Was Djokovic better at Roland Garros than at Wimbledon?

Was Djoker better at RG or SW19?

  • He was better on the red clay

    Votes: 12 32.4%

  • He was better on the crisp grass

    Votes: 25 67.6%
  • Total voters
    37
4UTRMoutet

4UTRMoutet

Hall of Fame
If we assume Djokovic's main career to be from 2011 - 2023 (right when he hit his prime and to when Sincaraz took over) then we see that at RG Djokovic has had 0 early upsets before the quarterfinals whereas at Wimbledon he has suffered a 3rd round upset in 2016 to Querrey.

If we count up "opportunities to win the title" which adds up together slam titles and slam finals, we see Djokovic has 7 opportunities at RG versus 9 opportunities at Wimbledon. However, at Wimbledon, Djokovic's main rival was Federer (who only won 2 Wimbledon titles from Djokovic's 2011 season to his retirement, whereas Nadal was Djokovic's main rival at RG, whose track record at RG is unmistakable. Excluding Djokovic and Nadal meetings in RG finals, the number of times Djokovic lost to Nadal before the final numbers up to a total of 6 times. Now 3 of those were during Djokovic's main career so Djokovic (who was the 2nd best clay courter during his prime) would have had a total of 10 opportunities at RG if not for Nadal shutting him down (who is more like a force of nature at that tournament than any normal opponent and should honestly be considered an anomaly). Does this mean Djokovic's 2nd best surface is clay?

Now many might point to Djokovic's lowest surface win rate being clay (roughly 80%) compared to a considerably larger 85% win rate on grass. But this can be attributed to several logical factors. On clay, Djokovic faced Nadal, who constantly held the big titles on a chokehold, and Djokovic tended to avoid attending smaller clay titles while attending the larger ones that would inevitably have him meet Nadal (6 small clay titles, 1 of which was at Geneva just to secure title #100 and 3 of which were at Belgrade which he wanted to attend out of patriotism).

In fact, Djokovic has a higher win rate on grass than on his best surface, hard court, which is approximately 84%. So clearly win rates do not even mean that much. If anything the lower win rate on hard would indicate an incredibly weak grass competition that he faced.

So, is Djokovic actually better on clay?
 
4UTRMoutet said:
If we assume Djokovic's main career to be from 2011 - 2023 (right when he hit his prime and to when Sincaraz took over) then we see that at RG Djokovic has had 0 early upsets before the quarterfinals whereas at Wimbledon he has suffered a 3rd round upset in 2016 to Querrey.

If we count up "opportunities to win the title" which adds up together slam titles and slam finals, we see Djokovic has 7 opportunities at RG versus 9 opportunities at Wimbledon. However, at Wimbledon, Djokovic's main rival was Federer (who only won 2 Wimbledon titles from Djokovic's 2011 season to his retirement, whereas Nadal was Djokovic's main rival at RG, whose track record at RG is unmistakable. Excluding Djokovic and Nadal meetings in RG finals, the number of times Djokovic lost to Nadal before the final numbers up to a total of 6 times. Now 3 of those were during Djokovic's main career so Djokovic (who was the 2nd best clay courter during his prime) would have had a total of 10 opportunities at RG if not for Nadal shutting him down (who is more like a force of nature at that tournament than any normal opponent and should honestly be considered an anomaly). Does this mean Djokovic's 2nd best surface is clay?

Now many might point to Djokovic's lowest surface win rate being clay (roughly 80%) compared to a considerably larger 85% win rate on grass. But this can be attributed to several logical factors. On clay, Djokovic faced Nadal, who constantly held the big titles on a chokehold, and Djokovic tended to avoid attending smaller clay titles while attending the larger ones that would inevitably have him meet Nadal (6 small clay titles, 1 of which was at Geneva just to secure title #100 and 3 of which were at Belgrade which he wanted to attend out of patriotism).

In fact, Djokovic has a higher win rate on grass than on his best surface, hard court, which is approximately 84%. So clearly win rates do not even mean that much. If anything the lower win rate on hard would indicate an incredibly weak grass competition that he faced.

