Airspun
Hall of Fame
Nah
"Nobody beats Novak Djokovic 7 times in a row"
- Thread starter weakera
- Start date
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Nadal in 2015-2016 was at a career low point most of the time, against the field in general.
MissileBackHand99
Professional
Thank you, Mustard. If it's one thing I've learned about Djoko fanboys on this site, is that they will ALWAYS pretend that Nadal has accomplished nothing LOL. They've been doing it since 2011 on here, and this thread is more proof of their obsession with downplaying Nadal (even more than they do with Fed)
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Because with Federer, Djokovic did win all their bigger matches from 2014 onwards. Nadal continued to hold his own against Djokovic even up to 2022, so he's a bigger pest to Djokovic fans. In fact, if we were to count from the 2012 French Open onwards, Nadal won 6 out of 10 matches in majors against Djokovic (so most of them). Whereas with Federer, his last win over Djokovic in a major was 2012 Wimbledon, and then 6 in a row in majors to Djokovic after that from 2014-2020. Djokovic beat Federer in all 3 of their Wimbledon finals, and while Djokovic beat Nadal twice at the French Open it is also true that Nadal beat Djokovic at the French Open a record 8 times, which is more times than anyone has ever beaten the same player at one particular major.
Mustard
Bionic Poster
5 in a row, and 7 of the last 8. Sinner led the rivalry 4-3 after the 2023 Beijing final. Alcaraz then won 5 in a row at 2024 Indian Wells, 2024 French Open, 2024 Beijing, 2025 Rome and 2025 French Open, to lead 8-4. Then Sinner beat Alcaraz at 2025 Wimbledon, making it 8-5. Alcaraz then beat Sinner at 2025 Cincinnati and 2025 US Open, so it's now 10-5 to Alcaraz.
That doesn't count their 2024 Six Kings Slam final, when Sinner beat Alcaraz, as it's officially an exhibition and doesn't count on the head-to-head.
Sputnik Bulgorov
Hall of Fame
As much as I respect your knowledge of tennis history and enjoy your factoids, you’ve shown lack of objectivity when it comes to Nadal. Everyone knows this time period is conveniently cherry-picked to exclude the 3 consecutive slam wins Djokovic had before the 2012 French open. And to no one’s surprise, 5 of those 6 Nadal wins were at the French open. So Nadal is the superior big match player.. on clay. And Nadal only held on until 2022.. on clay. Isn’t it true that Nadal never beat Djokovic again on grass or hard after 2013 USO? That’s 9 years of Djokovic owning his soul off clay.
MissileBackHand99
Professional
Thanks for reminding me of that, Mustard. They pretend the 2020 drubbing that Nadal gave Novak in Paris didn't happen, and when Nadal beat him in the QFs in 2022, a LOT of Djoko fanboys on TTW had their brains broken. They went even more haywire than they normally do when discussing the Big 4. The fact that Nadal also beat Djoko in TWO US Open finals is also always excused with "Djoko was in a funk" or something to that effect. Its hilarious
MissileBackHand99
Professional
You mean when they only played 6 or 7 times in NINE YEARS 'off clay'?? Oh and the wins Nadal had over Djoko on clay since USO 2013....STILL COUNT. The Rome Finals wins in 2019 and 2021, the drubbing at the French Finals in 2020, the win in Madrid in the SFs in 2017, etc. Also, it's not Nadal's fault that Djoko couldn't make it to the Finals of the USO in 2017 and 2019, or for Djoko's ridiculous antics prior to the Aussie Open 2022. Y'all love to pretend like their HC and Grass matches since USO 2013 somehow negate their clay matches during that timeframe...or Nadal's HC and Grass titles during that time frame
Sputnik Bulgorov
Hall of Fame
No, I mean when they played 10 times off clay in 6.25 years from 2013 Beijing to 2020 atp cup.
Of course the clay wins count. I did say Nadal was the better big match player on clay, didn’t I? But he simply isn’t the better big match player overall. How can someone who was incapable of beating his same aged rival for the entire second half of his career on hard and grass be considered the better big match player overall?
GoatNo1
Legend
and thats he lost 11 of 12 matches vs nole in that period and NEVER won another match outside of clay to the end of his carreer? going 0-9 on HC not winning a single set, 0-19?
MichaelNadal
Bionic Poster
GoatNo1
Legend
no
after USO13 nole won all 10 matches vs rafa out of clay! and on 9 HC matches he did not lost even a set, going 19-0 in HC sets. on clay it went pretty even, 6-7. nole won 3 times on rafas favorit court PC, twice at RG slam and once at RG OG! so overall h2h since USO13 was 16-7 to nole where all 7 loses was on clay!
