I've been fortunate to be following tennis closely since about 2005 and have been captivated by the slams race and overall quality of these players ever since. When Federer broke Sampras' record, I thought it would never be touched. In no world did I imagine Nadal surpassing him. This was even more true when Fed got to 17. And Djokovic was even less probable. Yet here we are with Nadal holding the record and Djokovic probably the favorite to end up as the GOAT. Had the vaccine policy of the Aussie Open this year not been insane, we might be at 21/21/20 today. In any case, here's some visualization of this amazing era of tennis.




My personal scoring system for how epic a year of Grand Slam tennis was is Total Big 3 Final Appearances + Total Big 3 Final Matchups + Total Big 3 Final Victories. 2007 and 2011 score the highest under this model.

Enjoy.

Also, as a Fed fan i was utterly devastated when he blew back to back match points on his own serve against Djokovic in the wimbledon final back in 2019. That was crushing to his chances to be GOAT. But Djokovic has proven to be a great guy with principles i respect so i welcome his coming coronation. If Nadal holds on to it though, great for him. Perhaps the best guy of the bunch in a lot of ways.

Nadals 14 French Open titles is just nuts.

Fed had 12 slams before Joker arrived and before Nadal had won anything but French. They are all great in their own right but Fed got a head start at the tail end of Sampras and before Rafa and Jok really came on. Nadal's run at the French is without comparison. 14 French alone ties him with Sampras. Then his other 8 puts him on par or better than Connors, Lendl, Agassi, McEnroe etc. It's just insane.