Rafael Nadal's 6-1, 6-3 victory over Andreas Seppi at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on Thursday marks the Spaniard's 300th career clay-court win. Only ten players in the history of tennis have earned more wins on the surface than Nadal, but that could change by Saturday, as the 27-year-old is set to pass Jose-Luis Clerc to move into tenth all time if he reaches the final in the Principality.
When it comes to winning percentage on the surface, however, nobody can compare with the king of clay. Nadal's .935 winning percentage on the dirt blows the competition out of the water. Only two other players in history have amassed a winning percentage above .800 (Borg, .863 and Lendl, .814).
Among active players, Novak Djokovic (.774) and Roger Federer (.766) are the closest to Nadal.
Even scarier--and more impressive--is the fact that Nadal has only lost 11 matches on the surface since 2005. This, from ATP stats guru Greg Sharko:
"Since 2005, Nadal has compiled a 275-11 clay-court record (.961) on the ATP World Tour, never losing more than two matches in a season during that stretch."
Here's a look at the top twelve clay-court win leaders in tennis history:
|
Rank
|
Player
|
W-L
|
W PCT
|
Titles
|
|
1
|
Guillermo Vilas
|
644-163
|
.798
|
46
|
|
2
|
Manuel Orantes
|
489-147
|
.769
|
30
|
|
3
|
Thomas Muster
|
422-127
|
.769
|
40
|
|
4
|
Jose Higueras
|
376-164
|
.696
|
15
|
|
5
|
Eddie Dibbs
|
368-127
|
.743
|
14
|
|
6
|
Carlos Moya
|
337-143
|
.702
|
16
|
|
7
|
Ivan Lendl
|
329-75
|
.814
|
28
|
|
8
|
Ilie Nastase
|
327-96
|
.773
|
27
|
|
9
|
Andres Gomez
|
322-138
|
.700
|
16
|
|
10
|
Jose-Luis Clerc
|
301-88
|
.774
|
21
|
|
11
|
Rafael Nadal
|
300-21
|
.935
|
43
|
|
12
|
Emilio Sanchez
|
298-169
|
.638
|
13
|
Nadal will face either Grigor Dimitrov or David Ferrer in Friday's semifinal in Monte-Carlo.