Highest Head to Head Series Winning %

[nolefam_2024]

Highest H2H series winning % (minimum of 3 matches).
Alcaraz is already at number 10 and Sinner at number 21 by end of 2024. Sinner has added another rivalry in his favor vs Rune and soon will flip the Zverev rivalry to his favor as well.

Ultimate Tennis Statistics - Records Book

Thousands of Open Era tennis records

www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com

Name	Winning Pct.	Won	Draw	Lost
Bjorn Borg	96.67%	86	2	2
Rafael Nadal	96.50%	137	2	4
Novak Djokovic	95.59%	128	4	4
Roger Federer	91.83%	139	3	11
Ivan Lendl	91.40%	141	5	11
Jimmy Connors	91.01%	171	2	16
Rod Laver	90.91%	59	2	5
John McEnroe	90.32%	109	6	9
Boris Becker	90.00%	100	7	8
Carlos Alcaraz Garfia	90.00%	27	0	3
Arthur Ashe	89.91%	96	4	9
Pete Sampras	89.64%	98	3	10
Andre Agassi	87.14%	116	12	12
Andy Murray	86.84%	97	4	13
Guillermo Vilas	85.20%	127	5	20
Andy Roddick	84.11%	87	6	14
Stefan Edberg	83.06%	102	2	20
Juan Martin Del Potro	82.88%	59	3	11
Ilie Nastase	82.82%	105	7	19
Michael Stich	81.16%	52	8	9
Jannik Sinner	80.85%	35	6	6
Eddie Dibbs	80.20%	79	4	18
Manuel Orantes	79.91%	89	9	19
Kei Nishikori	79.75%	62	2	15
Tom Okker	79.41%	77	8	17
Miloslav Mecir	79.17%	36	4	8
John Newcombe	79.11%	61	3	15
Vitas Gerulaitis	78.65%	72	7	17
Marcelo Rios	78.48%	58	8	13
David Ferrer	78.24%	97	11	23
Lleyton Hewitt	78.24%	77	15	16
Mats Wilander	77.96%	70	5	18
Alexander Zverev	77.91%	66	2	18
Andres Gomez	77.67%	79	2	22
Jim Courier	77.47%	65	11	15
Ken Rosewall	77.40%	54	5	14
Daniil Medvedev	77.33%	54	8	13
Alex Metreveli	76.00%	36	4	10
Roscoe Tanner	75.88%	82	9	23
Tomas Berdych	75.85%	87	5	26

 

[nolefam_2024]

Borg being at the top makes sense since he was at prime when he had edge vs almost everyone and decided to retire.

Big 3 and Lendl completes the top 5.

Alcaraz is having 90% H2H winning series already. He is bound to rise up the ranking.

Wilander despite being an ATG is at 32 in the list. Very poor compared to comparable Becker Edberg and McEnroe

 

[Aabye5]

@RaulRamirez - Lendl is the answer

Truthfully, H2H is important, but it would be close to the bottom

 

[Pheasant]

Kudos to Nadal in this metric. We have to give credit where credit is due.

Lendl, given how polarized those surfaces were in his day, is very impressive in this metric.

Anyway, good stats here.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Kudos to Nadal in this metric. We have to give credit where credit is due.

Lendl, given how polarized those surfaces were in his day, is very impressive in this metric.

Anyway, good stats here.

Nadal for majority of his life is very tough guy to play for anyone. For most players the negative records are in early life. But for Nadal he had explosive start.

 

[Bride of Alcaraz]

Nadal 3-0 vs. Sinner and 8-0 in sets !!

 

[RaulRamirez]

Sorry, it's been a long day, but what am I missing? Do I have a limited view on my phone - just 4 columns?

H2H versus who and where?

 

[nolefam_2024]

Sorry, it's been a long day, but what am I missing? Do I have a limited view on my phone - just 4 columns?

H2H versus who and where?

Vs everyone.

Eg. Borg had 90 different opponents with 3+ matches and he had positive h2h in 86, 2 draw and 2 negative.

 

[RaulRamirez]

Vs everyone.

Eg. Borg had 90 different opponents with 3+ matches and he had positive h2h in 86, 2 draw and 2 negative.

Got it.

 

[GoatNo1]

Nadal 3-0 vs. Sinner and 8-0 in sets !!

pretty impressive, all on clay and in 20-21 when sinner was ranked 75, 18 and 19.

 

[RaulRamirez]

Is there a way to check this stat for % of matches (instead of % of rivalries) won in these matchups?
Anyway, even if not telling, I do find it somewhat interesting.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Is there a way to check this stat for % of matches (instead of % of rivalries) won in these matchups?
Anyway, even if not telling, I do find it somewhat interesting.

