Let us settle this once and for all: What is Nadal's best season?

What is Nadal's Best Season?

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Nadal didn't have a peak, he was very consistent through the years without big highs and lows.

He had a win percentage between 81.4% and 91.8% in 14 of the last 16 seasons.

That should make us question about Fedovic having so specific supposed peak periods...
 
1) 2008
2) 2010 (not much in it between 2008 and 2010)
3) 2013

One thing is certain: 2008/2010/2013 are the Nadal's top 3 seasons, no matter what order people rank them.
 
Towny said:
I would tend to say 2010 largely due to the 3 slams. There are good arguments for 2008 and 2013 as well but the extra slam seals the deal for me. In terms of best non-calendar year though, I imagine we can all agree that it would be Hamburg 2008 - Rome 2009. The stats for this period are impressive:

3 slams (Beating Prime Federer for all 3)
5 masters
1 OSG
11 titles
89-7 W/L (92.7%)

H2H v Federer: 4-0
H2H v Djokovic: 7-1
H2H v Murray: 5-2

These stats would be pretty similar to Federer and Djokovic's best calendar years. I would also say it was Nadal's highest level of play overall, certainly at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon
Click to expand...

That's indeed Nadal's greatest level of play over the course of 1 year. If we talk about a time stretch, we it's probably from Miami/MC 2008 - Madrid 2009.
 
mike danny said:
Not winning a single match at 2/4 slams easily dismisses it from being the best.
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He also had his highest win %, most titles, most M1000 titles, won the Summer Slam and every HC match until Beijing, etc.

Not saying it was his best, but it's certainly up there.
 
King No1e said:
I'm surprised too. I guess the Wimbledon tank job really hurt his entire season as a whole.
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It was the only tournament during the season where he didn't reach at least the semifinals, and it came just 2 weeks after one of the physically toughest clay seasons one can possibly imagine. It really shouldn't hurt his season.
 
mike danny said:
Not winning a single match at 2/4 slams easily dismisses it from being the best.
Click to expand...
Why is it that important? He didn't even play AO, and he came to Wimbledon just 2 weeks after playing one of the physically toughest clay seasons ever. That was the only time in 2013 when he lost early, and I don't see why should it hurt him. It is obviously better to win 3 slams in a year, but just going farther doesn't make any change for me. It's a real joke that some claim he was better in 2019 than in 2013 because he went farther in AO and Wimbledon.
 
StrongRule said:
It was the only tournament during the season where he didn't reach at least the semifinals, and it came just 2 weeks after one of the physically toughest clay seasons one can possibly imagine. It really shouldn't hurt his season.
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A half-assed 1st round exit at Wimbledon is never a positive for Nadal. He had no such losses at the Slam level in 2008 or 10.

I think even he knew he should've skipped it.
 
StrongRule said:
Why is it that important? He didn't even play AO, and he came to Wimbledon just 2 weeks after playing one of the physically toughest clay seasons ever. That was the only time in 2013 when he lost early, and I don't see why should it hurt him. It is obviously better to win 3 slams in a year, but just going farther doesn't make any change for me. It's a real joke that some claim he was better in 2019 than in 2013 because he went farther in AO and Wimbledon.
Click to expand...

2013 Nadal DNP at AO rather than lose early so that has no possible bearing on his HC level, of course. On grass specifically though, by default any time Nadal wins a match at Wimbledon he does better than 2013 when he won 0 sets on grass - should've skipped it altogether muster-style, indeed.
 
2019 was my favorite because of recency bias and the sheer shock of him exceeding my expectations of what he could do. The GS losses hurt though but the Kyrgios win was great.
 
His level was the highest in 2008 imo, while statistically the 2010 season was his best (including his most impressive run at the YEC).
 
Calendar year it's 2010. Otherwise, it's the one-year period from early 2008 to early 2009 if we also include the AO and Indian Wells in 2009.
 
This is an impossible question to answer because the competition just wasn’t good enough. How can one choose between three different iterations of the CYGS, all won with 84 golden sets?
 
King No1e said:
A half-assed 1st round exit at Wimbledon is never a positive for Nadal. He had no such losses at the Slam level in 2008 or 10.

I think even he knew he should've skipped it.
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After a brutal clay season again, Nadal, indeed, should have, at 27 years old, stopped and not played Wimbledon, but stubbornly insisted (so characteristic of him) on playing that tournament, despite not being in the appropriate physical conditions to face such a challenge.
Curiously, that rather premature defeat gave him new energy and spirit to win Canada, Cincinatti and the US Open consecutively.
Only the third male tennis player to achieve this, after Patrick Rafter in 1998 and Andy Roddick in 2003.
:cool:
 
DSH said:
Nadal was more gassed that time than a hooker after a weekend of non-stop work.
:oops:
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I watched the highlights of the match against Murray and it was so obvious that Rafa was extremely fatigued. He was so slow and didn't even care to chase many balls which was so weird back then.
 
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