Nadal - Djokovic H2H skewness... numbers

Is Nadal-Djokovic matches surface distribution skewed?

  • Yes, by big margine

  • Yes, a little bit

  • No

  • No, are you crazy

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Sport said:
It's not skewed.

1) 50% of their Slam meetings occured outside clay. If Djokovic were more all-around than Nadal, he should lead the H2H in Slams or at least have it tied.

2) They are tied 2-2 on grass.

3) Nadal leads Djokovic 2-1 at the US Open (hard).

4) Clay is a valid surface. Nadal winning X number of matches on clay does not make the H2H in Slams less valid.
Click to expand...

5) HC slams 12-5, Wimbledons 5-2.

6) Djokovic is considerably better than Nadal on grass and HC.
 
UnforcedTerror said:
Djokovic completed the Bull Slam
Djokovic def. Nadal @ US Open​
Djokovic def. Nadal @ Wimbledon​
Djokovic def. Nadal @ Roland Garros​
Djokovic def. Nadal @ Australian Open​
​
1548535031_057643_1548537359_album_grande.jpg


wBt1d0J.jpg


3Hr22A1.png


u8VKlru.jpeg
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not just rafa slam. the fact is that nole have wins over rafa in all the big tournaments where they have played each other!

Tournamentnolerafa
Australian Open20
French Open17
Wimbledon21
US Open12
Indian Wells Masters31
Miami Open30
Monte-Carlo Masters22
Italian Open35
German Open / Madrid Open13
Canadian Open11
Cincinnati Masters20
Paris Masters10
ATP Tour Finals32
 
tennis_pro said:
Are you insane?

They played half of their meetings at one Slam which is clearly Nadal's best and Djokovic's worst Slam. If it was anything near of a balanced distribution of matches (same number of meeting at each Slam) no way in a billion effing years would Nadal lead Djokovic in the h2h. What is it now - 7 meetings at the FO compared to like 2 at the AO? And that's not skewed?

This is Nadalphilia at its finest.
Click to expand...

8 times they have met at FO.

Edit: 8 times
 
RF-18 said:
5) HC slams 12-5, Wimbledons 5-2.

6) Djokovic is considerably better than Nadal on grass and HC.
Click to expand...

RankCountryNameHC Matches Won %
1SRBNovak Djokovic84.44%

10ESPRafael Nadal77.96%
grass
4SRBNovak Djokovic84.07%

17ESPRafael Nadal78.02%
clay
RankCountryNameMatches Won %
1ESPRafael Nadal91.75%

4SRBNovak Djokovic80.14%

nole is top 4 of all time in W% on all surfaces!
 
beard said:
So, almost every day we hear about how Nadal has leading slam H2H with Novak, and very close overall H2H.
It happened today that one poster tried to explain to me their h2h isn't skewed, and another one hoped Nadal and Novak will play a few more clay matches, so Nadal can be able to level h2h...
That is too much...
Let's see what real numbers say... I will go with big titles only (slams, wtf and masters)...

Slams...
Slams distribution on tour is 2 hard court slams (50%), 1 grass slam (25%) and one clay slam (25%)...
H2H at slams is 10:6 for Nadal with this distribution:
- Hard 5 matches or 31.25% (should be 50%)
- Clay 8 matches or 50% (should be 25%)
- Grass 3 matches or 18.75% (should be 25%)
Obviously they played much more on clay, and much less on other surfaces, if we compare to tour structure...
If we say they played the proper number of matches at RG (7), they should play 5 more matches at Wimbledon (to get to same number because distribution is the same - 25%), and should play 11 more hard court slam matches (to get 14 matches - 2*7, because distribution is double - 50%)
So, to get realistic H2H, according to tour surface composition, Nadal and Djokovic overall should play 16 non clay slam matches to even slam distribution....

