Wimbeldon 2010

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, you're still not dealing with what I'm saying is fact. Not sure what to do about that.

The the essential thing for me is just that you think about this too much in terms of Federer vs Nadal, and not enough about Federer & Nadal vs the world.

Federer peak:
Hard court - virtually always wins
Clay court - virtually always wins except against Nadal
Grass court - virtually always wins

Nadal peak:

Hard court - in 2008, lost 9 times, in 2009, lost 11 times, in 2010 hasn't won a tournament - gotten past the semi's in major tournaments once in all that time (though also won the olympics)
Clay court - virtually always wins
Grass court - virtually always wins

The problem Nadal needs to solve to be considered as dominant as Federer is clear.

But to be clear, he doesn't need to do that to become the GOAT. It'll just make it so that he needs to have really great longevity.

[NADALbULLS]

Nadal is clearly more dominant than Federer, because at age 24 Nadal is far ahead of Federer.

Nadal has 18 masters titles compared to Federer's 7.
Nadal has 8 slams compared to Federer's 5.
The only area Federer leads is weeks at number one, Federer leads 73-53. And Nadal can't lose the top ranking this year because of his massive lead.

Federer making a few French Open Finals doesn't change how much more dominant Nadal has been so far. The only way Nadal won't be considered as dominant as Federer is if Nadal has years like 2009 when tendonitis took over.

But given the new blood-spinning treatment is working so well I doubt 2009 will happen again - according to Nadal's own amazement in the treatment's success this year, making his knee as good as new within days. The only difficulty with the treatment is he can't play tennis for a few days during it, so he can't do it in the middle of slam. He can do it in the week before a slam though. So with that treatment there is nothing stopping Nadal from continuing his domination.

And I know you'll say Nadal is peaking at an earlier age than Federer, but that doesn't mean Nadal's peak won't last longer than Federer's, because Nadal is still at his peak on clay (not dropping a set at RG), winning Wimbledon with straight sets Semis and Finals wins (and not dropping serve, a clear improvement), and clearly still with room for improvement on hardcourt. His prime would be when he's mastered hardcourt (and that would tie in with a possible Calendar Year Grand Slam, or The Rafa Slam - 4 straight slams not in a Calendar Year).

[Doctor MJ]

Well now you're just insisting on an overly rigid definition of the word "dominant". I'm clearly talking about peak level performance, with "dominant" just being a hypernymic short-hand for that. Peak-wise, you go by a guys best 1-2 year period max, and Federer's best is just obviously superior to what Nadal's done thus far.

As I've agreed with you before: Nadal's accomplished more than Federer had at the same age. That's great, and that's important, but when people typically talk about a player's dominant run, they're not talking about years where where you only reach the quarterfinals in one major.

As far as Nadal's injury getting in the way of dominance, you're right it did. Again, I'm not saying that he can't surpass Federer's dominance, I'm just saying he hasn't. Also, I get the feeling you feel like he's in the midst of a greater-than-Federer run as we speak, and that's far from clear. As I mentioned before, he hasn't won a hard court tournament this year. Until Nadal starts actually starts looking great on hard court, it would be crazy to talk about his current play as if it's the greatest in history.

Re: longevity. I don't pretend to know how this will work out. I've got concerns about Nadal because of how he plays and the pain he's clearly in, but who knows?

[NADALbULLS]

Nadal's 2008-09 was already a better 4 slam streak than Federer's, because Nadal won 3 slams on Clay, Grass and Hard (and also Olympic Gold on fast hardcourt). Whereas Federer's best was Hard, Grass, Hard.

Federer has never had a 12 month span as dominant as Nadal's. And we are also now seeing Nadal in another streak of dominance which has the potential to overshadow 2008-09. You can downgrade that if you think 12 months isn't worth talking about, that is your prerogative. But it is domination, and its more dominant than Federer's best year.

