Nadal's French Open Dominance

[brokenshoelace]

Yeah, yeah, there isn't much to be said about this that hasn't already been said, or is there?

Due to the lack of think-pieces and editorial columns about Rafa's recent FO win, I've been doing a lot of thinking about Nadal's Roland Garros dominance over the past few days, and took a look at some of his numbers at the tournament over the years. Some things stood out to me that don't get enough attention, but understandably so, as when you mention that a guy won a major 11 times, you can pretty much leave it at that. Nevertheless, here we go:

-- Nadal has defended his French Open title 8 times. Yes, this sounds obvious enough as he's won it 11 times and pretty much wins it every year, but that is still preposterous.

-- Nadal is not only 11-0 in French Open finals, he's had zero five-setters over the course of those finals. I honestly think this stat might be the most impressive out of all of Rafa's FO achievements. It's one thing to win it eleven times, but going 11-0 in the finals is nuts (think about it, if just to sound smart, you predict that Rafa would lose the final every year, and think that eventually you'll get it right and look like a genius, you would be wrong 11 times). Moreover, somehow avoiding a fifth-setter despite playing Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic a combined 6 times, as well as guys like Soderling and Wawrinka, is just outrageous. This means that over 11 finals, Nadal was never close to losing, and the closest he's been was having some tightly contested 4th sets against Puerta (where Puerta had set points, in Rafa's first ever RG final), Federer in 2006 where it went to a 4th set tie-break and...that's really about it.

-- Nadal is 86-2 at Roland Garros, putting his win percentage at an obscene 97.7%

-- In what is probably my favorite Rafa stat at Roland Garros, Rafa's SET win/loss record Garros is 238-25. This puts his SET win percentage at 90% which, obviously enough, is beyond absurd. He loses fewer than 2 sets per tournament on average, including the times he didn't win the tourney.

-- Among his 86 wins, only 2 have gone to a fifth set, and I'd argue that only one of them was close enough to where the outcome was in doubt (Djokovic in 2013, obviously), as after being down 2-1 to Isner, he won the 4th set handily (6-2), and broke early in the fifth.

In 2006, following a straightforward loss to Nadal in the quarter-finals, a young Novak Djokovic famously and defiantly proclaimed that he didn't think Nadal was unbeatable, he thought he was in control, and that Rafa was beatable (said with a lot of emphasis). Technically, Novak was right, as Nadal did go on to lose twice over the next 12 years at Roland Garros, one of which to Novak himself (improving Novak's h2h vs. Rafa at the FO to a respectable 1-6). However, if it is indeed impossible for a tennis player to be unbeatable in the literal sense, with a 97.7% win percentage, Nadal at the French Open is as close as you can possibly get.

Ideally, I'd like to subsequently look at some of the less celebrated aspect of Nadal's game/mentality that make him such an unbeatable force later on in the thread. But more on that tomorrow, hopefully.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I was planning to open a thread with a slightly related topic and since you opened this one, instead of opening another one, let me just use this thread itself.

I have clearly said several times that Rafa's dominance on clay is definitely much stronger than Roger's dominance on grass. In fact, it is a no brainer. Saying anything other than that would be simply ignoring the facts.

Having said that, I was considering, more deeply of late about the reasons for the difference in the dominance levels. In grass, a set usually gets decided by few points here and there, sometimes even by just one timely point. The reason is that in grass, typically the server tends to hold serve, the breaks are few (if any), and the rallies are short. As a result even a good player has a much higher chance of losing a set, than in other surfaces. On the contrary, on clay the rallies are stronger, the aces are few, the ball rarely penetrates the court and so on. Even if you are a break down on clay, the chances of a strong player getting even and then winning the set is not that hard. On the other hand, on grass if you are a break down, it is very difficult to get even (let alone win the set).

Considering all these things, perhaps the seemingly weaker level of dominance of Roger on grass is not so much due to Roger, but mostly attributable to the surface in which he happened to be dominant on.

