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Tennis Volume 7: Roger That!


Mladen

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How can Federer be the best when Nadal kicked his ass more often than not?

I said it before. Roger lost his claim to being the greatest when he let Nadal beat him at Wimbledon while he could not do the same to Nadal at Roland Gaross.

Nadal is better than Federer - with a significant margin in his favour in head to head clashes. 

But Djokovic is better than Nadal. To me the ranking is:

1. Djokovic

2. Nadal

3. Federer.

And I say this as someone who really dislikes Nadal and used to love Federer. But Federer blew it. And Djokovic has surpassed them both. And will continue to stretch that lead. He is the GOAT.

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I have no intention of arguing over this.

Each of the three is a valid choice for GOAT and it's a shame that the other two won't get that title. We can find parameters to judge who the GOAT is to prove the case for any one of them. You say it's head to head, I say that it's GS titles and time spent at #1 spot. Both are valid choices but I feel that GS and #1 records are better to judge a career overall.

Hell, Djokovic is my compatriot and tennis is definitely not a sport we're traditionally good at, so I'd love it if he broke all Federer's records and came out as a clear GOAT when he decides to end his career but I don't see that's the case at the moment.

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6 minutes ago, baxus said:

I have no intention of arguing over this.

Each of the three is a valid choice for GOAT and it's a shame that the other two won't get that title. We can find parameters to judge who the GOAT is to prove the case for any one of them. You say it's head to head, I say that it's GS titles and time spent at #1 spot. Both are valid choices but I feel that GS and #1 records are better to judge a career overall.

Hell, Djokovic is my compatriot and tennis is definitely not a sport we're traditionally good at, so I'd love it if he broke all Federer's records and came out as a clear GOAT when he decides to end his career but I don't see that's the case at the moment.

I think when Djokovic surpasses 20 majors the debate will be settled. Because he will be top in virtually every category. Head to head wins, majors, tournament wins, all of it.

It is in his hands now.

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22 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I think when Djokovic surpasses 20 majors the debate will be settled. Because he will be top in virtually every category. Head to head wins, majors, tournament wins, all of it.

It is in his hands now.

If, not when. And even then it’s not a lock, because a significant number of his slams will come from playing lesser talents and/or injured challengers. I have a hard time putting him above either Feds or Nadal because they both pushed each other in their primes. It’s thinkable that either of them could have won over 30 slams if the other didn’t exist.

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At the moment Djokovic won his first grand slam title, Federer has won 12 and Nadal won 3 French Opens. 

A case could be made that Federer won those 12 against lesser talents and/or Nadal who has been a bit of a one-surface player at the time. Federer's 3 seasons winning 3-slams up until that point don't really paint a picture of his rivals being world-class at the time.

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On 1/31/2019 at 3:05 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

How can Federer be the best when Nadal kicked his ass more often than not?

I said it before. Roger lost his claim to being the greatest when he let Nadal beat him at Wimbledon while he could not do the same to Nadal at Roland Gaross.

Fed's record at the French (only 1 title) is "bad", sure. But he lost four finals to Nadal. If Nadal weren't around, Fed would have likely had three or four French Open titles to add to his existing tally of 20 Slams. Instead of being 6-1-8-5 he would probably be 6-4-8-5 or something similar. In his prime, Fed is better than anyone on any surface, with the exception of Nadal on clay. For a period of about 5-6 years, Federer was literally undefeated in Slams except by Nadal (and maybe Safin once and Djokovic once).

Nadal's Slam record is a rather lopsided (though obviously still amazing) 1-11-2-3. In his prime, Nadal is better than anyone on clay, but still eminently beatable in all the other Slams throughout his career by a number of different players.

I guess it really depends on what you weight when you consider GOAT. Head-to-head against contemporaries, Grand Slam record, rankings, etc. Lots of things to throw into the pot and whichever way you do it, you could probably find a way to justify each of Federer, Djokovic or Nadal.

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16 minutes ago, Jeor said:

Fed's record at the French (only 1 title) is "bad", sure. But he lost four finals to Nadal. If Nadal weren't around, Fed would have likely had three or four French Open titles to add to his existing tally of 20 Slams. Instead of being 6-1-8-5 he would probably be 6-4-8-5 or something similar. In his prime, Fed is better than anyone on any surface, with the exception of Nadal on clay. For a period of about 5-6 years, Federer was literally undefeated in Slams except by Nadal (and maybe Safin once and Djokovic once).

Nadal's Slam record is a rather lopsided (though obviously still amazing) 1-11-2-3. In his prime, Nadal is better than anyone on clay, but still eminently beatable in all the other Slams throughout his career by a number of different players.

