For almost the last two decades now, tennis has been blessed by the presence of either Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic. On good days, the fraternity got to see the greatness of these three players at once. The Big 3 were tied at 20 Grand Slam wins for quite some time. But now, Rafael Nadal has moved past Djokovic and Federer in this regard.

With his epic win at the Australian Open 2022, the Spaniard now leads the tally with 21 Grand Slam titles. He defeated world No. 2, Daniil Medvedev, in the final which ran for almost five hours and a half. Medvedev took the first two sets more or less comfortably and also had three break points in the third set. But, he faltered a bit, and Nadal, ever-the-fighter, capitalized on the loss of momentum on the Russian’s part to win the next three sets and eventually the tournament.

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Boris Becker says that Rafael Nadal is not only the ‘King of Clay’

It’s true that Nadal’s records on clay are unparalleled, most likely not to be broken anytime soon. He has won the French Open a record 13 times and lost only three matches at the tournament of the 108 that he has played.

Not only that, Rafa has also won 11 Monte-Carlo Masters and 10 Rome Masters. What is also unbelievable is that he has won at least one of the three clay-court Masters Series tournaments every year between 2005 and 2014.

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But at the same time, he has two calendar grand slams. 6 of his 21 titles are on hard courts, and his results on hard-court tournaments have also been pretty impressive. Boris Becker, who coached world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, brought this up following Nadal’s historic win at the Australian Open. Becker said that it would be a ‘mistake’ to call Rafael Nadal the “King of Clay”, as if his records on other surfaces were negligible.

“He has won on every surface and every grand slam tournament at least twice. He is the most successful player of all time, we can say that loud and clear,” he said.

With the win at Melbourne Park, Nadal joins the extremely elite group comprising the great Rod Laver, Novak Djokovic, and himself, with 2 calendar slams each.

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