Duels of Rafael Nadal v Roger Federer a factor in GOAT debate says former Argentine tennis star

Monday, 26 February 2024 at 02:30

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer at 2022 Laver Cup.

Former Argentine player Martin Jaite believes that the intense rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal makes it difficult to label Serbia’s Novak Djokovic as the greatest player ever.

There has been a lot of argument in favour of the current world number to be regarded as the greatest player in the history of men’s tennis in the singles category, having won as many as 24 Grand Slam titles.

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Jaite was recently quoted in a report where he highlighted since Federer and Nadal, who are also in the discussion of the greatest player ever, were involved in an intense rivalry which stretched to more than a decade, it is hard to favour Djokovic for that title despite his on the court achievements in the sport.

“It’s very difficult for me to put a ranking of the best players of all time, because there are a lot of important players that I didn’t see play,” he said. “For example, many people talk about Laver, and I didn’t see Rod Laver play. I started watching tennis with Bjorn Borg, Guillermo Vilas and all that bunch.

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“Then, you have to go by the number of titles won and the number of Grand Slams. In that sense, one might think it’s Djokovic, but for me, the duels of Federer and Nadal were stronger than the duels of Nadal and Federer with Djokovic. It’s very difficult to take sides with any of the three.

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21 - This is 21st season Rafael Nadal has made the quarterfinal of at least one ATP event; only Roger Federer (24), Jimmy Connors (23) and Feliciano Lopez (22) have made at least one quarterfinal across more seasons during the Open Era. Champion. #BrisbaneTennis |

10:06 AM · Jan 4, 2024

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Azeem Siddiqui

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