Nadal's Deceptive Head-to-Head Lead Over Federer

Fed couldn't even handle the guy on outdoor Hardcourts. Thats telling when you consider Hardcourts have always been Nadal's worst surface. If they happened to be the same age their entire career, the only place I would truly "trust" Federer on is the WTF indoor year end championship. Anywhere else? Nope. I wouldn't even trust Fed to have the advantage on grass if they played a best of 10
 
Kralingen said:
They should all count is the point :p

It’s clear that Nadal’s age advantage helped him but I also think he just causes match up issues that probably no other player in history could have done to Fed
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Causing match-up issues doesn't translate to Nadal winning every single big non-clay match if they were the same age and their primes overlapped more (and they played on HC/grass more).

It's ridiculous to suggest that and to handwave the big edge Nadal had in terms of physicality in their 2012 and 2014 AO matches because he was much closer to his prime than Fed at that point. Those matches are always counted but 2017-2019 is dismissed because Rafa's "too old", lol what garbage.
 
zagor said:
Imagine if Fed was the same age or 5 years younger than Nadal.

According to Nadal fans, Fed would be running circles around him as soon as poor Rafito hit 30.

Are they're saying Nadal is lucky that Fed and him aren't exact peers?
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If Federer was five years younger then yea it is safe to assume that he would dominate Nadal once Nadal hit 30. If old Fed could already do it than it is only logical that a younger Fed would do it even more easily.

But this is another hypothetical scenario and we do not know if Nadal would make up for that by winning more slams at an earlier age when there is no peak Fed stopping him at Wimbledon. We also do not know how both of them would cope mentally with this reversed situation (Nadal for instance seems to prefer being the underdog than the one being hunted).
 
Patogen said:
It was not just him owning Roger mentally. Fed was only a couple of points (and questionable calls) away from going 0-2 against Nadal on HC in Miami 2005 to start with. Nadal was still eighteen then, and far from his HC best. Fed is actually lucky (not to have met him more times outside clay). The matchup was so unfavorable to him from the get-go, whatever happened past the AO2017 would have done little to redeem his legacy against Nadal had they met more often outside clay during 2005, 2006, 2007.

People like you tend to forget how quickly Nadal improved between 05 and 07. Even in the very first Wimbledon final, the deeper it went, the more trouble Rafa caused. He just kept getting better at an extreme rate. And he almost won the final the year after. Nadal beating Fed everywhere would have just happened sooner had they met more often outside clay, that is all. Because just as Federer was stagnating, Rafa kept learning.
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Characteristic of people on here to only notice the the things that reinforce their narrative.

You talk about the line call in ‘05, but how about Federer’s serve being unusually poor that match (our esteemed poster @Waspsting calling it one of Federer’s ‘softest-serving displays’)? Or Federer suffering from a literal heat stroke in ‘04?

Or AO 09 F being arguably Fed’s WORST serving performance in a big match (and, per TA, the 440th best out of 453 available BO5 matches in terms of first serve percentage)?

Or 06 Dubai being one of the most aberrant matches stats-wise that you’ll find (Fed’s DR was 1.25, a DR that high will win you the match 995 out of 1000 times).

Crucially, those are the only four matches they played on outdoor HC’s up until the end of 2010. And they’re not exactly representative of their abilities at or near their best.

And this stagnation you speak of was as much mental (within the confines of their match-up) as physical, at least until Fed reached his late 20s-early 30s. Wimby 08 and AO 09 were both eminently winnable matches that, in all honesty (as flippant as it sounds) would have been won if Fed had a head-strong coach that helped shore up his returning strategy (but again, even with his Godawful return tactics AND close to career-worst serving day, Fed still almost beat a peak Nadal at the 09 AO, was the better player in the first 4 sets to the tune of a 158-144 edge in points).


Nadal has gotten the better of their head-to-head but let’s not rewrite history by claiming Fed was the lucky one to not…***checks notes***…play his biggest rival less on said rivals least favourite surfaces.
 
