A surprising statistic

First topic message reminder :

According to the ATP website, career prize money of Nadal and Djokovic is:

Nadal: $71,379,236
Djokovic: $72,403,908

So, despite having won 7 more slams and 7 more Masters titles, Rafa's career earnings are less than Djokovic's.

Rafa is well ahead in endorsements over his career (in 2014, Forbes estimate his endorsements as $30m compared to Djokovic's $21m), but the prize money statistic really surprised me.

I'm actually a little confused as to how it is possible. Rafa's number of title wins are not that far behind those of the post-2011 Djokovic 2.0, and he won loads more prior to 2011.

Odd.

Henman Bill wrote:Maybe they put the RG prize money down in 2008 because Rafa had such an easy opponent in the final?

Ha ha! Not as easy an opponent as Djokovic had in this years WTF final and they still gave him double the prize money of a Federer or Nadal slam

I wonder if Djokovic would have earned quite so much in prize money if it wasn't for his two biggest rivals? After all they are the big part players in this "golden age" that bring in the fans?