Out of the big three, is Djokovic the one who wasted the most slam titles?

Who missed the most slam wins which could have been won?

  • Federer

    Votes: 57 57.0%

  • Nadal

    Votes: 14 14.0%

  • Djokovic

    Votes: 29 29.0%
  • Total voters
    100
H

Hyde

Semi-Pro
Djokovic has won the most slams, but did he also wasted the most slams due to own fault/responsibility?
He has the worst finals win percentage out of the big three (so maybe he choked the most), and he also missed probably a few easy slam wins due to his own fault (being disqualified at 2020 USO, missing 2022 USO and 2022 AO due to not being vaccinated).
 
esvc said:
Without injuries Nadal would have been at 40 Slams now.










Hehehehehehe
Click to expand...
Injuries are bad luck. It’s not your own fault. Djokovic missing several slams (that he should have won) due to not being vaccinated wasn’t bad luck. So these are wasted opportunities, while being injured isn’t a wasted opportunity.
 
Hyde said:
Djokovic has won the most slams, but did he also wasted the most slams due to own fault/responsibility?
He has the worst finals win percentage out of the big three (so maybe he choked the most), and he also missed probably a few easy slam wins due to his own fault (being disqualified at 2020 USO, missing 2022 USO and 2022 AO due to not being vaccinated).
Click to expand...
I hate to call somebody an idiot, but ...

If you divide # of slam matches/# of slams, you get the average distance into a slam. For example, if you always lose the 1st match, you get 1. If you always get to the final, you get 7.

Name Matches Slams M/S
1. Borg 158 28 5.64
2. Djoko 409 72 5.68
3. Nadal 357 67 5.33
4. Feder 429 81 5.30

Nadal's 5.33 means that, in an average slam, he's a third from QF to SF. Djokovic's 5.68 means that two thirds from QF to SF.

Djokovic's most lost finals just mean that he progresses more than any other tennis player at a slam; Borg is closest.
 
SonnyT said:
I hate to call somebody an idiot, but ...

If you divide # of slam matches/# of slams, you get the average distance into a slam. For example, if you always lose the 1st match, you get 1. If you always get to the final, you get 7.

Name Matches Slams M/S
1. Borg 158 28 5.64
2. Djoko 409 72 5.68
3. Nadal 357 67 5.33
4. Feder 429 81 5.30

Nadal's 5.33 means that, in an average slam, he's a third from QF to SF. Djokovic's 5.68 means that two thirds from QF to SF.

Djokovic's most lost finals just mean that he progresses more than any other tennis player at a slam; Borg is closest.
Click to expand...
That's actually an interesting way to look at it -- matches played per slam. It's crazy that all these guys averaged at least the QFs, and Novak and Borg (who, of course, had a smaller sample size) round up to reaching the semis. And this is without padding the numbers by adding a bonus for winning a slam...as this stat doesn't distinguish between a finalist and a titleholder. (Not a criticism, but see below.)
...
As to the question posed by the OP, I tend to not look at it that way, either. I think that it presupposes that winning a slam is easy to do. Now, the Big 3 made/make it look easy, but it's not. Some very good players never even won one of them.

Here is the same stat, but as match wins per slam entered - apologies for any hurried errors. So, Borg and Novak have averaged making the semis, and Rafa and Fed have averaged just over halfway between the quarters and the semis.

Borg 141 / 28 = 5.04
Djok 361/ 72 = 5.01
Rafa 314 / 67 = 4.59
Fed 369 / 81 = 4.54
 
Hyde said:
Djokovic has won the most slams, but did he also wasted the most slams due to own fault/responsibility?
He has the worst finals win percentage out of the big three (so maybe he choked the most), and he also missed probably a few easy slam wins due to his own fault (being disqualified at 2020 USO, missing 2022 USO and 2022 AO due to not being vaccinated).
Click to expand...
He doesn't have the worst finals win percentage out of the big 3. Federer does.
 