TheFifthSet said:
Characteristic of people on here to only notice the the things that reinforce their narrative.

You talk about the line call in ‘05, but how about Federer’s serve being unusually poor that match (our esteemed poster @Waspsting calling it one of Federer’s ‘softest-serving displays’)? Or Federer suffering from a literal heat stroke in ‘04?

Or AO 09 F being arguably Fed’s WORST serving performance in a big match (and, per TA, the 440th best out of 453 available BO5 matches in terms of first serve percentage)?

Or 06 Dubai being one of the most aberrant matches stats-wise that you’ll find (Fed’s DR was 1.25, a DR that high will win you the match 995 out of 1000 times).

Crucially, those are the only four matches they played on outdoor HC’s up until the end of 2010. And they’re not exactly representative of their abilities at or near their best.

And this stagnation you speak of was as much mental (within the confines of their match-up) as physical, at least until Fed reached his late 20s-early 30s. Wimby 08 and AO 09 were both eminently winnable matches that, in all honesty (as flippant as it sounds) would have been won if Fed had a head-strong coach that helped shore up his returning strategy (but again, even with his Godawful return tactics AND close to career-worst serving day, Fed still almost beat a peak Nadal at the 09 AO, was the better player in the first 4 sets to the tune of a 158-144 edge in points).


Nadal has gotten the better of their head-to-head but let’s not rewrite history by claiming Fed was the lucky one to not…***checks notes***…play his biggest rival less on said rivals least favourite surfaces.
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I wonder why Fed always seemed to play so badly against Nadal :unsure: total coincidence! :giggle:
 
TheFifthSet said:
Characteristic of people on here to only notice the the things that reinforce their narrative.

You talk about the line call in ‘05, but how about Federer’s serve being unusually poor that match (our esteemed poster @Waspsting calling it one of Federer’s ‘softest-serving displays’)? Or Federer suffering from a literal heat stroke in ‘04?

Or AO 09 F being arguably Fed’s WORST serving performance in a big match (and, per TA, the 440th best out of 453 available BO5 matches in terms of first serve percentage)?

Or 06 Dubai being one of the most aberrant matches stats-wise that you’ll find (Fed’s DR was 1.25, a DR that high will win you the match 995 out of 1000 times).

Crucially, those are the only four matches they played on outdoor HC’s up until the end of 2010. And they’re not exactly representative of their abilities at or near their best.

And this stagnation you speak of was as much mental (within the confines of their match-up) as physical, at least until Fed reached his late 20s-early 30s. Wimby 08 and AO 09 were both eminently winnable matches that, in all honesty (as flippant as it sounds) would have been won if Fed had a head-strong coach that helped shore up his returning strategy (but again, even with his Godawful return tactics AND close to career-worst serving day, Fed still almost beat a peak Nadal at the 09 AO, was the better player in the first 4 sets to the tune of a 158-144 edge in points).


Nadal has gotten the better of their head-to-head but let’s not rewrite history by claiming Fed was the lucky one to not…***checks notes***…play his biggest rival less on said rivals least favourite surfaces.
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Don't forget Nadal running away from Fed at IW 2019.
 
10 - 4 slam H2H and 4 - 4 off clay, largely supported by Fed's pet slam Wimbledon (which is fair enough) but Fed still suffered a loss their to Nadal. Give up, Nadal is better.
 
Federer is superior to Nadal in the H2H in two of the three surfaces. OTOH, Nadal is vastly more dominant in the surface he dominates compared to Federer who barely edges him in the other two.


Sampras-Bruguera 1993 said:
Fed couldn't even handle the guy on outdoor Hardcourts. Thats telling when you consider Hardcourts have always been Nadal's worst surface. If they happened to be the same age their entire career, the only place I would truly "trust" Federer on is the WTF indoor year end championship. Anywhere else? Nope. I wouldn't even trust Fed to have the advantage on grass if they played a best of 10
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Mid 30s Federer went 4-0 on HCs vs 5 years younger Nadal but if they were the same age he'd lose...
 
