GOAT debate: Who amongst triumvirate will end up as tennis’ greatest?

Tennis remains one of the most popular sports in the world with estimated followers of more than one billion, as per worldatlas.com.

In any sport, the discussion regarding who the best is will always be a point of interest for the fans who will be eager to put their view on social media.

In tennis, like many other sports, three players have dominated the proceedings for more than a decade in Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

To settle this debate once and for all, there is a ‘greatest of all time (GOAT)’ points table where distribution is based on how far a player has progressed in any tournament, the ranking, and his overall achievements in a calendar year.

If an athlete plays the quarterfinals, semifinals and final of a Grand Slam, they are awarded one, two, and four points whereas the winner of the major event is gifted eight ranking points. Two points are given for each season with 3 Grand Slams.

As things stand, the current world number one is leading the overall GOAT list with 967 points followed by Swiss’ maestro and Spanish tennis star with 936 and 846 points, respectively.

The ‘Big 3’ are on equal terms with 20 Grand Slams each after the Serbian tennis star’s recent triumph at Wimbledon earlier this year.

This level of success is unheard of in the history of men’s tennis which made it impossible for the fans to pick a GOAT from these three unbelievable talents.

Roger Federer – Grass court Maestro

Roger Federer started playing tennis when he was just eight years old and went on to become Switzerland’s junior champion at the age of 14.

The 20-time Grand Slam champion won the first Wimbledon junior singles championship in 1998, and in the following year, he finished the season at 64th ranked, thus becoming the youngest to end the year in top 100 tennis players in the world.

The Swiss Maestro participated in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 and managed to advance to the bronze medal match.

In 2001, the then 20-year-old Federer defeated seven-time champion, Pete Sampras, in Wimbledon’s fourth-round clash with the score of 7-6(7), 5-7, 6-4 and 6-7(2), which was arguably his big break at the highest level.

Eight-time Wimbledon champion won his first Grand Slam tournament in 2003 when he outclassed Australia’s Mark Philippoussis in straight sets with the score of 7–6(7–5), 6–2 and 7–6(7–3) in the final of the Wimbledon.

Federer clinched his maiden Australian Open, US Open titles in the following year in 2004 and emerged victorious in 11 of the 17 tournaments which earned him the number one rank in the men’s tennis.

He went on to win five consecutive Wimbledon titles from 2003 to 2007 and was eventually taste defeat in the final of the 2008 edition against none other than Rafael Nadal in what is claimed to be one of the greatest finals of all time with the score of 6–4, 6–4, 6–7(5–7), 6–7(8–10) and 9–7.

During that time, he became the second man after Bjorn Borg to win five consecutive Wimbledon titles.

Between July 2003 to November 2005, Federer was clearly at the peak of his game where he won a record 24 straight finals.

In the year 2006, he won three Grand Slams — Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open and was the runners up in the French Open, losing once again to Nadal.

Federer’s 10th major title victory came in 2007 when he won the Australian Open but his quest for a French Open win was once again unsettled by Nadal in the finals.

He equalled Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slams with his maiden and till now only French Open triumph in 2009.

Federer went on to create history to clinch his 15th career Grand Slam title in the same year when he defeated America’s Andy Roddick in 4 hours and 17 minutes long five-set match in the final of Wimbledon with the score of 5–7, 7–6, 7–6, 3–6 and 16–14.

He then won his fourth Australian Open in January 2010 by defeating England’s Andy Murray.

Federer’s last Grand Slam title came in 2018 when he defeated Croatia’s Marin Čilić with a score of 6–2, 6–7(5–7), 6–3, 3–6 and 6–1.

The ball boy from Basel had a difficult time since the start of 2020, largely because of a knee injury that kept him out for the most part of the last two seasons.

Roger Federer has won a record 19 or 18? open-era grass-court titles including 10 Halle Open and eight Wimbledon titles.

Rafael Nadal – The King of Clay

Spain’s Rafael Nadal is well known for his dominance on the clay court in his career and the reason for that is his sheer brilliance in the French Open.

The left-hander won 13 of his Grand Slam triumphs out of the 20 in Paris, more than any other men’s player in the history of tennis.

The 35-year-old was the second in the tennis world to achieve the feat of winning 20 Grand Slams in his career after Federer.

Nadal started playing tennis at the age of four and was guided by his uncle Toni Nadal who had been his coach on the professional tours as well.