In other words, hypothetically speaking, if Roger were a clay GOAT and Rafa were a grass GOAT then Roger's dominance on clay would be higher than Rafa's dominance on grass.

What do you folks think?

 

[brokenshoelace]

I was planning to open a thread with a slightly related topic and since you opened this one, instead of opening another one, let me just use this thread itself.

I have clearly said several times that Rafa's dominance on clay is definitely much stronger than Roger's dominance on grass. In fact, it is a no brainer. Saying anything other than that would be simply ignoring the facts.

Having said that, I was considering, more deeply of late about the reasons for the difference in the dominance levels. In grass, a set usually gets decided by few points here and there, sometimes even by just one timely point. The reason is that in grass, typically the server tends to hold serve, the breaks are few (if any), and the rallies are short. As a result even a good player has a much higher chance of losing a set, than in other surfaces. On the contrary, on clay the rallies are stronger, the aces are few, the ball rarely penetrates the court and so on. Even if you are a break down on clay, the chances of a strong player getting even and then winning the set is not that hard. On the other hand, on grass if you are a break down, it is very difficult to get even (let alone win the set).

Considering all these things, perhaps the seemingly weaker level of dominance of Roger on grass is not so much due to Roger, but mostly attributable to the surface in which he happened to be dominant on.

In other words, hypothetically speaking, if Roger were a clay GOAT and Rafa were a grass GOAT then Roger's dominance on clay would be higher than Rafa's dominance on grass.

What do you folks think?

I think the points you bring up are valid in terms of explaining why it's easier to have that level of dominance on clay in terms of pure numbers. As you say, it's just much easier to lose "fluky" sets on grass, and things are often decided by a few key points here and there. Breaking serve is more difficult, rallies are shorter, if a player is on fire, it's much harder to withstand, etc... So even if there's someone out there who hypothetically is as good on grass as Nadal is on clay, they wouldn't have quite the same level of dominance in terms of numbers as it's virtually impossible.

However, I wouldn't agree that the nature of grass is simply why Roger isn't as dominant on grass as Nadal is on clay. For starters, Nadal won RG on his first attempt (a fact I actually meant to bring up in the OP but forgot). Roger wasn't close in his first couple of appearances at Wimbledon, and that was simply because Roger didn't peak as early as Rafa (and in a way, that's a "knock" on Roger). Moreover, the much simpler reason as to why Federer just isn't as good on grass as Nadal is on clay, is that there were years in which he was flat out outplayed and lost, and it wasn't just because of the surfaces. His losses to Nadal (2008), Djokovic (2014, 2015) weren't cases of an opponent catching fire or serving him off the court... He was just second best in those matches. So for example, while losing to Tsonga in 2011 is understandable as Tsonga's serve just caught fire (despite Roger being 2 sets to love up), or hell, even Stakhovsky and Berdych, there were years where he just wasn't good enough. And while this happened to Nadal at RG, it just didn't happen nearly as often. Those losses to Nadal and Djokovic took place at finals, something that just never happened to Rafa at RG.

 

[monfed]

Yes it is in terms of pure numbers. But Fed's dominance on grass is more impressive. Fed didn't get the luck that Nadulla got in RG 11, 13. Plus Fed didn't get the luck of main rival taking a vacation in 2017 and 2018 like Fed got in 2014 and 2015 with faker priming.

Also clay is easier to dominate due to higher margins, grass is harder to dominate due to lower margins and being easily upset by big hitter. So like I said, Fed's dominance is more impressive.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Please please please for the sake of thread quality, everyone ignore the above post and resist the urge to point out how borderline brain-dead you have to be to claim that Rafa benefited from Novak's poor play in 2017, but Federer wasn't this lucky, even though Roger won Wimbledon literally a month after Rafa won RG, and Novak again exited early (yes, I realize what I just did). Now, please, back to posts by normal people.

