Nadal's mix of slam titles

by MrInvisible Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:45 am

Looking at Nadal's mix of slam titles (8 Roland Garros, 2 Wimbledon, 2 US Open, 1 Australian Open) there's some surprises for me:

Australian Open - given that its the next slowest slam after Roland Garros I find it pretty surprising that Nadal has only won it once. And the 1 title he did win was v hard fought (back-to-back 5 set wins against Verdasco and Federer). Djokovic has made this event his own over the past few years but still, I would have expected Nadal to have had even more success there than he's had.

Roland Garros - the sheer consistency and physical conditioning to win 8 slams there is phenomenal. I personally would have expected another loss or 2 over the years, but Nadal's mastery of the surface is such that v few players have come close to beating him there. The Soderling loss was so freakish and shocking when it happened - I personally put it down to Soderling just having a match when everything came off, going for the big shots and hitting the lines every time - 9 times out of 10, this result wouldn't happen in this match-up, which made it all the more fascinating when it happened.

Wimbledon - what surprised me was how quick Nadal mastered the grass relatively early in his career. Sure, the grasscourts at Wimbledon bounce differently compared to the Sampras era, but still, Nadal made the necessary adjustments (shortened backswing, improved slice on serve and on backhand) pretty quickly and many claycourters, past and present have struggled there. Subsequently what has surprised me in recent years have been the Rosol and Darcis losses. Given that Nadal had such a good record earlier in his career at Wimbledon, when arguably he had a less rounded game, I found it surprising that he has had those early losses more recently.

US Open - Considering the fast hardcourts have been his weaker surface, I find it pretty impressive that he's won this title twice, more than both Djokovic and Murray, who just have the 1 title each, when arguably it is their strongest surface. Also, its at that part of the year where in the past he's tended to struggle physically after the rigours of the 1st half of season. Also, as there are more players comfortably on a fast hardcourt than there are say grasscourt specialists, he ought to be more vulnerable to early losses in this tournament.

by **laverfan** Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:49 am

At USO, Djokovic and Murray kept running into Federer, otherwise who knows how many they could have won.

by Lionel Hutz Wed Jan 29, 2014 10:12 am

Nadal will do better on natural surfaces as his spin is more difficult to predict. With regards to the hardcourts , the lack of success relatively speaking is contributed to by injuries.

The Us Open is a surprise. But I can't help but think that the first year, it kind of opened up for him. Federer pushed Djokovic all the way and I don't think Djokovic had the emotional reserves to fight Rafa that year. This was pre RoboNole. The US Open is strange that way. Players can be burnt out come September. It produces a fair amount of upsets for that reason.

But the other issue here is that if Nadal is to challenge Federer's record, history suggests he'll have to win 3 More times at RG

by **laverfan** Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:58 am

Lionel Hutz wrote:But the other issue here is that if Nadal is to challenge Federer's record, history suggests he'll have to win 3 More times at RG

RG 2013 saw the first two matches for Nadal show a vulnerable side, similar to W. He would be much tougher to beat in later stages this year. 2016-17 is very unpredictable. Similar are the challenges on Grass for Nadal in 2014. USO 2014 is probably the most challenging, if Nadal plays a full season. If 2009 is anything to go by, playing such a season is getting tougher as he gets older. Exciting times. USO may see a new winner this year, IMO.

by socal1976 Wed Jan 29, 2014 12:25 pm

Nadal's game and early experience were geared towards a clay court. But yet he has won 3 slams on hardcourts and 2 on grass and won a huge number of other major titles on the hardcourt. The only area of real deficiency I see is that he is not a particularly good indoor player. It is about the only place that in recent years Fed has had success against him and in the last couple of months of the season he lost twice to Djokovic on the surface. I think it would round out his resume if he won the year end championship and one or two more slams off of the clay. I actually think that Novak can challenge him this year at RG and may get him sooner or later at RG and lift the crown. but to his credit he simply does not lose very often on hardcourts anymore which used to be a big weakness in his game.

