On Sunday, Rafael Nadal won his 14th French Open in his 18th attempt at the title. He won his first one at 19 and this year's at 36. Think about how much changed in your life between your 19th and 36th birthdays. Now imagine winning one of the world's most prestigious sporting events essentially every year of your life over that span. It's unfathomable. It's also a testimony to him and his family that he remained focused and scandal-free (poorBorisBecker) despite success at such a young age.
Nadal now has 22 Grand Slam titles, the most of anyone ever. Roy Emerson held the record with 12 Slams until 1999 when Pete Sampras won his 13th. Pistol Pete retired after winning his 14th in 2002. So Nadal tied the old record just based on his work at the French Open alone.
Nadal is 112-3 at the French. Those 112 French wins are more than some Hall of Famers had in all their Grand Slam appearances combined, guys like Kuerten, Ivanisevic, Stich, Kafelnikov.
He is 8-8 in other Grand Slam finals. So if he never played in the French Open, he would have more Slams than McEnroe, Wilander, Becker, and Edberg; he would be tied with Agassi, Lendl, and Connors; and he would have as many as Ashe, Murray, Roddick, and Ivanisevic combined. All of those guys are in the Hall of Fame except for Murray because he's still playing. And those non-French 16 finals appearances would be more than anyone except four other players (and tied with Borg). And he always plays his ass off, even when he loses.
I feel like I've written this before--perhaps I have, just about someoneelse--so you're probably tired of reading my rants. Just realize that this age of preposterous tennis can't go on forever, so appreciate it while it lasts.
I started writing this post before Novak Djokovic lost to Sam Querrey in the third round of Wimbledon today. The loss makes it easier for me to distill my thoughts, although I'm sure Djokovic would prefer for me to have a harder time putting my thoughts together if it meant he was still playing.
Professional athletes are judged, rightly or wrongly, by how many titles they win. Golfers and tennis players are judged by how many majors they win, and both sports treat winning a Grand Slam as a cross between the Holy Grail, the White Whale, and the scene where Heather Graham takes her clothes off for the first time in Boogie Nights. In Andre Agassi's book Open, when Brad Gilbert wanted to stress how well Andre Agassi played in the four majors starting with the 1999 French Open and ending with the 2000 Australian Open, he noted that Agassi went 27-1 and that the only person to do better than that in a four major stretch in the Open era was Rod Laver. (And parenthetically, I think Djokovic is evolutionary Agassi, or what Agassi could've been if he really liked or wanted to play tennis.)
This influenced how I view a player's career over time. You have to win seven matches to win a major. If you win 20 matches in major play in one year, then on average you made the semi-finals in each tournament. That's pretty spectacular, and when you add in the fact that 20 is a nice round number I decided that a 20 win season is a good barometer for a tennis player's performance.
Why should you give a shit? Because Novak Djokovic is quietly putting together one of the best men's tennis careers of the Open era. I say quietly because he doesn't get nearly as much coverage as Tiger Woods or Mike Tyson in their primes, or Michael Phelps during the run-up to any particular Olympics, or Derek Jeter buying a grande Sumatra at Starbucks. Yet he's doing stuff just as impressive as what those guys did.
And the coverage he gets misses this point. When he lost today, ESPN posted an article stating that the loss "carried away Djokovic's Wimbledon title, his attempt to tie Rod Laver's consecutive Grand Slam win streak at 31 and his drive to try for a calendar year Grand Slam at the US Open." ESPN's tennis homepage said "Novak Djokovic was drowned in a sea of Sam Querrey aces and forehand blasts, thus failing to add another chapter to his legend."
Rather than look at what Djokovic failed to do, let's take a look at what he's accomplished ... over the past five years. It's really impressive. I don't care what Rakim says, I'd like to be a djoke.
To start with, Djokovic held all four major titles at once until today--a Tiger Slam or a Serena Slam, or a Djokovic Slam if you will. The only man to win all four tennis majors in one calendar year in the Open era is Rod Laver. Parenthetically, if you talk to an old tennis fan he or she will tell you that Laver is the best ever. From 1959 to 1962 he played in eleven major finals, winning six, including a Grand Slam in 1962. Then he turned pro and played in fifteen Pro Slam tournaments, reaching fourteen finals and winning eight. Then the Open era started in 1968. He played in three majors that year, reaching the finals in two and winning one. He won the Grand Slam again in 1969 (clicks). It's a preposterous performance timeline. Lord knows how many majors wins he'd have if he hadn't turned pro or if the Open era started in 1955. And the best sneaker ever is named after him.
All this is to say that ESPN should pipe down about Djokovic failing to win a calendar Slam. Much like pimpin', it ain't easy.
Back to the Djokovic Slam, which is four majors in a row. The list of men who won four majors in a row in the history of tennis is Don Budge (six in a row from 1937-38), Laver (four in a row twice), and Djokovic. That's it. That's the list. So ESPN should lay off the "failing to add another chapter to his legend" nonsense. The Djokovic Slam is legendary.
