IS RAFAEL NADAL THE BEST CLAY COURT PLAYER OF ALL TIME?

By defeating his compatriot David Ferrer in the final, Rafael Nadal has achieved a record 8th title at the French Open. He has now won 2 more titles than anybody else at the Roland Garros, but is it enough to consider him the best (or at least the most effective, since comparison between athletes of different eras are tricky and to a certain extent impossible) clay court player ever?

If we look at the history of the French Open, only Bjorn Borg and Henri Cochet, besides Nadal, has won more than three titles, but we can’t forget that for forty years (from 1927 to 1967) the majority of the top players used to turn professional at a certain point during their career and so they couldn’t play in the Grand Slam tournaments. Therefore, in order to make a fair comparison, we should add, to the tally of each player, the French Pro Championship, which was the equivalent of the Roland Garros for the pro players, or the most important clay court pro tournament for the years in which the French Pro wasn’t played. By doing so we have the following overall titles ranking for the main clay court events:

8 titles – Rafael Nadal (8 French Open)

7 titles – Ken Rosewall (2 French Open, 4 French Pro Championship, 1 Greater Washington Pro Champs)

6 titles – Bjorn Borg (6 French Open)

5 titles – Henri Cochet (4 French Open, 1 French Pro Championship)

Even taking this into account, Nadal still comes out on top and this despite the fact that the he has played the French Open only 9 times so far, his solitary loss coming at the hands of Robin Soderling in 2009. Rosewall lost 4 times at the French Open and 1 at the French Pro Championship, Cochet lost 4 times at the French Open and 2 at the French Pro Championship, Borg lost twice at the French Open.

It could be argued that all these players are now retired and eventually/possibly Nadal will lose more games in the future but, even if he didn’t win any other French Open, the fact that he only lost once between his first and eight title would be an outstanding achievement. Rosewall faced multiple defeats between his first title at the Roland Garros in 1953 and his last in 1968, as did Cochet. The only record that compares to Nadal’s is Borg’s. The Swede lost only to Adriano Panatta in 1976 between his first win in 1974 and his last in 1981 (he didn’t play in 1977). Borg’s fans, could also reasonably point out that hadn’t he retired at 26 (Nadal is already 27) he would have most probably won at least a couple more titles and therefore he shouldn’t be rated below Nadal merely on the bases of having won 2 less French Open crowns.

In order to see who was truly more dominant, we should analyze more in depth Borg’s and Nadal’s clay court careers. So far Nadal has played 63 tournaments on clay winning 42 and a total of 316 matches winning 295. Borg played 58 tournaments winning 30 and 287 matches winning 257.

These numbers show how Nadal has a better winning percentage than Borg on clay both in terms of tournaments won: 67% versus 52% (79% versus 65% counting from the year of their first title in Paris) and of single matches won: 93% versus 90% (96% versus 94% counting from the year of their first title in Paris). What makes the Spaniard’s record even more impressive is that he has faced all the best players in the world at least in 4 tournaments each year (the French Open and the 3 Master Series) while in the 70s there weren’t mandatory events and therefore very rarely Borg had to play against an equally challenging field.

Tennis history has been twisted left and right in this article but from every angle we look at the picture there isn’t but one conclusion: Rafa Nadal is so far the most dominant clay court player ever.