I guess it really depends on what you weight when you consider GOAT. Head-to-head against contemporaries, Grand Slam record, rankings, etc. Lots of things to throw into the pot and whichever way you do it, you could probably find a way to justify each of Federer, Djokovic or Nadal.

Not sure how you can claim that prime Federer is better than prime Djokovic. In the end they didn’t face each other in their respective primes. So all you can do is look at head to head counts, counts against contemperary greats like Nadal, and ultimately, Grand Slam records.

Djokovic leads in head to heads against both, and will likely soon be at least in 2nd spot in terms of overall Grand Slams won. And probably will lead in total weeks spent at no.1 too.

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For me, it's Federer at one, and Djokovic at two, with Djokovic having a legitimate chance at surpassing him as the best ever.

Even as a big Federer fan I have to acknowdedge that the Djokovic of recent years has done so much and been so dominant that he could surpass him. 

He will need to keep it up though. 

Nadal is a fantastic player but for me he's never been quite as good as either Federer or Djokovic and is a clear number 3 in this list.

Despite how awesome he is compared to everyone else.

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  • 4 months later...

Not for the first time, Serena showing a bit of a lack of class when losing. Thiem should have been able to finish his presser, that was a diva move by her.

Men's draw has some interesting matches. Djokovic vs Zverev could be good but Djokovic should win. Wawrinka vs Fed also, but it's academic as that side of the draw will lose to Nadal.

In the women's, Halep has got to be the favourite now that Osaka is out.

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Less said about Serena the better. 

The thing that has brought some real excitement back into tennis for me of late is Djokovic’s Quest. His journey to stay ahead of Father Time for long enough to overtake Federer’s major count. Will he or won’t he? I find this really interesting to follow.

I must say, I think Nadal remains the favourite on clay, especially after his recent victory in Rome (was it?)

If Novak can win the French Open it will be an amazing achievement and then I think he has to be on track to overtake Roger. But if Nadal remains the clay master, then it is going to be a much longer and tougher chase.

Will be fascinating to see how it plays out.

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Djokovic will dearly love to beat Nadal in a French Open final.

Both of Federer's and Djokovic's single French Open titles are somewhat "cheapened" by the fact that neither of them had to face Nadal to win them. (To be fair, Djokovic has lost three other French Open finals to Nadal, Federer has lost four others to Nadal, so they obviously would have won more French Open titles if Nadal hadn't been around).

But while they were clearly able to win the French Open while Nadal wasn't there, the ultimate single contest in men's tennis still yet to be achieved has to be defeating Nadal in a French Open and then going on to win it.

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First time I've sat down and watched Konta this year.
She's improved out of all recognition! She was decent before, but so much more subtle, disguised, unpredictable.

Sloane Stevens is no slouch, but she's being made to look it today

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And the irrational Serena hate continues here…..

Anyways, I’d say Keys should be the favorite on the women’s side. It’s her time and most of the top tier players are gone. On the men's side, Nadal has to be the favorite until he’s defeated.

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34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And the irrational Serena hate continues here…..

Anyways, I’d say Keys should be the favorite on the women’s side. It’s her time and most of the top tier players are gone. On the men's side, Nadal has to be the favorite until he’s defeated.

Serena is not difficult to dislike.

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20 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Serena is not difficult to dislike.

Actually there’s a lot to like about her. Who cares if she’s a diva. A lot of the men’s players are too. It just so happens that the top three guys over the last two decades are robots. That’s not in line with the history of the sport. You just hand waved away the greatest tennis player ever. Think about that for a minute and then what makes this player different from all the over all-time greats.  

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21 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Graf, Martina and Chrissy weren't arseholes?  

I can’t speak for the first two, but if by Chrissy you mean Evert then yeah, listen to what she’s said about it. A lot of the older players are so grateful that they didn’t play in the modern age with all the heightened scrutiny. Women’s tennis also wasn’t covered the same as men’s at the time, so that adds another layer. Ultimately the point is that women don’t get covered the same as men and whites don’t get as scrutinized as blacks, so it’s easy to see how a black woman doesn’t get the same treatment as white men in a lily-white man’s game.

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5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Actually there’s a lot to like about her. Who cares if she’s a diva. A lot of the men’s players are too. It just so happens that the top three guys over the last two decades are robots. That’s not in line with the history of the sport. You just hand waved away the greatest tennis player ever. Think about that for a minute and then what makes this player different from all the over all-time greats.  

She is the greatest female tennis player ever.

Most dominant female basketball or football player would never be considered the very best in that sport.

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