GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - SEPTEMBER 22: Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer of Team Europe celebrate in the locker room after winning the Laver Cup during Day Three of the Laver Cup 2019 at Palexpo on September 22, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Laver Cup will see six players from the rest of the World competing against their counterparts from Europe. Team World is captained by John McEnroe and Team Europe is captained by Bjorn Borg. The tournament runs from September 20-22. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images for Laver Cup )
When you talk about the best tennis players of all time the name Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are never far away from the conversation and, even if you don’t like to compare across different eras, there is no doubting these two are the dominant duo of the modern era.
Which of the duo though is actually best? Here we take on the impossible task of deciding once and for all who is the greatest of all time, Federer or Nadal?
We’ll be honest determining who is the better player between Federer and Nadal is going to be a seriously tough task. It doesn’t matter what is the tournament: as long as they are participating you know that pages like Bovada sports betting will have their names as contenders to win.
That’s why we’re kicking this article off with one of the easier things to debate by looking at who has won the most titles.
In pure career title terms Nadal has racked up a combined 103; that’s split as 92 single titles and 11 doubles victories whilst he’s also earned two Olympic Golds – the doubles at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and as a single player in Beijing in 2008 – and five Davis Cup wins. Roger Federer meanwhile has won 111 with his split coming as 111 singles triumphs plus eight doubles wins.
His Olympic record is slightly different to Nadal’s though; Federer has only achieved Silver as a solo player, which came at London 2012, but four years prior to that he did win Gold in Beijing as he and Stan Wawrinka beat Swedish duo Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson. Where Federer doesn’t stand up too well is in the Davis cup; he’s only managed one win. Although three Hopman Cup successes should be noted.
That gives Federer the edge in total titles terms. Does that continue to measure up as we look at just Grand Slam wins? Federer has won a total of 20 Grand Slams with Wimbledon his most successful; he’s won there eight times! Nadal meanwhile is the king of Roland Garros. He’s just won the 2022 title there taking his overall French Open tally to 14 titles. Throw in the other Grand Slams that he has won and his total haul stands at 22. That’s a point for Nadal. 15-15.
Winning titles is what tennis – or any sport at elite level – is all about. That said, as we’re trying to separate the inseparable we’re going to look at the overall win stats for this deadly duo as well. We begin with the singles stats.
In pure wins, Federer leads the way having racked up a total of 1,251 victories; that is someway ahead of Nadal who has managed “just” 1,058 wins – some 193 wins south of Federer’s tally.
That doesn’t tell you the entire story though. Federer has played 256 more games than Nadal. That translates to Nadal holding a higher win percentage of 83.3% compared to Federer’s 82.0%.
When you turn your attention to doubles performance, the story is a little bit different. Firstly, neither player holds a record remotely close to their 80-odd percentage win rate but it is still Nadal that comes out on top.
Federer has played more doubles games – albeit only by 11 – but Nadal boasts a higher number of wins having won 138 compared to Federer’s 131. That might only be seven extra wins for Nadal but due to the fact he’s also played fewer games, the win percentage is notably different at 65.1% vs 58.7%.
When you combine the singles and doubles records, Nadal comes out on top with a win percentage of 80.7%. That’s 1.7% stronger than Federer’s. Keeping up with the tennis scoring, we make that 30-15 Nadal. Throw in prize money earned and it’s 40-15 with Nadal having scooped an extra £87k over the years!
To this point, we’ve established that Federer has won more titles than Nadal but the Spaniard comes out on top in Grand Slams and career win percentage.
The trouble is, there will always be arguments to be made on those things with the strength of opposition and difficulty of competition draws just two factors people like to use to play devil’s advocate. So, what about when the two have faced off with one another?
Federer and Nadal have clashed a total of 40 times in their long and decorated careers. As you might imagine, both have won their fare share of matches but one man stands clear of the other. Step forward Rafael Nadal. The Spaniard has won 24 of the 40 matches meaning he’s eight clear of Federer (16 wins) giving him a 60 to 40% win ratio.
With the head to head record now considered, we feel confident to declare that Rafael Nadal is in fact the greatest of all time and, actually, it’s not as close as you might have thought.