Wimbledon

crappycraperson said:
Go on then. Name the player Federer has faced before Novak and Nadal that are better than Becker, Agassi, Courier, Goran, Edberg, Rafter. Goran is easily better than Roddick, so was Rafter. Courier was better than Hewitt let alone Agassi comparisons.
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That's it. The overall playing field had far more room for upsets. Top 10 meant something back then.

Now it's made up of fags like Robredo, some weaponless cheat I forgot his name in 4, has beens like roddic, that Gonzales fella, I mean wtf. It's like the premier league, only a top 3, the rest can't string a couple of wins together and are too inconsistent to be any threat... they also don't have the weapons to ever truly threaten for an upset, they don't have as much talent as the past top 10.
 
Dominant said:
Yeah, but it's hardcourt next. Federer will definitely go win all guns blazing for the US Open, so we would have to wait for next year's claycourt season.

But realisticly, it looks a tall order, the French Final was a demolition job. 6 fecking 0 in the 3rd set....
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I know its the US open next, that is neither players favourite surface as I said. Demolition job or not, it is up to Federer to close the gap as he has beaten him on clay before. Nadal has managed to do it to Federer.
 
Keyzer Soze said:
I know its the US open next, that is neither players favourite surface as I said. Demolition job or not, it is up to Federer to close the gap he has beaten him on clay before. Nadal has managed to do it to Federer.
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Hardcourt seems to favour Federer more. He has beaten Nadal a few times on hardcourt.
 
Kevin said:
That's it. The overall playing field had far more room for upsets. Top 10 meant something back then.

Now it's made up of fags like Robredo, some weaponless cheat I forgot his name in 4, has beens like roddic, that Gonzales fella, I mean wtf. It's like the premier league, only a top 3, the rest can't string a couple of wins together and are too inconsistent to be any threat... they also don't have the weapons to ever truly threaten for an upset, they don't have as much talent as the past top 10.
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Precisely, the top 10 seeds for this year's wimbledon:

1 - Federer
2 - Nadal
3 - Djokovic
4 - Davydenko (?????)
5 - Ferrer (?!?!?!?!?!?!??!??)
6 - Roddick
7 - Nalbadian
8 - Gasquet (??!)
9 - Blake (?!?!?!)
10 - Baghdatis (?!?!?!??!?!?)

And people still claim the competition is still strong....
 
crappycraperson said:
Go on then. Name the player Federer has faced before Novak and Nadal that are better than Becker, Agassi, Courier, Goran, Edberg, Rafter. Goran is easily better than Roddick, so was Rafter. Courier was better than Hewitt let alone Agassi comparisons.
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If you read my post you'll see I said I didn't think the opposition was that much better, rather than claiming as you are suggesting that they were better than what Sampras faced. For me Courier and Agassi are the Djokovic and Nadal of today's game. The rest are decent players, who have it in them to pull out the occasional grand slam, not unlike Hewitt, Safin and Roddick.

As for the players you mentioned....

He didn't have to consistently play Becker at his peak, certainly Becker didn't provide him with much of a challenge at the slams.

Ditto Edberg.

Rafter won two US Opens, I don't really see how that makes him "easily better" than Roddick, although I would agree he was a better player.

Ivanisevic was a limited serve-volley player, who did well to achieve what he did. He would be no more competition that Roddick has proven to be.
 
crappycraperson said:
I really don't like to to make such argument, but one has to be blind to reckon the level of competition right now is same as in Sampras era. Bar a few Federer fans boy here I have never heard or read someone else make such a claim.
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A few here have. Wasnt me though. I'm just saying its a possibility that if he dominated the competition he faced so easily he may have done the same with those Sampras faced. Its not inconceivable at all.
 
brophs said:
Ditto Edberg.

Rafter won two US Opens, I don't really see how that makes him "easily better" than Roddick, although I would agree he was a better player.

Ivanisevic was a limited serve-volley player, who did well to achieve what he did. He would be no more competition that Roddick has proven to be.
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Roddick is garbage. He is your typical all brawn and no brains type of player with a brash yank attitude. Comes with automatic self destruct mode.
 
brophs said:
If you read my post you'll see I said I didn't think the opposition was that much better, rather than claiming as you are suggesting that they were better than what Sampras faced. For me Courier and Agassi are the Djokovic and Nadal of today's game. The rest are decent players, who have it in them to pull out the occasional grand slam, not unlike Hewitt, Safin and Roddick.

As for the players you mentioned....

He didn't have to consistently play Becker at his peak, certainly Becker didn't provide him with much of a challenge at the slams.

Ditto Edberg.

Rafter won two US Opens, I don't really see how that makes him "easily better" than Roddick, although I would agree he was a better player.

Ivanisevic was a limited serve-volley player, who did well to achieve what he did. He would be no more competition that Roddick has proven to be.
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Roddick is so poor that I am not gonna discuss him.
Novak and Nadal are great competition for Federer. My arguement is that before him he was walking to all those grandslams.
 
