After a magnificent victory against Novak Djokovic, ending the match in the 4th set when the tennis-viewing audience would bet against him in a 5 setter, Roger Federer was the story of this year’s Roland Garros despite losing in the final to Rafael Nadal. Federer ended Djokovic’s 43 match winning streak. Though we stuck a fork in Federer’s future slam chances last year when he lost in the US Open semifinals in a grinding 5-setter to Djokovic ( a match as pivotal to Djokovic as Lendl’s French Open victory against McEnroe was) we aren’t surprised to see Federer reach another slam final. Federer beat a competitive field and had the most difficult draw in the tourney.
Not to be undone, the 25 year old Rafael Nadal won his 6th French Open championship equaling the iconic Bjorn Borg. Nadal and Borg are European twins with equally haughty won-loss records against the field of 82.6%. Much of their damage was done on clay. Nadal has eclipsed Borg with a career grand slam. He is one of only 5 modern era champs to win slams on 3 surfaces including Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Mats Wilander. What makes Nadal’s record more impressive than Federer’s is that he beat Federer on all surfaces in the finals of the slams they played.
Last year we gave our reasons for Federer’s fade: (1) He needs too many winners against a player like Nadal to be competitive, (2) He can be outlasted in a tourney and by the semi-finals or finals is out of gas i.e French Open final set, (3) He doesn’t have a major-league fastball serve like Sampras that gets him many easy points, important as you get older. LZ Granderson from ESPN gave all the reasons Federer is not the greatest in agreement with our prior arguments but also described why Federer would lose to Nadal in Paris. Greg Garber from ESPN has jumped on the bandwagon as well with Tim Joyce of Realclear Sports. Is it much longer for Peter Bodo to acquiesce?
When we look at historical tennis data, we begin to conclude that Nadal is near the end of a remarkable story arc as well.
What has been Nadal’s story arc? Like fellow all-time greats: Borg, Becker, Sampras and Wilander, his championship play manifested itself as a teen winning his first French Open at 19 after thoroughly dominating the South American clay tour. Later he moved onto the finals of Wimbledon at 21 years of age. Like every other left hander to reach the finals at a young age(McEnroe, Ivanisevic), he went on to win the championships and a total of 10 grand slams with this year’s French Open compiling an astounding 47-17 won-loss record in pro finals again rivaling Borg’s final percentage.
So the question remains how much gas do either have in the tank? Is there data in tennis history that is relevant to answering the question? If Federer is going strong near 30 years old, why shouldn’t Nadal?
Grand Slam Championships by Age – One Handed Backhand strokers.
So what does tennis look like for All Time Great (ATG) Slam champions after 25. First let’s talk about the data. We have compiled data since the Open era began for all tennis champions. Eliminating the Rosewall and Laver data due to the “Dream Team” affect i.e. pros playing against amateurs we come up with a data set that shows a typical age range for people to win Grand Slams is from age 17 to 32 or about 15 years. More dramatically we see that with the exception of Connors and Agassi, most two handed all time greats end their championship runs around 25 years of age. We see the limit on one handed backhand hitters winning slams as 31 years of age.
Ultimately, the test of aging in the grand slams is whether you can win 7 matches and up to 35 sets in 14 days in terrible heat and other conditions against opponents 5-10 years younger than you. Sampras had the benefit of easy points from one of the best first serves tennis has seen and certainly the best second serve far faster than Federer’s with as much disguise. Its not about the aces as much as the unreturnable serves or easy setups for putaway volleys.
Grand Slam Championships by Age – Two Handed Backhand strokers.
Data on Connors and Agassi winning post 25 should be taken with a grain of salt. Connor’s 2 of 3 slams post 26 years of age benefitted from draws where Ivan Lendl eliminated McEnroe prior to a finals match with Connors as well as Borg’s sudden early retirement i.e would Connors win a tourney with semifinalists Borg, Lendl and McEnroe, instead of Bill Scanlon? All of Connors victories over Lendl were before Lendl’s career-defining victory over McEnroe at the French Open.
Whose Head is Bigger?
Agassi’s admission of Performance Enhancing Drug(PED) usage in his autobiography casts a huge red flag over Agassi‘s THREE slams at the age of 29. At 28 and 29 Lendl, Sampras and Federer, perhaps the fittest players ever to play tennis limped into the final years of their careers having problems lasting through the later rounds. With a career decline far worse than Roger Clemens as a Red Sox, Agassi emerged with 10 pounds of additional muscle and endurance better than the fittest players in tennis history. Things that make you go hmmm.
Regardless, Nadal is a different style player than Connors and Agassi as he has relied on defense far more in his career whereas Connors and Agassi dictated the pace of their play throughout their careers. We have concluded that this is the last year or two of Nadal’s challenging for slam championships. This is based on a few changes in the tennis environment and Nadal’s aging.
- Nadal is losing to Djokovic on all surfaces and Del Potro has returned to tennis which will threaten Nadal on harder / faster surfaces.
- Nadal has shown that he is vulnerable on clay to flat ball hitters like Djokovic. And now Tsonga on grass.
- Nadal’s game more resembles Borg where he is opportunistic rather than Connors or Agassi where they forced play. That is a harder game to maintain as you age per Borg and Wilander (Chang, Hewitt, etc).
Though Nadal is a different type of physical specimen than tennis has seen with Popeye musculature, a boxer’s gait and a peculiar penchant to adjust his shorts on every serve, we think this may only buy him an additional year of challenging for slams. Do we favor Rafa to win Wimbledon this year? Yes, but we won’t be surprised if he loses either. The US Open will depend on the draw, where DelPo and Andy Murray land and if Djokovic can find his form again by the US Open.
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