Hyde said:
Djokovic has won the most slams, but did he also wasted the most slams due to own fault/responsibility?
He has the worst finals win percentage out of the big three (so maybe he choked the most), and he also missed probably a few easy slam wins due to his own fault (being disqualified at 2020 USO, missing 2022 USO and 2022 AO due to not being vaccinated).
Click to expand...
Vultured the most
 
Novak, easily. Firstly, he wasted about almost 3 years basically in the 2008-2010 period with fitness issues, he still hadn't been discovered his gluten intolerance. He broke through in 2007 at age 20 and kinda stagnated(wasted) next 3 years until he exploded finally to his full capabilities in 2011. Who knows, he might have prevented Federer winning RG in 2009, Nadal winning AO in 2009, legendary Fedal match at Wimbledon 2008? It's a "What if" scenario in tennis history...

Also, he choked/underperformed in some matches/tournaments he was expected to win. USO 2012 comes to mind(wind killed him there and he lost in a tight 5 setter in final against Murray). He has the most losses to non big 3 members in slams finals out of big 3. Federer once with Del Potro in 2009, Nadal with Wawrinka at AO 2014(because of back injury). Novak 6 times(2x Murray, 2x Wawrinka, 1x Medvedev and 1x Alcaraz).

In 2013 he allowed himself to be defeated on a hard court Grand Slam final by Nadal(USO 2013), when he's the clearly superior hard court player and he hasn't dropped 1 set against Rafa on hard court ever since. Bad form happened at a bad time. USO 2014 he lost to Nishikori, his pigeon, in a semifinal because he couldn't handle the heat well...

After winning RG in 2016 he reached a saturation point and basically temporarily retired from serious tennis for 2 years, starting from Wimbledon 2016 until Queens/Wimbledon 2018. Treated elbow which was bothering him for years(he said it started at the beginning of 2016) by just waiting miraculously to pass without surgery - Pepe Imaz, love and peace - circus, dark era. It resembles a bit Michael Jordan's temporary retirement in 1993 to "play baseball" until he finally came to senses, became hungry for success and returned in 1995. It allowed Roger and Rafa to share 3 slams each in Novak's absence from serious competition. Roger benefited especially, those 2017,2018 AO wins and even Wimbledon 2017 win might not happen if Novak wasn't temporarily "retired". Rafa would still beat him at RG 2017 and 2018 though, that doesn't change much but USO 2017 would've been tough for Rafa with Novak in there.

2020 Wimbledon cancellation. 2020 USO default(there's nothing here, he deserved it, unfortunately - just an unfortunate event...). 2022 AO absolutely ridiculous deportation and biggest diplomatic scandal in sports history and biggest scandal in tennis overall history after Monica Seles on court stabbing in 1993. He wasn't allowed to play in USO 2022 when the whole world except USA basically didn't require a vaccine against Covid, but USA did because of Biden's connections("lobbying") of pharmaceutical companies(Moderna, Pfizer) and their influence in Democratic Party(I'm not picking a political side here, just stating facts...) . He couldn't play in the US for basically 2 years and lost some weeks at #1 because of it.

So, basically he lost far more finals to inferior(non big 3 opponents) compared to Roger and Rafa,(1 against 6), he had some bad losses I think at US Open in 2012-2014 period - matches and tournaments which he should've probably won. He stagnated for 3 years in 2008-2010 because he didn't discover his gluten intolerance on time. He wasn't allowed to compete at 3 tournaments where he was the favourite to win(Wimbledon 2020 cancellation, AO 2022, USO 2022) because of Covid. He temporarily retired and messed around/wasn't serious, reached a saturation point and was injured(not so seriously) in 2016-2018, wasted another 2 years where he was still physically pretty fit(he still is at 36 actually, which is mind blowing).

There is your answer, everything explained perfectly.
 
Last edited:
Sudacafan said:
OK.
Click to expand...

yeah-yeah-yeah-pitch-meeting.gif
 
Getting into semantics here, but all 3 of them only have a couple that they genuinely "should have" won, while they all have a ton of "could have" tournaments.
 
All 3 of them have lost slams they really should have won.

