Thanks for this video! Rafa is the reason I became a tennis fan, so as his career seems like it is drawing to a close, it was enjoyable to look back on all the extreme highs and very few lows over the course of his career. Probably my favorite athlete of all-time.

🐐broke him in 2011 Wimbledon final he hasn't been the same

It's crazy that I started getting into tennis back in 2016 post his prime. But for me indian wells against zverev is where my Fandom for Rafa began. I didn't realize that he had achieved incredible heights before so 2016 was awesome, and 2017-2022 was nothing short of spectacular. For me 2016 is C tier because there was signs of what was to come, 2017 was S tier for me as well as 2019. 2018 was brutal since he had Limb glory in reach. 2022 is my personal favorite year as it was the most shocking one. I thought he was gonna get by Shapo in the quarters if Aussie, then I had just wanted him to lose with dignity against Meddy before rejoicing in his comeback. And probably the happiest most euphoric I felt for one of his wins was him beating Djokovic at RG. His comeback to finish him off down 3-5 in the fourth was so awesome, I kept screaming "He Did It!!" Like a little kid. Whether he's done or not, it has been a thrilling ride that I'm glad I got to participate in as a fan

@maneomkar18

8 күн бұрын

Djokovic is the GOAT

@itsmeprasad1987

Күн бұрын

Shout louder people haven’t heard you

2013 was one of the last truly great outfit seasons. Lucky to have the whole set.

Yo! Been waiting on this thank you! 🙏🏿

Awesome vid, been waiting on this one since I subbed after watching the Djokovic one and it did not disappoint, I gotta say mine would be pretty much the same except I'd have 06 and 07 both in B as I think they're pretty similar enough overall with a little bit less patchiness on hard courts in 07. I'd say for me personally as someone who was a Murray fan during the prime Big 4 era and then kinda adopted Rafa as my favourite post-Murray's 2017 injury hell, 2019 is a personal favourite season of mine, as it was the one where he didn't perform exceptionally during the clay court swing as a whole (for him that is) and still ended it as world number 1, which really removed the stigma that I used to have that most of Rafa's great seasons needed some heavy lifting by his incredible feats on clay to compete with seasons with similar overall results by Novak and RF but more well-rounded success throughout the year. I gotta say some of my all time Rafa highlights came from that year's US Open run which was another one where he just seemed like a man on a mission throughout (the outfit that year is also possibly my all time favourite of his along some of the 2013 ones) and that Davis Cup run when I really thought his days of winning consistently indoors were well behind him by then. Out of curiosity, because I noticed the A tier was particularly busy on this one, if you had to have 1 A tier season join the legendary 08, 10 and 13 seasons in S tier, which would it be? Ik you said 2018 missed out by the slimmest of margins but I find that season a bit too injury plagued to be top of the A tier ones, I'd probably edge towards 2011 because of how consistent his level still was on all surfaces throughout the year when not playing that Serbian terminator, but 2019 and to a lesser extent 2018 would push it very close. Once again, great vid, and look forward to more Rafa content on the way!

@ak10s30

9 күн бұрын

Great comment, I really enjoyed reading it! Yeah gave 07 the bump just bc I thought the Wimby final performance was top tier more than anything and felt like first yr with the unbeatable aura at RG. Wimby and IW performances off clay made me feel like he didn’t chance to put in a better showing the post Wimby HC stretch if not for the knee slowing him down in the summer but that’s fair it ended a better version of 06 by the results. I think what you outlined with 2019 really aligns with how I’ve accessed his off clay resume throughout his career. His splits actually aren’t that dissimilar to a prime Andy's (some of Murray's are even better in key areas like top 10 W% and masters on HC) but now that we’re further out from Rafa's physical prime when he was THE big match winner of his era and he was consistently a threat beat anyone on any surface it’s easy to forget just how ridiculous his peaks were. Always been surprised by the lack of nuance on each end of overrating and grossly underrating (becoming more of the norm to my eye as time has passed) him off clay. He’s a guy whose peaks are legit all time great on HC and grass but is streakier than you’d think for a guy of his caliber and status. People can weigh that differently in how they access all time rankings and that’s fine but sucks to see a lot of recency bias in discourse forgetting a lot of his signature non clay performances just against his fellow goats in form like Wimby 07/08, AO09/12, USO 10/13 and stretches like summer 08-early 09 and 2013-early 2014 to minimize his off clay record just bc we’re now a decade plus removed from his prime. It actually sort of flipped in the elite post prime phase of his career where he went from low key becoming more consistent against the field but (Wimby 18 aside) struggling more against fedovic with his declined physicality/speed. Nobody claims he’s better than Fed or Djoker on hc or grass but considering you could easily argue they’re top 2/3 ever on both surfaces it’s insane Nadal overlapped with them to still carve out 5 yrs he ended No 1 and had his fair share of scalps on both. Pointing out how many A level seasons according to the list think is sort of an outline to those different paths to this goat tier he’s reached. It’s often been a combo of having these fellow 2 goat contemporaries as well as the start stop nature of his career that’s kept him from more definitive S tier seasons but he’s just kept plugging away while continually defending his turf for so long and so thoroughly that as you said, just the work he always did om clay, set him up for like a B level floor for his seasons as long as he had a typically good clay season. To answer the question though, if I was elevating any from A I would tend to agree with you on the 2 you highlighted in 2011 and 2019 w a shout-out to 2017. Those all have in common that he was actually able to play through the whole yr and hit pretty much every major stop on the calendar and fedovic denying him the chance to definitively put all those into s tier in some shape or form. Then with the other aforementioned reason of the body there are seasons like 09 and 12 that I have no doubt he could and potentially would have been able to win the hardware required to elevate into S tier if he’d stayed upright but all hypothetical I suppose and wasn’t meant to be.

