Ya you never know but the so called NextGen have been around for some time now and haven't shown consistency. It would have been OK if they were consistent and only went out to big players but that's not the case.
Sinner looks good. Let's see.
Greatest mens tennis player of all time
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
Ya you never know but the so called NextGen have been around for some time now and haven't shown consistency. It would have been OK if they were consistent and only went out to big players but that's not the case.
Sinner looks good. Let's see.
Novak has fewer USO than Nadal.
I think people underestimate how good Rafa is on the American summer HC circuit.
And Roger still has a chance at Wimbledon.
Not for me. Even the greats like Sampras, Agassi, Becker, Connors and McEnroe can’t match the consistency these guys have shown in the last 15 years. Reaching every final just not slams, but masters or literally every event they play.
After the big three, Agassi has won the most masters with 17. Federer has the lowest with 28. Even Murray has surpassed quite a few greats with 14 masters titles.
Jimmy Connors has won the most titles overall. But just looking at his list it seems he won a lot of small tournaments in America. Not really the scale of tournaments these guys compete at. Feds 100 titles is much more impressive.
Exactly, but this is no excuse to ignore them. The intangible components are not just part of the story , it's possibly the more important component. Imagine Maradona winning same trophies and having same stats, or even more, but without his artistic style of play! He'd be way inferior to the current Maradona. We wouldn't be talking about him that much. Quality always precede quantity. Problem is that it's, well, qualitative/intangible.
Moreover, nothing is certain exactly, including quantitative variables. While a variable like GS trophy wins is certain in itself, its role in a quantiative model may differ from one person/statistican to another. For example, should we base the GOAT alone on Grand Slams, or other tournaments as well? Where to place Jimmy Connors? How does he compare to Borg for example? How much weight to assign to the ATP finals? or the Masters? How to compare different eras quantitaively?
We're ingoring all this to make it easier for us. It is easier, and wrong.
That's why I push for the term GOHT to replace GOAT. Greatest of his time is much more accurate, as you can't compare the many variables truthfully, from different eras.
Goran vs Henman the heartbreaker if you british.
Safin vs Federer AO
Nadal vs Djokovic RG SF 20....13? ..... talk about not letting someone past. But Djokovic was better in....
Federer vs Djokovic RG SF 20....11? (Almost certain Novak beats Nadal this year, he was unreal going into this match, it's the most baffling Federer performance ever - just everything went right for him)
Nadal vs Federer W 08 .... First few sets were a bit of a damb squid but the story elevates it as a whole.
Djokovic vs Federer W 19 ... better complete game that the above.
Basically all but the Nadal/Fed one were peak levels or close by both competitors throughout. Stan's performance vs Djokovic in the French final was absurdly good too, but Djokovic let the moment get to him a bit.
Safin vs Federer AO
Nadal vs Djokovic RG SF 20....13? ..... talk about not letting someone past. But Djokovic was better in....
Federer vs Djokovic RG SF 20....11? (Almost certain Novak beats Nadal this year, he was unreal going into this match, it's the most baffling Federer performance ever - just everything went right for him)
Nadal vs Federer W 08 .... First few sets were a bit of a damb squid but the story elevates it as a whole.
Djokovic vs Federer W 19 ... better complete game that the above.
Basically all but the Nadal/Fed one were peak levels or close by both competitors throughout. Stan's performance vs Djokovic in the French final was absurdly good too, but Djokovic let the moment get to him a bit.
It is not just a tennis thing.
Modern day greats are way more focused and have much superior conditioning/training/support teams to the earlier eras.
Messi/Ronaldo, Bron - lots of guys maintaining high level of consistency for incredibly long periods.
I don't really get this argument discrediting Federer because of who he defeated before Nadal and Djokovic broke onto the scene. The fact that Djokovic, Nadal and to a lesser extent Federer have won Grand Slams in the last few years is down to two things: (a) the fact that they are three of the greatest players of all time but also (b) the current generation really aren't that consistently close to their level. If you want to say that Federer only defeated the likes of Roddick and Hewitt, then fine, but you also have to acknowledge that the current generation of contenders should really be competing better against three 30+ players than they are currently doing so.
Also, Federer tended to dispatch those players away with great ease in his early career, so it's hard to see how he could have done much more. If you are one of the all-time greats and you end up playing against players in GS S-Fs and Finals who are not of the requisite standard, you should steamroller them, and Federer did exactly that.
And on the subject of Head-to-Heads, Nadal leads Federer 24-16 and Djokovic leads Federer 27-23. However, Nadal leads Federer 14-2 on clay, whilst Federer leads 3-1 on grass and 11-9 on hard surfaces. So on that evidence, the reason why Nadal holds such a significant lead on Federer in H2H is mainly because of his dominance on clay and due to the fact that the grass season is way shorter than all the other seasons. Also, Djokovic has won 7 out of the last 10 matches with Federer since Federer turned 34 so their H2H record is actually more even when you control for Djokovic playing against old-man Federer.