The ‘King of Clay’ turned pro in 2001 and reached the semifinals of the Junior Wimbledon Championships the next year. He then broke into the top 50 ranking in 2003.

The then 18-year-old Nadal played an important role in Spain’s Davis Cup win in 2004 against the United States in the final. In the singles clash on an opening day, he toppled America’s Andy Roddick who was number two in the world rankings at that time.

Very soon, Nadal started making his mark amongst the top athletes on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour events.

As a teenager, he registered 11 victories at different tournaments in 2005 which included the French Open title as well, that too on his debut after upsetting Roger Federer in the semifinals.

In the following year, the Spaniard successfully defended his French Open title by defeating Federer in the Final. Other than that, he managed to win five more titles on the ATP tour.

Nadal managed to extend his clay-court winning streak to 81 matches in 2007 before he lost to Federer in the final of the ATP Masters Series Hamburg, Germany.

He then tied the record for consecutive French Open wins with Bjorn Borg after defeating the Swiss tennis star in the 2008 final.

The two of them also faced each other in the third consecutive final of Wimbledon in 2008. This time, unlike the previous years, Nadal prevailed in a five-set match that lasted for nearly five hours.

Nadal also won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 to surpass Federer and reach the top of the world rankings.

His first Australian Open triumph came in 2009 when he defeated Federer in a five-set final by 7–5, 3–6, 7–6, 3–6, 6–2.

He then helped Spain thrash Czech Republic in the Davis Cup final at the end of the 2009 tennis season.

2010 proved to be an exceptional year for Nadal where he completed his career Grand Slam by winning his first US Open title. Earlier in the same year, he won the French Open and Wimbledon titles.

In 2013, Nadal became the first man to win a single Grand Slam title eight times when he defeated fellow countryman David Ferrer in straight sets with the score of 6–3, 6–2 and 6–3 in the final of the French Open.

He bagged his second Olympic gold medal in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro in the doubles event.

Nadal won his 20th Grand Slam in Paris in 2020where he was too hot to handle for Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in the final of the French Open.

Novak Djokovic – Beast of the Hard court

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic started playing tennis when he was just four. He started ascending in tennis and turned pro in 2003.

Djokovic was just 18 when he managed to get into the top 100 ATP ranking players on the planet. He won his first ATP event in July 2006.

He advanced into the semifinals of the French Open and Wimbledon in 2007, and also played the final of the US Open that year but lost to Federer in straight sets.

His first major triumph came in Melbourne in 2008 when he defeated France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final of the Australian Open with the score of 4–6, 6–4, 6–3 and 7–6(7–2).

Later that year, he finished on the podium with a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics.

Djokovic led his team to a Davis Cup victory in December 2010 which was the country’s first-ever, where they defeated France in the final.

Djokovic had a 43-match winning streak at that time – the third-longest of the Open-era tennis since 1968.

He then won his second major event on the hardcourt in 2011 when he outclassed Britain’s Andy Murray in the final of the Australian Open with the score of 6–4, 6–2 and 6–3.

That victory can be classified as the turning point in Djokovic’s career he won two more Grand Slams in the same years, Wimbledon and US Open, where on both occasions he got the better of Nadal.

The 34-year-old won a five-set thriller at the Australian Open in 2012 by defeating Nadal once again. However, the Spaniard took his revenge and won the French Open in 2012 when both players met in the fourth consecutive Grand Slam final.

Djokovic’s fourth Australian Open title came when in 2013 and bagged another Wimbledon championship in 2014 when he defeated Federer in the final.

Djokovic became the all-time leader in the Australian Open men’s singles history in the Open era when he defeated Andy Murray for his fifth Grand Slam triumph at the hardcourt in 2015.

His winning streak at the Grand Slams reached 21 matches when he beat Murray in straight sets in the final of the Australian Open in 2016.

In 2017, Djokovic could not qualify for the semifinals of the first three Grand Slams of the year after which he pulled out from the rest of the season due to an elbow injury.

He returned to the tennis arena in 2018 and won his fourth Wimbledon title that year. Two months down the lane, he managed to win his third US Open title.

Serbia’s tennis star created history in January 2019 when he won his seventh Australian Open singles title, the most in the history of a hard court major event.

He defended his Wimbledon title in a four-hour and 57-minute final defeating Federer by 7–6, 1–6, 7–6, 4–6, and 13–12.

In 2021, the 34-year-old won the first three marquee events of the year to level Federer and Nadal’s all-time record of 20 Grand Slam titles.