MichaelNadal said:
Pages and pages of excuses lol. "He served terribly"..... Yeah bc of who was on the other side of the court 8-B Nadal IS great too lol it's not that serious
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> excuses
> “Bad line calls, was only eighteen”…

But ofc ya only see what ya wanna see :p I’d be mad if it wasn’t cute.
 
The Blond Blur said:
I mean bad line calls before there was Hawkeye is completely out of RAFA’s control, but “poor serving” is 100% on Ol’ Rog ;)
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Oo gud, do the 04 Miami heat stroke now (or should Federer have withdrawn like Nadal did at 19 IW?)

PS. zero doubt that 09 AO was a quality win. Just that uniquely poor serving rendered (440th out of 453th, 17th out of their 17 BO5 matches) it a flawed representation of how these sorts of matches would go with both at full flight, which is what these discussions revolve around.
 
TheFifthSet said:
Oo gud, do heat stroke then
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Just saying your example of excuses wasn’t an apples to apples comparison.

And as a medical professional he definitely didn’t have heatstroke. Heat exhaustion sure, but they’re completely different things. Had he actually had heatstroke then he should have been hospitalized and his medical team fired.
 
The Blond Blur said:
Just saying your example of excuses wasn’t an apples to apples comparison.

And as a medical professional he definitely didn’t have heatstroke. Heat exhaustion sure, but they’re completely different things. Had he actually had heatstroke then he should have been hospitalized and his medical team fired.
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Ok, heat exhaustion, I can concede I spoke loosely.

And it was apples-to-apples in the context of the discussion I was partaking in. Nadal was lucky to be the beneficiary of a close to career worst serving day, unlucky that the line calls went against him, if we want to get super granular then almost nothing is apples-to-apples.
 
TheFifthSet said:
Ok, heat exhaustion, I can concede I spoke loosely.

And it was apples-to-apples in the context of the discussion I was partaking in. Nadal was lucky to be the beneficiary of a close to career worst serving day, unlucky that the line calls went against him, if we want to get super granular then almost nothing is apples-to-apples.
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It’s not. One is out of one guys hands, the other is completely in control of his own actions i.e. serving.

At that point in their careers RAFA was deep in Ol’ Rog’s head. Guarantee you Ol’ Rog would have served better if he was playing someone else.

You also conveniently left out the fact that RAFA played the then longest match in AO history before the F and had a days less rest. Doesn’t sound so lucky to me.

The example you used is like comparing apples to lemons.
 
The Blond Blur said:
It’s not. One is out of one guys hands, the other is completely in control of his own actions i.e. serving.

At that point in their careers RAFA was deep in Ol’ Rog’s head. Guarantee you Ol’ Rog would have served better if he was playing someone else.

You also conveniently left out the fact that RAFA played the then longest match in AO history before the F and had a days less rest. Doesn’t sound so lucky to me.

The example you used is like comparing apples to lemons.
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I can’t really take the guarantee seriously when his first serve was 8 percentage points less accurate than the second-worst of 17 BO5 matches they played.

Nadal was in Federer’s head but even relative to his normal mental woes, he served aberrantly poorly. One can cogently believe both things.
 
TheFifthSet said:
I can’t really take the guarantee seriously when his first serve was 8 percentage points less accurate than the second-worst of 17 BO5 matches they played.

Nadal was in Federer’s head but even relative to his normal mental woes, he served aberrantly poorly. One can cogently believe both things.
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His poor serving was/is still on him. He most likely loses even easier vs a fresher RAFA. He had all the advantages going into the F and most people picked him to win.

The fact of the matter is Ol’ Rog has no clay win against RAFA that’s equivalent to RAFA’s wins at Wimby 08 and AO 09. The closest he got was Rome 06 and he was never close to beating him at RG.
 
The Blond Blur said:
It’s not. One is out of one guys hands, the other is completely in control of his own actions i.e. serving.

At that point in their careers RAFA was deep in Ol’ Rog’s head. Guarantee you Ol’ Rog would have served better if he was playing someone else.

