While everyone laughs when years like 2005 are mentioned as Nadal's prime, let's look at some of the stats before making final decisions. 2005 is actually his most successful year to date with 11 titles. Yes some of those were of the 'smaller' clay court events which he no longer plays, but it did include 2 masters series hard court titles plus 1 final, something he has not been able to equal since. He also won another atp500 hard court that year in Beijing. His other results of that year were 2 more masters on his favoured clay, plus RG. Only 3 of the 11 tournaments were atp250 events. To date he has not been able to match his total of 4 masters series titles that year. He may do it this time round.
His most rounded year to date has been 2008, with big titles on hard, clay and grass. Wimbledon and RG were the top titles on grass and clay respectively, with 1 masters series on hard and also the Olympic title being his best hard court results. He finished 2008 with his second best title haul of 8. Although this is 3 less than 2005, that's essentialy just knocking off this 3 atp250 titles and also upgrading one or two of those 500's to the olympic title or a slam, however you want to look at it.
2010 is looking like it will rival those two years achievements and possibly eclipse them. It will be his most successful year in the slams to date, providing he does reach the final here...and then who knows. His results on the rest of the tour though are not so brilliant. Ofcourse his 3 masters series on clay will rank as one of the best achievements of his career, but the hard court results, which he was able to produce earlier in his career, even in the year of 2005 which most people laugh of as a suggestion of one of his best years, have, as yet, not been matched. Yes he has proved in his last few years he has improved on grass but it almost seems he has stepped back on hard. People always argue hard is his worst surface and he is always improving on it, but they seem to forget he has had some outstanding results on it already and he is actually not being able to match them recently.
My point of all this is to question the theory that alot of people seem to have of peak years apparently being from 24-28 or around-abouts. I think for every player it is different at what age they have their peaks. Many players who break through as teenage stars have their peak years at younger ages. We will only know at the end of Rafa's career when he was at his peak. Many players improve every year, with experience and so on, which I think we could end up saying about Rafa. Each year we could come back to the USO and say this is his best chance yet, with all the expecrience he will have built up over the previous years. But will he repeat and show a dominant year as 2005 where he was 18/19 years old or as rounded as 2008 where he was 21/22 years old? I struggle to see him winning 11 titles again. If he is lucky he may get 3 slams in one year at some stage though and improve on that year of 2008. It could be this year.
While I certainly question whether Nadal's peak years will come at the same ages as Federer had his, that time has now come, this is his 24th year. An age at which Roger had already been having his peak results, infact since he was 22/23 in 2004 - 3 slams in that year, masters series on clay and hard. Federer also showed this kind of dominance - winning 3 slams a year or 10+ titles for the next 4 years. Clearly his peak. Will Rafa start to show this dominance now he is at this golden age that some people suggest is peak for everyone? As I said previously, I dont see him winning 10+ titles in a season again, certainly not 2 more years of it. And I dont see him winning 3 slams a year from age of 24 to 28 or whatever.
The conclusion of all of this? As many people knew anyway, Roger's peak and dominance was much higher and longer sustained than Rafa's ever will be (or possibly ever has been? Like I said I think some of his results such as 11 titles in a year I dont think he will repeat).