WTF...
This tournament is once a year, so Nadal and Djokovic should play same number of matches as they played at Rolland Garros, but they played only 5 matches (3:2 for Novak).
So, they need to play 2 more hard court matches to even distribution...

Masters...
Masters distribution on tour is 6 hard court masters (67%) and 3 clay masters (33%)...
H2H at masters is 10:6 for Nadal with this distribution:
- Hard 12 matches or 42.86% (should be 67%)
- Clay 16 matches or 57.14% (should be 33%)... Yes they played significantly more clay masters, although there is double more hard court matches... I know... I know...
If we say they played the proper number of matches at clay (16), they should play 20 more hard court masters matches (to get 32 matches - 2*16).
So, to get realistic H2H, according to tour surface composition, Nadal and Djokovic should play 20 hard court matches to even masters surface distribution....



TOTAL NUMBERS:
16 non clay slams matches + 2 WTF hard court matches + 20 Masters hard court matches
That's totally 38 more non clay matches to even H2H according to ATP calendar surface distribution...


Can you guys imagine what would realistically distribute h2h look like? I have some idea...
I might do this calculation for Federer - Nadal too, if this thread shows as interesting...


PS.
I like Nadal very much, but can't stand any more rubbish 10:6 "argument", and "I hope they play at FO" argument...
Click to expand...
20 is around 1/3 of the matches, just a bit more. Three surfaces. So no.
 
Djoker_Django said:
I think is more about Djokovic being better on clay than Nadal outside clay, while Nadal being better on clay than Djokovic outside clay... Or in other words Nadal is an one surface specialist, and Djokovic is all around player... News at eleven thing, really... ;)
Click to expand...

One surface specialist who mopped the floor with peak Djokovic in two of the three US Open finals they contested. ;)
 
Gary Duane said:
20 is around 1/3 of the matches, just a bit more. Three surfaces. So no.
Click to expand...

they played 50% (instead of 25%) of their slam matches on clay and 45% of all their matches were on clay despite clay being only 29% of all big tournaments! (only 48% on HC which is 64% of all big tournaments)!

and nole have greater W% in their h2h on clay (28%) than rafa on HC (26%)!
 
Last edited:
It's not Nadal's fault that Wimbledon 2020 was not held nor the fact that Wimbledon has always been held just a week after RG. Nadal always got there very tired/injured after reaching the RG final every year.
 
lucky13 said:
and what is the excuse that they meet each other only twice in noles pet slam? too tired for AO?
Click to expand...

Nadal has better AO results than Djokovic does RG. The reason they've met so many more times at RG is that Nadal is always at the end of RG whereas Djokovic has failed many times at AO. If Djokovic was as good at AO as Nadal is at RG it would more than even out.
 
When I compare players for my (objective, if imperfect) rankings, I look at career accomplishments, and don't factor in H2H. I see no way to quantify it, and even in a broader discussion, I don't value it as much. (Obviously, there have been many H2H showdowns that have affected the other records - i.e., slams, M1000s, ATP Finals )

If you think that H2H records are problematic, then also don't use them conveniently when they help your own arguments.
 
There is something very key that no one has yet mentioned that has played a very instrumental part in their slam H2H, I wonder if someone will say what it is.
 
Consistency is a double edged sword sometimes and Novak experienced the negative side of it by being consistent on clay throughout his career but running into Nadal a lot of times. So in terms of surface distribution yes I can understand the skew argument.

On the other hand there was that mid 2010s period when Novak was at his dominant best and Rafa was struggling a lot, and Novak beat him several times then. Meanwhile Rafa didn't have as many opportunities when their roles were reversed.

At the end of the day it is close between them. The head to head, their overall achievements... It is not the boldest decision in the world to slightly lean towards either player.
 
tennis_pro said:
LMAO they have played so many times there I even lost count.