And that isn't even Nadal's peak. His peak is when he finds his best form on his weakest surface - the US Open - amid winning his usual slams.

You said "Peak-wise, you go by a guys best 1-2 year period max". So does that mean if Nadal wins the US Open 2010, Australian Open 2011 (thus completing 4 consecutive Slam wins) it still won't be considered a peak on the level of Federer's peak? Because it only lasted one year instead of 2? I don't think anyone will agree with that, considering that winning 4 slams in a row is the holy grail of tennis.

[Doctor MJ]

Well I think I've already answered with my thinking before, but I'll try to be more clear: The Grand Slam is the superficial gold standard. What it's supposed to mean is total domination across all surfaces. Now though, it's possible to win the Grand Slam and still not really be as overall dominant as someone who didn't.

Let's go to '84 McEnroe for the example. He didn't play the Aussie, no biggie, no one cared back then. He also didn't win the French. Let's look at more detail on the French:

-He lost to Lendl, the #2 player in the world
-It was his worst surface and Lendl's best outdoor surface
-He beat Lendl 2 of 3 times they played on clay that year
-He won the first two sets before wearing down and losing a very tight 5 setter.

And of course overall he went 71-2.

If Federer had beaten Del Potro, he'd have achieved a calendar slam, would I have considered it more impressive than McEnroe's '84? Hell no, not close.

Now, you may say, what if a guy only really focuses on the majors? If a guy consistently dominates at the majors, even if he doesn't elsewhere, is that really a major problem? Nah, but to prove the consistent domination, winning 1 tournament can't prove consistent domination, so you have to factor in more than that calendar year if you're going to really say maximum-ish domination was achieved.

Re: my view vs the grand slam holy grail. You've got a point, but going aside from a real debate here, just think about what I'm saying, and how silly people are when they talk about Laver. They actually use his first grand slam like it matters, never mind that all the good players where pros when he did it, and when he turned pro, they kicked his ass.

[NADALbULLS]

If Federer did beat Del Potro at the US Open 2009 he would have definitely deserved the holy grail of tennis (assuming he still went on to win Aust Open 2010), and yes it would have been better than McEnroe's 71-2. But he didn't beat Del Potro, he lost 6-2 in the 5th set, and it wasn't a fluke, because he also lost 6-2 in the fifth set vs Nadal at the 2009 Aust Open. It's his weakness, 5th set collapses (when he's playing somebody clutch like Del Potro or Nadal, not Roddick). And it's why he's not capable of winning 4 slams in a row. It's because he's got a flaw mentally. While mentally Nadal doesn't have that flaw.

[Doctor MJ]

Nah, you're just looking for simplistic answers where there aren't any.

First off, Federer's played 4 5 setters in the finals. He's won half of them. He's played 2 5 setters in the finals against Nadal. He's won half of them. He's played 8 tiebreakers in those 4 matches, tiebreakers being the ultimate test of clutchness in tennis (5 setters being the ultimate test of endurance), he went 6-2. You're starting with your conclusions, and stopping your research the moment you see anything that supports them.

Federer's French to Australian run in '09-10 very clearly wasn't his best year, and wouldn't have been even if managed to win that one last match. Nadal was injured - which could have happened in '06 or '07, crazy to act like '09 Federer did something right when he just got lucky.

You need to stop trying to boil every down into a few tournaments. By your reasoning, if God himself comes down and plays tennis for a year, winning every point of every match in every tournament, and then gets distracted and loses in the finals of the US, and so you say he's not as good as Federer would have been last year if Del Potro had had a worse day. Better 364 days out of the year, would have limited Federer to only one major that year, but somehow Federer's judged better. It's understandable why the guys in the media looking to sell an article think this way, but for your own understanding you should try to come up with a nuanced philosophy that can't be made to look silly with such ease.

