Rafael Nadal just won his 13th Grand Slam title at the 2013 US Open. This puts him reasonably close to Roger Federer who has 17 Grand Slam titles and is widely considered the greatest player of all-time.
I think Nadal has a great chance of overtaking Federer and becoming the greatest player of all-time in the next 2-3 years by winning more than 17 Grand Slam titles!
Why I Think Nadal Will Likely Overtake Federer:
#1: Federer Probably Won’t Win Another One
Roger Federer has been struggling a lot this year and i think his chances of winning another Grand Slam title are minimal.
Now anybody can have a slump but the reason I say that is because Roger’s game simply is not good enough anymore to hang with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic when these players are at their best.
At 32 years of age Roger has probably lost a step compared to his prime and the only way to make up for that is to have a super sharp game.
His game however is not as sharp as it used to. Especially his backhand is simply too weak and he can’t get over that weakness against guys like Nadal and Djokovic when they are at their best!
#2: Nadal Currently Dominates Djokovic
Novak Djokovic is of course the one player that can stop Nadal at the moment but Rafa has managed to turn that rivalry around in his favor and he has now won 6 of the last 7 matches between these two!
I do think it is likely that Djokovic will come back strong against Nadal in the near future but at best I think Djokovic will get to a 50:50 situation against Nadal in big Grand Slam matches.
Nadal is simply too strong mentally and it seems as if he has fixed what was previously the one weakness against Djokovic, his backhand!
#3: The Numbers
Nadal needs 4 more Grand Slam titles to tie Roger for the record. Assuming that Nadal stays healthy, i think it is safe to say that he has a good chance to win at least another 2 French Open titles in the next couple of years.
After all, he has won the French 8 out of 9 times that he has played the tournament!
With that in mind, Nadal really only needs to win another 2 or 3 Grand Slam titles other than the French Open to overtake Federer!
It also looks as if Nadal and Djokovic will dominate the Grand Slams in the near future so if Rafa only wins 50% of those matches against Novak, then he has a very good chance of getting to 17 within 2 years in my opinion!
So what do you think. Will Nadal win more Grand Slams than Roger and become the greatest player of all-time ?