I think Djokovic highly regrets the 2012-2014 period. Just so many wasted opportunities to win slams. US Open every single year, Wimbledon 2013, AO 2014. All winnable and he threw.

Nadal’s lost slams were mainly due to injuries, but he has to regret all those L’s deep in Australia. He’d always go far but couldn’t ever beat Djokovic or Federer. And ofc basically doing nothing at Wimbledon since 2010/11. He was a total non-factor for years until 2018.

But I would go with Federer. He has thrown/choked numerous slams to Djokodal. Losing the greatest match of all time, the 40-15 saga, too many blown opportunities where he clearly had it in him to win. I think it haunts him way more than Djokodal, knowing that he probably was supposed to end up with the most, but his lack of mental strength in huge moments let him down.
 
SonnyT said:
I hate to call somebody an idiot, but ...

If you divide # of slam matches/# of slams, you get the average distance into a slam. For example, if you always lose the 1st match, you get 1. If you always get to the final, you get 7.

Name Matches Slams M/S
1. Borg 158 28 5.64
2. Djoko 409 72 5.68
3. Nadal 357 67 5.33
4. Feder 429 81 5.30

Nadal's 5.33 means that, in an average slam, he's a third from QF to SF. Djokovic's 5.68 means that two thirds from QF to SF.

Djokovic's most lost finals just mean that he progresses more than any other tennis player at a slam; Borg is closest.
Click to expand...

None of this changes Djokovic's many losses in finals to non-ATGs.
 
Federer had many heartbreaking losses against fellow Big 3. But he went down to worthy opponent after pushing them to the limits. Otoh Djokovic lost many slam finals to lesser players whom he should have dominated. He lost many of those in straights. That is very embarrassing for players of his potential. Now comes to Nadal. He never lost to lesser players in final. He rarely let matches to slip away when he was better player against Big3. Clearly he has least regrets.
 
It's really tough to quantify "wasted" other than in non-match-related terms.

Federer/Djokovic didn't really "waste" any slams by losing. Federer lost a few winnable matches, particularly to Novak. Novak lost a few winnable matches (mostly to Wawrinka/Murray). These sorts of matches happened less on the Nadal side. But again, what quantifies that this slam was wasted? Is it simply losing to an opponent with a worse career/form (any upset)? Is it losing from a winning position? If so, how winning? There are too many ways to quantify that, and I'd rather let the matches speak for themselves.

Nadal missed out on some slams due to injury, so there's a lot of question marks there, but to be frank during most of his sidelined slams, a Big 3 member still won the slam anyway. However, if we base his slams off his existing SR at each slam (being quite generous), we get that he lost about 2.5 slams due to injuries. Let's say 3.

Federer also missed a few due to injury and decisions (RG 2016-18), but most of those were either slams he had almost no chance of winning (RGs), or he was at the very end of his career (USO20, USO21, AO21). He did miss USO16 due to injury though, and I think he could've won that over Novak or Wawrinka. Let's also give him a slam.

Novak is the only one that really wasted slams due to extraneous circumstances. Whether that's cancellation of a favored slam (W20) or deportation (AO22), or his own choices (no vaccine for USO22, default in USO20). He was very likely to win at least a couple of these, having been the favorite for all of them.

So in terms of wasted slams, it's between Novak and Nadal. When you start including levels of play based on their existing injuries as well, we start getting way too hypothetical and then the discussion mostly loses all meaning.
 
It’s clearly Novak. He missed several slams where he was the favourite due to external effects that were only partly on his power (Wimbledon 2020, AO, USO 2022, USO 2020), sure the last three were his own fault, but at least regarding the incident with the lines woman I find it exaggerated to disqualify him. On top of that, the Pepe Imaz/Todd Martin periods.
 
Hyde said:
Djokovic has won the most slams, but did he also wasted the most slams due to own fault/responsibility?
He has the worst finals win percentage out of the big three (so maybe he choked the most), and he also missed probably a few easy slam wins due to his own fault (being disqualified at 2020 USO, missing 2022 USO and 2022 AO due to not being vaccinated).
Click to expand...