So, is Djokovic actually better on clay?
Click to expand...

Djokovic is the best grass court player of all time, the best hard court player of all time, and the 2nd best clay court player of all time after Nadal.

It’s difficult to say if Djokovic is better on clay than he is on grass because Nadal won so many Roland Garros.

What we can say is Djokovic is better on clay or better on his non-preferred surfaces than Nadal or Federer is on their non-preferred surfaces.
 
I think he was better on clay than grass until ~2014. Then after 2014 probably grass.

Since he really solidified that serve in 2015, his serve return combo makes him a bigger threat at Wimby. After 2015 or so, that flat forehand started to degrade as well, attenuating his offensive ability on clay.

I don't think its a massive difference though. Djokovic also took advantage of a grass field that gets worse and worse every year.
 
soldat said:
Djokovic is the best grass court player of all time, the best hard court player of all time, and the 2nd best clay court player of all time after Nadal.

It’s difficult to say if Djokovic is better on clay than he is on grass because Nadal won so many Roland Garros.

What we can say is Djokovic is better on clay or better on his non-preferred surfaces than Nadal or Federer is on their non-preferred surfaces.
Click to expand...
3rd best grass court player after Federer and Sampras, 3rd best clay court player after Nadal and Borg. We are referring "best" by accomplishment, not some strange logic.
 
soldat said:
Djokovic is the best grass court player of all time, the best hard court player of all time, and the 2nd best clay court player of all time after Nadal.

It’s difficult to say if Djokovic is better on clay than he is on grass because Nadal won so many Roland Garros.

What we can say is Djokovic is better on clay or better on his non-preferred surfaces than Nadal or Federer is on their non-preferred surfaces.
Click to expand...
Lol the best grass player of all time?

Djoker has 8 total grass titles. Fed has 8 Wimbledon alone. More than twice the amount of grass titles as djoker. Sampras has 10 grass court titles.
 
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4UTRMoutet said:
If we assume Djokovic's main career to be from 2011 - 2023 (right when he hit his prime and to when Sincaraz took over) then we see that at RG Djokovic has had 0 early upsets before the quarterfinals whereas at Wimbledon he has suffered a 3rd round upset in 2016 to Querrey.

If we count up "opportunities to win the title" which adds up together slam titles and slam finals, we see Djokovic has 7 opportunities at RG versus 9 opportunities at Wimbledon. However, at Wimbledon, Djokovic's main rival was Federer (who only won 2 Wimbledon titles from Djokovic's 2011 season to his retirement, whereas Nadal was Djokovic's main rival at RG, whose track record at RG is unmistakable. Excluding Djokovic and Nadal meetings in RG finals, the number of times Djokovic lost to Nadal before the final numbers up to a total of 6 times. Now 3 of those were during Djokovic's main career so Djokovic (who was the 2nd best clay courter during his prime) would have had a total of 10 opportunities at RG if not for Nadal shutting him down (who is more like a force of nature at that tournament than any normal opponent and should honestly be considered an anomaly). Does this mean Djokovic's 2nd best surface is clay?

Now many might point to Djokovic's lowest surface win rate being clay (roughly 80%) compared to a considerably larger 85% win rate on grass. But this can be attributed to several logical factors. On clay, Djokovic faced Nadal, who constantly held the big titles on a chokehold, and Djokovic tended to avoid attending smaller clay titles while attending the larger ones that would inevitably have him meet Nadal (6 small clay titles, 1 of which was at Geneva just to secure title #100 and 3 of which were at Belgrade which he wanted to attend out of patriotism).

In fact, Djokovic has a higher win rate on grass than on his best surface, hard court, which is approximately 84%. So clearly win rates do not even mean that much. If anything the lower win rate on hard would indicate an incredibly weak grass competition that he faced.

So, is Djokovic actually better on clay?
Click to expand...
Djokovic is equally good on all surfaces.