Dominant said:
Precisely, the top 10 seeds for this year's wimbledon:

1 - Federer
2 - Nadal
3 - Djokovic
4 - Davydenko (?????)
5 - Ferrer (?!?!?!?!?!?!??!??)
6 - Roddick
7 - Nalbadian
8 - Gasquet (??!)
9 - Blake (?!?!?!)
10 - Baghdatis (?!?!?!??!?!?)

And people still claim the competition is still strong....
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WTF? Is that list serious? fecking hell.

Becker, edberg, courier, ivanisevic (could beat anyone on his day), stich (could beat anyone on his day), muster, agassi, sampras, korda (oozed talent), kafelnikov, even rafter ffs... there are probably quite a few I forgot... now that's a proper list of players... some may not have achieved much in comparence to federer/nadal/sampras/agassi... but they have done more than those jokes, and have more talent in their left testicle.
 
Dominant said:
Roddick is garbage. He is your typical all brawn and no brains type of player with a brash yank attitude. Comes with automatic self destruct mode.
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He wasnt that bad a few years back. Neither was Hewwit who had a good record against Federer till a point.
 
Kevin said:
Ah yes, Davy-fecking-denko. Sure-win semi-final sacrifice once every year for Federer... or anyone in the top 10 back 10 years ago... a joke.
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Precisely. Davydenko. Played impressively right up to the semi finals, and giving you expectation that he might give federer a game at least. No, no such luck.. straight sets demolition.

Got called in for investigations regarding throwing matches... suspicious, now that you thought of it.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
A few here have. Wasnt me though. I'm just saying its a possibility that if he dominated the competition he faced so easily he may have done the same with those Sampras faced. Its not inconceivable at all.
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He would have rose among those players as well. But it would have been tougher and he certainly won't have featured in every grand slam final. Nowdays he does not have to break a sweat before semis, there were much more upsets in the 90's.
It is not even about the 5-6 players I named. The whole top 20 in those days were much more solid. Players needed to play at high intensity from round 4 onwards itself.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
He wasnt that bad a few years back. Neither was Hewwit who had a good record against Federer till a point.
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Agreed. he was decent a few years back, but even then, he's limited. Typical big serving yank, but couldn't manage a few groundstrokes to save his life. Gave free points on unforced errors. Tried to serve and volley but failed miserably.
 
crappycraperson said:
Roddick is so poor that I am not gonna discuss him.
Novak and Nadal are great competition for Federer. My arguement is that before him he was walking to all those grandslams.
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Agreed, he is a pretty poor player in comparison to his peers. But firstly, you're the one who mentioned him in a comparison. You also don't want to discuss him, but you seem happy to discuss Ivanisevic, who had the same number of slam victories, and Rafter, with just one more(and Roddick's career isn't even over-ok, that's daft, I admit:)).

I agree to some extent that Sampras probably had a bit more competition, but nothing like to the extent that is being suggested here.
 
Kevin said:
WTF? Is that list serious? fecking hell.

Becker, edberg, courier, ivanisevic (could beat anyone on his day), stich (could beat anyone on his day), muster, agassi, sampras, korda (oozed talent), kafelnikov, even rafter ffs... there are probably quite a few I forgot... now that's a proper list of players... some may not have achieved much in comparence to federer/nadal/sampras/agassi... but they have done more than those jokes, and have more talent in their left testicle.
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Yes. that's the top 10 seedings for this year wimbledon. No joke. And you have the likes of berdych (who the feck is that?!), gonzalez, wawrinka (is this a toy??), mathieu, stepanek, youzhny, lurking from the 11th to 20th seeds.

:rolleyes:
 
Dominant said:
Agreed. he was decent a few years back, but even then, he's limited. Typical big serving yank, but couldn't manage a few groundstrokes to save his life. Gave free points on unforced errors. Tried to serve and volley but failed miserably.
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How were Rafter and Ivanesavic (apologies for the spelling) not limited? Ivanesavic was a gangly fella who served unbelievably. Rafters groundstrokes were awful. He just chipped and charged all the time. His had no power in his game at all.

Hewwit wasnt bad at all then. Im sorry, winning Wimbledon is always a big achievement. Passing Sampras with such ease and making him look like a fool doesnt sound like a player who was rubbish as everyone here claims. Neither was Roddick. These were good players. Not top quality of course, but good players. Like a lot mentioned in the list from the old top 10. Now they've become worse.
 
Dominant said:
Yes. that's the top 10 seedings for this year wimbledon. No joke. And you have the likes of berdych (who the feck is that?!), gonzalez, wawrinka (is this a toy??), mathieu, stepanek, youzhny, lurking from the 11th to 20th seeds.

:rolleyes:
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The top 3 are on the level of the top of the sampras era. It's the rest up to the top 20 or 30s that have regressed. Back then you had established sub-top players who were talented and just missed that little bit of extra to win as consistently as the top. There were so many dark horses that were extremely dangerous.

Nowadays, the top 20 shifts more often than not, the previous one-season wonders (probably got lucky and got to a semi/quarter final of a slam and won one or two tournaments) get replaced by the new one-season wonders. Not a solid sub top at all.

