Has Nadal been extraordinarily lucky at the French Open?

[Team Captain]

Nadal has won 13 out of 16 French Opens he's participated in. Even given generous odds at the start of each tournament to win, let's say an average of 60% against the other 127 men, he should've only won 10 / 16 titles. Keep in mind that being a 60% favorite is extremely optimistic. Over 7 matches, it implies a 93% chance to win each match, including matches vs. Federer / Djokovic!

How has Nadal outperformed so much? Were Vegas bookies giving an average of 50% - 60% odds for Nadal to win pre-tournament just dumb money for 16 years?

What does it mean when Vegas says he's only a 70% favorite vs. Djokovic in the semi this year? Is that an exploitable bet too?

 

[40-15 still haunts me]

Nadals draw has been hand picked every year from the start and when he gets a hard draw it falls apart as the tougher players lose earlier than expected

 

[Krish872007]

I could argue he's been extraordinarily unlucky at the Australian Open, not to have won it more than once.

He's just way too good at the French

 

[ACE of Hearts]

Too good and the final could be a rout. The only guy who can go toe to toe at times is novak.

 

[GhostofPetros]

Nope. This is not the Roddick era where everything was possible. Rafa went through the supposedly hypothetical claycourt ATG Fed more times than anyone can count, and has beaten a high performing Nole numerous times as well. Not to mention servings of Wawrinka, Schwartzman, Thiem.
He's just that good.

 

[Deleted member 771911]

Lucky that no ATGs come up since Nole.
Also lucky he matched up so well vs his main rival on the stuff from 05-11.
Lucky that Fed beat Nole in '11.

 

[Lleytonstation]

He has never had to play anyone with two FO slams ever.

 

[TheNachoMan]

Never had a true clay specialist rival like Guga, Bruguera, Muster, etc. I would’ve liked to have seen them in this era.

 

[GhostofPetros]

Never had a true clay specialist rival like Guga, Bruguera, Muster, etc. I would’ve liked to have seen them in this era.

Isn't Fed a hypothetical Clay ATG?

 

[weakera]

Never had a true clay specialist rival like Guga, Bruguera, Muster, etc. I would’ve liked to have seen them in this era.

They would have all been beaten down handily.

 

[Poisoned Slice]

 

[zuluzazu]

Never had a true clay specialist rival like Guga, Bruguera, Muster, etc. I would’ve liked to have seen them in this era.

You know right that you need to be allowed to become an ATG. Nadal does not allow anyone to become an ATG. Look at Novak's and Fed's winning % on clay and you will know why in any other era they would have won at least 2 RGs

 

[FlamingCheeto]

yeah 105-2 pure luck, that Nadal sucks and is a one trick pony

edit: Team Captain LOL = Clarky with 2 posts no? hello "new" user

 

[Novichok]

Nadal is lucky that the French Open is run by a bunch of morons.
If I was in charge, I would try my best to prevent one man from totally dominating the tournament for 16 years, among other things.
Undoubtably the worst grand slam of them all.

 

[Phoenix1983]

Nadal is lucky that the French Open is run by a bunch of morons.
If I was in charge, I would try my best to prevent one man from totally dominating the tournament for 16 years, among other things.
Undoubtably the worst grand slam of all.

Who’s to say they haven’t tried?

 

[mike danny]

Lucky to be good? I'd say so.

 

[zuluzazu]

Nadal is lucky that the French Open is run by a bunch of morons.
If I was in charge, I would try my best to prevent one man from totally dominating the tournament for 16 years, among other things.
Undoubtably the worst grand slam of all.

They tried lighter balls in 2011. Unfortunately nothing out of the ordinary can be done with clay. They cannot make it like Madrid as at Madrid the clay is not different but the altitude is different. Only the balls can be changed and they did it. They also installed roof. Its difficult to make clay faster. They could have made it slippery like Madrid 2012 but there will be risk of injury.

 

[Omega_7000]

Nadal is lucky that the French Open is run by a bunch of morons.
If I was in charge, I would try my best to prevent one man from totally dominating the tournament for 16 years, among other things.
Undoubtably the worst grand slam of all.

Wimbledon and USO royally screwed over Fed for years by slowing things down to put a stop to his domination. FO organizers did not.

Not to mention lack of any younger players that are potential all time greats.

He has been incredibly lucky!

 

[wang07]

The problem is you're trying to use common sense, logic and maths, none of which applies to Rafa at RG

 

[Third Serve]

Mere 2-time champ in another era

 

[Aabye5]

Mere 2-time champ in another era

Wishful thinking...