by naxroy Wed Jan 29, 2014 2:09 pm

nadal has reached at least 3 finals in every slam (3,8,5,3)

once in a final you can win (13) or you can loose (6) but the hard work is there. no more can be asked from nadal, he is making history. doesnt matter if he is goat or not (I think not) he will be remembered forever.

by lydian Wed Jan 29, 2014 7:54 pm

Most players would be happy with those 5 off clay slams....indeed not many guys have won more than 5 slams period, Djokovic 'only' has 6. Some perspective needed sometimes.
Nadal is never good at the start of years, always seems injured at the AO for some reason. The speed of the court isn't that relevant with Nadal, he likes fast courts, just not really low ones like WTF. However, these are relatively minor weaknesses given he's got to 2 WTF finals too. His only real weakness is very low, flat hitters...and even then usually its a battle royale for guys to beat him.

by Jahu Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:04 pm

Nadal is still twice better then Djoko 13 to 6, so thats enough.

by barrystar Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:26 pm

I don't think that the OP is saying that Nadal's mix of titles somehow makes his achievement of 13 slams any less, he is saying that it doesn't follow an obviously predictable pattern. I suspect that LH is closest when he suggests that the spin is more unpredictable on natural surfaces. Also, when he was younger Nadal was clearly more comfortable moving on natural surfaces, but in the last two years he has found the short transition from clay to grass more difficult to master. From speaking to sports physios they have told me that one of the most dangerous things for tennis players is transition between surfaces and the slightly different demands each surface makes on different parts of the body.

The reality is that over the last 5-6 years if you wanted one male player to play one match on one surface for your life with the caveat that he is given a decent chance to get himself ready for the surface, it would have been Nadal more often than any other player, Djokovic for most of 2011. Before that you would have asked for Federer on fast surfaces and Nadal on clay.

Nadal's dominance on clay has masked the fact that his numbers and play away from the clay would put him close to the ranks of all-time great of itself - between Courier on 4 slams and Becker/Edberg on 6 apiece.

by **laverfan** Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:41 pm

barrystar wrote:The reality is that over the last 5-6 years if you wanted one male player to play one match on one surface for your life with the caveat that he is given a decent chance to get himself ready for the surface, it would have been Nadal more often than any other player, Djokovic for most of 2011. Before that you would have asked for Federer on fast surfaces and Nadal on clay.

IMVHO, it would be Pancho. This also begs a questions, is there really a surface transition any more? Perhaps a separate topic for another day.

by barrystar Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:44 pm

laverfan wrote:
barrystar wrote:The reality is that over the last 5-6 years if you wanted one male player to play one match on one surface for your life with the caveat that he is given a decent chance to get himself ready for the surface, it would have been Nadal more often than any other player, Djokovic for most of 2011. Before that you would have asked for Federer on fast surfaces and Nadal on clay.

IMVHO, it would be Pancho. This also begs a questions, is there really a surface transition any more? Perhaps a separate topic for another day.

I was talking over the period immediately before the last 5-6 years - over all time I don't have any idea but I know that many say Gonzalez was the best ever.

In relation to transition, I was making a different point - if you ask a players joints, ligaments, sinews, muscles (core and otherwise) whether they notice a difference between surfaces the answer would be a resounding "yes". At the rate that these guys work in the biggest tournaments quite small changes on the demands they make on different parts of their bodies will take a lot of preparation for them to be endured properly and safely.

by MrInvisible Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:02 am

Another factor in Nadal's early Wimbledon losses last couple of years is that he lost early in Halle in 2012 and pulled out of the tournament in 2013. Its a tough old schedule for anyone reaching the final at Roland Garros, but history shows that to prosper at Wimbledon ideally you need to be winning 1 of the 2 warm-up events. Last 2 years Nadal has perhaps lacked a bit of match sharpness at Wimbledon, and I would argue that lack of success/participation at Halle has been a factor.

by Silver Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:58 am

To be fair to Nadal, almost all of the top players in history have dominated one slam. Half of Sampras' total is at Wimbledon, Borg only won at two slams, Djokovic has 66% of his slams at one event. Even Federer has 7/17 at Wimbledon and only one RG win (albeit with four additional finals). Laver is probably the one notable exception at the very top.

