I'm as surprised as anyone for what the title of this blog post ended up being. I did not expect the results of this study to be so lop-sided. I thought this would favor Roger Federer or maybe Rafael Nadal. Instead, it's Pete Sampras who comes out looking really good.
In the Open Era of the ATP, there have been 26 different players who have ascended into the top spot of the sport's rankings. What I wanted to do was analyze the head-to-head records of every one of those 26 players against each other.
In the GOAT debate, we often talk about the head-to-head records of Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic. This comparison leaves Djokovic head and shoulders above his two closest rivals. However, Federer has had many rivals in his career, and his wins against those players shouldn't be discounted. That was the motivation behind doing the research, but the result was not what I expected.
Before I get into the overall numbers, I want to point out one interesting stat. In all these head-to-head comparisons, the older players in each matchup had a total of 808 wins compared to the 690 wins for the younger players. In other words, the older player has a significant advantage and should lead the head-to-head record against his younger rival. This makes it all the more impressive that Djokovic leads the head-to-head record against his elder rivals Federer and Nadal.
Here are the leaders in win percentage against players who were ranked No. 1 at some point in their career:
1. Pete Sampras - 66.9%
2. Rafael Nadal - 61.1%
3. Bjorn Borg - 60.3%
4. Boris Becker - 60.0%
5. Roger Federer - 59.4%
6. Ivan Lendl - 58.3%
7. Novak Djokovic - 56.9%
8. Andre Agassi - 53.3%
9. Lleyton Hewitt - 50.0%
9. Gustavo Kuerten - 50.0%
These are the leaders in total wins:
1. Roger Federer - 133
2. Pete Sampras - 115
3. Ivan Lendl - 102
4. Rafael Nadal - 99
5. Andre Agassi - 97
6. Novak Djokovic - 95
7. Boris Becker - 87
8. Stefan Edberg - 74
9. John McEnroe - 68
10. Lleyton Hewitt - 67
Thomas Muster goes down as the worst No. 1 in ATP history based on these numbers, which is nothing to be ashamed of. He won just 31.6 percent of his matches against No. 1s and he has another loss coming his way if Dominic Thiem ever reaches No. 1 in the world.
For Sampras, the numbers are staggering. He doesn't have such a high winning percentage because of a small sample size. He also has the second most wins of any player. Sampras collected wins against 17 of the other 25 world No. 1s. The only one he never beat that he played against was Roger Federer in a five-set match at the very end of Sampras' career.
Sampras' wins span from Jimmy Connors, who was the third player to reach the top of the rankings all the way to Andy Roddick, who was the 23rd. Sampras got double-digit wins against five different players: Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Patrick Rafter. The only one to return the favor was Agassi.
Of the 17 world No. 1s that Sampras played against, only three have a winning record against him: Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin. None of them ever played him more than nine times.
When it comes to the best playing against the best, Pete Sampras simply is the best. That's why he is still the greatest tennis player of all time.