 

[monfed]

Please please please for the sake of thread quality, everyone ignore the above post and resist the urge to point out how borderline brain-dead you have to be to claim that Rafa benefited from Novak's poor play in 2017, but Federer wasn't this lucky, even though Roger won Wimbledon literally a month after Rafa won RG, and Novak again exited early (yes, I realize what I just did). Now, please, back to posts by normal people.

Ok 2017 is debatable but faker would've beaten dull if he wasn't taken out in 2011 in the SF by Fed. Imagine if Nadal had gone out before the 2008 Wimbledon final.
And 2013? Remember the net trip? Fed didn't get such supernatural lucky breaks like 2011 and 2013 in Wimbledon.

If faker had beaten dull at RG 13 as he should have, he would've probably beaten him 2014 RG too.

 

[monfed]

Fed was extremely unlucky to get a peaking faker at Wim 14 and 15 specially when he was poor most of the tournament and should've gone out earlier to Dimitrov in the 14 SF and escaping peaking Murray who was on Fed's side of the draw in 2015.

If some of these lucky breaks had gone Fed's way they would be at about 9-8 or 10-9. It's not as big of a chasm as you're making it out to be and you know it.

 

[monfed]

In other words, hypothetically speaking, if Roger were a clay GOAT and Rafa were a grass GOAT then Roger's dominance on clay would be higher than Rafa's dominance on grass.

What do you folks think?

Ofcourse dominance on grass is more impressive than dominance on clay when you can just hang 10 feet behind the baseline and send balls back like a golden retriever.

 

[monfed]

I don't have a problem with you claiming Nadal is the clay GOAT. Nobody would deny you that joy but why do you feel the urge to compare it to Fed's dominance on grass and then you ask me to zip it? Cmon man grow up.

 

[Jelenafan]

Also he's had top 8 players to beat in all the FO's he's won. Below is their Computer Ranking at the time of the tournament for Rafa's highest ranked opponents in route to winning. . For example while Thiem was seeded 7 this year, his ranking is 8 (Federer not playing)

Top 10 opponents:

2005 1 (SF)
2006 1 (F)
2007 6 (SF) 1 (F)
2008 3 (SF) 1 (F)
2010 7 (F)
2011 5, (QTR) 4 (SF) 3 (F)
2012 6 (SF) 1 (F)
2013 10(QTR) 5(SF) 1(F)
2014 5(QTR) 8(SF) 2(F)
2017 7(SF) 3(F)
2018 6(SF) 8(F)

So 11 Championships in route the top opponents.in tandem:

He has beaten the 1 ranked player 6 different occasions
He has beaten either 1 or 2 ranked players 7 different occasions.
He has beaten at least one top 3 ranked players 9 different occasions.
He has beaten at least one top 7 ranked player all 11 times.

His only FINALS opponent outside the top 8 was Mariano Puerta (ranked #37) in his first champ (2005) but of course that is when he beat the world number 1 Roger Federer in the semifinals.

For the finals again this is the ranking of his opponents:

37. 1, 1, 1, 7, 3, 1, 1, 2. 3, 8

So it's not like the draw suddenly opened up for Rafa in any of those FO's.

 

[monfed]

I appreciate your effort to post these stats but what's the point of posting average ranking of opponents when it doesn't address the core issue of the draw opening up when your main headache opponent goes out?

Federer got lucky with Nadal going out in 2009. Faker got lucky in 2015 because Nadal was just not in his usual RG beast mode. Nadal got lucky in 2011 because faker would've beaten him in that final. In 2013, he had a lucky net trip which saved Nadal.

In 2014, faker fell ill after winning that first set. But I'm not that convinced he would've beaten him without it. But 2011 and 2013 were huge breaks for Nadal which Fed never got at Wimbledon(I'm only bringing this up because I feel brokenshoelace is selling Federer short by exaggerating Nadal's clay dominance and that is it somehow vastly superior to Fed's dominance on grass.)

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I was planning to open a thread with a slightly related topic and since you opened this one, instead of opening another one, let me just use this thread itself.