Yeah definitely not skewed.
Click to expand...
But that's Djokovic's fault for not being as good as Nadal at his pet Slam. It's definitely not Nadal's fault for losing to Tsonga, Ferrer, Berdych, Verdasco, Thiem and Tsitsipas at AO while Djokovic was meeting him at Roland Garros pretty consistetly from as early as 2006. Keep up man.
 
Tiki-Taka said:
On the other hand there was that mid 2010s period when Novak was at his dominant best and Rafa was struggling a lot, and Novak beat him several times then. Meanwhile Rafa didn't have as many opportunities when their roles were reversed.
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Welp, Nadal beat Djokovic at RG 06, 07 and Wimbledon 07, when they had no business meeting. Plus they played quite a bit in 2009 and 2010.

I don't know how much each poster values H2H as a metric, but in this case it's clearly not against Nadal, especially since most cite the Slam H2H.

The overall H2H is fine, since Djokovic has the better day-in day-out consistency, which resulted in a couple of extra wins.
 
weakera said:
Nadal has better AO results than Djokovic does RG. The reason they've met so many more times at RG is that Nadal is always at the end of RG whereas Djokovic has failed many times at AO. If Djokovic was as good at AO as Nadal is at RG it would more than even out.
Click to expand...
Wrong... Stopped reading...
 
blablavla said:
since when this is a valid argument?

can you tell us in which year each of them became a pro player?
or in which year each of them was born?
Click to expand...

Well I see Nadal fans often commenting on how he was baby outside clay early on in his career ....

Anyways it is a perfectly valid argument for players whose career graph do no overlap perfectly. It was not before 2011 that Djokovic was taken as a serious contender to Fedal and since then both have been mostly secondly best to him across the tour (except for Nadal on clay).

If you want to ignore you can but the fact is that till end of 2010 Djokovic had won only one slam while Nadal had won 9. The overall head to head was 16-7 in favor of Nadal (5-0 in slams). From 2011, a period in which Nadal went on to win 11 more slams, the head to head has been 22-11 in favor of Djokovic. In this period Djokovic leads Nadal 6-5 in slams with Nadal winning 4 of those at Roland Garros. Again, in this period Nadal has only 2 non clay wins over Novak, both in 2013 at the peak of his hard court form. It is safe to conclude that in last 10 years Nadal has not been good enough to compete against Djokovic outside clay. And he has been able to maintain his advantage of H2H in slams because he has not played Djokovic with same frequency at other slams as he has played in Paris (6 to 5).
 
weakera said:
Nadal has better AO results than Djokovic does RG. The reason they've met so many more times at RG is that Nadal is always at the end of RG whereas Djokovic has failed many times at AO. If Djokovic was as good at AO as Nadal is at RG it would more than even out.
Click to expand...

Last time they met at AO Rafa won 8 games. Imagine if Djokovic was to be even better at AO
 
Has no one really noticed that Djokovic was always getting the short end of the stick in slam draws?

At RG he was almost always on Nadal side, but at non-clay slams he was almost always was on Federer's side.

How many times was Djokovic on Nadal's side at RG, when they were not both 1 and 2 in the world? Lets see, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017....

How many times did we see this at the USO? 2007, 2015, 2016 - All three times Nadal failed to make it to the match up, and that was before the final, unlike Djokovic who only failed in 2017 when they were in the same side at RG.

How many times at AO did we see this? - 2017 only? LOL - Only once were they on the same side of the draw at AO, compare that to 8 at RG.

Djokovic got Federer at AO 2007, AO 2008, USO 2008, AO 2009, USO 2009, AO 2010, USO 2010, AO 2011, USO 2011 - That is 8 HC slams where Djokovic could not play Nadal earlier than the final in a row, compare that to how many times Djokovic was drawn to face Nadal earlier than the final at RG.

At Wimbledon, Djokovic again gets Federer at W 08, W 09, W 10, W 11, W 12 - That's what, five in a row? And that's not counting all the first week losses Nadal had at W, while Djokovic was having dog fights with Federer/Del Potro/Murray in the semis and finals.

