Capturing his 16th Grand Slam championship at the US Open Rafael Nadal enjoyed one of the easiest paths to a Grand Slam title in years.
The 31-year-old Spaniard did not face a Top 20 opponent en route to his third US Open championship.
Moya: Nadal Has Years Ahead At Top
Nadal became the first man since Pete Sampras at the 2000 Wimbledon to master a major without playing a Top 20 opponent as the Flushing Meadows draw was decimated by the withdrawals of reigning champion Stan Wawrinka, 2016 finalist Novak Djokovic, 2012 champion Andy Murray, former finalist Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic.
While the world No. 1 trails 19-time Grand Slam king Roger Federer in the all-time major race, a new statistical analysis by The Economist makes a case for the King of Clay as the Greatest of All Time right now.
Comparing the degree of difficulty in the major title runs of Federer and Nadal, The Economist concludes Nadal has conquered tougher opposition claiming his 16 Grand Slam titles.
Read The Economist report here.
“At majors, (Nadal) has faced the other three members of the Big Four 13 percent of the time, and won a remarkable 74 percent of those meetings,” the magazine reports. “In contrast, Federer has played his Big Four peers in just 9 percent of his Grand-Slam matches, and won only 42 percent of them.”
The magazine applies a rating system “that assesses a player’s strength based on his won-lost record and the quality of his opponents—to measure the skill of an average major champion.” That ratings system was then used to estimate the probability of each man defeating opponents his rival faced winning major titles.
Let’s not forget about Novak Djokovic’s potential to reventually rule the GOAT race.
The 12-time Grand Slam champion boasts winning records against both Nadal (26-24) and Federer (23-22) as well as a 25 to 11 lead over Andy Murray in their head-to-head series.
Additionally, when it comes to winning what the ATP defines as “Big Titles”—Grand Slams, Masters 1000 and ATP World Tour Finals championships—Djokovic owns 47 Big Titles, four behind all-time leader Federer.
The ATP reports Djokovic has the best Big Titles conversion rate, winning one for every 3.4 tournaments played, which is slightly ahead of Nadal.