I have clearly said several times that Rafa's dominance on clay is definitely much stronger than Roger's dominance on grass. In fact, it is a no brainer. Saying anything other than that would be simply ignoring the facts.

Having said that, I was considering, more deeply of late about the reasons for the difference in the dominance levels. In grass, a set usually gets decided by few points here and there, sometimes even by just one timely point. The reason is that in grass, typically the server tends to hold serve, the breaks are few (if any), and the rallies are short. As a result even a good player has a much higher chance of losing a set, than in other surfaces. On the contrary, on clay the rallies are stronger, the aces are few, the ball rarely penetrates the court and so on. Even if you are a break down on clay, the chances of a strong player getting even and then winning the set is not that hard. On the other hand, on grass if you are a break down, it is very difficult to get even (let alone win the set).

Considering all these things, perhaps the seemingly weaker level of dominance of Roger on grass is not so much due to Roger, but mostly attributable to the surface in which he happened to be dominant on.

In other words, hypothetically speaking, if Roger were a clay GOAT and Rafa were a grass GOAT then Roger's dominance on clay would be higher than Rafa's dominance on grass.

What do you folks think?

First, thanks to brockenshoelace for starting this thread.
You directed the discussion at an interesting aspect of how "suitable" different surfaces are for dominance, and your points are valid.
However, we should also explain how well given players (or the generation of players in the context of dominance by Fed or Rafa) have adapted to the playing style a given surface favours. A player who adapted his playing style the best, becomes dominant, if the rest of the field prefers a different, less optimal style. I think that's what happened to Rafa on clay. Being a very strong, muscular man, he prefers long rallies. Standing deep in the court and delivering curled, top spun balls, he stands a higher chance of clearing the net. The disadvantage of such strategy - slower speed of the shot - is less important on a slow surface such as clay, while the advantage - fatiguing the opponent with the high bouncing - only plays for him. This style failed him only once in a memorable Sod match but that's only a rare exception, as always in sport. In short I think, there is no player in this generation, who perfected the clay winning strategy as well as Nad did. Next gen (after Nad retires) may or may not embrace this strategy completely, because e.g. such strong muscular man won't come to this sport for awhile, or because grass surface will be more fashionable, or (more likely) equipment may change shifting the optimum playing style to something else.

As for why Fed being not as dominant on grass, the explanation may be that the rest of the field was always closer to King, because it's easier to find a wining strategy, when the surface favours more variety in the game. Not surprisingly, Fed being the most versatile player of this generation, is the King, but the rest can surprise him easier, because they have "their day". Even simple serve & volley by Stakhovsky worked, seemingly against odds. When variety of playing styles have the chance to be winning styles on grass, there is a bigger chance of finding an opponent who will be perfecting that style, focusing it against the King. By contrast, on clay, there seems to be that Nad style is the only optimal style ATM, and the rest of the field cannot find anything that beats it.

 

[britbox]

Yeah, yeah, there isn't much to be said about this that hasn't already been said, or is there?

Due to the lack of think-pieces and editorial columns about Rafa's recent FO win, I've been doing a lot of thinking about Nadal's Roland Garros dominance over the past few days, and took a look at some of his numbers at the tournament over the years. Some things stood out to me that don't get enough attention, but understandably so, as when you mention that a guy won a major 11 times, you can pretty much leave it at that. Nevertheless, here we go:

-- Nadal has defended his French Open title 8 times. Yes, this sounds obvious enough as he's won it 11 times and pretty much wins it every year, but that is still preposterous.

