Tennis thread 10: Federer's emotional goodbye

[BigFatCoward]

14 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Are we really in the same breath bringing up someone Serena lost to and then talking about Steffi? First every great has a player who is lesser that they don’t do well against. Styles make fights. Brady lost twice to Eli for example. Second Steffi’s numbers would look worse if her deranged fan hadn’t stabbed Seles.

And Serena's stats would look works if Clisters, Hingis and Henin hadnt retired when they were regularly better than Serena.

Edited February 2 by BigFatCoward

[BigFatCoward]

12 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Most golfers today would destroy Jack. Tiger didn't lap him because he made a lot of mistakes, and I'm not even addressing the personal stuff.

 

 

So you agree, using the 'someone from the past' would get thrashed by someone from the present is a stupid argument to make when discussing the 'greatest' and not the 'best'?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

So you agree, using the 'someone from the past' would get thrashed by someone from the present is a stupid argument to make when discussing the 'greatest' and not the 'best'?

GOAT vs BOAT is always tricky. Mahomes is the best QB I've ever seen and there are a few others I'd put ahead of Brady, but he's the GOAT until Mahomes wins a few more Owls. 

[Arakasi]

7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

How is she greater than Nadal?  Utter nonsense. She hoovered up most of her slams in a weak era, Nadal his during the strongest era in tennis history, in any normal era he'd have about 35-40. 

Nadal didn’t just only lose to Federer and Joker. There was plenty of other players he lost to. Reason I put Nadal is that he’s definitely a specialist. 14 of his slam wins were the French. Yes he won the others a few times but I think Serena and Joker have a much more balanced resume than him. Hence I think they are better players.

[polishgenius]

GOAT vs BOAT is easy in boxing: 'the greatest' is a complicated consideration of achievement and the strength of opposition which usually ends up with, depending on the compiler's levels of boxing fandom/hipsterism, in one of Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, or Harry Greb. Whereas 'the best' is Roy Jones Jr. 

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Arakasi said:

Nadal didn’t just only lose to Federer and Joker. There was plenty of other players he lost to. Reason I put Nadal is that he’s definitely a specialist. 14 of his slam wins were the French. Yes he won the others a few times but I think Serena and Joker have a much more balanced resume than him. Hence I think they are better players.

Steffi has the most balanced resume of anyone. 7,6,5,4, if thats your criteria - 9 hard court, 7 grass, 6 clay.

Whereas Serena has win 13 on hard court and Djokovic 14 hard court. 

Edited February 2 by BigFatCoward

[Arakasi]

Also Federer and Djokovic have the record for going deep in tournaments. Nadal flames out a lot early in tourneys. Anyway for modern tennis those four are the tops for me and I’d rank them Djokovic, Serena, Federer, Nadal. They’re all great players but Serena is the greatest female player and Nadal is not the greatest male player. I think it’s impossible to argue against Djokovic now as greatest tennis player ever. How you want to rate the other 3 is up to you but I think it’s ridiculous to demote Serena because she plays in a different category.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Nadal didn’t just only lose to Federer and Joker. There was plenty of other players he lost to. Reason I put Nadal is that he’s definitely a specialist. 14 of his slam wins were the French. Yes he won the others a few times but I think Serena and Joker have a much more balanced resume than him. Hence I think they are better players.

The narrative of Nadal and the FO is bullshit. If you control for the three surfaces he has the best record and if two of the four slams were on clay he'd be running away with the record.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

I think it’s impossible to argue against Djokovic now as greatest tennis player ever. 

Like I've said before, Nadal was wedged between Feds and Joker. He never got a period where he could just stomp on tier 2 talent. Joker ran up his slam titles and individual records when Feds and Nadal were well past their primes. 

Plus of the three Joker is the most boring to watch. I enjoyed Sinner kicking his ass. 

[Calibandar]

5 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Nadal didn’t just only lose to Federer and Joker. There was plenty of other players he lost to. Reason I put Nadal is that he’s definitely a specialist. 14 of his slam wins were the French. Yes he won the others a few times but I think Serena and Joker have a much more balanced resume than him. Hence I think they are better players.

Aside from the fact that Serena Williams was not a better player than Rafael Nadal, you also cant make that comparison. She played in a different sport, with very different competition. You can compare her to other female players, but you can not say she was better than Nadal. She never played Nadal, and if she had, Nadal would not have given her 1 game.

Compare her to those she played, or compare her historically. But not cross sports. And against Nadal, who achieved so much and has been such a legend. I was much more impressed with Nadal the last 20 years fighting in a very crowded field than I was by Williams who played an ever revolving cast of Russian/Belarusian players who would disappear a year later. And still I think she is a legend in her own right and worthy of the acclaim she gets.

