I was going to publish this article after the season
finished but it seems a good time to publish it now with both Nadal and
Djokovic about to battle in the final of the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2
arena.
These two players are by some distance the outstanding
players on tour right now with stats that are a fair bit superior to the
competition. Andy Murray can compete
with these two away from clay, but it’s his results on the dirt that let him
down and mean he will probably never get to the ultimate level of these two
incredible competitors.
The year started with Nadal still making his way back
from knee surgery – he didn’t take to the courts until the start of February,
with his first event a small clay 250 in Vina Del Mar, Chile. He lost the final to Horacio Zeballos in a
shock result, but subsequently has lost just five times – to Djokovic twice,
Juan Martin Del Potro in Shanghai, David Ferrer last week in Paris and the
amazing defeat to Steve Darcis at Wimbledon.
That Nadal can miss the first month of the season and
still have accumulated 12,030 ranking points to Djokovic’s 10,610 this year is
an incredible achievement.
But who is the real number one? Is it Nadal, who currently has that honour in
the world rankings? Or is it Djokovic,
who starts as favourite for the final at around 1.70? Clearly the market feels he has an edge
tomorrow. Let’s see what the stats say
on the matter…
| Category | Nadal | Djokovic | Best Stats |
| Service Hold % | |||
| All Surfaces | 88.3 | 87.8 | Nadal |
| Clay | 87.3 | 83.1 | Nadal |
| Grass | 82.4 | 88.9 | Djokovic |
| Hard | 90.3 | 88.9 | Nadal |
| Indoor Hard | 85.7 | 90.4 | Djokovic |
| Opponent Break % | |||
| All Surfaces | 34.3 | 33.2 | Nadal |
| Clay | 38.5 | 34.3 | Nadal |
| Grass | 11.8 | 25.4 | Djokovic |
| Hard | 31.7 | 35.6 | Djokovic |
| Indoor Hard | 28.4 | 27.8 | Nadal |
| Break Point Save % | 69.2 | 64.8 | Nadal |
| Break Point Won % | 46.8 | 42.3 | Nadal |
| Break Points Faced Per Game | 0.38 | 0.35 | Djokovic |
| Break Point Chances Per Game | 0.73 | 0.79 | Djokovic |
| Loses Break Lead % | 17.6 | 17.7 | Nadal |
| Recovers Break Deficit % | 60.5 | 53.2 | Nadal |
