Tennis has a number of players who have made their mark on the history of the sport.

Since his retirement at the end of 2024, after Federer did the same 2 years before and a few months after Andy Murray. There is an ongoing debate about Rafael Nadal's place in the history of tennis. Was he just a great player on clay? How did he perform at other Grand Slams?

With the next retirement of Novak Djokovic, which is likely to happen very soon. I decided to analyse Rafael Nadal's results in the Grand Slam tournaments during his professional career.

I have chosen to focus on these tournaments because they are, for me, a relevant indicator of performance with the unique 5-set format, the level of play, and the mental capacity required to hope to win at least one of the 4 tournaments.

To do this, I created a .csv file with the names of the big 4 players (Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray). Then I checked the official statistics online to find out the number of tournaments won by each player per year from 2003 to 2024.

The evolution of Rafael Nadal's Wins of grand slam tournaments

Until his retirement last year, Rafael Nadal won 22 grand slams, including a record of 14 wins at the French Open. Let's see how he managed to achieve that over the years.

From this first chart, we can see that Rafael Nadal has been steadily improving his score. From a regular start at the beginning of this career, he made a huge step in 2010 where he had an almost exponential growth since then. 

We can also see a pause in his development in 2015, which lasted 2 to 3 years before he resumed his ascent. He also failed to win in the final years of his career, which may have contributed to his decision to retire at the end of 2024.

Nadal's performance in grand slam tournaments compared to his best Big 4 opponents

Throughout his career, Rafael Nadal has faced great rivals who were extremely strong and had an incredible level of play compared to the rest of the players. The Big 4, as the news used to call them, were considered to be in a different league.

The number of Grand Slam titles is interesting to analyse because it reflects the performance of the big four players. It shows perfectly how these men have dominated the discipline over the last 20 years.

The graph confirms that Rafael Nadal has matched the performance of his opponents. He may not be the one with the most titles. He is ahead of his long-time rival Roger Federer with 2 additional titles. Novak Djokovic holds the record with 24.

Andy Murray is in a much lower position. With less than 5 titles, his colleagues have almost four times as many. Novak Djokovic could increase his number, as he has not yet retired and is still competing at a very good level.

Finally, Rafael Nadal retired with the unanimous feeling that he had made history. The race for the title of the greatest player of all time is still on. The Spaniard has a strong case to make. Every fan has their own opinion on the subject.