Love the tier list

IMO 2012 has to go to A considering his ridiculously high level in AO and in the clay season, even if he didn't play post-Wimbledon.

@ak10s30

9 күн бұрын

Yeah it hurt me to throw it in B and I was definitely on the fence about it. Definitely get the argument for it to get the bump. I’ve felt for over a decade if he could’ve kept it going he would’ve won the 2012 USO with how wind hamstrung how well the rest played that event and he’s amazing in wind + in amazing form all yr.

Amazing video, congrats

This is really cool. I’d be curious how the tier list would look different if you made it follow a normal distribution, mainly to differentiate between all the numerous A tier seasons

Great video man. You should def finish this series off with ranking Federer’s years on tour!

Pls make a outfit video for rafa as well. His best outfits over the years

Out of curiosity, which season would you pick between 2017, 2018 and 2019? Great video by the way

@ak10s30

6 күн бұрын

It's a really tough call since it was just fun seeing him adapt to the new more first strike game style he went to with Moya to revive himself and do it at the highest level in those years. 2017 is genuinely the comeback that is most impressive to me and most satisfying to see him return to winning ways after being so far below his standards for so long. 2018 was so unfortunate and probably would be the answer if he'd found a way through the Wimby SF. I'd probably end up rolling with 2019 since though imo slightly lower level than 2018 I do think he was still in a spot where he'd fine tuned his new game style in a field that year with a unique blend of old big 3 in their last great yr together as well as breakout of Stef and Meddy plus Domi entering his prime that year which made things super fun all season. Plus he was absurdly consistent even when he wasn't winning I think he only missed the semis twice in 14 events (freak instances too with the choke to Kyrgios in Acapulco and not making WTF semis while going 2-1 in the group) so it'd be 2019.

2018 wimbledon was so sad cause it was indoors :( 2019 was also so close to winning the End of year title.

@fg92626

23 сағат бұрын

🐐broke him in 2018 Wimbledon is totally acceptable but grandpa Federer humiliated him in 2019 Wimbledon

this was great! id personally throw 09 in b teir but great list

Very good list thanks, great video first time watching i'm more or less agree with most. Just think 2012 should be higher like others. It's hard to rank Nadal's seasons mainly due to injuries, short seasons he had. Even harder without tiers. 2007 definitely belong A i would say. So many great performances(i imagine you combine mainly achievements+ some nuance to level of play which i agree) dominant IW, RG Rome etc but specially very good Wimbledon F just fell little short. I rank that quite highly, he played Final in 2006 too but in 2007 it was much more close 5 setter. His level in 2012 was so good one of the best clay season and AO i feel the same about USO 2012 missed opportunity even Olympics who knows. IMO year would be S tier i mean his level of play was as good as those 3. I still think it's enough for A. About 2009 fantastic AO but i don't regard as highly as he didn't reach another slam F won some masters still idk 2011 is also strange season 2 extra slam finals good and mostly he lost to only Djokovic but he has only 3 titles even on Rome - Madrid he lost and after Wimbledon he only played well in USO. For ex apart from titles compare his slam finals to Wimbledon 2007 he couldn't push Djokovic as much in 2011. About 2018 feels like the missed chance and wasted year for 1 more slam. Wimbledon SF is the best match i have watched live maybe the best match overall too. He played aswell as he could it was fantastic match. He had problems in both HC slams but esp AO 2018 feels like good opportuinty before Djokovic finding his form. Since 2017 it's 2019 my favourite season mainly because of great Slam performances, epic USO win and the Davis cup even WTF and getting the no1 spot as he was easily the best player of the year. Had it been one probably 2019 i would for being S tier. 2022 was fantastic too. Could have been S tier. I think he would reach the final had he been fit then who knows what happens in the final. 2017 was incredible RG+ clay season in very successfull year but felt like he is more vulnerable on HC and 2019 slam results are better. 2009-2011-2018 is below the other years there i think maybe still enough for tiers. Just amazing how many times he is able to make a great comeback lets see if he has still something left.