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens if Rafa does lose at RG this year. You'd have to say he's not favourite for Wimbledon or the USO, really.

by lydian Thu Jan 30, 2014 2:04 am

Yeah but Laver's slams are mainly grass (3/4 slams were grass then).
Federer has 9 slams on HC (USO and AO are much more divergent since 2004).
So agree all the greats have skewed slam counts....but hey...a slam is a slam.

Nadal's Master's titles are also impressive....18 on clay, 8 on HC, i.e. 31% off preferred.
Federer is 15 on HC and 6 on clay...i.e. 28% off preferred.

If you look at titles as a whole, Nadal's 61 titles are made up of 13 slams, 26 Masters & 15 ATP500 events....only 7 titles are at the lowest 250 level. If you take away Federer's ATP250 titles (21 of them), Federer is 2 titles ahead (56 vs 54). Its not that meaningful really but speaks to the quality of Nadal's titles, and their spread (42 clay, 19 off-clay).

I can imagine by the time Nadal is finished the GOAT debate will start in earnest...some will point to one set of metric, others to another set. If they end up around similar slam totals, say within 1-2, it'll probably rumble on forever.

by **JuliusHMarx** Thu Jan 30, 2014 2:25 am

lydian wrote:I can imagine by the time Nadal is finished the GOAT debate will start in earnest...some will point to one set of metric, others to another set. If they end up around similar slam totals, say within 1-2, it'll probably rumble on forever.

Seems pretty earnest already, I reckon Smile

by barrystar Thu Jan 30, 2014 2:55 am

lydian wrote:
I can imagine by the time Nadal is finished the GOAT debate will start in earnest...some will point to one set of metric, others to another set. If they end up around similar slam totals, say within 1-2, it'll probably rumble on forever.

I beg to differ - the day Nadal finishes is the day all the steam will go out of the GOAT debate.

Remember how once Federer surpassed Sampras at Wimbledon 2009, having also got RG on his resume, the once heated comparisons between the two men died down, and then when Fed overtook the weeks at #1 record and matched Sampras's Wimbledon tally moving onto 17 vs. 14 slams it was all over. In the same way, if Federer had retired in April 2009 the debate would have been over, but in favour of Sampras.

The same will be the case when Nadal finishes - he'll either have more slams than Federer or he'll not, and we'll know their final H2H and their relative scores on all the other stats. There won't be much to talk about then beyond the wholly subjective matter of who people prefer, and that tends not to detain people for long.

The reason why the debate continuing so furiously now is that there are so many contingencies to talk about and things are still happening which may change the overall assessment of their careers.

by HM Murdock Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:03 am

The blend is part of the reason I still rate Federer higher.

Rafa has dominated one slam.

Roger dominated two: 7 Wimbledon and 5 USO in a row. His record at AO is also pretty darn impressive. He's won as many as Novak (4) but over a longer period. Only one RG is the weak link but that is backed up with 4 other appearances in the final.

17 slams and no single slam accounts for even half the total. That's amazing.

Not that Rafa's isn't amazing. We are talking shades of brilliance here!

by Guest Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:05 am

barrystar wrote:
lydian wrote:
I can imagine by the time Nadal is finished the GOAT debate will start in earnest...some will point to one set of metric, others to another set. If they end up around similar slam totals, say within 1-2, it'll probably rumble on forever.

I beg to differ - the day Nadal finishes is the day all the steam will go out of the GOAT debate.

Remember how once Federer surpassed Sampras at Wimbledon 2009, having also got RG on his resume, the once heated comparisons between the two men died down, and then when Fed overtook the weeks at #1 record and matched Sampras's Wimbledon tally moving onto 17 vs. 14 slams it was all over. In the same way, if Federer had retired in April 2009 the debate would have been over, but in favour of Sampras.

The same will be the case when Nadal finishes - he'll either have more slams than Federer or he'll not, and we'll know their final H2H and their relative scores on all the other stats. There won't be much to talk about then beyond the wholly subjective matter of who people prefer, and that tends not to detain people for long.

The reason why the debate continuing so furiously now is that there are so many contingencies to talk about and things are still happening which may change the overall assessment of their careers.

