The Nadal vs Federer debate: Who is the greatest player of the Open Era?

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal

Every era has its greatest player, like Rod Laver in the 60s, Bjorn Borg in the 80s and Pete Sampras in the 90s. When it comes to the 2000s, Roger Federer is widely regarded as the greatest player, and some even argue that he is the greatest player of all time.

Maybe that’s true, but not so when he plays against Rafael Nadal; Nadal is a class apart. Federer and Nadal have an age difference of five years between them, and Nadal has achieved far more success at his age as compared to Federer’s accomplishments at that same stage of his career.

The Nadal vs Federer rivalry is one of the greatest in tennis history. They have gone head to head in 33 matches with Nadal having the lead over Federer with 23 wins.

Most of those wins came on clay courts; he is, after all, the king of clay. The only surface where he has a losing head-to-head record against Federer is grass, a surface which he is not too comfortable with (and yet he still has two Wimbledon titles).

That said, the world only wants to compare and contrast players with regard to their Grand Slam victories – Federer has 17 and Nadal 13.

Nadal has lost in six finals that he appeared in (which is one less than Federer’s seven losses) which leaves him four short of the high water mark that Federer has set. And make no mistake, Nadal needs to either match or surpass the number 17 to put the greatest player debate to rest.

Whether he will or won’t is something that only time will tell. He has age on his side, while on the other hand, his body is showing increasing signs of wear and tear. For now, for mere comparison’s sake, let us assume that Federer and Nadal have the same number of Grand Slam titles, i.e., 17 each.

Nadal won his first Slam title at the age of 19 when he won the French Open title in 2005, while Federer won his first at age 21. For Nadal, in the years leading up to his maiden triumph, he was slowly but surely climbing up the ranks and was placed at a whopping World No. 5 position (a leap of 757 ranks from just three years prior when he was 15 years of age) during his first French Open. He defeated Federer in the semi-finals and became only the second male to win the French Open at the first attempt.

Federer turned pro in 1998 and, from 2004 onwards, had gone on a manic Grand Slam winning spree until Nadal came on to the scene. Some would argue that he achieved a large chunk of his Slam victories before Nadal entered his prime; there was no such strong player who could take on Federer before the Spaniard truly hit his stride, and players like Andy Roddick just did not have a good enough game.

Once Nadal came into his own, he started to dominate on the claycourts and slowly moved on to grass and hardcourts as well; the 2008 Wimbledon win brought an abrupt halt to Federer’s domination.

Then there came a barrage of other players such as Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray who were at the peak of their careers, and still are. Nadal managed to withstand this flood of players and continued to win Grand Slams, but alas, Federer was almost completely washed out, losing to players like Robin Soderling and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and crashing out in the semis and quarters of several Grand Slams.

When it comes to their style of play, Federer is mostly a baseline player with traditional shots such as his one-handed backhand and slices, which are great for purists but sometimes a little too predictable for players like Djokovic and Murray who have become well-versed with his tactics and find it relatively easier to get under his skin and defeat him. But when it comes to Nadal, he has a very contemporary style of play, laden with heavy doses of topspin and some body-intensive strokes; that’s what wins him matches.

He also has an Olympic singles gold medal to his credit.

Talking about overall win-loss percentages, Nadal is the world leader with an 83.83% overall win percentage, while Federer is placed 6th in the world with an 81.20% win percentage.

All these comparisons just go to show that all things being equal (most importantly, the number of Slam titles), Nadal is clearly the greater player. So Nadal fans would be hoping that he adds many more Grand Slam titles to his already impressive collection and makes all of them proud!