Fans of the Big Three i.e. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic form the majority of the tennis fans in the world. They reach up to unscaled limits just to hail, praise, and worship their heroes. One such superfan of Rafael Nadal, who goes by the ‘X’ handle ‘A Tennis Propagandist’, shared an interesting and curious stat about Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. But by his caption, it was clear that he was smitten by Nadal’s record against all the best players in the world.
‘A Tennis Propagandist’ shared a stat that showed Rafael Nadal’s win% against his big rivals: 60% against Roger Federer, 71% against Andy Murray, 86% against Stan Wawrinka, 83% against Daniil Medvedev, 67% against Carlos Alcaraz, and shockingly 100% against Jannik Sinner. In comparison, surprisingly enough, Novak Djokovic’s win percentage numbers are lower.
A Tennis Propagandist tweeted, “Rafael Nadal’s record vs the best players is simply INSANE.”
While this tweet is stunning enough, there are a few loopholes in it. Many fans are simply pointing out how biased the stat is towards Nadal, and it doesn’t consider certain practicalities. For one, Rafael Nadal played against Sinner and Alcaraz when they weren’t such big players. The Spaniard and the Italian players are 20 and 22 years old respectively, and Nadal hasn’t played in nearly a year now due to injury. He mainly played them when they were starting out as teenagers and Nadal was already a legend.
Another one is that, although the stat shows how good Nadal is against Federer, Murray, etc, it misses out on an important player – Novak Djokovic. The stat shows a comparison of Nadal and Djokovic side-by-side, but not against each other. With such things considered, the stat does become a biased one.
It was a Rafael Nadal vs Novak Djokovic fan fight in the comments
Although one might feel that Rafael Nadal fans will rush to his defense, such is the support on other sides such as Djokovic and Federer, that it didn’t take long for them to point out the errors. While one fan simply pointed out the numerous records where Djokovic is ahead, that were ignored, another pointed out that he plays less since he always remains injured. His hatred towards Nadal for supporting Saudi-backed tennis leagues was also evident.
While Rafael Nadal does have some stunning records (even besides these) up his kitty, true tennis fans would point out the real-life situations under which the matches were played. Nadal remains the player with the most matches won in ATP 1000 Masters events. However, Djokovic has more Masters titles (40) than Nadal (36).