Ultimate Tennis Statistics - Greatest Head-to-Head Series Winning Pct.

Greatest Head-to-Head Series Winning Pct. at Ultimate Tennis Statistics

www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com

 

[Terenigma]

Nishikori being that high surprises me greatly, Del Potro a little too. Still, very interesting delving deeper and seeing what players they lead the H2H against.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Nishikori being that high surprises me greatly, Del Potro a little too. Still, very interesting delving deeper and seeing what players they lead the H2H against.

Yes Nishikori is higher than many slams winners including Jim Courier.

H2H is rather flawed statistic and the purpose of tennis should be collecting titles and not H2H.

Still this gives legitimacy to Nishikori.

 

[travlerajm]

Yes Nishikori is higher than many slams winners including Jim Courier.

H2H is rather flawed statistic and the purpose of tennis should be collecting titles and not H2H.

Still this gives legitimacy to Nishikori.

It’s unclear why Jim Courier was so much worse vs. the field in his late 20s compared to his early 20s.

 

[nolefam_2024]

It’s unclear why Jim Courier was so much worse vs. the field in his late 20s compared to his early 20s.

Sarcastic remark is all you can do.
Yes Courier declined faster than Agassi and Sampras who are same age and had still strong results in late 20s. Every player declines with age, some do at much higher rate.

Many people have said Courier took advantage of power vacuum at top of tennis before rise of Sampras. His game is too much forehand heavy and has big holes when his forehand is attacked. Possibly players started figuring out how to move him side to side effectively. Along with his own mental decline and fight leaving his body. I have not seen the 90s tennis so more knowledgeable people would know.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Yes Nishikori is higher than many slams winners including Jim Courier.

H2H is rather flawed statistic and the purpose of tennis should be collecting titles and not H2H.

Still this gives legitimacy to Nishikori.

Five is an extremely small sample and I noticed that it seems to include even withdraws. So in some cases you have just 2 matches counting. A limit of five would help to reduce much of the noise.

Overall the tendency of players above 90 H2H seems to reflect their career trajectory well. Nadal stomped into the ATP as a big bad bull and the star of Alcaraz burned ever so brightly from the start. A similar story for Borg who came in hot from the cold and left in his prime.

 

[Winner Sinner]

Let's say that this ranking makes us understand a lot of the consistency shown by the players throughout their careers.
For example, Federer's percentage is so far from that of his rivals Nadal and Djokovic, for the simple reason that the Swiss had a much lower level in the first part of his career than the two of them at a similar stage of their career, and this meant that he initially went down against many opponents at the h2h level, and with some of them being part of the generations prior to his, he then didn't have the time to be able to overturn it.
On the contrary, Nadal, who has been at the top on the major circuit almost since day 1, is not surprising that he has a higher percentage than the other two, over Federer in particular.

The exact same argument can be extended to Alcaraz (the Nadal of the situation) and Sinner (the Federer of the situation).

However, this classification is very interesting precisely because of its atypical nature.
These types of statistics are rarely found around.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Rank	Country	Name	Winning Pct.	Won	Draw	Lost	Played
18	ARG	Juan Martin Del Potro	82.88%	59	3	11	73
24	JPN	Kei Nishikori	79.75%	62	2	15	79
30	ESP	David Ferrer	78.24%	97	11	23	131
33	GER	Alexander Zverev	77.91%	66	2	18	86
37	RUS	Daniil Medvedev	77.33%	54	8	13	75
40	CZE	Tomas Berdych	75.85%	87	5	26	118
43	GRE	Stefanos Tsitsipas	75.00%	46	7	13	66
46	FRA	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	74.43%	62	7	19	88
48	ARG	David Nalbandian	73.94%	49	7	15	71
56	ITA	Matteo Berrettini	72.86%	25	1	9	35
57	CAN	Milos Raonic	72.56%	56	7	19	82
59	CRO	Marin Cilic	71.74%	78	9	28	115
66	RUS	Andrey Rublev	70.00%	49	7	19	75
75	FRA	Richard Gasquet	67.83%	81	13	35	129
79	FRA	Gael Monfils	67.09%	72	13	32	117
83	NOR	Casper Ruud	66.00%	30	6	14	50
85	RUS	Nikolay Davydenko	65.91%	68	9	33	110
99	USA	Taylor Harry Fritz	63.33%	35	6	19	60
100	RSA	Kevin Anderson	63.22%	52	6	29	87

80s gen vs lost gen vs next gen.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Let's say that this ranking makes us understand a lot of the consistency shown by the players throughout their careers.
For example, Federer's percentage is so far from that of his rivals Nadal and Djokovic, for the simple reason that the Swiss had a much lower level in the first part of his career than the two of them at a similar stage of their career, and this meant that he initially went down against many opponents at the h2h level, and with some of them being part of the generations prior to his, he then didn't have the time to be able to overturn it.
On the contrary, Nadal, who has been at the top on the major circuit almost since day 1, is not surprising that he has a higher percentage than the other two, over Federer in particular.