He was on the verge of being the third male player in tennis history to win all four Grand Slam events in one calendar year. However, he was defeated in straight sets by Russia’s Daniil Medvedev in the final of the US Open.

Head-to-head:

Federer vs Nadal

Federer and Nadal’s rivalry is considered by many as the greatest ever in men’s tennis history.

The poetic backhand from the Swiss star and variety in shot-making was as good as the savagery of the groundstrokes from the 35-year-old. A game played between the two of them is commonly referred to as ‘Fedal’.

They played their first game in March 2004 in Miami when the teenager stunned the then-new world number one.

The two rivals have faced 41 times in their career where 20 games were played on hard courts – 14 of them outdoors and 6 indoors — 16 were on clay, and 5 were played on grass.

Nadal leads the head-to-head with 24 wins to his name compared to Federer’s 17 victories.

Nadal vs Djokovic:

The two greats have faced each other on 58 occasions where Djokovic leads with 30 wins compared to Nadal’s 28 victories.

However, Spain’s tennis star is ahead when the rivals faced off in the Grand Slams with 10 wins in 16 meetings.

They have come across 27 times each on the Hard and Clay courts and only four times on the Grass Court.

Interestingly, they are the only opponents in Open Era history who have met in four consecutive major finals from Wimbledon 2011 to Roland Garros in 2012.

Djokovic vs Federer:

Federer and Djokovic’s rivalry is second to none in tennis, largely because there is a perception that both players have a similar style of play to some extent.

Both have played each other 51 times where the Serbian tennis star’s record is slightly better with 27 wins compared to the 40-year-old’s 23 victories.

They’ve faced 17 times in the Grand Slams where the current world number one has a far superior record with 11 wins compared to just six victories of Federer.

Weeks as world’s best:

Becoming the world’s best isn’t an easy feat but staying there is even harder for any athlete.

However, the ‘Big 3’ in tennis showcased time and again that they were truly ahead compared to the others.

Federer has dominated the tennis world from 2004 till 2007 with a winning percentage of more than 85 in all of those years—93, 95, 95, and 88. He won 11 Grand Slam titles in those four years.

This was the phase when the 40-year-old was at the top of the ATP Rankings for consecutive 237 weeks.

Overall, Federer has been ranked number 1 for 310 weeks. He won the year-end championship in three of those four years as well.

On the other hand, Djokovic had two similar patches of success like the Swiss maestro. The first came from 2011 to 2015 and later from 2018 to 2021.

The 34-year-old has extended his record recently as he becomes the oldest man to finish at the top of ATP Rankings as number one player for a record seventh time.

The Serb has been on the top of the list for 348 weeks in total as he conceals the mark previously held by America’s Pete Sampras.

However, Nadal is way behind these two when it comes to being at the top for the number of weeks.

The 35-year-old has been ranked the number one player for 209 weeks. The longest run he had at the top lasted for 56 straight weeks.

Most tournament wins in a season

Federer had an outstanding run in 2006 where he majestically won 12 titles, including three Grand Slams, four ATP Masters titles and the Tennis Masters Cup. Cincinnati was the only tournament out of 17 in which he did not reach the final.

Djokovic’s best season was 2015 in which he won 11 titles. Other than the Grand Slam triumphs, he won Tour Finals, Beijing and six ATP Masters titles. His win-loss record was 82-6 in that season with a win percentage of 93.2.

Nadal once again looks a little behind as during his best year, which was in 2010, his win percentage was 87.7.

In those 12 months, the 35-year-old only managed to 7 tournaments, considerably less than his two biggest rivals’ achievement during their best years.

Winding up the debate

The rivalry amongst the tennis’ ‘Big 3’ has been prolific over the last decade or so and it will always remain the most prominent tennis era of the second millennium.

There will always be a discussion amongst experts and fans to conclude the GOAT in tennis. An unabated debate will continue to find a figurative winner.

The current 2021 season is a year for the Serb to cherish, who came close to his second Calendar Slam win in the final at the US Open against Daniel Medvedev but somehow was not able to achieve the feat.

Other than that, the Serb has dominated the whole season and has ended the year for a record seventh time as the best player on the planet.

It looks difficult to find an answer to the question of ‘Who rules the tennis world?’ unless all three of them have retired from the game.

However, looking at the age factor and the series of Fedal’s injuries, it is highly likely that the Serb might end up with more Grand Slams than his two old rivals.