@ak10s30

6 күн бұрын

Thanks for the comment! Yeah lotta great points in you bring up in there. I'm 100% with you on pretty much all of them, a lot of these are some beliefs I've also held in complete agreement with in my time following Rafa. Yeah it hurts to put 2012 in B and I am still torn over it bc it had all the makings of S if he'd just been able to play after July and I wouldn't argue with anyone saying it belongs in A as is. Regarding 2012 USO I've always said I'll go to my grave saying he wins that tournament if healthy bc of how well he'd played all yr as well as how much wind affected the end of that tournament as the guy that's the best wind player maybe ever. Same with 09 had the makings of S bc if you look at that stretch from clay 08-clay 09, it's probably the most dominant stretch he's ever put together even tho he was running on fumes by mid 09 clay. It's legitimately the likes of some of those video game Fedovic runs like 04-06/11 or 15 respectively for Rafa, winning MC, Barca Hamburg, RG, Queens, Wimby, Canada, AO, IW, MC, Barca, Rome in a little over a year. I might just have unconsciously looped in that 08 in conjunction success w beginning of 09 when throwing it in A plus him not having to shutdown his season but yeah the burnout settled in fast and was only exacerbated with the brutal Djokovic Madrid semi ahead of RG but it, like 2012 I think was trending S before it was derailed. My take on 2011 echos a lot of your sentiments on it that it's his best 1 slam season simply by virtue of him being healthy all year. As a season, obviously you'll take the results any day and by any metric or eye test that was a prime Nadal out there who was in such a good spot against the rest of the field but ofc it all came down to tussling with 11ovic in god mode. To me, it's underrated how important those first 2 sunshine double matches were bc IW honestly wasn't a great match from either and after the 2nd Nadal uncharacteristically just totally faded away on top of a horrendous serving day (something like 40% 1st serves in). Then Miami it felt like he threw the kitchen sink at Novak to try and pump the breaks on that unstoppable start and came up just short. After that it seemed like the scar tissue began to build up where he seemed to have a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that now there was someone he couldn't just play his standard game against since he had the artillery to repel his typical patterns and as a result, he sorta seemed lost at sea in the matchup until winning that bonkers 3rd set of USO11. I'm totally with you on Wimby 11, I thought he was actually quite good in the lead up and then no showed in the final in a way that before AO19, I thought it was far and away his worst slam final. We've seen that sort of thing happens to everybody though tbh (Fed with Rafa 08-09, Novak in the big ones in general after losing RG13 till 2015) where a couple big losses had even the goats seemingly second guessing themselves. Regarding 2018, we all know what went down at Wimby 18 and it's easy to be at peace with that for me but AO18 deserves more scrutiny imo considering how he scheduled to end 2017. With how Fed played worse in 2018 and his draw being Kyle Edmund in the semi he would have surely been in the final and from there, probably anyone's game. 2019 is also one of my favorites in general just bc even if they didn't get to actually play much to decide it, Nadal chasing down Djokovic (who'd won the last 3 slams) and having the best season by the end of the yr seemed like it'd be impossible in January, even by April. Really a testament to his resiliency to have all those setbacks with injuries in 2018-early19 starting to muddy his results, he got to Rome and barely lost the rest of the way. Only 2 events he didn't go to at least sfs at was the freak choke to Kyrgios in Acapulco and a freak instance of not making it out of the group despite going 2-1 at WTF. Definitely a compelling one to ponder on S since as far as what actually happened 2017 and 2019 barely miss out on being on that pedestal by a hair (2017 a 5th set away, 2019 if he didn't take as long to get his clay season going it's probably in).

@M98704

4 күн бұрын

@@ak10s30 Nice summary. You look as someone who knows Nadal really well. Liked the explanations and comments you have made through the video. Forgot to add the following, on ranking Nadal or anyone also difficult because of competition not same every year. Bit subjective but true aswell. Djokovic's 2011 in this case is just insane. IMO his best playing year even though he could have lost at USO aswell but he played against very good versions of other legends. Though still Nadal shouldn't have lost that many matches that way. Probably more about mentally but his form likely dipped aswell. On clay esp and USO serving: ) Certainly acceptable results and good matches in sunshine double. Madrid ok not so good there but Rome Djokovic like really cemented himself how great his form is. Like you said Nadal couldn't play his usual and get away with it against Djokovic just like Federer couldn't do it against Nadal etc. Some little weakness and they need to get out of their comfort zone probably against each other maybe thats why they pushed and reached higher levels. That 08 clay to 09 period just incredible his best results. It didn't feel he was playing great on clay season(for his standards atleast compared to other years) though i certainly get what you mean as results. Though 2009 AO was like the result of 2008 as first event. maybe it can give some boost on 2008 being his best season: ) Wonder what do you think his best season is?

I was a rafa fan before I was a tennis fan

He didn't managed to win a set against Djokovic on hard court since 2013 speaks everything.

@costantinotzartzas3697

7 күн бұрын

At least he destroyed him twice in a hardcourt major final. Call me when Novax does it in a clay major final

@maneomkar18

6 күн бұрын

@@costantinotzartzas3697 Dopal have never beaten the GOAT in Australian Open but the GOAT defeated him twice in the French Open

@AlexisNess-mn4zw

5 күн бұрын

@@maneomkar18 If nadal would play 17 or 18 version of djokovic(or a lot of others) he would also beat him at AO. 2021 and 15 nadal was bad