Rafael Nadal
Chris Evert
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Rafael Nadal leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Rafael Nadal at #4 and Chris Evert at #9.
Head-to-head FAQ
Who leads more shared metrics?
How do the published ranks compare?
Are these live stats?
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.
The case for Chris Evert
Evert set standards of consistency that still look unreal. Her career winning percentage of roughly 90 percent — about 1,309 wins against 146 losses — is the highest of the Open Era for either sex, and on clay she won 125 consecutive matches between 1973 and 1979, the longest single-surface streak in the sport's history alongside Nadal's. She reached the semifinals or better at 34 consecutive Grand Slams she entered, and won at least one major every year for 13 straight seasons, from 1974 to 1986, finishing with 18. A pioneer of the two-handed backhand and the ice-cool baseline precision that earned her the nickname the Ice Maiden, she spent 260 weeks at No.1 and captured a then-record seven Roland Garros titles. Her 80-match rivalry with Martina Navratilova, which she trailed 37-43, dragged both women to greater heights and defined the women's game for over a decade. Peak dominance and unmatched reliability place her comfortably inside the all-time top ten.