MichaelNadal
Bionic Poster
GoatNo1
Legend
noWhich of course means they don't count lol
everything counts. it meanms that h2h since USO13 was 16-7 to nole. 7 loses on clay count no more than 16 wins on other surfaces!
since USO13
AO: 1-0
RG (CC): 2-3
W: 1-0
USO: //
WTF: 2-0
OG (CC-RG): 1-0
ATP cup: 1-0
IW: 1-0
miami: 1-0
MC (CC): 1-0
madrid (CC): 0-1
rome (CC): 2-3
cinci: //
canada: //
shanghai: //
paris://
doha: 1-0
beijing: 2-0
----
HC: 9-0 (39% of matches)
CC: 6-7 (57% of matches)
GC: 1-0 (4% of matches9
overall: 16-7
after USO13 they played 23 matches and rafa won only 7 which is 30% despite they played 13 (57%) of matches on clay. they played at all big clay tournaments including OG. but they never met at USO, cinci, canada, shanghai, paris or OG on HC.
MichaelNadal
Bionic Poster
GoatNo1
Legend
d
first was it said that nole (without testing positive) had 7-0 run vs rafa, twice, and that they are peers.
then was respond that rafa was not in good form in 15-16.
then was said that noles first 7-0 run was vs peak rafa in 7 big finals on all surfaces. and that rafas 2011 season would probable be his greatest if not for nole.
then was respond that rafa responded with 6 winuso13 out of 7 matches!
but then was rasponded that after rafas 6/7(after USO13) nole himself responded with 11/12 matches and 10-0 outside of clay and 9-0 and 19-0 on HC!
so full decade without a single win out of clay and withaout a set on HC and barely better even on clay (7-6)! and, as said, 13 out of 23 matches, since USO13, was on CC!
diskution was about since USO13.Work bestie
first was it said that nole (without testing positive) had 7-0 run vs rafa, twice, and that they are peers.
then was respond that rafa was not in good form in 15-16.
then was said that noles first 7-0 run was vs peak rafa in 7 big finals on all surfaces. and that rafas 2011 season would probable be his greatest if not for nole.
then was respond that rafa responded with 6 winuso13 out of 7 matches!
but then was rasponded that after rafas 6/7(after USO13) nole himself responded with 11/12 matches and 10-0 outside of clay and 9-0 and 19-0 on HC!
so full decade without a single win out of clay and withaout a set on HC and barely better even on clay (7-6)! and, as said, 13 out of 23 matches, since USO13, was on CC!
Last edited:
jackson vile
G.O.A.T.
While I get being juvenile and excluding clay as if it isn't tennis (I was one like that), I don't understand adults here with an "on clay" as if it's supposed to come with an asterisk.
You'd think Nadal was only winning on pickleball courts with the clay exclusion here, as if clay court tennis doesn't test your Tennis skills the way they do to extremes.
As far as the thread goes, lol six king and laver cup and such events are about as prestigious and official as, say IPTL.
MichaelNadal
Bionic Poster
Exactly lol embarrassing af. How dare Nadal actually defend his turf??
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Only by "off clay" can they cut Nadal down to size a bit, such was his clay dominance. Nadal still leads Djokovic 2-1 at the US Open in their matches, has won more Canadian Opens than either Djokovic or Federer, and did the Canadian Open-Cincinnati-US Open triple in a single year which Djokovic and Federer didn't do. Nadal also leads Federer 3-1 at the Australian Open in their matches. Not bad against "the greatest hardcourt players of all time".
Sputnik Bulgorov
Hall of Fame
Nobody is excluding clay. People don’t get into discussions about clay because there are no discussions to be had. Absolutely nobody contests that Nadal was best of his era on clay. That’s as much a given as saying the sky is blue.
However, the Nadal vs Djokovic arguments stated when someone contested that Djokovic emerged as the best of the shared era, and best on clay is simply not best of an era overall. Masquerading stats that are 80% clay-based as proof of overall dominance is dishonest, and you can’t expect people to just accept it especially when Djokovic excelled everywhere. If Nadal actually did better off clay than Djokovic did off hard, you wouldn’t be hearing much of this, but he didn’t.
MissileBackHand99
Professional
Simply isnt the better big match player overall is hilarious. He's 11-7 against Novak in Slams, has beat him 2 times in the USO Final, 3 times in the French Finals and 3 times in the French SFs. Not to mention in the SFs on Hardocurts in Beijing in 2008 during the Olympics. Again, they played only 9x in 7 years on HCs (10 if you count the ATP Cup).