[NADALbULLS]

Actually, Federer has played THREE five-setters vs Nadal in Grand Slam Finals.
2007 Wimbledon, Federer won, logically because Nadal had very little experience on grass (his serve and backhand slice has improved a lot since then).
2008 Wimbledon, Nadal won, despite having to deal with the great Federer serve in darkness.
2009 Australian Open, Nadal won.
As I've said before, Federer has a problem mentally in 5-setters when a clutch player challenges him. Who has ever challenged him before Nadal and Del Potro? Guys fold when they are in a tight match with Federer. Finally Federer is in a tougher era and he's not able to deal with it.

There is no doubt, if somebody won 4 slams in a row then they would automatically have a better peak than Federer, aka they'd have been more dominant than Federer has ever been. If Federer did win 4 slams in a row in 2009-10 it still would have been a sign that he dominated the field more than any player who won 3 slams in a year. It doesn't matter if the field was weak or if Federer played relatively poorly compared to his past, the fact would remain that Federer would have dominated his field more than anyone else has dominated theirs. But he didn't win 4 slams in a row, and now it's Nadal's turn to have a shot at immortality.

btw, tie-breakers are a test of clutchness generally speaking, but the greatest edge in a tie-breaker is the ability to get free points off your serve. Big-servers are known to have better tie-break records than others. Sampras owned Agassi in tie-breakers, and Federer owns Nadal in tie-breakers. Goran was great at them. Big-servers like their chances in tie-breakers and a lot of them cruise through the set and hope for a tie-breaker.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay well our dialog has gone as far as you can go if that's your response.

My last word (feel free to leave you own): Federer in 2006 was clearly a superior player than Federer in 2009 - regardless of what happened with Del Potro. Put them on the court together, 2006 Fed wins more often than not. For you not to see it period is a problem. For you not to seem to not even be looking at it because you're so set on a formulaic answer is a bigger problem.

[NADALbULLS]

Nobody was disputing Federer being a better player in 2006. That was obvious. The question was "if Federer won the Calendar Year Grand Slam in 2009 would it have represented his most dominant period?" And the answer would be YES. If Federer won the Calendar Year Grand Slam in 2009 he would have dominated the 2009 field more than 2006 Federer dominated his field. It's not about how well you play, its how much you dominated YOUR FIELD. That's what dominance is all about - you compared to your field. That's why we take achievements in teh 1960s and 1970s seriously. We know they had a weaker field back then, but that doesn't matter. They still dominated their field, so their achievements are legit.

[Doctor MJ]

The problem is in that he wasn't actually dominating his field nearly as well. It's not just that he got lucky with Nadal - Federer was losing a lot of matches that year that '06 Federer just didn't lose. The majors count by far the most when evaluating a player, but they aren't everything. When performances between two guys in the majors is extremely close, it's just silly not to factor in the rest of the year.

[NADALbULLS]

If you win 4 slams out of 4 and have a 50-20 record overall, that is definitely better than winning 2 slams and a 71-2 record. There is no doubt about that. In fact winning 4 out of 4 is even better than 2006 Federer winning the hard-grass-hard combo of slams since he only won on 2 surfaces that year.

When Agassi had the golden summer in 1995 (winning 3 hardcourt events in a row) and then lost the US Open Final to Sampras, Sampras was the king of hardcourts, and has proved it each time they met at the US Open. Most great players aim to peak at slams, and that's what makes the non-slams almost irrelevant at the end of the day (as unfair as that sounds). In contrast Agassi in 1999 only won 5 events, but 2 of those were slams, he carefully planned his year (and then won the Aust Open in 2000, so that's 3 slam titles out of 6 titles). While guys like Rios and Kafelnikov won all the other non-slams.

[Ong_dynasty]

Okay, you're still not dealing with what I'm saying is fact. Not sure what to do about that.

The the essential thing for me is just that you think about this too much in terms of Federer vs Nadal, and not enough about Federer & Nadal vs the world.