-- Nadal is not only 11-0 in French Open finals, he's had zero five-setters over the course of those finals. I honestly think this stat might be the most impressive out of all of Rafa's FO achievements. It's one thing to win it eleven times, but going 11-0 in the finals is nuts (think about it, if just to sound smart, you predict that Rafa would lose the final every year, and think that eventually you'll get it right and look like a genius, you would be wrong 11 times). Moreover, somehow avoiding a fifth-setter despite playing Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic a combined 6 times, as well as guys like Soderling and Wawrinka, is just outrageous. This means that over 11 finals, Nadal was never close to losing, and the closest he's been was having some tightly contested 4th sets against Puerta (where Puerta had set points, in Rafa's first ever RG final), Federer in 2006 where it went to a 4th set tie-break and...that's really about it.

-- Nadal is 86-2 at Roland Garros, putting his win percentage at an obscene 97.7%

-- In what is probably my favorite Rafa stat at Roland Garros, Rafa's SET win/loss record Garros is 238-25. This puts his SET win percentage at 90% which, obviously enough, is beyond absurd. He loses fewer than 2 sets per tournament on average, including the times he didn't win the tourney.

-- Among his 86 wins, only 2 have gone to a fifth set, and I'd argue that only one of them was close enough to where the outcome was in doubt (Djokovic in 2013, obviously), as after being down 2-1 to Isner, he won the 4th set handily (6-2), and broke early in the fifth.

In 2006, following a straightforward loss to Nadal in the quarter-finals, a young Novak Djokovic famously and defiantly proclaimed that he didn't think Nadal was unbeatable, he thought he was in control, and that Rafa was beatable (said with a lot of emphasis). Technically, Novak was right, as Nadal did go on to lose twice over the next 12 years at Roland Garros, one of which to Novak himself (improving Novak's h2h vs. Rafa at the FO to a respectable 1-6). However, if it is indeed impossible for a tennis player to be unbeatable in the literal sense, with a 97.7% win percentage, Nadal at the French Open is as close as you can possibly get.

Ideally, I'd like to subsequently look at some of the less celebrated aspect of Nadal's game/mentality that make him such an unbeatable force later on in the thread. But more on that tomorrow, hopefully.

Yep, the numbers are insane. The 86-2 stat is probably the standout for me. Of the Federer finals, I always felt the 2011 Nadal was the most vulnerable. I think his clay court aura coupled with the mental dominance over Federer carried him through... but he'd earned that already over the years.

 

[Federberg]

Great thread. I agree with you @britbox although it looks even more impressive in percentage terms to me!

I would love to fully endorse GSM's points but I just can't. I don't see anything wrong with admitting that there has never been a player as dominant on one surface as Rafa is on clay. Roger can't be on top of every greatness metric, that's just life. What Rafa has done is absolutely insane. And I suspect that when all is said and done his 11(+?) RG titles might well be a tougher record to break than Roger's final overall slam record. Although I still think the 2 sets of 5 consecutive wins in a slam record remains Roger's most underappreciated while most impressive slam stat. We're truly blessed y'all

 

[atttomole]

I was planning to open a thread with a slightly related topic and since you opened this one, instead of opening another one, let me just use this thread itself.

I have clearly said several times that Rafa's dominance on clay is definitely much stronger than Roger's dominance on grass. In fact, it is a no brainer. Saying anything other than that would be simply ignoring the facts.

Having said that, I was considering, more deeply of late about the reasons for the difference in the dominance levels. In grass, a set usually gets decided by few points here and there, sometimes even by just one timely point. The reason is that in grass, typically the server tends to hold serve, the breaks are few (if any), and the rallies are short. As a result even a good player has a much higher chance of losing a set, than in other surfaces. On the contrary, on clay the rallies are stronger, the aces are few, the ball rarely penetrates the court and so on. Even if you are a break down on clay, the chances of a strong player getting even and then winning the set is not that hard. On the other hand, on grass if you are a break down, it is very difficult to get even (let alone win the set).

Considering all these things, perhaps the seemingly weaker level of dominance of Roger on grass is not so much due to Roger, but mostly attributable to the surface in which he happened to be dominant on.

In other words, hypothetically speaking, if Roger were a clay GOAT and Rafa were a grass GOAT then Roger's dominance on clay would be higher than Rafa's dominance on grass.

