In general, Roger would opt for strategic breaks in a set, he would not fight for every game like Nadal does. Of course, there were exceptions where he would just remain on God mode throughout the match.
Let's not forget that Roger isn't the same level returner as Novak or Rafa or Andre - he simply doesn't break as often and so opponents get more service holds. If you want to let up the least games, you need to be breaking all the time.
I won't go as far as "that's his strategy" because I'm quite sure he'd take a 6-0, 6-0 win if it were on the table (as he did to Gaston Gaudio at the masters cup that year - poor guy)
Partially just a quirk of the specific way they’re defining “most dominant runs”
Alternatively, you could look at Grand Slams won without losing a set and you would see that Roger’s done that twice (07 AO and 17Wimbledon)
Man, rafa on clay is still dominance beyond belief. The French open always had the most upsets and random winners. Lately, it's been the most predictable, with the us open being the crapshoot slam.
35 games lost in 21 (20.5 sets to be accurate) sets en route to a major title
That's just beyond outrageous.
I mean really, think about that. That means a 6-2 set was longer than the average set he played lmao ...
This stat doesn't have the same weight on slow and fast surfaces, because fasters surfaces favour serve more, and it's much harder to break opponent, even if you are clearly a better player. So you can't have so many dominant sets with losing 0, 1 or 2 games, as you can on clay.
You can't call dominant performance on GS just using lost games. It's like using number of aces as a metric for best serving performance. It's obvious what in that case Wimbledon would be favoured more.
Being dominant on RG, Wimb. or hard court are completely three different things and can't be observed in the same way.
Agassi’s record at the Australian Open might low key be the most impressive one on the list for this reason.
Though I suppose looking at the hold rate for each tournament would be necessary to say for sure.
I didn't say anything against Nadal. Just that this stat is not good representation for all courts combined. It favours slower once, for obvious reasons.
He is great at every aspect of the game, that's what makes him one of the GOATs. But Novak is the greatest returner of all time, and Rafa and Andre are surely amongst the top 5. That's why they can win matches with minimal games lost when they are steamrolling the competition.
Stats wise (going off just this era not going back super far because that would take too long to confirm), Novak is the greatest returner of all time, followed by...Diego Schwartzman, then Rafa.
Novak and Diego trade the top spot depending on the season but it's usually Novak (this season was a comfortable Novak win, Diego wasn't doing hot).
Diego just doesn't stand out more because his serve *really* sucks. Like it sucks enough that the man has to literally be good enough at returning to trade blows with Novak to be in the top 20 (and crack top 10 once).
https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/y063vg/occasionally_i_just_like_to_look_at_this/
His match stats tend to be on the absurd side because of that lmao
Rafa is not nearly as good a returner as guys like Novak and Andy. But once he gets the ball in play, he's in control against all but a few great players. That's why he got a great return game %.
That and clay. I don't mean to dismiss Rafa when I say this, just that he's *so good* on clay that a lot of his overall stats go up based on that. The ATP website is really good at breaking stats down by surface and it's a wonderful timesink.
But yeah even without clay Rafa is just really solid at just powering through rallies. If he gets the ball back, he can construct a point from a losing position through sheer grit and buggy whips, the man is insane.
True. 2013 Rafa is still my favourite version of his. He was the best player on hard courts that year. A lot of it carried over into 2014, and he made the AO final, but then the back injury was the beginning of the end until he came back in 2017.
Yes but Federer has a better serve and it's in my opinion the greatest shotmaker in history. The combination of him hitting aces and hitting winners from anywhere should allow him to be on this list.
Your serve will only win you half the games in the set. If you want to limit the number of games your opponent wins, you'll have to break their serve. Rafa didn't get broken even once in 2017 iirc. The serve would be irrelevant in this case.
Federer might not be as good returner but he is still top 10 for me, just look at this return
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcvLbtaNxM
In my opinion, this is the best return ever made, no other player in history apart from Roger could've made it.
Ye relative to chumps but relative to the Goat returners like Murray-Agassi Nadal and Djoko he is not on their level of returning. The stats show this clearly.
This metric favors good returners because they break serve more. whereas good servers don't break as much but they cruise through their service games without being touched. This metric doesn't show that. Fed for example would Cruise along and then all of a sudden be interested in the return game at 3-4 or 4-4 then he would pounce and the set was done. I think a better metric would be sets dropped.
