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Can Rafa beat Federer’s record?Roger Federer has outclassed almost everyone on the tennis court through his career, but if there is one name that makes the hair on his and his fans’ necks stand up, it is none other than Rafael Nadal.Nadal has dominated Federer on almost every surface (except for grass, and even that is close!) and has an immense edge over the Swiss Maestro whenever he plays him. That is clearly seen from their head to head where Nadal leads Federer 23-10.At one point of time, people said that Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slams would not be surpassed, but that was quite easily broken by Federer, and now Nadal has equalled it too, winning his 14th at Roland Garros this year. And when Federer surpassed Sampras’s record, people thought that no one would surpass his record either. But Nadal is just three Slams from equalling Federer’s record of 17 Grand Slams.So the big question is, will he be able to do it? The answer to this question, according to me, is, ‘no’, and here are my reasons for that:
#1 Injuries
Unlike Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, Nadal has a host of health issues to deal with, due to which he has missed four Grand Slams since 2006, and two in the past two years. His knees have been a major problem for him right since the beginning of his career. Tendonitis has been a recurring injury for Nadal; it was the cause of three out of those four Grand Slam misses.
Nadal’s back and wrist have been his latest causes of worry, the latter of which made him pull out of the US Open which happened just a month ago.
Nadal’s style of playing the game is perhaps the biggest reason for his injury problems. He plays a high-octane, no-inch-surrendered brand of tennis that and by doing so, he is destroying his body. To have an injury-free next few years, Nadal might have to adjust his style of play, which is extremely difficult for any player to do, of course. But even if he does adjusts his style of play, winning another Grand Slam would be easier said than done for him.
Nadal is turning 29 next year, and it obviously gets tougher to win a Slam as a player grows older. He has already won 14 Slams at the age of 28, and this is the reason why so many people say that Nadal will surpass Federer’s record. But let me remind you that Roger Federer was 28 when he won his 14th Slam and did not have any injury problems. Still, it took him five years to win three more Slams. This just shows that age is a major factor when it comes to winning at the big stage, and with Nadal’s recurring injuries, it would likely be even harder for him than it was for the Swiss. All these injury problems might even force the Spaniard to consider early retirement.
#2 Roger Federer still has it in him to win more
The next reason as to why I think Nadal will not surpass Federer’s record of Grand Slams is because the Swiss is not even close to being out of the game yet. And with the impressive 2014 season that he’s had, it looks like he has it in him to win at least one, or maybe even a couple more Grand Slams. That would just make the task at hand for Nadal even more hard and complicated than it already is.
Federer is definitely keeping an eye on Nadal’s tally and is going to do all it takes to win big, which would make it tougher for Nadal to catch up to him. The Swiss came painfully close to winning his 18th Slam at this year’s Wimbledon, where he lost to World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, and he was on an excellent run in the US Open where he was stopped by Marin Cilic, the eventual champion, in the semifinals. He did not win a Grand Slam in 2014, but he did win three ATP titles and reached the finals of five others. Federer would sure love to avenge these Slam losses by winning one in 2015, and he will be giving it his all in order to achieve that, since he doesn’t have many days on court left.
#3 The threat of the World No. 1
Thirdly, to win more Grand Slams, Nadal will have to get past World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who is in his prime right now, having reached six out of the last eight Grand Slam finals. As of now, the Serb definitely looks the stronger contender on all surfaces except clay. But over the past few years, Djokovic has also been improving his game on clay, which could be seen in this year’s Roland Garros where he reached the final. Djokovic has also defeated Nadal four times on clay over the years, which means that Nadal will have to work extremely hard to win at the French Open too, which he has been doing quite easily since 2005 except the one in 2009 where the Spaniard lost to Robin Soderling.
Nadal is probably still the strongest contender to lift the French Open, but he will surely have his work cut out going forward. Moreover, because of having the misfortune of playing in an extremely competitive ‘golden’ era, Djokovic has only seven Grand Slams to his name; he will be looking to increase that number and considering the form he has been in for the past few years, we can all expect a lot of big things from the Serb.
Moving on from Djokovic, there exists another big threat – Andy Murray – who even though has had an extremely disappointing season on court, will be looking to spoil Nadal’s quest to surpass the magic number set by Federer.
#4 Challenge of others
The threat of the youngsters is another factor that Nadal will have to overcome. Nadal has been brushed aside at Wimbledon the past three years, by Lukas Rosol in 2012, Steve Darcis in 2013 and 19-year-old Nick Kyrgios this year. Along with them, there are many more, and probably betteryoungsters,looking to make it bigafter so many years of dominance by Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray. These new facesare looking to put an end to this majestic phase set by the Big 4 of tennis.
Stan Wawrinka, although not exactly a youngster,made his mark on the big stage early this year by winning the Australian Open. Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori were absolutely brilliant atthe US Open this year, with the former winning the title. Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov have been causing a lot of problems to the big stars over the past couple of years,and their performances at Wimbledon were exceptional.
A few other notable performances this year include Ernests Gulbis, who defeated Federer atthe French Open and reached the semifinals, David Goffin, a promising youngster who has had a host of good performances and Tomas Berdych, who always poses a threat at some point or the other.Nadal will have his workcut out, when he comes up against these extremely talented players, and do not be surprised if he comes up short against these exciting new(and some, old and experienced) faces in the future.
#5 Prediction
Even though Rafa might not surpass Federer’s record of most Slams, he will definitely go down as one of the best players, or probably the best according to some, to have ever taken the court.
My prediction – Roger Federer will finish his career with 18 Grand Slams, while Nadal will fall short by two, winning a total of 16 Grand Slams.
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