Five Reasons Rafa Nadal Is the Greatest of All Time

Until a few years ago, Pete Sampras held the record for most Grand Slam titles at 14. In setting this mark, Sampras had beaten a record (12, from Roy Emerson) that had stood for two generations. He did this in an era of high-level men’s tennis when at any given time there were four or five plausible champions, but no single challenger to his dominance. (The second-best player of the era, Andre Agassi, finished his career with eight majors.)

But then Roger Federer happened. Between 2004 and 2007, Federer had the greatest four-year run in the history of tennis. He won 11 majors (one shy of Emerson) in 48 months and did so while playing the most dazzling tennis anyone has ever seen, before or since. By September of 2007, Federer was 26 years old, owned 12 majors, and was destined to blow through Sampras’s record.

He did it, of course. In 2009, Federer won his 15th slam; today he owns 18 and is probably an even-money shot to win at least one more. He is, by universal acclamation, the greatest of all time.

But maybe not? For the sake of argument, here are five reasons Nadal might be even better:

(1) Age. Rafael Nadal is four years younger than than Federer and has just won his 15th Slam. He’s now moved past Sampras and still has time to creep up on the Swiss.

(2) Injury. Even if Nadal falls a Slam (or two) short of Federer when all the tennis is played, we should take into account the fact that Federer was blessed to play through the meat of his career with no serious injury. His body didn’t start to break down he turned 30.

Nadal did not have such good fortune. He began struggling with the kinds of injuries that cut careers short when he was 27 and should have still had time to dominate.

Now, on the one hand, injury can’t be an all-purpose excuse to propose at alternate universe. You can’t say, “If only Pat Cash hadn’t blown his Achilles tendon he could’ve won 12 majors!” But it does seem reasonable to say that had Nadal’s wrist and knees not given him trouble, he would already have another major or two.

(3) Clay court dominance. No man has ever won a single major ten times. To get how insane this accomplishment is, if Nadal had only won French Opens, he’d still be #7 on the all-time list of career major wins. He is the greatest clay-court player of all time and it isn’t even a discussion.

But what’s really impressive is that as good as Nadal is on clay, he adapted his game to become great on grass and hard courts, too. He was not a one-trick pony. He had to change his game to learn the other surfaces and he did it in front of our eyes. Plenty of great players were never able to do that: Ivan Lendl spent years trying to win Wimbledon and could never do it because he didn’t understand grass. Ditto Sampras at the French with clay.

(4) Eye test. Just watching Federer and Nadal it’s clear that they’re in the same class. Federer’s serve and forehand are more dangerous. Nadal gets the edge on backhand and return of serve. Both move as well as anyone who’s ever played, though in very different ways: Federer glides; Nadal grinds. Federer is the better shot-maker and ball-striker. But Nadal is probably the better court tactician.

The one underappreciated difference between the two, however, is the extent to which Federer was a dominating front-runner. During his golden age, if Federer got up by an early break, the set was lost. And once he was up by a set, he’d smother you. Your only hope of going toe-to-toe with Darth Federer was to hold serve to a first set tie-break, get a couple lucky balls to out a win that, and then hope for a miracle over the next four sets.

I don’t think you’d say the same about Nadal. No disrespect, but over the sweep of their careers, Nadal has probably been the grittier player. He could break back or come from a set down much more easily than Federer. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Nadal is mentally tougher—Federer is plenty tough between the ears and it takes something special to be able to find that extra gear he has.

But I would say this: Nadal is unquestionably better at compartmentalizing points, which is one of the most underappreciated skills in tennis. (Or life, for that matter.) In fifth sets, Federer is 27-20 lifetime. Nadal is 19-9.

(5) Head to head. In 37 career matchups, Nadal is a gaudy 24-13 against Federer. And it’s important to note that those wins aren’t back-loaded into the years when Federer was struggling with injuries and his form. Oh no. Nadal was beating the tar out of Fed during his salad days. And in big matches, Nadal was even better. Between 2006 and 2009, Nadal and Federer met in the finals of seven majors. Nadal was 5-2. Lifetime in majors, Nadal is 9-3 against Federer.

This isn’t a fluke. It’s a statistically significant sample pitting the two players against one another in their primes. And it’s not the case of some marginal player just having a GOAT’s number. We’re talking about the guy with the second-most majors, all-time, simply owning the guy just ahead of him. That’s got to count for something. (Especially when you take into account point #2 above.)

Now, I don’t know that I completely buy these arguments. At the end of the day, the best measure for the GOAT is probably something like this: Who, at his best, played the game better than anyone else ever has? And by that measure, I’d still say Federer. But it’s hard to dismiss Nadal partisans.

A lot of Federer fans like say that if Nadal hadn’t happened, Fed’s dominance would have been other-worldly. He wouldn’t just have broken Sampras’ record, he would have finished with something like 30 majors and two Grand Slams.

And that’s probably true. But Nadal’s career has earned enough respect that at this stage you can flip the equation around: Minus Federer, Nadal would probably have 25 majors and a Grand Slam. And there wouldn’t even be a discussion about anyone else being the greatest player of all time.