Rafael Nadal: 17 stats for his 17th Grand Slam title

Rafael Nadal made an already-legendary career even more so by winning his 11th French Open title on Sunday. Here are 17 stats to go along with the Spaniard’s 17th career Grand Slam title:

1. He’s the first man in tennis history to win the same Grand Slam tournament 11 times. The only other player to have ever won the same Grand Slam tournament 11 times was Margaret Court, who won 11 Australian Opens.

2. He’s, again, within three major titles of Roger Federer’s all-time record. Pete Sampras is third on the list with 14.

3. He improved to 17-7 in major finals. Nadal has also won seven of his last nine major finals. With 24 total appearances in Grand Slam finals, Nadal is second to Federer's 30 on the list of most career Major finals in the Open Era.

WATCH—Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca:

4. He became the third player ever to cross $100 million in career prize money. Nadal joined Federer and Novak Djokovic as the only players ever to earn nine digits.

5. He improved to 22-0 in the last two rounds of Roland Garros. Once Nadal gets past the quarters at the French Open, he’s flawless—11-0 in semifinals and 11-0 in finals.

6. He’s now 86-2 in his career at Roland Garros. His only two losses in 88 career matches on the terre battue came against Robin Soderling (fourth round in 2009) and Djokovic (quarterfinals in 2015). Even scarier: the Spaniard is actually 111-2 in his career in best-of-five-set matches on clay.

7. He’s now won 52 of his last 54 matches on clay. Nadal’s only two losses on the surface in the last 25 months have come against Dominic Thiem (quarterfinals of Rome in 2017 and Madrid in 2018).

8. He became the first player in the Open Era, male or female, to win three events 11 times. Nadal now has 11 titles at Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Roland Garros. Only one other player has won two events 11 times—Martina Navratilova won Chicago 12 times, and Eastbourne 11 times.

9. He won his 57th career clay-court title. No other man in the Open Era has even gotten to 50 career ATP clay-court titles. The previous record-holder was Guillermo Vilas, who won 49.

10. He kept the majors in the hands of 30-somethings. Players aged 30 and over have now won the last seven majors. Before these six in a row for Nadal and Federer, a 31-year-old Stan Wawrinka won the 2016 US Open. This is already the record for longest streak of Majors won by 30-somethings.

11. He became just the fourth man in the Open Era to win three or more majors after turning 30. Nadal joins Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Federer, who have all captured four majors after turning 30.

12. He has now won his last 16 Grand Slam semifinals. He hasn’t lost one since falling to del Potro—who Nadal beat in the semifinals at Roland Garros—in the 2009 US Open semifinals. He’s now 24-3 overall in Grand Slam semifinals.

13. He became just the second man in the Open Era to reach 11 finals at the same Major. Federer the only other man to do it in the Open Era, at Wimbledon (the Swiss has gone 8-3 in those 11 finals).

14. He’s now 88-18 (.830) in his career against Top 10 players on clay. On all other surfaces combined, Nadal has a 71-66 career record against Top 10 players (.518).

15. He’s now 415-36 (.920) in his career on clay. On all other surfaces combined, he has an—excellent—488-151 career record (.763).

16. He became the fifth man in the Open Era to surpass 900 career match wins. Nadal's fourth-round win over Maximilian Marterer was his 900th career match win. Only four other men in the Open Era have crossed that mark: Jimmy Connors (1156), Federer (1150), Ivan Lendl (1069) and Vilas (940).

17. He hung onto No.1. If Nadal did anything but win the title, Federer would have taken No.1 back.

The Swiss can take the top spot back if he reaches the final in Stuttgart this week, however...