[Arakasi]

Sorry greater player. Sugar Ray would never beat Tyson in a boxing match yet he’s a greater or whatever boxer.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

Compare her to those she played, or compare her historically. But not cross sports. And against Nadal, who achieved so much and has been such a legend. I was much more impressed with Nadal the last 20 years fighting in a very crowded field than I was by Williams who played an ever revolving cast of Russian/Belarusian players who would disappear a year later. And still I think she is a legend in her own right and worthy of the acclaim she gets.

So why doesn't she get credit for putting her boot on all their necks? That's the whole mystic of Jordan. 

[Arakasi]

Won more singles titles. Won way more doubles titles. Won more grand slams. Was more dominant against the field she faced. Is clearly the top in her category in a way Nadal isnt. Ask anyone who was a greater player between the two and most would say Serena. I also don’t shit in the female field the way some do here. Tbh part of the reason those 3 guys won so many is because other than them the male field was quite weak.

[Poobah]

2 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Tbh part of the reason those 3 guys won so many is because other than them the male field was quite weak.

I feel like the equivalent would be if only one of the big three were active, can you imagine how many titles Feds would have with no Joker, no Nadal? Any of the three could have dozens more titles if the other two hadn't been there fighting for them.  Watching women's tennis during her dominance felt like that to my recollection, she had no competition at all and could just show up and bully whoever was unlucky enough to have gotten her in the draw right off the court. Aside from Venus nobody else came close to the level of power and athleticism. Honestly I don't enjoy that style of tennis from players or any gender and I think it shows how weak women's tennis mostly was that it was so rare to find anyone who could answer her power, at least from the pov of a British person who as such only gets to watch Wimbledon which I do get as the fastest surface tends to show power even more heavily.

[Arakasi]

Don’t really think that holds true. I don’t think if there was only Federer and not the other two that he has 50 slams. Likely it gives others room to grow and while he wins more not likely that many more. I just don’t think it’s fair to bash Serena for being so much better than the competition while at the same time lauding the men for having a big three instead of one. Bit unfair imo.

[BigFatCoward]

I refer back to my previous. She had to wait for Hingis, Henin and Clisters to retire to emerge as dominant.  That's not the sign of the best ever.  When you see the physical disparity between them that's like Djokovic  regularly getting his arsenal handed to him by Chang. 

And if she was so dominant how was she only year end number 1 5 times in 20 years?  Look at the players that finished above her, absolute dross.

Edited February 3 by BigFatCoward

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Joker won most of his slams after Feds and Nadal were in decline. That's how it works. At their peaks he was clearly the third best outside of 2011 and has been eating up a field full of B+ players since. 

Year end rankings, especially on the women's side, are kind of meaningless. You'll see a player ranked number 1 who didn't even win a slam. 

Edited February 3 by Mr. Chatywin et al.

[baxus]

On 2/3/2024 at 2:35 PM, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Joker won most of his slams after Feds and Nadal were in decline. That's how it works. At their peaks he was clearly the third best outside of 2011 and has been eating up a field full of B+ players since.

Would you say Federer had such a strong field to beat until Nadal and Djokovic reached top levels?

Personally, I think that argument is as bad as the one you made, but if we go with one then we have to go with the other, too.

And no, Djokovic was nowhere near being "clearly the third best".

Funny how you just disregard 2011, when they were all three at their peaks (or near enough) and Djokovic was dominant, winning 40+ matches in a row, winning AO and Wimbledon in the process, if I remember correctly. It's like saying "oh, if we don't count RG, Nadal is nothing special". Silly, plain and simple.

Sure, you can find some other period where they were at their peaks (or near enough) and Federer or Nadal were beating the other two, no argument there from me. That's what made this threeway rivalry that great.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

57 minutes ago, baxus said:

Would you say Federer had such a strong field to beat until Nadal and Djokovic reached top levels?

Personally, I think that argument is as bad as the one you made, but if we go with one then we have to go with the other, too.

And no, Djokovic was nowhere near being "clearly the third best".

Funny how you just disregard 2011, when they were all three at their peaks (or near enough) and Djokovic was dominant, winning 40+ matches in a row, winning AO and Wimbledon in the process, if I remember correctly. It's like saying "oh, if we don't count RG, Nadal is nothing special". Silly, plain and simple.

Sure, you can find some other period where they were at their peaks (or near enough) and Federer or Nadal were beating the other two, no argument there from me. That's what made this threeway rivalry that great.

 

I've always said the reason I think Nadal is the best is because he was wedged between the two so he had no time to eat when there wasn't another truly elite player, let alone two. 

[baxus]

Fair point. How about my question about disregarding 2011?