In fact, Djokovic's previous five years have been legendary. I checked out the stats of everyone who won five or more majors in the Open era and made a table analyzing each player's five best consecutive years in major play. I picked five because that's a pretty long window of time in a tennis player's career and I wanted to analyze dominance over a significant period of time. I left off Laver and John Newcombe because their careers started before the Open era and that screwed up my comparisons. I also included Andy Murray because, well, you'll see.
Here's the table. The first column of numbers reflects the best five year span in the player's career in terms of wins at major tournaments, the next column reflects the losses, and the next column reflects the winning percentage. These three columns do not reflect the results of the 2016 season because the US Open wasn't held yet. The "best 1 loss streak" reflects the player's best streak in major play including one loss. For example, Nadal won the 2010 French, Wimbledon, and US Open (21 wins) then made the quarters of the 2011 Australian (4 wins) and won the 2011 French (7 wins). He then won 6 matches at Wimbledon in 2011. So that's 38-1 before his second loss (in the Wimbledon finals). I only measured streaks that started with a major win. The rest is self-explanatory. (And it might be easier to see if you click on the table.)
What does all this mean? Let me give you some context. Jim Courier is a Hall of Famer, was #1 in the world for 58 weeks, went 4-3 in major finals from 1991-1993 and won 62 major matches over that span. He won 118 matches at major tournaments in his career. Djokovic won 122 from 2011-2015. Only Federer was better over a five year stretch.
Speaking of Federer, he reached all four finals three times (2006, 2007, 2009). That's nuts. In 2006 and 2007 he won three finals and lost only the French (to Nadal both times). That's also nuts.
More context. Bjorn Borg played tennis for nine years but only played in one Australian Open. I guess he dislikes the southern hemisphere. Anyway, this means he amassed all his stats playing in only three tournaments a year so his two 20 win seasons are Herculean (or at least Federerean). Between 1976 and 1981 he played in seventeen majors and reached the finals fourteen times. Borg was good at tennis.
Similarly, McEnroe skipped ten Aussies, six French and two Wimbledons. Connors eschewed the Australian all but twice, winning once and losing the finals in the other. Connors also ignored the French ten times. If you filter the table by 5 year win percentage you get this:
This jibes with my sense of history a little bit more. Borg is on top, McEnroe and Connors move up, and Agassi/Edberg/Becker are at the bottom fringe. Djokovic is still in the top three. Interestingly, I remember Wilander as being a force of nature and expected him to be higher, but he had peaks and valleys in majors, aside from his mammoth 1988 season.
Djokovic's 122 wins over 5 years correspond to an average of 6.1 wins per tournament. This means his average finish at majors was a finals appearance. If Djokovic loses in the semis he had a below-average tournament. Federer averaged 6.35 wins and Borg 6.21 wins per tournament at their peaks. Again, these numbers are for periods of five years. That's inhuman dominance. Note that these averages reflect the actual number of majors each person played in their peak five years. If you just assume 20 games as the denominator Borg looks less inhuman.
What about the streak? Djokovic looks pretty good in that regard as well. Second-best after Federer's aforementioned gonzo run from 2006-2007.
Djokovic is also top-three in 20 win seasons, and he already has sixteen so far this year. [When I was almost done with this monstrosity I realized that Lendl had seven 20 win seasons, not six. I'm too lazy to fix it and it doesn't change the rank order outcome.]
And I think this is an interesting statistic despite the fact that several great players only appeared in three tournaments a year. It's not like they had to swim to Australia. They could've gone.
Only Federer has appeared in more major finals than Djokovic. Again, these numbers are possibly skewed by the fact that several players didn't appear in four tournaments a year, but then again, why should we hold that against anyone who plays in all four?
Djokovic has won a major event in each of the past six years. Only four men have done better. Borg and Federer come up again because they're Borg and Federer. Sampras and Nadal have more because they dominated on one surface.
The only metric that puts Djokovic in the middle of the pack is finals win percentage.
Pistol Pete though! Note that he was 7-0 at Wimbledon and 7-4 everywhere else ... which by itself is still 64%, close to the top of this list.
This table also brings Andy Murray into focus. By almost every other measure, Murray is equivalent to Becker and Edberg, two all-time greats. But he's only 2-8 in major finals. You might thing it's because he "can't win the big one." I think it's because he has shit luck:
Murray appeared in ten major finals and faced Federer or Djokovic--the two guys at the top of almost all of the preceding lists--every time! It's hard out here for a Scotsman.
Also, Ivan Lendl was really really good. We, or at least I, forget about this. He was dominant in the mid-to-late 80s but for whatever reason is remembered almost entirely for failing to win Wimbledon. But the guy was a human metronome in multiple ways. His strokes were so grooved that he was criticized for being robotic and his power baseline game was sneered at as boring. As I type this I see that there's a fucking typo in my table but I'm too lazy to fix it now--Lendl had seven 20-win seasons and they were consecutive. Five of them were 20 wins right on the nose. Dude was consistent, and consistently good. He was also a workout fanatic. Some even said that Lendl wasn't that talented, he just worked his ass off to become a tennis machine--as if that's not admirable! Fast forward 20-30 years and everyone is a workout fanatic with a power baseline game. He was ahead of his time.