If Federer and Nadal didn't exist he would probably the GOAT of all three surfaces.
 
soldat said:
Djokovic is the best grass court player of all time, the best hard court player of all time, and the 2nd best clay court player of all time after Nadal.

It’s difficult to say if Djokovic is better on clay than he is on grass because Nadal won so many Roland Garros.

What we can say is Djokovic is better on clay or better on his non-preferred surfaces than Nadal or Federer is on their non-preferred surfaces.
Click to expand...

Djokovic above Sampras or Fed on grass? Imagine 25 year old Fed losing 5 straight sets to 25 year old Murray on grass....

USO goat has to go to Pete.

Djokovic can be the AO longevity goat, I suppose. AO peak is debatable.
 
junkieballer said:
I did not forget about Sampras. He is tied with Djokovic for second most titles.

Grass is mostly Wimbledon, there's not much else.
Click to expand...
Not true. Grass courts are all different and play uniquely.

Djoker I believe has played about 10 times on grass outside of Wimbledon and has only won one title in a 250.

You don't have just 7 titles and think you can be called the greatest grass player ever.

He isn't even the best wimbledon player.
 
Before 2011, Clay > Grass. Post 2011 it has been Grass > Clay. With the gap widening as his serve got better and better.

As for the other discussion,

The gap between Fed and Djokovic on grass is much smaller than the gap between them on hard courts. Djokovic has 7 Wimbys to Fed's 8, but has most wins and also missed a chance to win his 8th in 2020 due to COVID. The h2h of 3-1 also removes the shine of Fed's other grass resume.

Only reason Djokovic didn't prioritize playing grass events prior to Wimby was he was going deep in all clay events and needed rest. He was known to prioritize Big Titles instead of ATP 250s and 500s.
 
Tenez01 said:
Before 2011, Clay > Grass. Post 2011 it has been Grass > Clay. With the gap widening as his serve got better and better.

As for the other discussion,

The gap between Fed and Djokovic on grass is much smaller than the gap between them on hard courts. Djokovic has 7 Wimbys to Fed's 8, but has most wins and also missed a chance to win his 8th in 2020 due to COVID. The h2h of 3-1 also removes the shine of Fed's other grass resume.

Only reason Djokovic didn't prioritize playing grass events prior to Wimby was he was going deep in all clay events and needed rest. He was known to prioritize Big Titles instead of ATP 250s and 500s.
Click to expand...
Fed was going deep on clay for years as well. But not playing outside of wimbledon is a problem if you are going to say grass player cause all your really saying is wimbledon... Which he still doesn't have 8 titles or 5 in a row.
 
Lleytonstation said:
Not true. Grass courts are all different and play uniquely.

Djoker I believe has played about 10 times on grass outside of Wimbledon and has only won one title in a 250.

You don't have just 7 titles and think you can be called the greatest grass player ever.

He isn't even the best wimbledon player.
Click to expand...
You are talking about small tournaments. It's good to win them, sure, but to a player who won 72 big titles they were not that relevant.
 
junkieballer said:
You are talking about small tournaments. It's good to win them, sure, but to a player who won 72 big titles they were not that relevant.
Click to expand...
They are very relevant in this topic of discussion.

We are talking grass tournaments. There are 2-3 other tournaments played on grass.

Djoker has won almost 30 atp 500s and 250s, so he has played smaller tourneys. Just not grass.
 
The way you presented your thread it looks like that way.




Spare a thought for a guy Named Roger Federer who was all set to become GOAT and how much Nadal did to stop him.
Novak actually had the satisfaction of beating Nadal in FO
 
his serve and return is great weapons on grass
on clay, he has no apparent advantages except endurance / consistency until opponents hitting self-destruction button
 
4UTRMoutet said:
3rd best grass court player after Federer and Sampras, 3rd best clay court player after Nadal and Borg. We are referring "best" by accomplishment, not some strange logic.
Click to expand...
I would say Djokovic is the best Wimbledon player , the only reason he dos not have the 8 titles is because of the corona cancellation in 2020.
He was the defending champion going for 3 in a row , won the next 2 for 4 in a row. Federer and Murray were out with injuries , Rafa was a shadow of a player on grass by that point of time.
Novak has 107 match wins at Wimbledon despite the cancellation, Federer 105 wins in normal conditions.
Corona cancellations and bans just gave Fedal a reason to talk about how the gap in big titles isn't that big in Djokovic favor.

