Djokovic is the best tennis player in the world
Every year, in late January, I become a tennis expert for about two weeks. This tends to coincide with the holding of the Australian Open down in Melbourne, so family and friends turn to me for insight about the goings-on of the tennis world.
Ok, I’m no tennis expert, but one of the great benefits of not being an expert in something is how fun it is to learn about it. In this case, let’s learn about the continued dominance of men’s tennis’ Big Three.
The Big Three
In men’s tennis, the Big Three of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal (sorry Andy1) have been historically dominant. This is the only era in men’s tennis where three players have somehow each won double digit majors while playing in the same time period. Combined, since 2004, they’ve:
- Won 69% (93/135) of ATP Masters tournaments.
- Won 85% (55/65) of Grand Slams.
- Held the ATP No. 1 spot 98% (822/836) of the weeks since they first reached it.
Even against all players all-time, they still stand out. Individually, they’ve each won at least:
- 17 Grand Slams; two other players have won more than 10.2
- 28 ATP Masters titles; only one other player has more than 20.3
- 350 career matches; fourth place has 261 wins.4
- $120,000,000 in career prize money; fourth place has about $60,000,000.5
One more fun stat: the number of mentions on Wikipedia’s Men’s Singles Open Era tennis records page. The top 5 is as follows (no one else has more than 100):
- Roger Federer - 190
- Novak Djokovic - 182
- Rafael Nadal - 148
- Ivan Lendl - 134
- Jimmy Connors - 104
Each of the Big Three have a very solid case for best player of all time, notwithstanding the difficulty of comparing between eras and using different metrics. Really, the only fair comparison is within the Big Three themselves.
To that end, I thought it’d be interesting to look at records within the Big 3.
Head to Head
As a result of the inevitability of finding them in the late stages of tournaments, their rivalries are also record-breaking. In fact, the Djokovic-Nadal, Djokovic-Federer and Federer-Nadal matchups hold first, second, and third place, respectively, for the most meetings in Open Era history.
| Player | Djokovic | Nadal | Federer | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Djokovic | - | 29-26 | 27-23 | 56-49 (53.3%) |
| Nadal | 26-29 | - | 24-16 | 50-45 (52.6%) |
| Federer | 23-27 | 16-24 | - | 39-51 (43.3%) |
Djokovic has played the most games against other Big Three opponents, and narrowly leads on overall head-to-head, with a 53.3% win rate. Nadal is close second at 52.6%, while Federer trails behind with a slight losing record (43.3%) and the fewest matchups. Djokovic also has a winning record individually against both Nadal and Federer. No Simpson’s Paradox at work here, thankfully.
Looking at the net wins (Wins - Losses for a given matchup) over time gives us an insight into the history of each rivalry. The highlighted matches on each graph are Grand Slam finals between the two players.
Djokovic seems to have struggled early on against both Nadal and Federer, dropping as far as -10 and -7, respectively. Around 2009-2010, Djokovic started to win. Consistently, against everyone. He actually made it back to 0 net wins against both Federer and Nadal in the same tournament: the 2015 ATP World Tour Finals. Nadal in the semifinals, straight sets. Federer in the finals, straight sets again.
That year was one of the greatest individual seasons ever: he made the finals of all four Grand Slams, winning three; won a record six Master’s 1000 tournaments; and earned $21,146,145 in prize money.
The Federer-Nadal head-to-head has been almost totally one-sided; Nadal’s advantage has consistently increased over time. Not to mention the Nadal nipping at the heels of Federer’s Grand Slam total (19 vs. 20), with the 2020 French Open right around the corner.
You could argue that Djokovic, with a winning record against both Federer and Nadal, is the best of them all. In fact, since he really hit his stride and started to claw back the deficit against both Federer and Nadal, his record looks even better. Nadal is clearly ahead of Federer, so based on head-to-head alone I’d rank them: Djokovic, Federer, Nadal.
Challengers
Very few have challenged the Big Three for any long stretch of time, except for Andy Murray, who for a while was the fourth horseman of men’s tennis, and maybe Stan Warwinka. Of the younger bunch coming up (Thiem, Zverev, Tsitsipas, …Kyrgios) Dominic Thiem looks maybe the closest to breaking through. He pushed Djokovic to five sets in this year’s Australian Open finals, and has been called “The Heir Apparent at Roland Garros” having lost to Nadal in the last two French Open finals.
His record against the Big Three is decidedly one-sided, but he’s definitely knocking at the door. If all breaks well, he might see a turnaround similar to Djokovic, followed by 17 or so Grand Slams.
A quick note on Andy Murray - by the metrics above he’s clearly the fourth-best of the current era, but he’s also not really in the same league as the other three. A big part of their dominance has been consistency over long periods of time, while Murray has struggled much more with injury and consistency. ↩
Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg. ↩
Andy Murray. ↩
Jimmy Connors. ↩
Andy Murray, again. ↩