[The Federest]

In 2011, Novak entered his prime and began a domination of the tour that has continued to this day (with a few lapses and performance troughs along the way).

I've been looking at the records of Roger and Rafa against Novak since 2011 and was rather surprised by a few of the stats that emerged:

a) In terms of H2H matches since 2011, Novak is leading Rafa 22-10, whereas he's only leading Roger 21-10. (I'm following the standard practice of not counting walkovers. If you add in the one w/o, then the records are identical at 22-10.) What's surprising here is not just that Roger has a better record, but that he has met Novak pretty much the same number of times.

b) In terms of H2H sets since 2011, Novak is leading Rafa 57-33 and leading Roger 54-37. As such, Rafa wins 37% of sets against Novak, whereas Roger wins 41%.

c) Breaking down the Novak-Rafa rivalry into clay and non-clay since 2011, we see that Novak has won 37 sets to Rafa's 13 off clay. Perhaps no surprise there. But on clay, the record is 20-20 in terms of sets won!!

d) In terms of clay matches, Rafa leads Novak 8-7. Strange how Rafa's clay dominance does not translate into the H2H.

It's certainly been Novak's decade. What is strange is that arguably his most consistent rival during this period has been a guy who was 29 when the period of domination began and who had won his first slam 7.5 years before the period of domination began.

 

[Servebots=GOAT]

Even so, Federer has had Djokovic on the ropes many times but Novak’s physical advantage in terms of stamina and things like that usually got him the win in the end along with a few Federer chokes here and there. Djokovic is a bad matchup for Dull due to Djokovic having no trouble with Dull’s moon balls and consistently taking time away from him.

 

[Budadiii]

ya but not at slams

 

[Phillo]

In 2011, Novak entered his prime and began a domination of the tour that has continued to this day (with a few lapses and performance troughs along the way).

I've been looking at the records of Roger and Rafa against Novak since 2011 and was rather surprised by a few of the stats that emerged:

a) In terms of H2H matches since 2011, Novak is leading Rafa 22-10, whereas he's only leading Roger 21-10. (I'm following the standard practice of not counting walkovers. If you add in the one w/o, then the records are identical at 22-10.) What's surprising here is not just that Roger has a better record, but that he has met Novak pretty much the same number of times.

b) In terms of H2H sets since 2011, Novak is leading Rafa 57-33 and leading Roger 54-37. As such, Rafa wins 37% of sets against Novak, whereas Roger wins 41%.

c) Breaking down the Novak-Rafa rivalry into clay and non-clay since 2011, we see that Novak has won 37 sets to Rafa's 13 off clay. Perhaps no surprise there. But on clay, the record is 20-20 in terms of sets won!!

d) In terms of clay matches, Rafa leads Novak 8-7. Strange how Rafa's clay dominance does not translate into the H2H.

It's certainly been Novak's decade. What is strange is that arguably his most consistent rival during this period has been a guy who was 29 when the period of domination began and who had won his first slam 7.5 years before the period of domination began.

Wonder what our resident 'expert', BSaIot has to spin about CIaybot's CIay sets stats vs Serb.

 

[FedFan10]

Federer has the game for Djokovic. He always had it, but Djokovic has slowly built this mental edge over the years and it started at USO 2010 and 11.Sometimes it's not the losses, but how you actually lose. I think Federer would have had 5,6 wins more over Djokovic if he hadn't fucked up those match points at USO. As I said, that match in 2010 was a horrible way to lose. You just cant not think about that the next time you play the guy.

On the other hand, Federer did win some of these matches in 2 sets after 2012, but lets face it, one of the reasons he lost too much to Djoko is that he doesnt actually believe that he can do it in 5 sets which was ofc way different in 2011 say when he stopped that riddicoulous run at 2011 RG.

 

[bbcbbc]

If Novak didn’t carelessly tank games to save energy, he would’ve won US Open 2011 and Wimbledon 2019 easily. Plus, he turned into a sloppy server until the last year.

 

[Big_Juicy]

Roger’s game of keeping rallies short with a lot of variety, did give Novak more problems. Added to this if he had a real good serving day, Djokovic would have trouble finding his rhythm. Younger Djokovic was also not as patient and would hit the panic button too soon. But, as has been mentioned here, that all changed once’s their mental belief did, and as Novak matured more as a player he has learned to deal with adversity much, much better.

 

[-Dominator-]

Well, every local taxi driving WC does better against Djokovic than Nadal. :lol:

 

[Virtualmorpher]

Maybe I'm just dense, but the statistics in the OP seem virtually identical, i.e. Federer doesn't fare THAT much better against Djokovic than Nadal and vice versa. The differences seem small enough that I would treat them as equal.

 

[The Federest]

Maybe I'm just dense, but the statistics in the OP seem virtually identical, i.e. Federer doesn't fare THAT much better against Djokovic than Nadal and vice versa. The differences seem small enough that I would treat them as equal.