You also conveniently left out the fact that RAFA played the then longest match in AO history before the F and had a days less rest. Doesn’t sound so lucky to me.

The example you used is like comparing apples to lemons.
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and the same thing didn't happen in AO 12?
djoko played a longass match vs Murray in the semi, with one day less rest and beat nadal in an even longer match in the AO 12 final?

didn't fed come off two 3-setters in Rome 06 (almagro, nalby) in back to back days and play that epic Rome final vs Nadal in 06?

nadal played his best in AO 09 final. don't think he'd have done any better if fresher. He'd have played more defensively perhaps, but not necessarily better.

getting back to AO 12, that's like nadal's 2nd best AO as contrast to fed's AO 09 being his 5th best at best (after 04/05/07/10). remember fed was down 2 sets to berdych in the 4th round match. its not just nadal in AO 09. fed was a step down from 04/05/07 AOs. 10 AO was a little better than 09 AO.
 
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TheFifthSet said:
I can’t really take the guarantee seriously when his first serve was 8 percentage points less accurate than the second-worst of 17 BO5 matches they played.

Nadal was in Federer’s head but even relative to his normal mental woes, he served aberrantly poorly. One can cogently believe both things.
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dea1e7e6a49fc74aee67a514a3cb47667088f13a.gifv
 
abmk said:
and the same thing didn't happen in AO 12?
djoko played a longass match vs Murray in the semi, with one day less rest and beat nadal in an even longer match in the AO 12 final?

didn't fed come off two 3-setters in Rome 06 (almagro, nalby) in back to back days and play that epic Rome final vs Nadal in 06?

nadal played his best in AO 09 final. don't think he'd have done any better if fresher. He'd have played more defensively perhaps, but not necessarily better.

getting back to AO 12, that's like nadal's 2nd best AO as contrast to fed's AO 09 being his 5th best at best (after 04/05/07/10). remember fed was down 2 sets to berdych in the 4th round match. its not just nadal in AO 09. fed was a step down from 04/05/07 AOs. 10 AO was a little better than 09 AO.
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RAFA was in the exact same situation as Ol’ Rog in 2012. I’ve never made any excuses for that match.

Defense is the cornerstone of RAFA’s game. Easier to play that way when you’re fresher. He absolutely could have played better in the F because he was better in the SF.

And no one was arguing that RAFA’s peak > Ol’ Rog’s peak at the AO. @MichaelNadal and I just pointed out the “poor serving” excuse is more than made up for by Ol’ Rog being far fresher heading into the F. The fact remains that RAFA scored big wins against Ol’ Rog on grass and HC whereas Ol’ Rog has no comparable win on clay. That’s what makes this thread pretty pointless.
 
The Blond Blur said:
RAFA was in the exact same situation as Ol’ Rog in 2012. I’ve never made any excuses for that match.

Defense is the cornerstone of RAFA’s game. Easier to play that way when you’re fresher. He absolutely could have played better in the F because he was better in the SF.

And no one was arguing that RAFA’s peak > Ol’ Rog’s peak at the AO. @MichaelNadal and I just pointed out the “poor serving” excuse is more than made up for by Ol’ Rog being far fresher heading into the F. The fact remains that RAFA scored big wins against Ol’ Rog on grass and HC whereas Ol’ Rog has no comparable win on clay. That’s what makes this thread pretty pointless.
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poor serving is a reality, not an excuse (fed's serve was inconsistent from fall 2008 to around rome 2009. had back issues at the end of 2008 - skipped Paris, affected in the YEC. I'm not saying he had back problems in the AO 09 final by the way)

just defense won't cut it vs a in-form off the ground fed on HC. nadal needs that aggression as well. which he did show in the AO 09 final. and he did defend darn well in the AO 09 final as well, even if not at the level/amount in the AO 09 semi.
no, I don't think nadal was better in the semi. I'd take the final nadal marginally.

even if I stipulate to agree that poor serving from fed cancelled out by fed being fresher, what's there for nadal in AO 12 to cancel out him being fresher? absolutely nothing. Imagine if nadal served poorly in the AO 12 final? how badly would he have lost? I'd say there's no chance he takes it to 5 sets.