Karlovic is still playing at 40. Not because he’s technical. It’s because he’s tall and his serve helps him massively. That’s why you call these players servebots.
Djokovic didn’t return well either, which was more key as he didn’t put Nadal under much pressure on his serve.
There’s a reason why big servers don’t win clay events. The serve isn’t as important as other surfaces. It takes more skill to get points because you have to work the baseline.
What about when peak Federer was playing young man Djokovic?
it's looking more likely that both Djokovic and Nadal will have better claim for GOAT than Fed.
Where do you want to start? Federer won 5 out of the first 6 before Djokovic defeated him on his way to his first AO in 2008. Then Djokovic wins 18 out of the next 33 before Federer turns 34, and then Djokovic has won 7 out of the last 10. Djokovic also won the last 3 matches before Federer turned 34. TBF, what exact time period anyone picks is going to be arbitrary, but I think the general view of their H2H record should be the same, with Federer winning early, nothing between them in the middle, and Djokovic dominating late on.
You are obviously right that Djokovic and Nadal have benefited from the Nishikori/Cilic/Raonic generation being so weak but they have still had to beat one of the big 3 to win most GS which is still some achievement (and obviously it also benefited Federer in 2017/18). Fortunately, the generation from Thiem and younger seems to be of the requisite standard so at least the older guys are being made to work to win them now.
The clay/nonclay arguments are kinda circular imo. All 3 of them grew up playing on clay so it is not a Sampras vs European players argument, where Pete clearly wasn't comfortable on the surface, and surface homogenization has helped all 3 of them.
Also, your argument on the Djokovic h2h falls for the Nadal h2h. Federer had a poor record against young Nadal and against prime Nadal (on all surfaces) but has turned it around against old Nadal (to his huge credit). Rafa was beating Roger on outdoor hard until the past 5 years.
That said, obviously Federer has a strong argument for GOAT and we can going on this topic for ages.
Working the baseline could easily mean just grinding it out and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake.
My point is you definitely can't say clay is the hardest surface - especially when you have history of players who do well on clay and struggle on anything else.
Also Karlovic is a terrible example because he's just an average player who did nothing much on any surface! You can't rely on just a serve for elite success but you can't do much without it either (Djokovic's inability to hold his serve was his far bigger downfall today).
And my point is with clay you don’t need a big serve to succeed like you do at Wimbledon.
You just named Gaudio as one grinder who won the French. I can name you lots of players who won slams on the other three surfaces just because of their serve. Serve alone isn’t going to cut it at the French.
nah. grass is the probably only surface you can do good purely by being good server. literally the whole point of servebots, and there have been plenty of them, is that they're tall and rather average at everything other than serving. that's it. technical skill is the last thing I associate players like Raonic, Querrey, Isner, Anderson etc. with.
Would you say a goalie is the best when he only prevails on a pitch when the ball slows down when it's shot towards them?
That's certainly the best tennis match I've ever watched.
Outside of the age argument though, I think Federer vastly improved his backhand during Winter 2016 and ever since then, his record versus Nadal has significantly improved. To the best of my recollection, Nadal used to go for Federer's backhand when it started to deteriorate and used to get great success in doing so. IMO, a lot of Nadal's success against Federer was more of a match-up thing than anything else, and the same goes for Federer's success against Nadal since 2017.
Although truth be told, I'm not particularly convinced that H2H arguments should be used in debating who is the GOAT. Nikolay Davydenko leads Nadal 6-5 in total H2H and 6-1 on hard surfaces. Such evidence doesn't suggest that Davydenko was a better player than Nadal, it just suggests that he was a bad match-up for Nadal. Therefore, I think H2Hs pale in significance compared to a player's general performance in terms of establishing who the GOAT is.
Gaudio is just one but there are plenty of others (basically a whole generation of players before nadals domination).
Also why do you dismiss the serve? It's literally the foundational shot in tennis. Another argument could be that clay is the easiest surface because it makes it the easiest to return the serve.
Anyway, who has won the US Open, Australia (or Wimbledon even) just on their serve? The modern game simply doesn't let any one dimensional player thrive.
Nadal's clay dominance also crippled Federer mentally(as good as Nadal was at RG08 - Federer was dead on arrival, like check his body language). Once he fecked off Clay, that kinda faded away thus a later flurry of wins - some minor game adjustments helped.
Cilic.
Querrey, Isner, Anderson and Raionic have reached the semi finals or finals of Wimbledon in recent years. If it wasn’t for the big three, one of them would have a slam next to their name and it would be embarrassing.
Still the only of the Big 3 to win both Masters and the USO in the same summer.
Why? As embarrassing as Gaudio or Albert costa having a slam?