So Djokovic would have had to get past peak/prime Federer more often than not to face Nadal in non-clay slams.



Now, the H2H is 10-6 and it is what it is, and I personally think Nadal is the better big match player between them, and is greater overall as it stands, but these numbers tell a very big story.
 
beard said:
So, almost every day we hear about how Nadal has leading slam H2H with Novak, and very close overall H2H.
It happened today that one poster tried to explain to me their h2h isn't skewed, and another one hoped Nadal and Novak will play a few more clay matches, so Nadal can be able to level h2h...
That is too much...
Let's see what real numbers say... I will go with big titles only (slams, wtf and masters)...

Slams...
Slams distribution on tour is 2 hard court slams (50%), 1 grass slam (25%) and one clay slam (25%)...
H2H at slams is 10:6 for Nadal with this distribution:
- Hard 5 matches or 31.25% (should be 50%)
- Clay 8 matches or 50% (should be 25%)
- Grass 3 matches or 18.75% (should be 25%)
Obviously they played much more on clay, and much less on other surfaces, if we compare to tour structure...
If we say they played the proper number of matches at RG (7), they should play 5 more matches at Wimbledon (to get to same number because distribution is the same - 25%), and should play 11 more hard court slam matches (to get 14 matches - 2*7, because distribution is double - 50%)
So, to get realistic H2H, according to tour surface composition, Nadal and Djokovic overall should play 16 non clay slam matches to even slam distribution....

WTF...
This tournament is once a year, so Nadal and Djokovic should play same number of matches as they played at Rolland Garros, but they played only 5 matches (3:2 for Novak).
So, they need to play 2 more hard court matches to even distribution...

Masters...
Masters distribution on tour is 6 hard court masters (67%) and 3 clay masters (33%)...
H2H at masters is 10:6 for Nadal with this distribution:
- Hard 12 matches or 42.86% (should be 67%)
- Clay 16 matches or 57.14% (should be 33%)... Yes they played significantly more clay masters, although there is double more hard court matches... I know... I know...
If we say they played the proper number of matches at clay (16), they should play 20 more hard court masters matches (to get 32 matches - 2*16).
So, to get realistic H2H, according to tour surface composition, Nadal and Djokovic should play 20 hard court matches to even masters surface distribution....



TOTAL NUMBERS:
16 non clay slams matches + 2 WTF hard court matches + 20 Masters hard court matches
That's totally 38 more non clay matches to even H2H according to ATP calendar surface distribution...


Can you guys imagine what would realistically distribute h2h look like? I have some idea...
I might do this calculation for Federer - Nadal too, if this thread shows as interesting...


PS.
I like Nadal very much, but can't stand any more rubbish 10:6 "argument", and "I hope they play at FO" argument...
Click to expand...
I have been arguing this for a while. You have spelled this out well and people who disagree are Nadal fans who need to go and review their middle school math and simple logic. Just over 70% of Nadal's tournament wins have been on clay, 65% of his slam wins, and 71% of his Masters 1000 wins. Nadal is a clay court specialist who is so good that he has won some non-clay court slams and hardcourt Masters.

I will also add that he had the benefit of most of those non-clay wins (2 at Wi, 1 at AO, 2 USO) early in Djokovic's career in a relatively weak era where his main competition was Federer. He won two more USOs on a very slow hardcourt and has not won the AO or WI for more than 10 years corresponding to when Djokovic came into his own.

He will be known as the clay GOAT, but Djokovic will be known as the all-surface GOAT unless he retires tomorrow or does not win any more big tournaments. The AO finals show that this is unlikely.
 
Nole_King said:
Well I see Nadal fans often commenting on how he was baby outside clay early on in his career ....

Anyways it is a perfectly valid argument for players whose career graph do no overlap perfectly. It was not before 2011 that Djokovic was taken as a serious contender to Fedal and since then both have been mostly secondly best to him across the tour (except for Nadal on clay).