What do you folks think?

Totally agree with this. I remember saying something similar on another thread, but you expatiated very well on why it is harder to dominate on grass than on clay.

 

[DarthFed]

The main difference is that Rafa gets the job done every time he makes the final weekend whereas Roger had some big screw ups in finals. I'd give 2016 semifinals a pass since he was obviously injured and it was incredible he made it that far. But 3 losses in finals is the difference and in my book two really weak ones (08 and 15). Roger for whatever reason rarely brings his A game in the final, even a few he won weren't good by his standard. Actually a shocking 29-16 in sets won in the final, vast difference to Nadal 33-6

 

[atttomole]

The main difference is that Rafa gets the job done every time he makes the final weekend whereas Roger had some big screw ups in finals. I'd give 2016 semifinals a pass since he was obviously injured and it was incredible he made it that far. But 3 losses in finals is the difference and in my book two really weak ones (08 and 15). Roger for whatever reason rarely brings his A game in the final, even a few he won weren't good by his standard. Actually a shocking 29-16 in sets won in the final, vast difference to Nadal 33-6

The same points on the nature of the surface do apply for Roger’s ‘relatively’ poor performance on grass. I was so pained by Roger’s 2008 defeat at Wimbledon that I can not even stand the highlights of that match, but I accepted the defeat because of what had happened weeks earlier at RG. As for Wimbledon 2014 and 2015, Djokovic was at his peak, and you can bring up the contentious issue of the slowed-down grass surface, which I also subscribe to. Roger was not playing particularly well, and I remember you did observe that his return of serve had improved when he returned in 2017, after his longest break from tennis. Let’s assume for a moment that clay were to play faster than it does, do you think Nadal would get it done every time he reaches the final at RG?

 

[DarthFed]

The same points on the nature of the surface do apply for Roger’s ‘relatively’ poor performance on grass. I was so pained by Roger’s 2008 defeat at Wimbledon that I can not even stand the highlights of that match, but I accepted the defeat because of what had happened weeks earlier at RG. As for Wimbledon 2014 and 2015, Djokovic was at his peak, and you can bring the contentious issue of the slowed-down grass surface, which I also subscribe to. Roger was not playing particularly well, and I remember you did observe that his return of serve had improved when he returned in 2017, after his longest break from tennis. Let’s assume for a moment that clay were to play faster than it does, do you think Nadal would get it done every time he reaches the final at RG?

Yes Roger has gotten screwed over by the Wimbledon surface without question and I do factor that in. If Wimbledon played like it used to we would be having a different discussion.

But even with that he should've handled Nadal every time there no question and probably should've won 2015 when Nole's level that match was hardly spectacular. Djokovic was awful that first set but Roger gifted it anyways. I feel like Fed would've won that match if he had taken that set but maybe Djokovic would've stepped up more than he had to.

 

[isabelle]

Yes it is in terms of pure numbers. But Fed's dominance on grass is more impressive. Fed didn't get the luck that Nadulla got in RG 11, 13. Plus Fed didn't get the luck of main rival taking a vacation in 2017 and 2018 like Fed got in 2014 and 2015 with faker priming.

Also clay is easier to dominate due to higher margins, grass is harder to dominate due to lower margins and being easily upset by big hitter. So like I said, Fed's dominance is more impressive.

I don't think so, Mr Vavrinec lost vs Sergiy, Tomas, Jowill....on grass, I can't imagine Manacor's bull beeing brutalized on his fav surface by those guys to be honest

 

[monfed]

I don't think so, Mr Vavrinec lost vs Sergiy, Tomas, Jowill....on grass, I can't imagine Manacor's bull beeing brutalized on his fav surface by those guys to be honest

Yes Nadal is harder to beat at RG. So what? Federer's dominance is more impressive because he is easier to beat and yet he managed 8 titles.

I think Federer's USO dominance is the most impressive because it's the hardest slam to dominate and is thus his greatest record of his plethora of records.