Federer peak:
Hard court - virtually always wins
Clay court - virtually always wins except against Nadal
Grass court - virtually always wins

Nadal peak:

Hard court - in 2008, lost 9 times, in 2009, lost 11 times, in 2010 hasn't won a tournament - gotten past the semi's in major tournaments once in all that time (though also won the olympics)
Clay court - virtually always wins
Grass court - virtually always wins

The problem Nadal needs to solve to be considered as dominant as Federer is clear.

But to be clear, he doesn't need to do that to become the GOAT. It'll just make it so that he needs to have really great longevity.

Wow you 2 really had a "discussion" about Nadal Federer.
A few things i would like to point out.
I think Nadal does not have to be "dominant" in hard courts to be considered the "g.o.a.t". I mean, I remember our conversations a few years back and you had Sampras ranked number 1 due to grand slams (which I disagreed with and always believed it was Borg) and Sampras was completly useless in Clay.
I think Nadal has shown that he is competitive and one of the best hard court players out there, I mean this guy is always in the semis / finals. It's not like he is Sampras right?

With regards to his year record. Im with NadalBulls on this one. as long as you have a good season, whether fairly or unfairly, people will only talk about the grandslams at the end of the day. If you lose 10 games but won 4 slams that is significant. (its like having the best regular season record, but not winning the slam).

With regards to the Calendar slam, if Nadal ever wins it. I think you can already make an argument of him being goat (especially if it is in the same year all of them). Its a feat that has only been accomplished once?right? (open era that is).

[Doctor MJ]

Wow you 2 really had a "discussion" about Nadal Federer.
A few things i would like to point out.
I think Nadal does not have to be "dominant" in hard courts to be considered the "g.o.a.t". I mean, I remember our conversations a few years back and you had Sampras ranked number 1 due to grand slams (which I disagreed with and always believed it was Borg) and Sampras was completly useless in Clay.
I think Nadal has shown that he is competitive and one of the best hard court players out there, I mean this guy is always in the semis / finals. It's not like he is Sampras right?

With regards to his year record. Im with NadalBulls on this one. as long as you have a good season, whether fairly or unfairly, people will only talk about the grandslams at the end of the day. If you lose 10 games but won 4 slams that is significant. (its like having the best regular season record, but not winning the slam).

With regards to the Calendar slam, if Nadal ever wins it. I think you can already make an argument of him being goat (especially if it is in the same year all of them). Its a feat that has only been accomplished once?right? (open era that is).

Totally agree that Nadal doesn't need to achieve GOAT dominance to become the overall GOAT. To be honest I don't remember how the whole discussion evolved.

Re: fairly or unfairly what people will talk about. Well I'm talking about "fairly" . I'm talking about the reasonable way to look at things, not the superficial way. When you're evaluating how good a guy really was in an all-time comparison, you don't want to be influenced by contemporary competitors (i.e. X was worse than Y, because X only beat Z 2/3rds of the time), and you certainly don't want you're judgment to be influenced by whether Z had one bad day. I'm not trying to pretend the 4 majors aren't major - they are obviously huge. If a super-Serena came around and didn't take anything but the majors seriously, but she won all the major consistently, that's be GOAT level dominance. However, if a player just happens to squeak through the 4 majors won year, doesn't dominate in other years, and doesn't dominate in non-major tournaments that year - well there's a way to do that without actually dominating your competition that supremely.

Evaluation of the degree of dominance need detailed level of thinking because of this situation of false dominance.

[Ong_dynasty]

^^
I see where you are coming from, but I think yearly win/loss records will only be considered if two players have almost identical achievements (say Nadal had 16 grand slams as well with no Calender slam but won the US Open.).

For arguments sake say Nadal finished with 16, I still the h2h will give Nadal a slight edge. now if it is two players in 2 different era's, then yearly dominance can be considered.

