...slowly...."aggregate"
No one dominates every surface. That much is bloody obvious. But when you put the aggregate performance of all big 3's careers across all surfaces, it turns out the win/loss ratio makes Nadal the most dominant across all surfaces, on aggregate. Blame mathematicians, not me. It's pretty simple....Nadal plays better on Djokovic/Federer's preferred surfaces(Grass/Hard), than they play on his preferred surface (clay). So his aggregate numbers are better.
As someone else pointed out, Nadal is the most versatile of the Big 3 across surfaces. Which is why he has multiple Grand Slams on every surface, and the other two do not. You don't have to be the best at everything, to be the most dominant overall. That is how the concept of aggregate works.
No idea why people are getting upset over this. These overall win/loss % numbers are real. Nadal on aggregate is more dominant in slams, more dominant in masters and more dominant overall than Fed and Djokovic across all surfaces, when judging their whole careers. But as I said, you can make different dominance arguments to favor Fed and Djokovic. You just need to accept Nadal has legitimate arguments of his own.This is why the whole GOAT debate is so close. They all have their own seperate arguments for everything, including overall career dominance. Them all having 5 year end no.1's is very apt.
Nadal has been the best US Open player in the world for the last 10 years. He dominated two Grand Slams in the last decade.
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Deleted member 758560
Guest
without AO title he would also be the miltiple surface slams champion but would it matter much in that regard?, also had it been 2 clay slams per year both djo and fed could have easily been multiple surface slams champions too, besides had us open for example been held on clay, in this case nadal wouldn't be multiple surface champ ..and so on and so on...