 

[kevaninho]

Lucky that no ATGs come up since Nole.
Also lucky he matched up so well vs his main rival on the stuff from 05-11.
Lucky that Fed beat Nole in '11.

Yep. The same as Fed and Djokovic are lucky that no one else can play on grass coming up.

They all benefited.

 

[GhostofPetros]

He probs wins 7-8 in the era of Bruguera, Courier, Kuerten, Kafelnikov, Chang, Moya and Agassi which is SAYING something

 

[SonnyT]

No, let's compare Nadal's record at RG vs Djokovic's at AO. Nadal dominates his opponents much more at RG, than Djokovic dominates his at AO.

When was Nadal's last 5 setter at RG? I dunno, but it might be in '13 when he beat Djokovic in semi. In the last 2 years alone at AO, Djokovic had to go 5 sets twice.

 

[Deleted member 771911]

Yep. The same as Fed and Djokovic are lucky that no one else can play on grass coming up.

They all benefited.

Indeed. May they regularly make offerings to the tennis Gods in gratitude.

 

[Mustard]

Lucky? Nadal has lost 28 sets at the French Open, in what is now 107 matches.

When was Nadal's last 5 setter at RG? I dunno, but it might be in '13 when he beat Djokovic in semi. In the last 2 years alone at AO, Djokovic had to go 5 sets twice.

Nadal is now 105-2 at the French Open. Of the 105 wins, only two of them have gone to a fifth set. Those were the first round against Isner in 2011, and the semi final against Djokovic in 2013. So 103 of his 105 match wins at the French Open have been in 4 sets or less.

Sets lost by Nadal at the French Open:

2005: 1 to Grosjean (R16), 1 to Federer (SF), 1 to Puerta (F)
2006: 1 to Mathieu (R32), 1 to Hewitt (R16), 1 to Federer (F)
2007: 1 to Federer (F)
2008: Won tournament without losing a set
2009: 3 to Soderling (R16)
2010: Won tournament without losing a set
2011: 2 to Isner (R128), 1 to Federer (F)
2012: 1 to Djokovic (F)
2013: 1 to Brands (R128), 1 to Klizan (R64), 2 to Djokovic (SF)
2014: 1 to Ferrer (QF), 1 to Djokovic (F)
2015: 1 to Sock (R16), 3 to Djokovic (QF)
2016: Won first two matches in straight sets, then withdrew from tournament with a wrist injury
2017: Won tournament without losing a set
2018: 1 to Schwartzman (QF)
2019: 1 to Goffin (R32), 1 to Thiem (F)
2020: Won tournament without losing a set
2021: 1 to Schwartzman (QF) - as of present

Outside the loss to Soderling, and some of the matches against Djokovic and Federer, I think Nadal's toughest match was against Mathieu in 2006. Against Mathieu, Nadal was never really comfortable for a 4 hour and 53 minute match, which remains the longest match that Nadal has played at the French Open.

 

[Day_Tripper]

He has been lucky in so much that he hasn't had to face a significantly younger all time great throughout the entirety of his career. Same goes for Djokovic. The fact that Federer has achieved as much as he has whilst having to deal with two significantly younger all time greats is frankly mind boggling.

 

[Rapenj]

Wimbledon and USO royally screwed over Fed for years by slowing things down to put a stop to his domination. FO organizers did not.

Not to mention lack of any younger players that are potential all time greats.

He has been incredibly lucky!

haha sure, cause chanching the balls and having night games doesn't count at all.

 

[The_Order]

He has been lucky in so much that he hasn't had to face a significantly younger all time great throughout the entirety of his career. Same goes for Djokovic. The fact that Federer has achieved as much as he has whilst having to deal with two significantly younger all time greats is frankly mind boggling.

Not when you factor in that he achieved most of it before they arrived as threats in every major...

 

[The Blond Blur]

Dude's just better than on clay than anyone else in the history of tennis.

 

[TripleATeam]

Every year there's the chance of injury, a shock upset, or just a brutal match. If say Nadal had a 99% chance against everyone but the person in the final, who he's 80% against, his chance of winning RG every year would be 75%. Subtract a few percent for injury/shock upsets, but let's say 75% to be simple.

Chances of him winning 13 or more RGs in 16 tries? 40.4%. Let's say it's actually like 65%? The total chance is 13.3%

If his chance of winning is 75%, you'd expect 12 RGs. If his chance of winning is 65%, you'd expect 10-11 RGs. So you can mathematically attribute 1-3 RGs as either luck or bad odds by the bookmakers.

However, the appearance of an unlikely scenario doesn't mean that it was impossible a priori.

