Nadal's Deceptive Head-to-Head Lag Behind Federer

[Bender]

Officially, Nadal has a 24-16 lead over Federer in their H2H encounters. This is a substantial lead when discussing the GOAT debate and is often used to suggest that Nadal is better than Federer. This makes me upset so I think this lead is deceptive. Here are the key points:

• Nadal’s 24-16 lead is deceptive since 40% of their matches are on clay rather than 25% (which represents 1/3 of the tour that the clay season represents).
• But clay tennis is not real tennis. It's closer to pickleball in the sense that I haven't tried either but refuse to like them anyway.
• If normalised for real tennis, then Nadal would trail 8-19.
• If normalised for victories I consider legitimate, then Nadal would trail 0-19.
• Thus, Nadal’s records against Federer is not nearly as good as they seem.
• Nadal’s wins at Slams (65%), Masters 1000s (72%), and total wins (70.5%) are dramatically clay skewed also, so they don't count.
• Thus, by the numbers, Nadal is disqualified from the GOAT discussion since his tourney wins and H2H are so skewed.

This is why Nadal can never objectively be the GOAT, because how can you be 0-19 in matches against your greatest rival who is also five years older than you when you discount all his victories? I am not accusing Nadal of intentionally avoiding Federer and Djokovic off of clay, just suggesting it out loud, but whether he's doing it intentionally or lying, the result is the same: a dramatic and unfair advantage for Nadal against his rivals in the head-to-head matches. If only Djokovic could avoid Nadal when he was injured in 2017 and the first half of 2018, just like Nadal did when he was out of form in 2015-2016, he would have an even better H2H against Nadal on hard courts.

Edit: I should give credit to @Sysyphus who came up with the original idea

 

[guanzishou]

They both never beat me so I'm the GOAT.

 

[The Blond Blur]

And this is why I voted @Bender as the best **** poaster on TTW

 

[safinmafia]

About time that this came up.

 

[NatF]

You had me at deceptive.

 

[TripleATeam]

This confirms my biases so it must be true.