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🎾Novak Djokovic vs Rafael Nadal

Head to head · Tennis

Novak Djokovic
#1

Novak Djokovic

Serbia · 2003–present

VS
Rafael Nadal
#4

Rafael Nadal

Spain · 2001–2024

Stat by stat

24 Grand Slam singles titles 22
428 Weeks at No.1 209

Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.

The verdict

Novak Djokovic leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Novak Djokovic at #1 and Rafael Nadal at #4.

Head-to-head FAQ

Who leads more shared metrics?
Novak Djokovic leads 2 of 2 shared teaching metrics on this page.
How do the published ranks compare?
Novak Djokovic is ranked #1; Rafael Nadal is ranked #4 in this sport’s GOAT list.
Are these live stats?
No — bars and FAQ answers are editorial, scaled teaching marks. Open the GOAT lab to rescale your own selection.

The case for Novak Djokovic

Every major record that can be counted now points the same way. Djokovic's 24 Grand Slam singles titles are the most ever, tied with Margaret Court and achieved entirely against open, global, 128-draw fields. His 428 weeks at No.1 are over 50 more than anyone in history; his eight year-end No.1 finishes are unmatched; his 40 Masters 1000 titles are 4 clear of Nadal; and he is the only man to win every Slam, every Masters event and the ATP Finals — most of them multiple times, including a record 10 Australian Opens. The rivalry ledger is decisive: winning career head-to-heads against both Federer (27-23) and Nadal (31-29), the two other greatest players of his own era, at their peaks. His 2024 Paris Olympic gold at age 37, beating Alcaraz in the final, completed the career Golden Slam and removed the last box left unticked. He built the record on the era's hardest task — beating prime Federer and prime Nadal — and the numbers now stand alone.

The case for Rafael Nadal

Nadal owns the most extreme dominance of a single arena in the history of sport: 14 Roland Garros titles and a 112-4 match record in Paris, including an 81-match clay-court winning streak from 2005 to 2007 that remains the longest single-surface run ever. But the clay label undersells him — he won 22 majors overall, at least two at every Slam, took Olympic singles gold in 2008 and doubles gold in 2016, won the Davis Cup five times with Spain, and beat Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final in what is widely called the greatest match ever played. His 209 weeks at No.1 and 92 titles came despite a career fought against chronic injury — a congenital foot condition diagnosed at 19, plus knee, wrist, abdominal and hip problems that cost him roughly a dozen majors' worth of appearances. He holds a career winning head-to-head over Federer (24-16) and pushed Djokovic to 29-31 across 60 meetings, the most-played rivalry in men's history. Peak-for-peak on his surface, no one in any era was better at anything.

More head-to-heads

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