 

[WhiskeyEE]

I reckon he has been lucky. Part of the odds consider whether he's entirely healthy or could get injured during the tournament. He's just pretty much always 100% healthy.

 

[GabeT]

He’s just that good at FO. Gotta give him his due

 

[TripleATeam]

Every year there's the chance of injury, a shock upset, or just a brutal match. If say Nadal had a 99% chance against everyone but the person in the final, who he's 80% against, his chance of winning RG every year would be 75%. Subtract a few percent for injury/shock upsets, but let's say 75% to be simple.

Chances of him winning 13 or more RGs in 16 tries? 40.4%. Let's say it's actually like 65%? The total chance is 13.3%

If his chance of winning is 75%, you'd expect 12 RGs. If his chance of winning is 65%, you'd expect 10-11 RGs. So you can mathematically attribute 1-3 RGs as either luck or bad odds by the bookmakers.

However, the appearance of an unlikely scenario doesn't mean that it was impossible a priori.

What we can do, though, is pretty much calculate how big the odds on a new player need to be at RG to actually surpass Rafa.

If we assume a player has 22 years in them (17-38), then they need to have an average chance of winning RG of 40% for each of those years to be likely to beat Rafa. If we assume the player only really has the years 18-34, however, then we get 17 years, and an average of 79% odds to win every single year at RG just to be likely to surpass Rafa (barely over 50%).

Safe to say it's nearly mathematically impossible for Rafa's record to ever be broken.

 

[Tshooter]

Yes and this comes up every year after Rafa wins. I think the consensus among the more astute tennis observers is Rafa has won 13 now with 14 in sight primarily because he’s very lucky.

 

[Rapenj]

He probs wins 7-8 in the era of Bruguera, Courier, Kuerten, Kafelnikov, Chang, Moya and Agassi which is SAYING something

Nope. He would have the same. Why? Because he is better than all of them combined, so he would have taken all their French in that era. And you would still be saying that he had no competition back then because he would have won it all, like in this era lol.

 

[aldeayeah]

Of course a ridiculous record like 13/16 attempts does require luck.

Although that luck is more of the 'avoiding misfortune' kind than the 'getting lucky' kind.

 

[Sudacafan]

Nope. This is not the Roddick era where everything was possible. Rafa went through the supposedly hypothetical claycourt ATG Fed more times than anyone can count, and has beaten a high performing Nole numerous times as well. Not to mention servings of Wawrinka, Schwartzman, Thiem.
He's just that good.

Who’s Petros Sampras to opine about clay?

 

[Forehanderer]

Nadal has won 13 out of 16 French Opens he's participated in. Even given generous odds at the start of each tournament to win, let's say an average of 60% against the other 127 men, he should've only won 10 / 16 titles. Keep in mind that being a 60% favorite is extremely optimistic. Over 7 matches, it implies a 93% chance to win each match, including matches vs. Federer / Djokovic!

How has Nadal outperformed so much? Were Vegas bookies giving an average of 50% - 60% odds for Nadal to win pre-tournament just dumb money for 16 years?

What does it mean when Vegas says he's only a 70% favorite vs. Djokovic in the semi this year? Is that an exploitable bet too?

Watch at 1;30
Rafa contradicts himself. "I don't believe in luck but I was not very lucky"

 

[Rapenj]

Watch at 1;30
Rafa contradicts himself. "I don't believe in luck but I was not very lucky"

Figure of speech

 

[ForehandRF]

The fanaticism on TTW knows no bounds; even Nadal's absurd dominance at the French can somehow be diminished

 

[Forehanderer]

Rafa is lucky in the sense that people who have beaten him on clay or someone billed to beat him usually don't make it deep. Rublev or Karatsev could be in the QF match instead of Schwartzman. Blame the germans for beating them.

 

[T007]

Nadal has won 13 out of 16 French Opens he's participated in. Even given generous odds at the start of each tournament to win, let's say an average of 60% against the other 127 men, he should've only won 10 / 16 titles. Keep in mind that being a 60% favorite is extremely optimistic. Over 7 matches, it implies a 93% chance to win each match, including matches vs. Federer / Djokovic!

How has Nadal outperformed so much? Were Vegas bookies giving an average of 50% - 60% odds for Nadal to win pre-tournament just dumb money for 16 years?

What does it mean when Vegas says he's only a 70% favorite vs. Djokovic in the semi this year? Is that an exploitable bet too?

Nadal is lucky that he didn't had a clay rival who could keep challenging him at RG for over a decade. I would say he dominates this surface better than any GOAT does but that comes with the fact that there were no ATGs on clay other than him in his Generation. Djokovic and Federer both struggled on clay and it is their worst surface. So we can't say Fed and Djokovic were ATGs when they have less titles than lendl,kuerten,Borg etc.