If you want to ignore you can but the fact is that till end of 2010 Djokovic had won only one slam while Nadal had won 9. The overall head to head was 16-7 in favor of Nadal (5-0 in slams). From 2011, a period in which Nadal went on to win 11 more slams, the head to head has been 22-11 in favor of Djokovic. In this period Djokovic leads Nadal 6-5 in slams with Nadal winning 4 of those at Roland Garros. Again, in this period Nadal has only 2 non clay wins over Novak, both in 2013 at the peak of his hard court form. It is safe to conclude that in last 10 years Nadal has not been good enough to compete against Djokovic outside clay. And he has been able to maintain his advantage of H2H in slams because he has not played Djokovic with same frequency at other slams as he has played in Paris (6 to 5).
Click to expand...

irrelevant

and those Nadal fans that claim that he was a baby outside clay, as as ridiculous as Nole fans claiming that he was a baby till 2011
go shake your hands now
 
Meh, Djokovic is more consistent than Nadal when not really playing his best tennis.

Anyway, I am fine with praising the Nadal's superior Slam H2H. But the problem is that some people believe that it means more than the weeks at #1.
 
InsideOut900 said:
How so? Djokovic has 5 finals (won 1) and 5 more semis at RG.
Nadal has 5 finals at AO (won 1) and only 1 semi (in 2008).
Click to expand...
beard said:
Wrong... Stopped reading...
Click to expand...

For your understanding,

Nadal has failed to meet Djokovic (ie, been eliminated prior to a potential Djokovic matchup) at AO six times in their career (2008, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021). Every other year, Djokovic and Nadal either met, or Djokovic was eliminated in an earlier round than Nadal or the same round.

Djokovic has failed to meet Nadal (ie, been eliminated prior to a potential Nadal matchup) at RG seven times in their career (2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2018, 2019). Every other year Djokovic and Nadal either met, or Nadal was eliminated in an earlier round than Djokovic or the same round.

So you see - Djokovic has failed to be Nadal's dance partner at Roland Garros more times than Nadal failed to be Djokovic's at the Australian Open.

The more you know ;)
 
Nole Slam said:
Meh, Djokovic is more consistent than Nadal when not really playing his best tennis.

Anyway, I am fine with praising the Nadal's superior Slam H2H. But the problem is that some people believe that it means more than the weeks at #1.
Click to expand...


That's because it does ;) sounds like you have a problem with the truth.
 
Nole Slam said:
Meh, Djokovic is more consistent than Nadal when not really playing his best tennis.

Anyway, I am fine with praising the Nadal's superior Slam H2H. But the problem is that some people believe that it means more than the weeks at #1.
Click to expand...

Djokovic went 6-6 in matches when he didn't play his best and avoided Nadal and Federer between 2017 and early 2018. Djokovic got to face Nadal many times in 2015 and 2016 and Federer in 2013.
 
Backspin1183 said:
Djokovic went 6-6 in matches when he didn't play his best and avoided Nadal and Federer between 2017 and early 2018. Djokovic got to face Nadal many times in 2015 and 2016 and Federer in 2013.
Click to expand...


Exactly. Nadal at his worst stayed in the top-10 and met Djokovic and Murray in various finals, Djokovic pathetically fell to #22 in the world and could hardly reach Nadal or Federer anywhere. What he's suggesting is laughable.
 
Nadal_Django said:
I think is more about Djokovic being better on clay than Nadal outside clay, while Nadal being better on clay than Djokovic outside clay... Or in other words Nadal is an one surface specialist, and Djokovic is all around player... News at eleven thing, really... ;)
Click to expand...
Off of hard Djoker: 6 slams
Off of clay Rafa: 7 slams
:oops:
 
Main problem is that Nadal sucks in non-clay slams. He has to reach SF/F to play against Djokovic, which he is only able to do in RG. So no wonder he leads 10:6.
 
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