Very surprised Nadal's 13 USO is here. That's easily the most surprising one on the list.
After witnessing the 08 massacre that was Nadal's FO win, it is stunning that he was even able to come close to that again, let alone improve on it.
In addition to USO'13, Rafa also lost only one set in the entire tournament at USO'10, to Novak in the final. He's very dominant in USO when he's healthy and in-form.
That's true. However, it's worth noting that if you assume no lost sets (given the level of dominance) and that third sets would look like the first two, she'd be at 1.5*34 = 51, which is still good for fourth on this list.
Not surprised Nadal at the French Open is pure domination
What's most surprising is Agassi losing less than 50 games in AO '03. He lost only one set in the tournament and was very dominant throughout.
And Nadal is on this list yet again for his US Open 2013 win on hard courts. Incredible versatility.
35 games lost is an average of 5 games per match. That's like winning every match to a GS Title by a score of 6-2 6-2 6-1.
Holy shit
Say a prayer for Basilashvili who won 1 game in the 3R (6-0 6-1 6-0) when Nadal was en route to the 2017 title.
That's brutal. Imagine how he felt after that match. Might as well have stood to the side and would have won just one game less.
that's like the score line between coach and student... nadal should really charge poor basi for the clinic hitting
I'm surprised that Rafa '17 beats all the other Rafas
Tbf the 08 draw was a lot harder
17-22 is kind of a weak era relative to what was before - obviously.
'17 was a very weird year, two absolute best players from the year before were completely gone
tbh it's very easy to guess edit: and i'm surprised Roger isnt there even once, wudve imagined he'd be there
also to consider there's no wimbledon runs there (Roger's best slam), likely because it's easier to hold on that surface
In general, Roger would opt for strategic breaks in a set, he would not fight for every game like Nadal does. Of course, there were exceptions where he would just remain on God mode throughout the match.
Let's not forget that Roger isn't the same level returner as Novak or Rafa or Andre - he simply doesn't break as often and so opponents get more service holds. If you want to let up the least games, you need to be breaking all the time. I won't go as far as "that's his strategy" because I'm quite sure he'd take a 6-0, 6-0 win if it were on the table (as he did to Gaston Gaudio at the masters cup that year - poor guy)
Also 6-0 6-0 againsf older Zverev (on grass even)
Much harder to lose so few games on hard or grass. Opponent can hold serve more easily. They got nowhere to hide on clay.
Not really, Fed would always aim win to 6-4 6-4 6-4, which is efficient in a way (and it showed in the sense that he would barely look tired).
Partially just a quirk of the specific way they’re defining “most dominant runs” Alternatively, you could look at Grand Slams won without losing a set and you would see that Roger’s done that twice (07 AO and 17Wimbledon)
I think 2008 is more dominant. If I remember correctly there was a retirement in 2017 against Nadal in the quarter finals?
Also the fact he beat federer for the loss of 4 games in the final
Man, rafa on clay is still dominance beyond belief. The French open always had the most upsets and random winners. Lately, it's been the most predictable, with the us open being the crapshoot slam.
35 games lost in 21 (20.5 sets to be accurate) sets en route to a major title That's just beyond outrageous. I mean really, think about that. That means a 6-2 set was longer than the average set he played lmao ...
I’m surprised Nadal’s USO 13 is on here and not his USO 10
Me too. Without looking it up, I would never have guessed he lost less games in 13 than in 10. He seemed so dominant in 10, especially on serve.
Where did you get these stats from? This is cool!
The data is from UTS, the rest I made myself!
This stat doesn't have the same weight on slow and fast surfaces, because fasters surfaces favour serve more, and it's much harder to break opponent, even if you are clearly a better player. So you can't have so many dominant sets with losing 0, 1 or 2 games, as you can on clay. You can't call dominant performance on GS just using lost games. It's like using number of aces as a metric for best serving performance. It's obvious what in that case Wimbledon would be favoured more. Being dominant on RG, Wimb. or hard court are completely three different things and can't be observed in the same way.
Agassi’s record at the Australian Open might low key be the most impressive one on the list for this reason. Though I suppose looking at the hold rate for each tournament would be necessary to say for sure.
Nadal is literally on this list multiple times, including for both clay (French Open) and US Open (hard courts).
I didn't say anything against Nadal. Just that this stat is not good representation for all courts combined. It favours slower once, for obvious reasons.