I would have loved to see how borg could have performed if he would have played in Nadals era.

 

[Forehanderer]

Nope. This is not the Roddick era where everything was possible. Rafa went through the supposedly hypothetical claycourt ATG Fed more times than anyone can count, and has beaten a high performing Nole numerous times as well. Not to mention servings of Wawrinka, Schwartzman, Thiem.
He's just that good.

Shwartzman is a great player now

 

[Forehanderer]

Figure of speech

Is it like the no excuses speech when he loses. "I was injured but no excuses, no. He played well and deserves it"

 

[Forehanderer]

With all things said, Nadal is the probably the best player on clay. Only Borg can challenge that contention.

 

[michael valek]

If anyone can think of a righty player who on clay could survive that forehand to their backhand and never hit it back short over and over, never allowing Rafa to go to the open court or back again, let’s hear it. Also who else is winning all their last sets 6-0? He’s just getting started when the others are tired out. Listen to what Diego was saying yesterday about Rafa not allowing him to stay near or get near the baseline. Sure possible for one set maybe or for Novak for a while and federer for a while and soderling but that was a feat of redlining never to be repeated.

 

[RaulRamirez]

A couple points.
Outperforming the odds is not luck. This is not weighting a coin so that it should come up heads 65 or 70% of the time, and seeing it do so 90% of the time. This is a man who everyone has been targeting winning match after match after match...after title.

Given Rafa's unprecedented dominance, Novak is absolutely an ATG at RG. 74-15 record, one of only two men to beat Rafa, the only man to take him to a fifth set in a semi or final (correct me if I'm mistaken on that last point).

Outside of Rafa, Novak's record at RG is 73-8 - over 90%. He's played at an extremely high level at RG for well over a decade now.

 

[chut]

Lucky? Nadal has lost 28 sets at the French Open, in what is now 107 matches.



Nadal is now 105-2 at the French Open. Of the 105 wins, only two of them have gone to a fifth set. Those were the first round against Isner in 2011, and the semi final against Djokovic in 2013. So 103 of his 105 match wins at the French Open have been in 4 sets or less.

Sets lost by Nadal at the French Open:

2005: 1 to Grosjean (R16), 1 to Federer (SF), 1 to Puerta (F)
2006: 1 to Mathieu (R32), 1 to Hewitt (R16), 1 to Federer (F)
2007: 1 to Federer (F)
2008: Won tournament without losing a set
2009: 3 to Soderling (R16)
2010: Won tournament without losing a set
2011: 2 to Isner (R128), 1 to Federer (F)
2012: 1 to Djokovic (F)
2013: 1 to Brands (R128), 1 to Klizan (R64), 2 to Djokovic (SF)
2014: 1 to Ferrer (QF), 1 to Djokovic (F)
2015: 1 to Sock (R16), 3 to Djokovic (QF)
2016: Won first two matches in straight sets, then withdrew from tournament with a wrist injury
2017: Won tournament without losing a set
2018: 1 to Schwartzman (QF)
2019: 1 to Goffin (R32), 1 to Thiem (F)
2020: Won tournament without losing a set
2021: 1 to Schwartzman (QF) - as of present

Outside the loss to Soderling, and some of the matches against Djokovic and Federer, I think Nadal's toughest match was against Mathieu in 2006. Against Mathieu, Nadal was never really comfortable for a 4 hour and 53 minute match, which remains the longest match that Nadal has played at the French Open.

It's a missleading stat.
You can be lucky to win a set, for instance Nadal was lucky against Popyrin to win in 3.
It happened quite often that a set decides the match and not only a 5th. The 3rd set against Schwartzman was key for instance.

I can remember a few sets where he was lucky to escape, the famous one against Andujar, 2 sets against Almagro in 2010, 1st set against Federer in 2011, against Djokovic in 2013 can probably count too.

But, as Capablanca said, "a good player is always lucky". Nadal has brought himself his own luck by being able to turn lost set into won ones, by his ability to win crucial sets, the 1st and 3rd.
So yes he was lucky at times, but also because he has a huge advantage in terms of confidence against anyone. This is also one of the reason Popyrin misses the smash, Federer misses the dropshot or Djokovic touches the net, they are under more stress than usual.
Had he lost both Rome finals in 05 and 06 (2 flip a coin matches that he won), had Puerta pushed him to a 5th in his first RG final, the outcome of his clay career would have been different.

 

[Hokkaido]

Andy Murray has a higher winrate than Vilas at RG... food for thought