The reason why I say that is look at Sampras, I am not sure about the website that you use, so I cant look at the stats. But I would assume hs "dominant" years had quite a few losses in them since he was quite useless in clay. (or he just did not participate in them). This is also goes back to my initial point of how the tour is skewed towards hardcourt (which is unfortunatly Nadal's weakest surface).

I also do believe that Nadal has never had a dominant year / years. I think his closest to dominance was after the Aussie Open, but injuries derailed that. So lets see in the coming years if he can actually fully dominate the tour.

[Doctor MJ]

Agree that win/loss records are a small enough factor to be considered almost a tiebreaker. I'm looking at peak Federer, who won 3 slams and lost in the finals to Nadal. Nadal winning 4 slams one time isn't going to be enough to push him past that "tiebreaker" situation. We're talking about a 1 match difference in the slams, where Federer in his worse surface had to go up against Nadal on his best. Why would we leave the decision as to who was more dominant up to a match on Nadal's home court without considering other factors?

Re: Tied at 16. No way is head-to-head the first tiebreaker there. People've been bringing this up in the Evert/Navratilova debate forever, and it's totally wrong. If I'm the 3rd best guy in a tournament, and thus lose before having to fact the #1 guy, no way should that make me a better all-time player, than being the 2nd best guy and actually losing to the #1 guy. Federer's got 22 major final appearances, Nadal's got 10. For Nadal to be a real threat to Federer without surpassing Federer's major titles, he's got to at least get in the ballpark of finals appearances.

Re: Skewed toward hard court. Surface skewing is a complex thing. I've shied away from commenting on it before as a result. From my perspective: There have been two primary surfaces in tennis history - grass, and then hard court. (Even the French started out on grass) And those two surfaces are not very different from each other - whereas clay is extremely different (for me it's like playing on roller skates). I'm perfectly willing to grant clay court events the authority that the ATP & WTA do. However, complaints about the unfairness for clay courters than it's not as important as hard court to me makes about as much sense as badmitton players complaining that tennis isn't played with a shuttlecock. If 3 point shots counted for 50 points, it would totally change the value of guys who can't shoot them well - they don't, so it doesn't. It's just the way it is.

[oberyn3]

^^
I also do believe that Nadal has never had a dominant year / years. I think his closest to dominance was after the Aussie Open, but injuries derailed that. So lets see in the coming years if he can actually fully dominate the tour.

I think Nadal's 2008 season, while not as dominant as Federer's 2004-2007 years, still qualifies as a dominant year. Nadal was 82-11 (88% winning percentage) with 8 titles, including 2 majors/slams and an Olympic Gold medal. That's as dominant a single season as any that Sampras, e.g., ever had in the 90s (Pete's best year, winning% wise, was 1994, when he went 77-12, also with 2 majors/slams). Basically, in the Open era there aren't that many seasons that would rank as more dominant:

The aforementioned Federer run from 2004-2007.
Lendl's 1986 and 1987.
Borg's run from 1978-1980
McEnroe in 1984.
Connors in 1974.
Laver's true Grand Slam in 1969.
Wilander in 1988 (based solely on winning 3 slams. Wilander's less than stellar performance at non-slam events is why the year-end ranking race between him and Lendl was actually pretty close).

Re: Tied at 16. No way is head-to-head the first tiebreaker there. People've been bringing this up in the Evert/Navratilova debate forever, and it's totally wrong. If I'm the 3rd best guy in a tournament, and thus lose before having to fact the #1 guy, no way should that make me a better all-time player, than being the 2nd best guy and actually losing to the #1 guy. Federer's got 22 major final appearances, Nadal's got 10. For Nadal to be a real threat to Federer without surpassing Federer's major titles, he's got to at least get in the ballpark of finals appearances