I think it will rage on forever. Even if Nadal surpassed Federer in the Slam count it would still rage on. It would be weeks at no.1 v H2H records. It depends which one you put more merit with. The one that says you are number 1 ahead of everyone or the one that says your match record is better than everyone else.

by HM Murdock Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:15 am

I think H2H is an almost redundant measure. Unless players are exactly the same age, it doesn't mean much.

There's every chance that Federer will end his career with losing H2Hs against not just Rafa but Novak and Andy too. All that tells us is that H2Hs tend to favour the younger player.

by barrystar Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:38 am

The thing is we'll know all the parameters then, we won't need to say if such and such then such and such, we'll just know.

If Nadal wins more slams than Fed, and particularly if he does it by hoovering up at least another couple away from the clay, it will be very difficult to avoid accepting him as the most successful player of the post 1988 Open Era (i.e. when the Aus Open was a proper slam with a permanent field of 128) but it's still not possible to compare either of them easily with players from earlier eras who a lot of us did not see and when slam-chasing was not seen as such a clear measure of greatness, and conditions and fields were so different.

For me "greatest" is more subjective - I'll always prefer Federer over Nadal because of the way he has played the game and has conducted himself on Court and how, for me, his artistry made the break with the 1990's which I found a pretty dire time with the occasional exception of Agassi at his best. Given my perception that Nadal doesn't play it straight on Court, but resorts to frequently to underhand tactics I'd never call him the 'greatest', just like I have Connors a few notches down in my estimation from where his statistics would otherwise put him in the game. I have said before, it's a shame about Nadal because he is supremely good at accepting difficult defeats, but on court......

by summerblues Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:55 pm

barrystar wrote:
lydian wrote:I beg to differ - the day Nadal finishes is the day all the steam will go out of the GOAT debate.
I agree the steam will go out in terms of its ubiquity, but I think it would remain in terms of it being forever "unresolved". Obviously none of these debates get truly "resolved" but some of them reach enough of a consensus to be considered to be resolved while others do not.

For example, there is pretty wide consensus - outlying opinions notwithstanding - valuing Borg above Connors. It is not fully clear to me why given that their achievements are not all that different, but it is so.

On the other hand, I would say that comparison between Laver and Sampras is among those unresolved ones.

I think if Rafa and Roger end up very close (maybe tied or plus/minus one), the debate between them will remain unresolved too. If the difference ends up being bigger than that, I think media will put their weight behind the one who has more slams and that will ultimately "resolve" the debate in popular opinion too.

by summerblues Thu Jan 30, 2014 1:08 pm

lydian wrote:Federer has 9 slams on HC (USO and AO are much more divergent since 2004).
So agree all the greats have skewed slam counts....but hey...a slam is a slam.

Nadal's Master's titles are also impressive....18 on clay, 8 on HC, i.e. 31% off preferred.
Federer is 15 on HC and 6 on clay...i.e. 28% off preferred.

These are not apples-to-apples comparisons though. 66% of the masters tournaments are played on HC, yet Nadal won only 31% there. On the other hand, 33% are played on clay and Roger won 28% there. So Roger's number is far more balanced.

Similar regarding his HC slams. A perfectly balanced player would win 50% of their slams on HC - that is 8.5 out of 17 in Roger's case. So 9 is just about right.

There is no question that Roger's spread is far more balanced than Rafa's.

That said, I do not think it makes much difference - I do not subscribe to the view that more balanced is better. If two players win the same number of slams yet one of them has more balanced composition, there must be a flipside somewhere. And the flipside is that the other guy managed to be far more dominant somewhere than the more balanced guy did. If Rafa gets to 18+ by winning another 5+ titles at RG, that to me is every bit as good as winning across all surfaces.

by barrystar Thu Jan 30, 2014 7:30 pm

[quote="summerblues"]

lydian wrote: If Rafa gets to 18+ by winning another 5+ titles at RG, that to me is every bit as good as winning across all surfaces.

