Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic may have been rivals on the court, but they certainly agreed about one man’s mentality in tennis.
Murray spent an ill-fated six months as Djokovic’s coach in 2024 and 2025, but the pair have been long-time friends off the court.
The two men helped make up tennis’ ‘big four’ alongside Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and both men were called upon when Murray and Djokovic were making up their perfect tennis player.
Djokovic and Murray agreed on who absolutely had to take top spot when it came to mentality on the court.
Novak Djokovic was intimidated by Rafael Nadal’s mentality
Djokovic was convinced Nadal had the toughest mentality out of the entirety of the ATP Tour back in 2020.
“It’s obvious he has champions mentality,” said Djokovic about the Spaniard in an interview with BBC Sport.
“The resilience, the intensity he brings – when you see him jumping around before you walk onto court, it already intimidates you,” added Djokovic. “A mental giant and a physical giant.”
Nadal and Djokovic came face-to-face several times on the big stages, meeting in eight Grand Slam finals.
The men share four wins apiece in Grand Slam finals, but Djokovic slightly edges their head-to-head record with 31 wins from 60 matches.
In terms of career titles, Nadal won 92 while the Serbian picked up his 100th crown in 2025 by winning the Geneva Open.
Andy Murray called Rafael Nadal ‘mentally the strongest’
Murray was in agreement with his former rival-turned-employee as he was also stunned by Nadal’s mentality.
Murray was inspired by Rafael Nadal as a teenager and continued to be in awe of the Spaniard on the court.
“I would say that, consistently, Rafa has been mentally the strongest,” said Murray in the same interview.
“There’s times where you would have been ahead of him but over an entire career, even from when he was very young, he’s always been unbelievably strong mentally.”
Murray only managed seven wins out of 24 matches against the King of Clay, most notably losing to Nadal in the semifinal of Wimbledon in 2011.
Murray did manage to beat Nadal on clay on two occasions, however, in back-to-back years at the Madrid Open in 2015 and 2016.