I think this is an interesting point. I'm not quite sure I agree, but it's definitely food for thought. (Interestingly, though, I've never seen this argument used in favor of Ivan Lendl, who appeared in more slam finals than Agassi and Connors. It's usually cited as a negative for Lendl. I think it's illogical to "deduct" points from a guy because he lost in the final round instead of losing in earlier rounds.) I think Federer will get kudos for his level of dominance (including # of slams final appearances), but, fairly or unfairly as with Lendl, if he and Nadal end up with the same # of slams, I don't think Federer having a poorer winning % in slam finals will serve as a tiebreaker among too many fans, pundits, etc.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: Tied at 16. No way is head-to-head the first tiebreaker there. People've been bringing this up in the Evert/Navratilova debate forever, and it's totally wrong. If I'm the 3rd best guy in a tournament, and thus lose before having to fact the #1 guy, no way should that make me a better all-time player, than being the 2nd best guy and actually losing to the #1 guy. Federer's got 22 major final appearances, Nadal's got 10. For Nadal to be a real threat to Federer without surpassing Federer's major titles, he's got to at least get in the ballpark of finals appearances

I think this is an interesting point. I'm not quite sure I agree, but it's definitely food for thought. (Interestingly, though, I've never seen this argument used in favor of Ivan Lendl, who appeared in more slam finals than Agassi and Connors. It's usually cited as a negative for Lendl. I think it's illogical to "deduct" points from a guy because he lost in the final round instead of losing in earlier rounds.) I think Federer will get kudos for his level of dominance (including # of slams final appearances), but, fairly or unfairly as with Lendl, if he and Nadal end up with the same # of slams, I don't think Federer having a poorer winning % in slam finals will serve as a tiebreaker among too many fans, pundits, etc.

Honestly not sure how one could not agree with me on this. If you're uncertain, you seem like a reasonable fellow, I'd like to hear your devil's advocate take.

As far as how other players have been treated generally, something I will say is what I assert as correct, I recognize isn't universally agreed upon. However when I'm adamant, it's because the other side is clearly not taking everything into account. The classic case is when Laver proponents talk about how he won the Grand Slam twice, his last year as an amateur, and then many years later at the dawn of the open era. Worse, they say it in a way that evokes the idea that Laver could have been winning Grand Slams for the better part of a decade - 30+ majors. It's all burst by a basic fact: Players didn't start turning pro win Laver did, that happened well before, so his first Grand Slam isn't really relevant at all to a GOAT discussion. (Though Laver's still a GOAT candidate) The fact that stuff like this gets mentioned on television makes me lose all uncertainty about my right to proclaim I'm right in the face of counterarguments when I see fit.

Re: Lendl. To me the big reason for Lendl's less respect is who people picture him losing to. They picture Connors losing to Borg and McEnroe. They picture Agassi losing to Sampras. They picture Lendl losing to an assortment of lesser players like Cash and Chang. It's certainly not entirely fair. Lendl lost grand slam finals to Borg, Connors, and peak McEnroe - and Agassi in particular was limited much more by his a tendency to disappear than Samprass.

There's also the matter than he was much less popular than Connors and Agassi - which I hope doesn't play a major role, but might.

The one other thing I'll say which I'm not sure how it factors in at all: Zero grass majors while playing primarily in an era where grass was the dominant surface. On one hand, it's a reason to say - hey, if he'd played a little later, he'd have done even better! On the other hand, being unable to play on lawn when playing lawn tennis is something that hurts a bit - particularly in comparison to the only two guys who won majors on all surfaces before Fed & Rafa came along. If Lendl were in a debate with the clay-weakling Sampras it would be moot for me, but as it is, it's something to consider.

[NADALbULLS]

Federer losing in so many Grand Slam Finals is not as impressive as Nadal having a 14-7 head-to-head record vs Federer (and probably will end up being 18-7 or something like that by the time Federer retires) and 6-2 record in Slams. Head-to-head is the first tie-breaker we think of when 2 players have won the same amount of Slams and Career Grand Slam (especially in this case whereby nearly all of Federer's GS Final losses were to Nadal). Of course Nadal first has to get the Career Grand Slam and Total Slams, although if he wins 4 consecutive slams as he is trying to do over the next 6 months that will confuse things a lot because it is the holy grail of tennis (Calendar or non-Calendar Year Grand Slam).