The exact same argument can be extended to Alcaraz (the Nadal of the situation) and Sinner (the Federer of the situation).

However, this classification is very interesting precisely because of its atypical nature.
These types of statistics are rarely found around.

This is very true. These type of lists reward the early bloomers who had very high level for most of their career.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Sampras Agassi and Courier games won % by age.

 

[The Blond Blur]

pretty impressive, all on clay and in 20-21 when sinner was ranked 75, 18 and 19.

RAFA was literally old enough to be his dad, lol. Only makes sense that he sonned The Sinner

 

[Antonio Puente]

For example, Federer's percentage is so far from that of his rivals Nadal and Djokovic, for the simple reason that the Swiss had a much lower level in the first part of his career

It doesn’t help that Fed has a losing H2H against his rivals, against Nadal and Djoker.

If Fed had a winning H2H vs. Nadal, Djoker, Thiem and Zverev, he would be only slightly behind Djoker.

 

[nolefam_2024]

It doesn’t help that Fed has a losing H2H against his rivals, against Nadal and Djoker.

If Fed had a winning H2H vs. Nadal, Djoker, Thiem and Zverev, he would be only slightly behind Djoker.

Not a huge problem as Nadal himself bad negative H2H vs Djokovic but he is above on the list.

 

[Mustard]

Sorry, it's been a long day, but what am I missing? Do I have a limited view on my phone - just 4 columns?

H2H versus who and where?

The number of head-to-heads that each player has won, drawn or lost, in overall numbers.

So Nadal leads Federer 24-16, so Nadal wins that, Federer loses that.

 

[Mustard]

pretty impressive, all on clay and in 20-21 when sinner was ranked 75, 18 and 19.

Sinner played the best match, at least for the first two sets, when ranked 75.

 

[Antonio Puente]

Not a huge problem as Nadal himself bad negative H2H vs Djokovic but he is above on the list.

Yes, barely. It's close to equal. Djoker has a losing H2H in slams. You would take the slam wins over two Beijings any day.

Fed is closer to Djoker in H2H, but not so close to Nadal.

The fact remains that Federer's place on the list is not entirely due to early career losses.

 

[Mustard]

Not a huge problem as Nadal himself bad negative H2H vs Djokovic but he is above on the list.

29-31 isn't bad, especially when leading 11-7 in majors.

 

[Antonio Puente]

29-31 isn't bad, especially when leading 11-7 in majors.

You could make a strong argument, based on weighted performance, that, in reality, it's a positive H2H in Nadal's favor.

 

[Mustard]

You could make a strong argument, based on weighted performance, that, in reality, it's a positive H2H in Nadal's favor.

Considering the 7-0 to Djokovic in 2015-2016, and only 1-0 to Nadal in 2017.

 

[GoatNo1]

of all 14 big tournaments only 4 is on clay (29%) and 9 on HC (64%). yet nole has positive h2h vs rafa despite they played 29 (48%) of their 60 matches on clay which is more than they played on HC, 27 matches (45%)! at slams they played 10 times at rafas favorit and noles worst slam and 2 times at noles favorit and rafas worst slam.

 

[Sputnik Bulgorov]

You could make a strong argument, based on weighted performance, that, in reality, it's a positive H2H in Nadal's favor.

You could also make a strong argument, based on weighting surface composition of the tennis calendar, that in reality, Djokovic is even farther ahead of Nadal than the H2H implies.

 

[Sputnik Bulgorov]

It doesn’t help that Fed has a losing H2H against his rivals, against Nadal and Djoker.

If Fed had a winning H2H vs. Nadal, Djoker, Thiem and Zverev, he would be only slightly behind Djoker.

Feds weak start made more of a difference than the Nadal Djokovic losses. That’s just 2 losses.

He had losing h2hs against Kafelnikov, Rafter, Hrbaty, Enqvist, Ferreira and Corretja. draws to Rosset and Canas. He absolutely would have turned those around if they played into his peak.

The Zverev and Thiem losses were more due to age related decline than anything. He went 1-5 against them in 2018-2019, when he turned 37 and 38, respectively.

 

[Aabye5]

Fed is hurt by a slow start, but helped by a period of superiority over his peers