Roger would have five more majors if he were playing literally anyone other than Nada in the finals he's made it to or the semis in 2005. 05/06/07/08 is Roger's peak, and in 2011 he dropped exactly one set - to Novak Djokovic - en route to the final. In other words, he beat the only other person who could have beaten him.
You could argue that it'd be six including this year, but it's impossible to say whether Thiem would have beaten him given how good Thiem is right now on clay, so we'll stick with 5, for a total of 25.
If Rafa never had to face Roger, he'd have 21. Maybe. Assuming he would beat anyone he would've had to play instead of Roger.
It seems to me that Roger is clearly the best hard court and grass player ever. He's also the second best clay player ever. Rafa is clearly the best clay player ever, but is not the second best ever on grass or hard surfaces. So there's just no comparison as to who is the best all around. And this assumes that all surfaces are equal, where most would say that clay is the lesser surface of the three.
__________________
"The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
|