According to wikipedia, on outdoor hard courts, Nadal leads 8-2. On indoor hard courts it's 1-5.

I don't see what relevance them getting to the finals or not has. It might be relevant to deciding who is a better player overall, but it's not relevant to deciding who has been better head to head. Those are different questions. I tend to think that Federer is perhaps the best all round player ever, but it's hard to be very adamant when you look at how Nadal dominated him on two surfaces.

Novak Djokovic is the best tennis player to ever walk the earth. Struggle with #2, really tough

This will become even more obvious when Djok wins French Open this year.

he's the best at the AO for sure

Question for anyone who thinks Djoker is the GOAT:

If he somehow never wins the French, will you still think he is the GOAT?

it's partly semantics wrt to how you define GOAT. I don't think anyone has ever played as well as Djoker has since the start of 2015 season - he has peaked higher than anyone else ever has. to some that already makes him the goat.

if you weight longevity and sustaining a very high level more, he has a good amount of work to do to catch up to Fed.

If he slams this year id call him GOAT from all perspectives

like, if he wins all 4? yeah.

wrt to the French, it's a bit like Fed was. he was the 2nd best clay courter in the world, unlucky to play at the same time as the GOAT clay courter.

nobody doubts Djoker is a great clay courter - in 2013 he lost 9-7 in the 5th to a peak Rafa. he beat him in other events. he might be the 2nd best of all time now on clay. by results he is but that is largely due to how bad of a matchup Rafa was for Fed, so a bit unlucky for him.

Djoker peaked right when Roger got worse. Also kinda late so likely steroids.

actually Federer 2015 was the best year he had since 2012 probably. against everyone besides Djoker he was 60-6, that's prettay prettay good.

he went 3-5 vs Djoker last year

by comparison Fed was 45-17 in 2013

Yeah, so?

I always laugh as the people say someone who is 30 is extremely old in tennis. This isn't the 1980s. People train and eat way better than they did 30+ years ago. People should be hitting their primes around 27-28 just like every other sport.

Yeah, how one defines it is certainly important, but I think when most people say GOAT, they're largely talking career achievement. Or at the very least, a player has to have a certain level of career accomplishment before we can start looking at his peak. But alternative definitions are certainly acceptable.

Since the other two guys that are in the discussion have won all four slams and he hasn't, I think that's going to be the easiest criticism. Of course, it seems like a foregone conclusion that he's going to get a French open win in the near future.

Not sure any of these sentences relates to each other

I do agree it isn't the 1980s

You insinuated he peaked so late because of steroids, and not because he actually hit his prime, you know, when he should be hitting his prime.

Do the same thing for Federer and I'm guessing his number is over 90%

For Novak to display the 2011 magnificence his opponent would have to be near his skill level. But no one is so he can't. This is why we don't have 6 hour 5 setters any more. This doesn't mean Novak is less good than he was in 2011. I'm really hoping Rafa manages to summon his former power so we can have another classic Nole vs Nadal match in the FO (which Djokovic wins by tiebreak in 5th set )
On another note I never got why people regard Fed as the GOAT when he consistently got trashed by Nadal. I mean of course Fed is a force of nature and way up there but GOAT is by definition better than anyone else and you just can't make a case that Fed is better than Nadal no matter how hard you try.

sure you can

Why is everyone so convinced this is true?

The head to head is proof that Federer consistently made finals even on his bad days and even on his worst surface. If you take out clay, they're almost dead even. With Nadal's spin and high bounces to Federer's singlehanded backhand, there's no strategy around that on slow courts. I am surprised he even won 11 matches against Nadal.

If you look at fast courts (indoor hards and grass), Federer's 6-2 against Nadal. So, Nadal obviously benefited from most matches taking place on courts where his advantage is decisive. The key distinction is Nadal can improve his play on fast courts whereas Federer can't change his single handed backhand and still expect to be dominant.

Blah blah blah

Because it is? Pretty obvious by just looking at people that it is. Also, wasn't odd to hear about an athlete smoking 30-40 years ago.


Also pretty much any ex athlete will also say how much better athletes today eat, train, etc.

Plus Nadal is losing in r1 of slams at 29 and Fed is making semis at 34

Fat Ronaldo was better than narcissist Ronaldo.