[Doctor MJ]

Federer losing in so many Grand Slam Finals is not as impressive as Nadal having a 14-7 head-to-head record vs Federer (and probably will end up being 18-7 or something like that by the time Federer retires) and 6-2 record in Slams. Head-to-head is the first tie-breaker we think of when 2 players have won the same amount of Slams and Career Grand Slam (especially in this case whereby nearly all of Federer's GS Final losses were to Nadal). Of course Nadal first has to get the Career Grand Slam and Total Slams, although if he wins 4 consecutive slams as he is trying to do over the next 6 months that will confuse things a lot because it is the holy grail of tennis (Calendar or non-Calendar Year Grand Slam).

I don't know what to do with you Nadal. You're not saying why I'm wrong, you're just saying that I am wrong. It's not like I didn't give you a line of reason to tear down: That a player shouldn't be rewarded for losing early instead of winning more but falling to the eventual champs. You don't address that at all. You just keep finding a way in your mind to make it easier for your namesake to be considered the best. I don't think there's anything I can say to you to make a difference.

To just get into the head-to-head a bit more because I didn't really deal with that before: I've said that I've no problems using head-to-head as an eventual tiebreak, but that there are other things to consider first. However, there are just inherent problems with using head-to-head at all that need to be dealt with before it's used.

Nadal leads the series 14-7, partially because the two of them have played a disproportionate amount of matches on clay. Take out the clay, Federer leads the rivalry. Completely tossing aside why the play so much on clay, why would we want to judge the comparison so much off one surface?

Next, Nadal and Federer aren't the same age and don't have the same career arch. Hard to talk about without feeding back into the losing-early problem, but the reality is that if two guys play a disproportionate amount of time with one guy at his peak, and the other guy not, then if they've got just as good a peak, we'd expect the guy fortunate to play more of the matches at his peak to win the rivalry.

So consider 2003-2007. That's Federer's first 5 years of all-world play - and probably the greatest 5 year period in history anyone had ever done up to that time. In that period, Nadal went 6-1 on clay, and Federer went 5-2 on non-clay. Should be obvious to most, that that means Federer was winning the rivalry then (Nadal, I don't expect you to agree). If Federer retires at that point, it would be totally unreasonable to say Nadal had won the rivalry - but because Federer keeps playing past his prime, he looks worse.

The 6-2 in grand slams doesn't make sense to use separately from the overall record because there's not any obvious trend of Federer doing much worse against Nadal in the majors. Nadal's bigger advantage here is simply due to the fact that Nadal didn't make many major finals in Federer's first big half-decade that weren't at the French. By bringing this up, you're essentially giving Nadal "clutch" points for performing better on the biggest stage, but the reality is that Nadal's underperformance in the majors is what's causing it. It's Federer who shows the clear trend of overperforming in the majors - which was why he continued to make the semi's for 23 consecutive majors even when he became increasingly vulnerable at lesser tournaments.

(One interesting tidbit, Nadal would look even better in the rivalry matchup if it weren't for the year end championships. In the grand slams, Nadal's been a lock to be on the other side of the bracket from Federer for a long time. In the year end championships on the other hand, if Nadal finishes 2nd in his round robin group and Federer finishes first, they meet in the semis. Because Nadal typically doesn't even finish in the top 2 in that tournament, even that isn't much of an option. However, Nadal has managed to finished 2nd to James Blake and David Ferrer once each giving Federer the opportunity to have his easiest match of the entire tournament both years pounding Nadal, the guy who supposedly he couldn't beat. So luckily for Federer, the fact that once again Nadal wasn't actually the 2nd best player in a tournament where he was the #2 seed doesn't handicap him as much as it does elsewhere.)