Guest post: More on Nadal - Federer rivalry. From Sperry. Thanks.

SPERRY

Back due to popular demand! (Ok. One person asked.) For reasons that we all know and are sick of hearing, comparing Roger and Rafa’s head to head is massively unfair to Roger. Comparing total points accumulated in majors (where they both entered) would be more fair, but Roger was racking up W’s before Rafa was even close to his prime. So that is massively unfair to Rafa. So here is what I did: I totaled the points earned in majors where both men were entered, and both men were in their prime. I started when Rafa won the French in 2006. (He won in 2005, but then scored 135 points in the next three majors (R-32, R-16, and an absence.) Meanwhile, Roger was going W, W, W, so this Federer fan is bending over backwards to be fair to Rafa.) I ended the analysis after Roger’s 2010 Australian win: his last major. In this way, I think I am cutting out Rafa’s pre-prime, and Roger’s post-prime. It is, of course, an arguable approach. But that’s what I did. (I have all the data if anyone wants it, but this is the most fair to Rafa, I think. Looking at all the data REALLY favors Roger.)

This period encompasses 16 majors. Rather than analyze three full years and two partial years (rendering the partials pretty much irrelevant), I took the liberty of re-defining a year. For the purposes of the following chart, a “year” runs from French to Australian. (Therefore, “2006” is the 2006 Fr, W, USO, and 2007 Ausie.)

NOTE: Rafa missed a Wimbledon that Roger won. I took out Roger’s 2K points in the analysis below.

Nadal Federer Delta
2006 3920 7200 3280
2007 4100 5920 1820
2008 6720 5600 -1120
2009 1260 5200 3940