At RG Novak won the exactly the titles he could/should, he was the second best clay court player of that era after Nadal.
 
Lleytonstation said:
Fed was going deep on clay for years as well. But not playing outside of wimbledon is a problem if you are going to say grass player cause all your really saying is wimbledon... Which he still doesn't have 8 titles or 5 in a row.
Click to expand...

Only reason Fed even gets ahead of Nole is because of 2020 cancellation.

The 3 finals lost to Nole does him no service.

I still agree that Fed might be slightly better on grass in certain aspects like serve and net game but it's splitting hairs at this point.

At wimbledon especially they are more equal than not.

No one cares about Halle 250s tbh, it's just a financial incentive to play for him. I think I can count the number of top 10 players he beat there on one hand.
 
mike danny said:
Yeah, if Djokovic had the same draws at RG he had at Wimb 2019-2022, we'd be debating whether he is better than Borg on clay.
Click to expand...
To be fair he did get a breather in RG 2016 and 2023 as well but that was IMO deserved after all else he had to endure against Nadal there for the most part. But yes we agree the gap is less than it looks.
 
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Lleytonstation said:
Way better on clay.

He isn't even that great of a grass player. How many grass titles does he have outside Wimbledon? He didn't even play in the era of grass lords.
Click to expand...
No, he had trouble with Thiem, besides Nadal, on clay. He had the lowest winning % on clay. I think even if you take away Nadal.

I think definitely Djokovic was better than Federer on grass.
 
SonnyT said:
No, he had trouble with Thiem, besides Nadal, on clay. He had the lowest winning % on clay. I think even if you take away Nadal.

I think definitely Djokovic was better than Federer on grass.
Click to expand...
I would think 2019 put any doubt djoker was on feds level. Plus fed having 12 more grass titles makes that an odd statement.
 
Tenez01 said:
Only reason Fed even gets ahead of Nole is because of 2020 cancellation.

The 3 finals lost to Nole does him no service.

I still agree that Fed might be slightly better on grass in certain aspects like serve and net game but it's splitting hairs at this point.

At wimbledon especially they are more equal than not.

No one cares about Halle 250s tbh, it's just a financial incentive to play for him. I think I can count the number of top 10 players he beat there on one hand.
Click to expand...
Well, being that fed was past his prime in those matches makes it irrelevant for comparison. Plus fed tied djoker in 2019 as an old man.

Plus halle does matter when there are so few opportunities play on grass. Fed also played and beat the old style of grass players and then transitioned and did the same while playing baseline game.
 
Lleytonstation said:
Well, being that fed was past his prime in those matches makes it irrelevant for comparison. Plus fed tied djoker in 2019 as an old man.

Plus halle does matter when there are so few opportunities play on grass. Fed also played and beat the old style of grass players and then transitioned and did the same while playing baseline game.
Click to expand...

Six years gap is not unsurmountable. If Fed could beat Nadal, he could beat Nole as well. This is as evidenced by BO3 results, Fed was still competitive against a 32 year old Nole who also was off from his 2011-16 peak. It's not the case of one person being 25 and other being 38.

Anyways, extrapolation of results are funny. By the same logic Fed would have not won as many HC slams if he was in 90s as Agassi, Sampras and Rafter would have beaten him aplenty if at his absolute peak he needed 5 sets to beat Agassi in US Open 2004 despite 11 year advantage. But you wouldn't go down that route would you?
 
Tenez01 said:
Six years gap is not unsurmountable. If Fed could beat Nadal, he could beat Nole as well. This is as evidenced by BO3 results, Fed was still competitive against a 32 year old Nole who also was off from his 2011-16 peak. It's not the case of one person being 25 and other being 38.