My point with that AO 12 match and with Rome 06 was that even with tougher matches before, you can play a little or even better in the finals. Djoko played better in AO 12 final than in the semi. fed played better in Rome 06 final than in Rome 06 QF/SF.
 
The Blond Blur said:
His poor serving was/is still on him. He most likely loses even easier vs a fresher RAFA. He had all the advantages going into the F and most people picked him to win.

The fact of the matter is Ol’ Rog has no clay win against RAFA that’s equivalent to RAFA’s wins at Wimby 08 and AO 09. The closest he got was Rome 06 and he was never close to beating him at RG.
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Being eighteen when Nadal played Federer in Miami was also on him, could have tanked the SF and waited a couple of years when he was more fully formed.

^it’s clear that I’m being facetious, but there’s an underlying point: I’m not making this an ‘accountability’ thing. I’m not absolving Federer of these losses lol. He lost fair and square. But Nadal fans can’t have everything. Nadal thoroughly outplayed Federer over the course of their head-to-head; there, you guys win. But some want the sun the moon and the stars by tryna pass off “heh Fed was lucky they didn’t play on Fed’s best surfaces” as a rational argument.
 
abmk said:
poor serving is a reality, not an excuse.
just defense won't cut it vs a in-form off the ground fed on HC. nadal needs that aggression as well. which he did show in the AO 09 final. and he did defend darn well in the AO 09 final as well, even if not at the level/amount in the AO 09 semi.
no, I don't think nadal was better in the semi. I'd take the final nadal marginally.

even if stipulate to agree that poor serving from fed cancelled out by fed being fresher, what's there for nadal in AO 12 to cancel out him being fresher? absolutely nothing.

My point with that AO 12 match and with Rome 06 was that even with tougher matches before, you can play a little better in the finals (Djoko played better in AO 12 final than in the semi. fed played better in Rome 06 final than in Rome 06 QF/SF)
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And you’d be in the vast minority on that.

Dude this thread is all about the Fedal matchup. There’s no point in bringing up the 2012 F. Besides, RAFA was much closer to winning in 2012 considering he was up a break in the 5th. He blinked on that BH pass that Joker gave up on, and the rest is history.
 
TheFifthSet said:
Being eighteen when Nadal played Federer in Miami was also on him, could have tanked the SF and waited a couple of years when he was more fully formed.

^it’s clear that I’m being facetious, but there’s an underlying point: I’m not making this an ‘accountability’ thing. I’m not absolving Federer of these losses lol. He lost fair and square. But Nadal fans can’t have everything. Nadal thoroughly outplayed Federer over the course of their head-to-head; there, you guys win. But some want the sun the moon and the stars by tryna pass off “heh Fed was lucky they didn’t play on Fed’s best surfaces” as a rational argument.
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Which makes this thread irrelevant lol. BTW it was created by a ******** for the sole purpose to get Fedal fans fighting. Guess it worked :X3:
 
The Blond Blur said:
And you’d be in the vast minority on that.

Dude this thread is all about the Fedal matchup. There’s no point in bringing up the 2012 F. Besides, RAFA was much closer to winning in 2012 considering he was up a break in the 5th. He blinked on that BH pass that Joker gave up on, and the rest is history.
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I think majority would put both the semi and final on a similar level at the very least.

Yes, there is a point in bringing up 2012 AO and 2006 Rome.

My point with that AO 12 match and with Rome 06 was that even with tougher matches before, you can play a little better in the finals (Djoko played better in AO 12 final than in the semi. fed played better in Rome 06 final than in Rome 06 QF/SF)

You want to say anything about that actually?

Nadal was also close to losing in 4 sets in AO 12 final (djoko up 5-3 in the TB and misses a fairly straight-forward FH). fed had like 12 points more won at the end of set 4 in AO 09 final.
fed also had his shot to go up 2 sets to 1 vs nadal in AO 09 final (even nadal saved majority of those BPs towards end of set 3 with stellar play). nadal didn't in AO 12 final.
 
abmk said:
I think majority would put both the semi and final on a similar level at the very least.

