Is Nadal the best men's player in history ?

This year’s season has begun with the Australian Open and inevitably the burning question of “Who is the best” is bound to come up.

I will go through the my analysis in phases and we will see who is the winner in each and try to come up with an overall leader. Let me remind you that although the analysis are based on hard facts, the conjectures are open to debate.

For my Analysis, I have considered the cutoff for players as seven Slam wins. This leaves us with nine players, namely

(1) Roger Federer

(2) Pete Sampras

(3) Bjorn Borg

(4) Rafael Nadal

(5) Jimmy Connors

(6) Ivan Lendl

(7) Andre Agassi

(8) John McEnroe

(9) Mats Wilander

All my Analysis is based on the above players reaching the finals of a Slam. I haven’t considered the career records but the emphasis is on their performance in Grand Slams and particularly in the finals. The reason for doing this is that we get a good idea of the competition looking at the finals record as the best players are bound to reach there. This also allows for comparison of a player based on performances in his own era but the benchmark is across era’s.

Phase 1:

This is the simplest criteria to judge the greatest players ever. Who has won the most is the best.

Player	Grandslam Wins
Roger Federer	16
Pete Sampras	14
Bjorn Borg	11
Rafael Nadal	10
Jimmy Connors	8
Ivan Lendl	8
Andre Agassi	8
John McEnroe	7
Mats Wilander	7

We have a clear winner here with Federer winning 16 followed by Sampras and Bjorg.

Phase 2:

The second criteria I have considered is the Win Loss ratio in the finals.

Player	Grandslam Wins	W-L	Winning %
Roger Federer	16	16-7	0.70%
Pete Sampras	14	14-4	0.78%
Bjorn Borg	11	11-5	0.69%
Rafael Nadal	10	10-4	0.71%
Jimmy Connors	8	8-7	0.53%
Ivan Lendl	8	8-11	0.42%
Andre Agassi	8	8-7	0.53%
John McEnroe	7	7-4	0.64%
Mats Wilander	7	7-4	0.64%

From the above table you can clearly see Sampras has a better record of winning on reaching the finals. He is followed by Nadal and then Federer.

Phase 3:

Player	Grandslam Wins	Opposition Wins	Winning Ratio
Roger Federer	16	40	2.5
Pete Sampras	14	48	3.4
Bjorn Borg	11	44	4.0
Rafael Nadal	10	100	10.0
Jimmy Connors	8	53	6.6
Ivan Lendl	8	34	4.3
Andre Agassi	8	18	2.3
John McEnroe	7	50	7.1
Mats Wilander	7	29	4.1

This table may not make much sense at first look but it forms the basis of my analysis. The column ‘Opposition wins’ is basically the sum of the number of Slams which each opponent of a particular player has won.

For example, Nadal has won 10. In these six are against Federer and one is against Djokovic and the other three are against Mariano Puerta, Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych. Since Federer has won 16 and Djoker four, this column for Nadal would be 16*6 + 4 which is 100.

The Winning Ratio tells you the average number of Slams an opponent has won. Basically, the higher the average, more tougher would have been the opposition for that particular player.

Phase 4:

Doing a similar Analysis when a Player loses a final gives,

Player	Grandslam Losses	Opposition Wins	Losing Ratio
Roger Federer	7	61	8.7
Pete Sampras	4	18	4.5
Bjorn Borg	5	37	7.4
Rafael Nadal	4	36	9.0
Jimmy Connors	7	42	6.0
Ivan Lendl	11	74	6.7
Andre Agassi	7	77	11.0
John McEnroe	4	35	8.8
Mats Wilander	4	23	5.8

Phase 5:

We have come to the end of our Analysis, the final table is below.

Player	W-L	Winning %	Winning Ratio	Losing Ratio	Overall Multiple
Roger Federer	16-7	0.70	2.5	8.7	4.39
Pete Sampras	14-4	0.78	3.4	4.5	3.67
Bjorn Borg	11-5	0.69	4.0	7.4	5.06
Rafael Nadal	10-4	0.71	10.0	9.0	9.71
Jimmy Connors	8-7	0.53	6.6	6.0	6.33
Ivan Lendl	8-11	0.42	4.3	6.7	5.68
Andre Agassi	8-7	0.53	2.3	11.0	6.33
John McEnroe	7-4	0.64	7.1	8.8	7.73
Mats Wilander	7-4	0.64	4.1	5.8	4.73

In this particular table I have tried to combine the two multiples viz. Winning and Losing Ratio into one common multiple. The formula used is

Overall Multiple = (Winning Ratio*Winning %) + (Losing Ratio*(1-Winning %))

The results tell you that Rafa is the best followed by John McEnroe and then Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors. The reason for Rafa having such a high multiple is because of his multiple meetings with Federer in the finals of Slams. He has a 6-2 record against him which has pushed his multiple skywards. The same reason could be attributed for McEnroe also. His record with Bjorn Borg, winner of 11 Slams is 3-1.

This Analysis just shows the kind of competition a player had to face in his era. Its emphasis on the opponents statistics has led to interesting results. What the analysis misses is a way to eliminate the rivalry accept like that of Federer-Nadal or McEnroe-Borg but then again it’s not Nadal’s mistake that Federer had this mental block for him. Every final the two played, Federer had an equal chance of winning and it’s also tough to quantify a psychological factor.

This just shows that when you dig up more data and go for a more comprehensive outlook, even the best players will be overlooked. With all due respect to Federer and Sampras, maybe they had it easy in the finals. Nevertheless the debate is still open and I would welcome suggestions to improve this analysis or maybe a different interpretation of the same numbers.