Anyways, extrapolation of results are funny. By the same logic Fed would have not won as many HC slams if he was in 90s as Agassi, Sampras and Rafter would have beaten him aplenty if at his absolute peak he needed 5 sets to beat Agassi in US Open 2004 despite 11 year advantage. But you wouldn't go down that route would you?
Click to expand...
Sampras agassi era was very different era.
Federer never would have his 2004 to 2007 sucess repeated against like of Sampras and agassi.
 


In 06 he claimed prime Claydal was beatable. Who else can make the claim that prime Claydal is beatable, without clay being one of their best surfaces, and in their prime?

So by his own admission, we can infer Djokovic’s clay prime started in 06 and it’s reasonable to posit that it ended in 2014/15, when grass became his better surface.

So prime v prime he lost to Nadal in 06, 07, 08, 12, 13, 14……went 0-6 in matches, and squeaked off 4 sets.

What it tells us?
 
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Tenez01 said:
Six years gap is not unsurmountable. If Fed could beat Nadal, he could beat Nole as well. This is as evidenced by BO3 results, Fed was still competitive against a 32 year old Nole who also was off from his 2011-16 peak. It's not the case of one person being 25 and other being 38.

Anyways, extrapolation of results are funny. By the same logic Fed would have not won as many HC slams if he was in 90s as Agassi, Sampras and Rafter would have beaten him aplenty if at his absolute peak he needed 5 sets to beat Agassi in US Open 2004 despite 11 year advantage. But you wouldn't go down that route would you?
Click to expand...
I think you have proven my point. Result is the best way to look at things not subjective arguments.

The argument is H2H djoker matched up better on grass. The results show this in h2h results in djokers favour.

That said, the ultimate result, winning tournaments on grass is clearly in Feds with 19 titles.

Even if you would like to scoff at other grass tournaments which is silly, fed still has him beat.
 
Tenez01 said:
Six years gap is not unsurmountable. If Fed could beat Nadal, he could beat Nole as well. This is as evidenced by BO3 results, Fed was still competitive against a 32 year old Nole who also was off from his 2011-16 peak. It's not the case of one person being 25 and other being 38.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure why people make this argument. The fact that Djokovic had left his own prime doesn’t suddenly mean that Fed had caught up to him.
 
USO2010 said:

Looks like it’s clay. In 06 he claimed prime Claydal was beatable. Who else can make the claim that prime Claydal is beatable, without clay being one of their best surfaces, and in their prime?

So by his own admission, we can infer Djokovic’s clay prime started in 06 and it’s reasonable to posit that it ended in 2014/15, when grass became his better surface.

So prime v prime he lost to Nadal in 06, 07, 08, 12, 13, 14……went 0-6 in matches, and squeaked off 4 sets.

What it tells us?
Click to expand...

That you need to improve your baiting skills.
 
Tenez01 said:
Six years gap is not unsurmountable. If Fed could beat Nadal, he could beat Nole as well. This is as evidenced by BO3 results, Fed was still competitive against a 32 year old Nole who also was off from his 2011-16 peak. It's not the case of one person being 25 and other being 38.

Anyways, extrapolation of results are funny. By the same logic Fed would have not won as many HC slams if he was in 90s as Agassi, Sampras and Rafter would have beaten him aplenty if at his absolute peak he needed 5 sets to beat Agassi in US Open 2004 despite 11 year advantage. But you wouldn't go down that route would you?
Click to expand...
Nadal was ancient in tennis years by 2017.

Who cares how 38 year old Fed does against 32 year old Nole. Fed was ancient and Djokovic was also out of his prime. This geriatric vs mummy crap does very little in moving the needle for their legacies.

Now imagine how 2021 Djokovic at WB at 34 does against 2009 Fed at WB, with the age differences swapped.
 
He was better on clay between 2006 and 2013, but better on grass from 2014 onwards. Overall, he was more of a natural on clay, but if we have to sum up his career, he’s a better grass court player.
 
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