Novak Djokovic Set to End up with 2 More Records Which Rafael Nadal Might Never Break Even if Spaniard Achieves Historic 2024 French Open and Olympics Double

Novak Djokovic has gone ahead leaps and bounds of his biggest rival, Rafael Nadal in the 2023 season, making the most of the Spanish legend’s absence. After the ATP Finals 2023 title win recently, Djokovic has made it extremely clear in public that he is not stopping anytime soon and is gunning for all 4 Grand Slam titles next year. Even as Nadal is set for a much-anticipated comeback in the next 2-3 months presumably, he has now gone 12 ‘Big Titles’ behind the World No.1.

TennisTV recently posted about the ‘Big Three’ of tennis in another comparison which attracted eyeballs on social media platforms such as X, Facebook and Instagram. They spoke about the trio’s ‘Big Titles’ wins which included Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, Olympics and the ATP Finals. Novak Djokovic easily topped the list, moving to 71 of those (24 Grand Slams, 40 Masters 1000s and 7 ATP Finals).

Big Titles + Big Three 🏆 @DjokerNole extends his lead after a historic win in Turin 😤#NittoATPFinals pic.twitter.com/RJ1lifD29n

— ATP Tour (@atptour) November 19, 2023

On the other hand, since Rafael Nadal barely played in 2023 and has never won the ATP Finals in his otherwise distinguished career, the Spaniard remains at 59 Big Titles (22 Grand Slams, 36 Masters 1000s and 1 Olympic Gold). However, he remains ahead of Swiss maestro, Roger Federer who ended his career in 2022 at 54 such championships (20 Grand Slams, 28 Masters 1000s and 6 ATP Finals).

Roger Federer set the bar high, Rafael Nadal took it forward but now, the duo is running the risk of remaining irrelevant in this race as Novak Djokovic could even clinch the actually incredible 100 mark in this regard. There are 4 Grand Slams, 1 ATP Finals and 9 Masters 1000s typically in the ATP calendar year. So assuming that Djokovic plays for the next 3-4 years and finds his peak in these tournaments like he did mostly in 2023, the Serb could create more history.

But this would also mean that Rafael Nadal will never break any Novak Djokovic record in the Big Titles since the Spaniard is most likely to call it a day after one final season next year. Although many consider the 22-time Grand Slam champion still the favorite to win the French Open 2024 if he plays, the fact that he would mostly get a wildcard entry would make his draw extremely difficult. Even if he then attempts to win the Olympics in Paris on clay a few months after the French Open and aim for Roland Garros in 2025 out of nowhere, Nadal could only hope to go past the 60 titles mark and extend his lead over Federer.

It doesn’t help that Rafael Nadal himself has conceded that he is out of the Grand Slams race with Novak Djokovic. The second record which Novak Djokovic would definitely end up owning too, is his winning rate in these Big Titles. Around the same time last year, Nadal and Djokovic were toe-to-toe when it comes to this aspect. But after winning 5 Big Titles in 2023, the Serbian superstar now has a win ratio of 3.1 (This is because he has won his 71 titles out of 218 such tournaments he has participated in).

On the other hand, Rafael Nadal is second on the all-time list, as his 59 titles have come out of 208 appearances, making that ratio 3.5. This is still extremely impressive considering injuries and the number of tournaments and matches Nadal has had to miss out on. In fact, Roger Federer may be third on this list too, but extremely far off from both the players, with a ratio of 4.4 surprisingly (54 Big Titles out of 240 appearances). A little more than 50 percent of Federer’s 109 ATP title wins came in ATP 250 and ATP 500 competitions.

Novak Djokovic delighted at Rafael Nadal tennis comeback news

As much as Novak Djokovic has proven to be a much superior player, he was recently gracious enough to positively react to Rafael Nadal confirming his 2024 return on the ATP Tour. Djokovic claimed that tennis misses Nadal and he cannot wait to play perhaps one last match with the Spanish great next year. The Serb lauded his ability to bounce back from injuries successfully so many times in his career, since it is extremely tough to do so and he could relate to his struggles.

Apart from Novak Djokovic, the likes of his coach, Goran Ivanisevic and Nick Kyrgios too recently claimed that Rafael Nadal can never be ruled out when it comes to winning titles again on his comeback. Kyrgios said that Nadal has beaten him a lot, but that has made him push himself to learn and become a better player and human being.