Cilic was a good player who has much more to his game than his serve. He won 18 titles,
reached the finals of the Australian open and Wimbledon and reached the quarters of the French. Even Isner has reached the fourth round of the French.
So those 4 from 3 Slams..... if it wasn't for the Big 3 - Soderling would be a double RG winner.... the RG is the land of the no marks having runs when specialists existed. Verkerk?
Cillic is the definition of average.
I don’t know why you keep bringing Gaudio and Costa into it because back then there were players who were specialists for clay courts. Now every player besides these servebots can play on clay because every player is a baseliner.
You still have avoided the question. Do you associate Isner, Anderson, Raionic, Querrey with technical ability? Because all I see is big men that Vince McMahon would love to have in WWE.
And what’s wrong with Soderling? Guy did what your favourite Federer couldn’t do and that was beat Nadal at the French. He deserved a slam for that alone.
You've made an assumption for the second time today based on nothing I've said for you to think that. Weird.
So what’s wrong with Soderling?
I don’t need to make assumptions. It’s easy to see who the fanboys around here are especially judging by your past posts.
You've just slammed Cilic.... yet now defending Soderling - despite heavily similar careers. Nothing wrong with either for me, decent mid-tier players who pull off the odd upset - but I was, once again, bringing something up that doesn't fit your narrative and you lose your knickers, then claim "FANBOI!!!! OMGZ!!!".
Woeful debating.
But I'm happy to tell you who my favourite player is - Borg. And Novak is the GOAT for me, he'll likely catch up GS wise, but he's got the highest peak and the best spread of performance. There's literally very little in it mind you and I don't really care as much as you do, but there you go.
Cilic was a regular top 10 player - by definition, that means he's not average.
All of those players, barring Querrey, have reached the second week of the French open (along with other grand slams) so yes I do associate them with some technical ability. In fact, I'd say they're in the top 50 in the world when it comes to technical ability - which coincidentally is also their general ranking.
Why should their serve be held against them?
My point is that you really can't say that succeeding in French requires more skill than say at the US open or Wimbledon. Winning a Grand Slam is incredibly difficult on any surface which is why it's such a big deal.
Nope.
Soderling was a better player than Cilic. Similar careers? One was forced to retire at 26 and the other wasn’t. Really similar.
I don't know if it requires more "skill" than winning the others but the fact the GOATs of the game like Novak, Federer and Sampras have a grand total of 2 between them speaks a lot about just how difficult a Slam it is to win. Point construction is extremely important and just having a huge serve and ball bashing won't ever win you RG.
Federer beat Rafa in 06 and 07 at Wimbledon after losing at RG those two years as well. Rafa just kept improving his grass court game though and 2008 was a culmination of that improved game and he showed that level to win two more Slams there.
The only reason Djokovic and Fed have won two is because of Nadal. If it wasn't for him, they'd have easily won a handful (much like Nadal would've won many more non-clay slams). Borg, for instance, did fine on both grass and clay.
Sampras is obviously the one who struggled on French and which is also why he's not a serious GOAT contender anymore. I think for him (like McEnroe) it may have been the lack of practice on the surface growing up.
Fed is not the undisputed GOAT anymore, at least that has changed today. Now the debate between them will start with an “In my opinion...”. More change will come as I see Federer winning 0, Nadal to add at least another french open and maybe a hardcourt slam too.
Djokovic will be the x factor in this and will fight it out with the Spaniard.
Djokovic will be the x factor in this and will fight it out with the Spaniard.
Don't take something as an insult you feel you need to defend by stating something everyone knows. Nadal going 5 finals in a row at Wimby is a monumentous achievement. The F-W double is tremendously tough regardless of who you beat - it's why I rate Borg stupendously high. If Djokovic had done it once, I wouldn't even say theres fine margins in the dabate.
This 'skill' thing is all a bit trivial though - I'd push towards it needing more tactical nous than skill really. But at the end of the day, it's heavily down to what these people were brought up playing on. Muscle memory from childhood is key to success.
Its not a surface that is emphasized in the US, so the likes of Sampras would've grown up on mainly hard courts with a view towards winning the US Open and with then Wimbledon regarded as the crown jewel of tennis tournaments.
Its obviously a different game for Spaniards and South Americans who grow up surrounded by clay courts, where something like the French would be a bigger deal.
Something Rafa has done twice and one of them with a title at Queens thrown in as well
As for this, I think if you're good enough, you'll adapt to the surface. Nadal had something like 5-6 career matches on grass IIRC, before his 2006 Wimbledon and then he went on two reach five finals in a row on the surface.
You predicted it a few years ago prof and you were right.
What’s the final totals going to look like?
I am quite sure Djokovic will be GOAT but it's going to be pretty amusing to see pundits, journalists and fans squirm and try and get out of "total Slams" as their primary parameter for judging who the GOAT is