Yes, there is a point in bringing up 2012 AO and 2006 Rome.

My point with that AO 12 match and with Rome 06 was that even with tougher matches before, you can play a little better in the finals (Djoko played better in AO 12 final than in the semi. fed played better in Rome 06 final than in Rome 06 QF/SF)

You want to say anything about that actually?

Nadal was also close to losing in 4 sets in AO 12 final (djoko up 5-3 in the TB and misses a fairly straight-forward FH).
fed also had his shot to go up 2 sets to 1 vs nadal in AO 09 final. nadal didn't in AO 12 final.
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I highly doubt it. You just have to look at the stats to see that he was better in the SF. I never said he wasn’t great in the F, because he was. But he was definitely better the match before. He made like 25 UFEs in a 5 set match that went over 5 hours.

Sure, 2012 Joker was better in the F, but 09 RAFA wasn’t.

I’m not the one making excuses for RAFA losing the 2012 F like a bunch of people in this thread are making excuses for Ol’ Rog losing in 09.

And again, RAFA has big wins off clay, where is Ol’ Rog’s comparable win against him on clay?
 
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The Blond Blur said:
I highly doubt it. You just have to look at the stats to see that he was better in the SF. I never said he wasn’t great in the F, because he was. But he was definitely better the match before. He made like 25 UFEs in a 5 set match that went over 5 hours.

Sure, 2012 Joker was better in the F, but 09 RAFA wasn’t.
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I have. nadal played more aggressively vs fed. that plus federer's significantly better defense than verdasco meant nadal had had higher UE% in the final, but also had higher W+FE%.

nadal verdasco match was straight up defense vs offense. but nadal didn't have to worry so much about verdasco's defence and verdasco not so much about nadal being offensive.
obviously nadal had to worry about verdasco's offense and verdasco about nadal's defence. yeah, both were tremendous in those aspects, no question.

in the final, fed/nadal had to worry about each others offense as well as each other's defense.


The Blond Blur said:
I’m not the one making excuses for RAFA losing the 2012 F like a bunch of people in this thread are making excuses for Ol’ Rog losing in 09.
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fed serving badly in AO 09 final is reality. As is fed going 2 sets to love down vs berdych. AO 09 is defiinely a step down from fed's AO 04/05/07.
nadal has no other AO better than AO 09.

hence just using AO 09 final as proof nadal would edge their h2h at AO doesn't work. that's the point.
not that nadal's AO 09 final wasn't great. it was.

The Blond Blur said:
And again, RAFA has big wins off clay, whereas Ol’ Rog’s comparable win against him on clay?
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yeah, that's definitely an edge for nadal. But their h2h is skewed with circumstances in nadal's favour. But yeah, the thread OP went too much in that direction.
 
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Kralingen said:
So now results after age 30 do matter? :whistle:

it’s clear Nadal had a non-negligible H2H advantage over Federer when they played and it would take utter deception to deny this. However, it was never as lopsided as it was made out to be with the 23-10 stuff.
[/QU
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The Blond Blur said:
Which makes this thread irrelevant lol. BTW it was created by a ******** for the sole purpose to get Fedal fans fighting. Guess it worked :X3:
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Not trying to get anyone fighting; just trying to give context to H2H which people seldom do. They argue over this one match or that one match as they are doing now and miss the big picture that I pointed out.
 
BauerAlmeida said:
Federer is superior to Nadal in the H2H in two of the three surfaces. OTOH, Nadal is vastly more dominant in the surface he dominates compared to Federer who barely edges him in the other two.




Mid 30s Federer went 4-0 on HCs vs 5 years younger Nadal but if they were the same age he'd lose...
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Fed went 1-3 vs Nadal at the AO. Lucky he didn’t go 0-4 since Nadal basically blew that 2017 match being up a break

age has nothing to do with it. Fed mental mugness does
 
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