Yes, but because he has shown that he can win elsewhere. He already has great HC/grass slam credentials. If he did not you would probably not say that, no?

by Guest Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:36 am

The same criticism of Nadals slam skew can be levelled at Federer, who has only 1 slam on clay. Nadal by that technicality probably has a better surface blend of slams than Roger does.
God forbid one might even go as far as to say Federer benefitted from having 2 hc slams, if there were 2 clay slams...

by HM Murdock Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:14 am

falzy21 wrote:God forbid one might even go as far as to say Federer benefitted from having 2 hc slams, if there were 2 clay slams...

HC isn't Federer's best surface though, grass is. So Federer and Nadal each have one slam on their best surface.

The difference is that Federer is way better on his second best surface than Nadal is on his.

by LuvSports! Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:25 am

Bloody federer fans always bigging up their man... Wink

by Guest Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:30 am

On the same count, Feds only got one on his worst surface, Nadal has 2, Nadal also has one more on his best surface.
Federer wins the middle ground, but they both ahve a clearly dominant, and weak surface, in fact a difference of 6 slams between the 2 but Nadal has made better inroads on both these.
etc etc, im not quite as certain that Feds split is significantly more impressive is the point

by Guest Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:33 am

Bloody Novak fan bigging up Federer! You suppose to be bigging up Novak!

by HM Murdock Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:08 am

legendkillarV2 wrote:Bloody Novak fan bigging up Federer! You suppose to be bigging up Novak!

Ha!

As much as I like to emphasise Novak's achievements, I think claiming his blend of slams is better than Rafa's might have been a stretch!

So I thought I'd try arguing for someone else. Admittedly, "Federer is very good" is perhaps not the most ambitious argument in the world but, hey, I'm new to this! Wink

by hawkeye Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:09 am

lydian wrote:

I can imagine by the time Nadal is finished the GOAT debate will start in earnest...some will point to one set of metric, others to another set. If they end up around similar slam totals, say within 1-2, it'll probably rumble on forever.

They are so close whatever happens before they retire it will be difficult to mention one without the other.

BTW lydian. Thank you for your recollections of when you fist saw Rafa play and your thoughts on their 2005 RG semi. The conversation had moved on before I had a chance to respond Smile

by summerblues Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:59 pm

barrystar wrote:
summerblues wrote:If Rafa gets to 18+ by winning another 5+ titles at RG, that to me is every bit as good as winning across all surfaces.

Yes, but because he has shown that he can win elsewhere. He already has great HC/grass slam credentials. If he did not you would probably not say that, no?

You mean if he had 18 titles at RG and nothing else? That one is so hard to even contemplate that I do not really know. Sure, I agree that having zilch everywhere else would look barren. But on the other hand, 18 at one slam would look spectacular beyond anything imaginable.

Now, obviously, slam count is not the only target people look at - career (or calendar year) grand slams are looked at, weeks at No 1 also. If a player were so dominant on one surface and so much worse everyehere else they would probably lose out on those additional criteria. So, on balance I probably agree with you; if it is too extreme, it might become a drag on how I perceive the player. But, as you said, Rafa did win enough elsewhere by now. So for me, even if it were 5 more at RG, it would be just as fine as five anywhere else.

by summerblues Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:30 pm

falzy21 wrote:The same criticism of Nadals slam skew can be levelled at Federer, who has only 1 slam on clay. Nadal by that technicality probably has a better surface blend of slams than Roger does.

That will likely depend on the definition of a "better bland". Rafa's will be "better" in that he has at least two on each HC, grass and clay. But I suspect if you defined "better" by looking at who is closer to the perfectly balanced blend (50%HC / 25%grass / 25%clay) and then applied some reasonable statistical metric, you would probably still tend to find Roger's blend more "balanced".

by HM Murdock Fri Jan 31, 2014 8:08 pm

I keep trying to think of analogies and my opinion changes depending on which one I choose!

Who is the better musician? The best jazz player ever who, by virtue of his talent, can play a bit of rock and a bit of blues? Or the the player who is outstanding at rock, brilliant at blues and second only to the other guy at jazz? I'd say the latter.

But say two triathletes have the same time. One achieved it by being outstanding at all three disciplines, the other achieved it by being a phenomenem at one and merely good at the other two. In this case, the 'blend' doesn't matter. They are equal.

So I've confused myself!

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