One of my friends is a really big tennis fan. He’s been a fan for way longer than I have, in fact he’s the one that got me into tennis like 3-4 years ago through watching it at his house sometimes. Well he’s always been a huge Rafael Nadal fan. At first I wasn’t a “fan” of really any player, but over the last few years I’ve become a big fan of Djokovic. Basically I just like what he stands for and how much he has overcome.

Well my friend and I play quite a bit of video games together and we will often have lots of off topic discussions while we play. Well after Novak won the ATP Finals yet again, I decided to playfully troll him a little bit about how Djokovic is the undisputed goat now. Wow did I open a can of worms from him. We had to quit playing our game because he became so distracted telling me all the reasons why somehow Nadal is actually better than Djokovic. He says his resume is not better, but he was clearly the better player. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve only been following tennis for a few years, but I thought it was universally accepted that Djokovic is the greatest in history. But somehow he was trying to gaslight me into thinking its really not even close, and I was having trouble coming up with direct rebuttals with what he was saying. To me it’s clear when Djokovic has a winning record over Nadal, so many more weeks at #1, and also more slams. He won’t accept this as undisputable evidence though. He went on and on with various points. Like I said, because I haven’t been a fan for very long and I did not watch their early careers, it was hard for me to come up with a rebuttal to what he was saying. That’s where I’m looking for some help. I ended up telling him we should get back to the game we were playing, but if he texted or emailed me his argument I would be able to refute it after thorough review.

So please help me!!

His first and simple point he kept pressing was that Nadal leads the h2h in grand slams. I had told him that its because they meet so much in the French open and that was the only reason. He then told me that reason was hogwash because they’ve met in a record 9 grand slam finals, and over half of them were on hardcourts and yet Nadal still has a winning record. I didn’t know offhand if this was even true, but after some research I believe it is. What is a good way to respond to this because he claims that it’s proof that the French Open isn’t the only reason Nadal has a winning record in grand slams.

The other thing he kept saying is that Nadal was twice the player Novak was when they were in their primes. He says that every historical great tennis player won the majority, if not all, of their slams before turning 28 years old. He says its undisputable that human beings play their best tennis before turning 28. He named a bunch of players for example but the ones I recall were Pete Samprass, Bjorn Borg, and McEnroe (and Nadal and Federer). He dared me to name a single all time great who won the majority of their slams after turning 28 other than Djokovic. He says Djokovic “only” won 6 slams before 28 years old, and he won 18 afterwards and somehow that is proof that Nadal was a better player in his prime because Nadal won most his slams before 28 like everyone else. I said that just means Djokovic is an exception and he is playing his best tennis in his 30’s. He says that isn’t possible and that Djokovic was a better player in his mid 20’s than now, he is only winning more slams now because Nadal and Federer and past their primes and Djokovic’s competition is at an all time low.

And on a similar note he claims Nadal and Djokovic are only 1 year apart, but Nadal was able to take 10 slams while Federer was in his 20’s and Djokovic was only able to win 3. He says Nadal winning 3x the amount of slams during Federer’s twenties proves he was greater in his prime than Novak. He kept annoyingly laughing at the fact that Novak “had to wait” until Federer was in his 30’s to win 21 of his slams. I tried telling him again that Novak was not in his prime in his twenties like Nadal. If he wants to compare Novak’s prime to Nadal’s prime he has to look at Novak after 28 years old, not before. I’m correct on this right? Novak hit peak performance later in life, it doesn’t matter if other players peak before 28 there isn’t a concrete rule on when a player plays their best tennis.

OH MY GOSH this part wasn’t even part of our conversation, but in his email he bombarded me with win loss records that he is trying to make relevant. Please help me explain to him why they aren’t relevant to a goat discussion.

He says Novak Djokovic’s record vs the Big 3 in grand slams is 18-17, meanwhile Nadal’s record vs the Big 3 is 21-11. Somehow this is undisputable proof that among the Big 3 Nadal was the best. Again, I think its skewed because of clay but I guess he already expected me to respond with that because he said Nadal’s record vs the Big 3 in slam tournaments, even if you take out the French Open, is 7-9. Meanwhile Djokovic’s record vs the Big 3 in slams, after taking out the Australian Open, is 12-16. He says 7-9 is better than 12-16. He also says that it wouldn’t matter even if his record was worse without French open because clay is just as legitimate of a surface as hard courts, and that Djokovic is very fortunate two slams are on hardcourt instead of 2 on clay otherwise no person in the world would even debate the topic of goat. To me hardcourt is more legitimate of a surface because most of the tour is on hardcourt and thus hard court should be considered with more weight in any debate on greatness.

He claims Nadal has a 69.2% win percentage in grand slam matches against players that have been ranked #1 in the world. He compared that to Djokovic only having a 59% winning percentage.

He claims Nadal has a 70.8% win percentage in slam matches vs players who have won a slam before. He compared that to Djokovic only having a 63.1% winning percentage. He says I can’t claim clay is the reason because Djokovic is the greatest hard court player of all time, so if anything his winning % should be skewed because he’s the goat of hard court and gets to play half the slams on his kingdom.

How do I even verify that he’s not making up these win percentages? I can’t type into google “Djokovic win percentage in slam matches vs grand slam winners only” nothing shows up.

Apparently its not just slam matches either. I guess Nadal supposedly has a better win % vs former #1 ranked players in all matches. And also has a better win % vs grand slam winners. The disparity is pretty close though when looking at all matches.

TLDR: What is the best way to pretty much rebut these stupid reasons as to why Nadal is greater? He say’s I cant come up with a legitimate rebuttal other than 24>22 and Weeks at #1. So is there anyone way more knowledgeable about professional tennis than me that can make me look smart in my response to him. I don’t expect anyone to write an essay out like he did, but if you could directly rebut some of his claims that would be great.