Only 35 Games lost?? Djokovic lost 36 games in the 2019 Wimbledon Final alone that he actually won!
Expected to see Daniil here since he only dropped 1 set, but he still lost 70 games. Really puts into perspective how dominant these guys are
Imagine if the swap between clay and hard courts never happened!!
Anyone else surprised Rafa is on there for US Open as well? So much for clay court specialist...
Nadal hasn't been a clay court specialist for like 15 years.
Federer?
Won Wimbledon '17 without losing a set, but didn't crack the top ten in terms of games lost.
Weird, he is such a good serve so it's weird that he is not here.
Someone with exceptional returning ability like Novak, Rafa or Andre would be more likely to bagel or breadstick their opponents.
Federer is a great returner, he just sucks at break points
He is great at every aspect of the game, that's what makes him one of the GOATs. But Novak is the greatest returner of all time, and Rafa and Andre are surely amongst the top 5. That's why they can win matches with minimal games lost when they are steamrolling the competition.
Stats wise (going off just this era not going back super far because that would take too long to confirm), Novak is the greatest returner of all time, followed by...Diego Schwartzman, then Rafa. Novak and Diego trade the top spot depending on the season but it's usually Novak (this season was a comfortable Novak win, Diego wasn't doing hot). Diego just doesn't stand out more because his serve *really* sucks. Like it sucks enough that the man has to literally be good enough at returning to trade blows with Novak to be in the top 20 (and crack top 10 once). https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/y063vg/occasionally_i_just_like_to_look_at_this/ His match stats tend to be on the absurd side because of that lmao
Rafa is not nearly as good a returner as guys like Novak and Andy. But once he gets the ball in play, he's in control against all but a few great players. That's why he got a great return game %.
That and clay. I don't mean to dismiss Rafa when I say this, just that he's *so good* on clay that a lot of his overall stats go up based on that. The ATP website is really good at breaking stats down by surface and it's a wonderful timesink. But yeah even without clay Rafa is just really solid at just powering through rallies. If he gets the ball back, he can construct a point from a losing position through sheer grit and buggy whips, the man is insane.
True. 2013 Rafa is still my favourite version of his. He was the best player on hard courts that year. A lot of it carried over into 2014, and he made the AO final, but then the back injury was the beginning of the end until he came back in 2017.
Yes but Federer has a better serve and it's in my opinion the greatest shotmaker in history. The combination of him hitting aces and hitting winners from anywhere should allow him to be on this list.
Your serve will only win you half the games in the set. If you want to limit the number of games your opponent wins, you'll have to break their serve. Rafa didn't get broken even once in 2017 iirc. The serve would be irrelevant in this case.
Federer might not be as good returner but he is still top 10 for me, just look at this return https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcvLbtaNxM In my opinion, this is the best return ever made, no other player in history apart from Roger could've made it.
On his backhand at that. Peak Federer was crazy. Federer before he turned 30 was the best player tennis has ever seen off clay imo.
Ye relative to chumps but relative to the Goat returners like Murray-Agassi Nadal and Djoko he is not on their level of returning. The stats show this clearly.
Excuse me? Tell those players to do this with a one hand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcvLbtaNxM
I'ts harder to break in wimbledon than on other surfaces
This metric favors good returners because they break serve more. whereas good servers don't break as much but they cruise through their service games without being touched. This metric doesn't show that. Fed for example would Cruise along and then all of a sudden be interested in the return game at 3-4 or 4-4 then he would pounce and the set was done. I think a better metric would be sets dropped.
Very surprised Nadal's 13 USO is here. That's easily the most surprising one on the list. After witnessing the 08 massacre that was Nadal's FO win, it is stunning that he was even able to come close to that again, let alone improve on it.
In addition to USO'13, Rafa also lost only one set in the entire tournament at USO'10, to Novak in the final. He's very dominant in USO when he's healthy and in-form.
Rafa GOAT!
Not really
Raducanu's 2021 US Open would be above any of these. She dropped 34 games, not including qualifying.
And she played best of 3 not best of 5.
That wasn't specified as a parameter. Had the OP said 'most dominant male GS performances' it would have been fine.
It can be assumed. Otherwise every one would be female simply because of BO3 vs BO5.
That's true. However, it's worth noting that if you assume no lost sets (given the level of dominance) and that third sets would look like the first two, she'd be at 1.5*34 = 51, which is still good for fourth on this list.
Surprised Novak is on this list at all.
no federer?