What's my point about Djokovic? In the 48 year history of men's Open tennis, only a handful of people have played at Djokovic's level of the last five-and-a-half years. Rather than focus on all the things he can't accomplish because he lost a third round match to the number 41 player in the world, we should look at everything he did before that and say "Holy shit, we just saw something special" or even better "Holy shit, we're in the middle of something special, we need to pay attention before it's gone forever!"
So watch more tennis and enjoy Djokovic while you can.
There are 7 rounds in a Grand Slam tennis tournament and 4 Grand Slam events are played each year. Two hundred and nine (209) rounds of Gland Slam tennis have been played since 2004: 196 for 2004 through 2010, and 13 so far this year. Thus the most Grand Slam matches than anyone could play from 2003 through today is 210, including Sunday's French Open Final.
Roger Federer has played in an absolutely staggering 196 Grand Slam matches over this span, going 182-14. To highlight just how preposterous this is, Federer won more Slams (15) since 2004 than he failed to win (14). He went 27-1 in major play twice (twice!): in 2006 and again in 2007. To the best of my knowledge only Rod Laver, after whom my favorite sneakers are named, can lay claim to this same feat (Laver went 28-0 twice, in 1962 and 1969). To say that Federer is the most dominant athlete of his generation in any sport is not an overstatement, although I'm sure golf fans can make a legitimate argument in favor of Eldrick Woods.
Federer will face Rafael Nadal in Federer's 197th Grand Slam match. Nadal is also mathematically impressive.
There have been 48 rounds of French Open play since 2005, and Nadal is 43-1 over this span, good for 5 titles. Six of Federer's Grand Slam defeats were meted out by Nadal, five of them in finals play. By my count Nadal is 6-2 against Federer in major events. He holds the record for most consecutive clay court wins with 81; Guillermo Vilas is in second place with 53. To dispute Nadal's all-time supremacy on clay is to prove you are a dolt.
Perhaps the most compelling math in Nadal's favor on Sunday is his 4-0 record against Federer at Roland Garros. Three of these matches were the finals, including a straight-set win in 2008.
But I'm picking Federer to win. I dislike Nadal fan for reasons completely unrelated to his tennis. For example, Nadal wears capri pants and sleeveless shirts. He still lives, some might say oddly, at home with his mother. And I suspect that he gets is vitamin B12 shots from Miguel Tejada's pharmacist. His game is all power, spin, and footspeed, and he lacks the artistry of yesteryear that Federer has in spades and for which I pine wistfully.
I also think Federer's window for beating Nadal in this tournament is rapidly closing, and that it's tremendously important to Federer to go through Nadal to win a French Open. As it is, his lone French trophy has a massive asterisk dangling from it and I'm sure that pisses him off. This may in fact be his last opportunity to get an asterisk-free French championship and I expect him to play balls out. So I'm taking Federer. But I can't guarantee that he'll win.
I can, however, guarantee that Sunday's match will feature brilliant tennis because I will miss most if not all of it as I will be schlepping around New Jersey with the rest of the zteam looking for a new zhome before the imminent expiration of zlease. Hannibal had an easier time completing his elephantine Alpine episode than I do in getting zwoman out the door so I will have zero time to watch the match. But you, constant readers, should.
Bill Simmons recently mentioned this Sports Illustrated article which attributes Luis Gonzalez's late-career surge in home runs to an open batting stance and using more pine tar. Simmons points to this article as the perfect story to sum up baseball's steroid era.
Last week's Sports Illustrated included this article on Rafael Nadal. I suspect it will become the perfect story to sum up tennis' steroid era. S.L. Price writes:
It's that attitude that had made Nadal—a natural righthander who was raised on clay and once used his serve merely to start rallies—the best lefthander since Rod Laver, an all-surface player with one of the best volleys in the game, and a server whose average delivery had risen in the past year from 107 mph to 119. Then, in an August practice session before the Open, Nadal shifted the grip on his racket to stabilize his wrist and began popping serves in the low 130s. He was broken only five times in New York.
So Nadal picked up 12 MPH on his serve through hard work? Then he picked up another 11+ MPH by shifting the grip on his racket? I'm not sure that hard work and a grip shift adds that much pop. And it took him 8 years on the pro tour to realize that he was holding his racket wrong? And he's a natural rightie?!?
I think Nadal picked up some extra oomph at Dr. Galea's office.
Here's a photo of Nadal taken at this year's U.S. Open.
Here's an undated photo I found (in TR's bathroom, of all places); I'm not sure if it was altered.
I'm not the first person to think that tennis has a steroid problem. Go to that link for photos of insanely jacked female tennis players ... if you're into that sort of thing.
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