While Roger Federer has justified his return to clay at the Mutua Madrid Open by surpassing 1200 professional victories. Rafa Nadal has also reached a new milestone this week in the Caja Mágica. The Balearic Islander has now claimed over 50 victories at the tournament. After defeating US player Frances Tiafoe in the round of sixteen, he has 51 Madrid wins under his belt, thus adding the Spanish Masters 1000 to seven other tournaments where he has notched up a half century of Ws.
It is very possible that all four Grand Slams will soon be on that list. At the moment, the only one missing is Wimbledon, where with 2 titles and 3 runners-up finishes he has 48 wins from the 59 matches he has played. Of course, it is at his most successful major where his stats are the most spectacular. Nadal, an 11-time French Open champion, has only lost two matches on the Paris clay, where he now has 86 victories. At the Australian Open, despite being the only of the four majors where he is yet to win a second title, even though he has played as many finals there as he has at Wimbledon (5), has comfortably beaten the mark, with 61 wins and 13 defeats. After Melbourne, it was in New York where he next reached the symbolic figure at a Grand Slam. He did so in 2017, the year of his third title at the US Open, and he now has 58 victories there from 69 matches.
The double-Olympic champion’s stats from the first Masters 1000 of the season deserve a special mention. At Indian Wells, on the outdoor hardcourt in the Californian desert, Nadal has won three titles and after thirteen participations has been victorious in 54 matches. The remaining Opens in which he has reached the magic number, are played on clay, as is the Mutua Madrid Open. Such is the case of the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 and the ATP 500 in Barcelona, where he has also donned the crown 11 times. Despite the fact that, due to his world ranking, he can only play a maximum of 5 matches there, he now has 71 wins and just 5 defeats to his name. Nearby, at Conde de Godó he has either progressed to the next round or picked up the trophy 61 times and only been knocked out on the court that bears his name on four occasions. To complete the set requires a visit to Rome’s Foro Italico, where the final Masters 1000 of each season is held. There, Nadal has been crowned champion 8 times and only lost 6 matches out of the 62 he has played.
Therefore, adding all of his wins from the French Open (86), Monte Carlo (71), the Australian Open (61), Barcelona (61), the US Open (58), Roma (56), Indian Wells (54) and the Mutua Madrid Open (51) almost gives us a round 500 (498 to be exact), which is more than half of his current total of 937 victories.