Also, during that time they also played on clay (in big matches) and on grass (in one match at Wimby which went 10-8 in the fifth set and could've went either way). And their record "off clay since 2013" (which again is a completely arbitrary starting point that Djoko fanboys made up a few years ago) doesn't negate the other wins on HC Nadal had over Djoko, nor the clay wins he had against Djjoko after USO 2013 (and I know that's always the starting point as Rafa has what, 3 wins against Djoko on HCs in 2013??). But Djoko fans use the same talking points and same stupid timeline ("off clay matches since USO 2013") to pretend Rafa hasnt beaten Djoko in YEARS (or ever on HCs if you listen to how they truly go out of their way to despise Rafa and his great on court matches with Novak)
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Yet nobody seems to apply that logic to hardcourts. Remove hardcourt majors, Nadal has 16, Djokovic has 10, and Federer has 9.
Sputnik Bulgorov
Hall of Fame
The ultimate and most unbiased measures of who is the better big match player is 24-22 in slams, 7-0 in WTF, 40-36 in masters and 1-1 in singles Olympic gold. Nadal can never be considered the better big match player when he doesn’t lead in any of these categories. Nadal leads 11-7 in slam h2h but, it’s another metric with a distribution that favors Nadal with 56% of meetings happening on his favored venue. Even then, Nadal never beat Djokovic in Australia while Djokovic has a career slam vs Nadal.
Djokovic fans like to use post-2013 as a milestone since it makes him heir guy look good, but that’s literally HALF of Nadal’s career. How can Nadal be the better big match player when he couldn’t get an even a single win vs Djokovic outside his preferred surface for 50% of his career?
If you prefer to look at career-long metrics, it doesn’t help Nadal’s case. Djokovic does better than Nadal in almost every single metric than accounts for all surfaces outside of slam h2h. You’d have to scrounge up some obscure or less relevant stats to find an area where Nadal leads.
Sputnik Bulgorov
Hall of Fame
Hard courts make the least amount of sense to apply this logic to, grass the most, with clay in between. Hard courts are the most balanced surface, with the most competition, and the most representation in tournaments. Remove hard courts, and 70% of the tour is gone. If you have an issue with this, take it up with the atp and tournament owners and who decided to focus on hard courts, and the players themselves, who decided to develop their games to be most competitive on hard courts.
AgassiSuperSlam11
Hall of Fame
Does 4-2 played on HC with WIlson Tennis Balls count for something? Does 2-1 USO count for something? Does 5-4 GS Finals (6 OUTSIDE of clay count for something? BTW 0 Tennis matches played on that HC streak was played with Wilson Tennis Balls, USO, or Canada. The majority were Dunlop tennis balls and a few HEAD Penn matches. FAA owns Alcaraz then goes to IW and gets neutralized by Alcaraz. Djokovic 3-0 vs Alcaraz on HC then loses their first match on HC with Wilson tennis balls in straight sets.
If people are objective and say that the "11 month" age difference is inconsequential then Nadal gets credit for his 7 straight Best-of-five Clay wins, 6 straight best-of five wins (2006-2010 2 off clay) and even a Queens Final played in Creeping Red Fescue with Perennial Ryegrass and Bent Grass mixture. In reality, nobody was nobody's pigeon in this 60-match rivalry. In addition, there was two official doubles HC Nadal wins as well. Yet, he was totally owned or destroyed?
In 2017 Nadal won in straight sets in Madrid which posters know due to its high elevation actually has a higher serve hold percentage than even some fast HC and even Grass tournaments. Even Kyrgios got a couple of vulture wins against Djokovic at Mexico and IW in 2017, so even any objective fan would not make a big deal about Kyrgios going 2-1 vs Djokovic.
Long rivalries have these rollercoaster changes. On the FPPD some posters were acting like Borg-McEnroe going 7-7 with no clay matches was ownage. Chris Evert at one point lost 13 in a row to Martina, McEnroe like 10 out of 11 to Lendl, and Connors 17 straight to Lendl off grass. Yet, all things considered nobody was a pigeon in those aforementioned rivalries and the same thing as Djokovic-Nadal.
As far as Djokovic going 4-6 against Sinner is not really going to mean too much with all things considered. As his major rivals were Fed, Nadal, and to a lesser extent Murray and Wawrinka. You are judged more harshly against what you do against your peers and rivals. Roddick had a positive H2H against many GS champions including Sampras and Djokovic but will be remembered mainly for going 3-21 against his main rival Federer.
TripleATeam
G.O.A.T.
You could just wait a little longer, I doubt Djokovic is beating Sinner the next 2 times they play. You didn't need to post with 2 exhos included so it undercuts your message.
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