https://i.redd.it/l6j69x3jjch51.png
He won 79.9% of the games he played during his 1978 Roland Garros victory, losing only 32 games in total. That's a mean of only 4.6 games lost per match. Insane feat
Nadal is a close 2nd, losing only 35 games at the 2017 RG with a 76.8% record. That averages to only 5 games every match, or around 1.67 games per set. Still insane
Borg's run was ridiculous; he went 6-0 six times against 4 out of 7 of his opponents. Nadals' run was impressive considering the context (was only the No. 4 seed and the possibility of injury was higher).
Something I've always wondered
Nadal's 10 RG and Federer's 19 slams are without a doubt historical achievements, not only for tennis but for sport in general. Not to mention their longevity at the highest level.
But Borg in the seventies was a clay player (he won 6 French) and managed to grab 5 Wimbledon in a row (6 finals) playing a good amount of serve and volley - so a radically different playstyle than his clay game.
All this at a time were RG and Wimby were much more separated in terms of speed. Wimby's grass was much faster IIRC.
So Borg's winning on both surfaces regularly was even more impressive than the career slams of today in my opinion.
And Borg retired at 26 having the highest win-loss ratio of all time (again, IIRC). He thus played 10 years less than Fed and 5 less than Nadal.
So what are your thoughts guys ? Isn't Borg's run an even greater achievement in the history of tennis ?
EDIT (07/19/2017) : This started a pretty active debate, much more active than I thought, and I have to thank you guys for it ! After reading your comments, something to clarify : this post is by no means a claim that Borg is a better player than Fed or Nadal (he clearly isn't, overall level has improved since then, that's how it goes), nor is it a claim that there could be any valuable comparison between the 70's and now (there isn't in my opinion). The question I asked myself (and you guys) is simply : are Borg's 5 Wimby + 6 RG, given the respective contexts - court characteristics and players overall level at each time period - an even more impressive achievement than what we're seeing today with Fed and Nadal. Again, thanks to everyone for posting such great comments.
I didn't get it. Can someone explain this?
