Was Federer better than Nadal/Djokovic at ripping through 1st-4th rounds of a Grand Slam?

[McEnroeisanartist]

I was recently watching a highlight video of Federer playing Phau at the 2012 US Open and I thought: Federer was the greatest at ripping through the 1st 4 rounds of a Grand Slam?

But, then I wondered: was he actually?

Lets take a look...

Grand Slams where they went through the 1st 4 Rounds of a Grand Slam without losing a Set (Australian, French, Wimbledon, US Open)

Federer 6, 5, 8, 4 23/81 = 28.4%

Nadal 7, 9, 1, 2 19/67 = 28.4%

Djokovic 3, 5, 2, 5 15/72 = 20.8%

 

[nolefam_2024]

THanks for making this thread.

Round	Federer	Federer win %	Federer win by participation %	Nadal	Nadal win %	Nadal win by participation %	Djokovic	Djokovic win %	Djokovic win by participation %
R1	75/81	92.5%	92.5%	65/67	97%	97%	70/72	97%	97%
R2	74/75	99%	91%	59/65	90%	88%	67/70	96%	93%
R3	69/74	93%	85%	54/59	91.5%	80%	62/67	92.5%	86%
R4	58/69	84%	72%	47/54	87%	70%	57/62	92%	79%
QF	46/58	79%	57%	38/47	81%	57%	47/57	82%	65%
SF	31/46	67%	38%	30/38	79%	45%	36/47	76.5%	50%
F	20/31	64.5%	25%	22/30	73%	32%	24/36	67%	33%

What we should probably focus are the wins, and win by participation %. Win% by round makes less sense to me. So let's see

Most wins
R1 - Federer Djokovic Nadal
R2 Federer Djokovic Nadal
R3 Federer Djokovic Nadal
R4 Federer Djokovic Nadal
QF Djokovic Federer Nadal
Semis Djokovic Nadal Federer
Final Djokovic Nadal Federer

Most wins by participation
R1 - Djokovic Nadal Federer
R2 - Djokovic Federer Nadal
R3 - Djokovic Federer Nadal
R4 - Djokovic Federer Nadal
QF - Djokovic Nadal Federer
SF - Djokovic Nadal Federer
Final - Djokovic Nadal Federer

Most win % by round
R1 - Djokovic Nadal Federer
R2 - Federer Djokovic Nadal
R3 - Federer Djokovic Nadal
R4 - Djokovic Federer Nadal
QF - Djokovic Nadal Federer
SF - Nadal Djokovic Federer
F - Nadal Djokovic Federer

 

[Mazz Retic]

Surprised by Djokovic’s numbers at the AO given his dominance there.

Federer, the ‘fed express’, with his fast tempo was always excellent at mowing down opponents rather quickly.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Surprised by Djokovic’s numbers at the AO given his dominance there.

Federer, the ‘fed express’, with his fast tempo was always excellent at mowing down opponents rather quickly.

Federer serve is much better than Rafole. He would have zero trouble vs most players outside top 20. It's an amazing quality to have.

Nole is definitely surprising at AO. In fact at Wimby I wouldn't have guessed he was so vulnerable.

 

[Pheasant]

Cool concept. My initial thought was that Fed would own this particular metric, due to his long streak of consecutive slam QFs. But I had forgotten how long that it took for him to get started in his career. He wasn't regularly going to the QFs until his age-23 season. Djoker was already a regular in the QFs by his age-20 season.