The clue to what makes the stats noteworthy is in the title: not Federer, but Olderer.

When this period began, Federer was 29 (already past his prime) and Novak was 23 (just entering his prime). By contrast, Rafa was 24!

It's odd for that reason that Federer would have a better record than Rafa against Djokovic over that period, when Federer was past his prime for the entirety of the period.

 

[Tsitsi-Fly]

Nadal actually beat Djoke in 4 Grand Slam Finals, so no, there is no comparison really!

 

[Jolyon]

Meh.

You have to go back to almost 8 years, 2012 Wimbledon, the last time Federer defeated Djokovic at a grand slam. As we speak, Rafa will for sure beat Djokovic at Roland Garros. I think Rafa will also give a run for Djoker's money at Wimbledon and US Open. In short, Rafa still has a legitimate shot to beat Djokovic at 3 of the 4 majors. The same can't be said of Federer since he can't beat Djokovic at any of the 4 grand slams. That ship has sailed for Federer, in the context of grand slams.

 

[Darth Vaderer]

If we do a match point conversion analysis for both Rogie and Rafa against Nole, what do the stats tell us?

 

[The Federest]

If we do a match point conversion analysis for both Rogie and Rafa against Nole, what do the stats tell us?

Your slip is showing.

 

[The Federest]

Meh.

You have to go back to almost 8 years, 2012 Wimbledon, the last time Federer defeated Djokovic at a grand slam. As we speak, Rafa will for sure beat Djokovic at Roland Garros. I think Rafa will also give a run for Djoker's money at Wimbledon and US Open. In short, Rafa still has a legitimate shot to beat Djokovic at 3 of the 4 majors. The same can't be said of Federer since he can't beat Djokovic at any of the 4 grand slams. That ship has sailed for Federer, in the context of grand slams.

That doesn't make sense. The last time Rafa beat Novak at a slam was 2014 (!), when Rafa had just turned 29.

In other words, after the age of 29, Fed has beaten Novak twice in slams. But after the age of 29, Rafa has never beaten Novak in a slam. And now suddenly he's going to start beating him on all surfaces?

Moreover, of Rafa's 4 slam wins against Novak since 2011, three were at RG. That hardly indicates that Rafa will now start beating Novak on all surfaces.

Rafa and Novak are basically the same age, and Rafa hasn't beaten him at a slam since 2014. Since then, their H2H has only got more and more lopsided (10-3 to Novak, with all 3 of Rafa's victories coming on clay.)

 

[bighax]

Federer is actually a very bad matchup for Djokovic. I think it's pretty much pure mentality with which Novak conquers Rogie.

 

[NADALalot]

Rafa has lost a lot more physically than Federer has.
Look at the difference in foot speed between Rafa 2010 and Rafa 2020, its absurd how much slower Rafa is today.
Whereas the difference in foot speed between Federer 2010 and Federer 2020, is often not even noticeable.
Because Rafa-Djokovic is full of the most physical baseline exchanges, Rafa needs that foot speed.

Although, Rafa has won his last 3 claycourt meetings with Djokovic, so Rafa's genius is still enough on clay-
2017 Madrid = Nadal 62 64
2018 Rome = Nadal 76(4) 63
2019 Rome = Nadal 60 46 61

And Djokovic needed 5 sets to beat Rafa at Wimbledon 2018.....
Do even though Djokovic has the physical edge in recent years, Rafa's genius is still enough to overcome that.
An issue that gives Djokovic the edge on hardcourt, is Moya's choice to flatten-out Rafa's groundstrokes.
Djokovic likes to use the pace, so Rafa would have been better off mixing it up with spin and slice (exactly what Federer does).

 

[NADALalot]

Anyway, Rafa has won 2 of the last 3 US Opens, and would probably have won 2018 US Open too if not for injury.
So Djokovic doesn't have much to show for his 'decade', and that is why he's still 2 slams behind Rafa, and no sign of Djokovic getting any closer than that....
Its been Rafa's decade at the US Open and Roland Garros, and that trend will continue into the next decade.

 

[Manu_ser]

Federer is actually a very bad matchup for Djokovic. I think it's pretty much pure mentality with which Novak conquers Rogie.

Agree, he has two things that really bother Novak: great serve and ability to break rhythm, if Roger was a mental giant he would have US Open 2015 + Wimbledon 2019 in the bag.

 

[The Federest]

Agree, he has two things that really bother Novak: great serve and ability to break rhythm, if Roger was a mental giant he would have US Open 2015 + Wimbledon 2019 in the bag.

It's funny how short people's memories are. Federer developed the ability to break rhythm specifically in response to Novak's game.

If Fed's game was naturally a good match for Novak's, he wouldn't have felt the need to change it. Novak certainly never changed his game to compete with Roger.