Rafael Nadal has 10 Grand Slam titles as he heads in the 2011 Wimbledon final. With a win over Djokovic, Rafa could inch that much closer to Federer's record.
Rafael Nadal will go for his third Wimbledon today and, besides defending his title and keeping himself close to Novak Djokovic in the race for number one, the Spaniard is also chasing history.
Here's the short list of players near the top of the all-time Grand Slam men's singles titles list:
1. Roger Federer, 16
2. Pete Sampras, 14
3. Bjorn Borg, 11
4. Rafael Nadal, 10
If Nadal should beat Djokovic on Sunday the Spaniard will then be in a tie with the legendary Bjorn Borg in terms of Grand Slam singles titles. Not only that but as Nadal has about four years left in his tennis prime he'll have more or less 16 Grand Slam tournaments with which to try and catch Pete Sampras and Federer with.
Nadal, in my opinion, might actually catch Sampras simply with French Open results as the Spaniard is such a devastating clay courter that he could win four more titles at Roland Garros alone.
However Nadal's weakness in terms of Grand Slam titles is his performances on the hard courts. He has just two titles from all of his efforts at the Aussie and Flushing Meadows combined and while he could win more, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic promise to curb Nadal's success rates at those Grand Slams.
If Juan Martin Del Potro gets back to his best tennis he could hurt Nadal's chances at the hard court Slams as well just as the Argentine did in the semifinals of the 2009 US Open.
Besides Djokovic, Murray, and Del Potro you never really know when some player aged 18 to 21 is going to start crushing the competition. Players like Milos Raonic, Grigor Dimitrov, Ryan Harris, and Bernard Tomic are all improving and they should be pulling off upsets in the future that might be called shocking.
With Tomic we already saw a little bit of that as he eliminated Robin Soderling in the third round of this current Wimbledon. There could be more of that coming but then there could be growing pains first - you never know with the young ones.
Many commentators award the GOAT title (Greatest of All Time) to the player who wins the most singles Grand Slams.
The Wimbledon 2011 final is an important one for Nadal to take down if he wants to tie or even surpass Federer's record sixteen titles.
Nadal has 10 Grand Slam singles title, I think he can get to 14 with French Open results alone. Picking up a couple more Wimbledon titles and then maybe one more hard court title to get to 17 seems realistic but if he loses the 2011 final to Djokovic, Nadal's chances of catching or passing Federer would take a significant dive in my opinion simply because opportunities outside of Roland Garros may soon be at a premium.