Djokovic had some wasted opportunities in 2012-2014, but I think he's made up for it since then.

I'd say Federer wasted a lot of chances with those 40-15s, Delpo 2009, Safin 2005, Anderson 2018, etc. He also had some matches he could have lost and he won like Wimbledon 2007, 2009 or AO 2017, but out of the Big 3, I'd say he's the one that fares the worst in that regard.
 
esvc said:
Without injuries Nadal would have been at 40 Slams now.










Hehehehehehe
Click to expand...

Come on now. Nobody expects you to be Bull's biggest fan, but you could at least hide your hatred a bit better than you do. First of all, Bull's enormous slam count is a very serious moral matter and not something to laugh about. Secondly, it is not that Bull "would have" a huge slam count were it not for injuries. He DOES have an enormous slam count, because what matters are moral slams. Thirdly, his slam count is A LOT higher than 40. Bah! It's barely worth a Humble Bull getting out of bed merely to win 40 slams.
 
duaneeo said:
None of this changes Djokovic's many losses in finals to non-ATGs.
Click to expand...
Still Djokovic went further than Federer/Nadal.

Per slam, Djokovic goes 5.68, Nadal goes 5.33 and Federer went 5.30.

5.68 is considerably bigger than 5.33/5.30 over whole careers of 65/80 slams.
 
Last edited:
People say Nadal missed a lot of slams due to injury. He got 67 slams; at beginning of 2023, Djokovic got 68 slams, so the difference of 1 slam.

Right now, the difference is 5 slams, the total slam count is 2.
 
D.Nalby12 said:
Federer had many heartbreaking losses against fellow Big 3. But he went down to worthy opponent after pushing them to the limits. Otoh Djokovic lost many slam finals to lesser players whom he should have dominated. He lost many of those in straights. That is very embarrassing for players of his potential. Now comes to Nadal. He never lost to lesser players in final. He rarely let matches to slip away when he was better player against Big3. Clearly he has least regrets.
Click to expand...
Yes, he did. AO 2014 is the most disappointing loss any of the big 3 ever experienced. Also, it's not like losses to other big 3 can't be considered missed chances. They can be, especially if the matches are close. Nadal definitely has lots of missed chances.
 
BauerAlmeida said:
Yes, but you mention the 11-6 difference and that comes mostly at the AO, at the USO it's just 5-4.
Click to expand...
True, but they never played at US Open. Federer is the best fast hard court player and second only to Djokovic on medium fast hard courts. Rafa had a higher peak at US Open then Djokovic but I dont think it was enough to beat Novak and Roger back to back for the title.
 
Nole lost two slam finals to Murray one at wimby when he was facing a hot Murray and an entire nation craving a Brit to win it.

Losing to Stan twice and then meddy and obviously the big 3 :

If we’re talking the younger days - yes Novak did take a bit of time to come along before he took his game to the next level.
 
Genie Of the Bank said:
He is 2x better than Nadal on hard courts . 11 majors to Rafa 6 . Rafa won his sixth with Novak deportation .
Click to expand...
He has three times as many AOs as Nadal and nevertheless trails him 1-3 in H2H. At the USO he is merely 5-4 in titles. The idea to assume per default he would have won both 2010/11 finals is laughable given that this was peak/prime Nadal and Fed’s mental block against him was on an all-time high.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Winner Sinner
  • Poll Poll
At the slam level, who do you think between Federer, Nadal and Djokovic has achieved less than they could have?
2 3 4
Replies
170
Views
3K
Sephiroth
Sephiroth
Sudacafan
  • Poll Poll
Age of the Big Three at their last slam won - Will this stay unchanged?
2
Replies
64
Views
885
tennis_error
tennis_error
weakera
Can Rafa win one of the next three slams?
Replies
11
Views
737
King_ Zeglan12
King_ Zeglan12
weakera
How did Rafael Nadal become the most consistent performer out of the big three?
2
Replies
95
Views
6K
weakera
weakera
R. Schweikart
Is it possible that the Big Three will end with 20-20-20?
Replies
20
Views
840
bnjkn
bnjkn
Back
Top