It's no wonder Djokovic had to be taken out by an ex-top top player from close to the older generation... this new generation have not got that talent to threaten a top seed.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
How were Rafter and Ivanesavic (apologies for the spelling) not limited? Ivanesavic was a gangly fella who served unbelievably. Rafters groundstrokes were awful. He just chipped and charged all the time. His had no power in his game at all.

Hewwit wasnt bad at all then. Im sorry, winning Wimbledon is always a big achievement. Passing Sampras with such ease and making him look like a fool doesnt sound like a player who was rubbish as everyone here claims. Neither was Roddick. These were good players. Not top quality of course, but good players. Like a lot mentioned in the list from the old top 10. Now they've become worse.
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Ivanesevic is only about his serve. agreed.

Hewitt, when he burst on the scene, he was the Nadal back then, solid groundstrokes, nice passes, and chase everything down. Just without the power. He did well against sampras mainly because sampras is past his prime, and playing against hewitt at any court other than wimbledon was going to show sampras up as his baseline is not good and even worse considering how old he was as compared to hewitt.
 
Keyzer Soze said:
He is pretty good, makes good cohesive points. Would have never thought he would be one for this from what I know about his playing days and the bad press coverage on his personal life etc.
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jatin said:
:lol::lol:
did you even see that match

on his day safin is better/classier than anyone in todays mens game
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At his best hes amazing. Such a complete game. But hey, Federer has always faced rubbish players so he must be too.
 
Dominant said:
Ivanesevic is only about his serve. agreed.

Hewitt, when he burst on the scene, he was the Nadal back then, solid groundstrokes, nice passes, and chase everything down. Just without the power. He did well against sampras mainly because sampras is past his prime, and playing against hewitt at any court other than wimbledon was going to show sampras up as his baseline is not good and even worse considering how old he was as compared to hewitt.
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Hewitt and Roddick were always one-dimensional players a la chang who would get found out. I said this when Hewitt won wimbledon, he'd get found out and go the chang road soon enough.

They were better when they were young, burst and on the scene, and were unknown quantities with people not having figured them out yet. Sampras still beat them quite a few times and beat roddick in the quarter final of the us open at 32 years old in straight sets... had sampras been 23 (thus a few more years to toy with roddick and hewitt), he'd have beaten them consistently Federer-style soon enough.
 
Why are the people in favour of this era's competitive field using... Roddick and Hewitt (players close to the older generation) only? Not alot else when you look at this eh:

1 - Federer
2 - Nadal
3 - Djokovic
4 - Davydenko (?????)
5 - Ferrer (?!?!?!?!?!?!??!??)
6 - Roddick
7 - Nalbadian
8 - Gasquet (??!)
9 - Blake (?!?!?!)
10 - Baghdatis (?!?!?!??!?!?)


I'm sorry, but the players you should be comparing ivanisevic, kafelnikov, stich, muster, becker, courier (even when he went down in the sampras vs agassi era), rafter, korda, etc etc are those jokes up there... ferrer, gasquet (just another talented kid who hasn't gotten his game together (yet) in the old era), baghdatis, blake... ffs... robredo and gonzales already gone eh? From one one-season wonder to the next group.

And there's a shitload of top 20 players back then who'd do a job on almighty Ferrer.
 
One more thing: serve and volleyers actually existed back then. Today it's all baseliners. :boring:
 
Kevin said:
One more thing: serve and volleyers actually existed back then. Today it's all baseliners. :boring:
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If the grass courts going to get slower it's going to favour returns to feet making serve/volley more difficult, they should go back to a slicker surface, make the game different.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
How were Rafter and Ivanesavic (apologies for the spelling) not limited? Ivanesavic was a gangly fella who served unbelievably. Rafters groundstrokes were awful. He just chipped and charged all the time. His had no power in his game at all.

Hewwit wasnt bad at all then. Im sorry, winning Wimbledon is always a big achievement. Passing Sampras with such ease and making him look like a fool doesnt sound like a player who was rubbish as everyone here claims. Neither was Roddick. These were good players. Not top quality of course, but good players. Like a lot mentioned in the list from the old top 10. Now they've become worse.
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Both Rafter and Goran were excellent serve and volley players. Certainly better than Roddick. Hewitt had a phase when he was good to excellent, took advantage of a change of guard so as to speak. I would put him on par with someone like Kafelnikov.
 
jatin said:
:lol::lol:
did you even see that match

on his day safin is better/classier than anyone in todays mens game
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All this Safin wanking is nonsense. Even talent wise he has got nothing on Nadal or Federer. He could have been up there right now, the injury didn't help but since then he has only got himself to blame.
 
There is a great opportunity for Murray right now to get into the top 5.
As for comparing different players, it's impossible. If you had Federer, Sampras, Agassi, Rafter, Roddick, Courier Hewitt, Safin etc all competing against each other at age 22 I think Roger would win most of the time. Nadal would also probably beat most of those too.
 
These were the top 16 seeds (in order) for 1995's Wimbledon and when they went out.

Andre Agassi (Semifinalist)
Pete Sampras (Champion)
Boris Becker (Finalist)
Goran Ivanišević (Semifinalist)
Michael Chang (Second round)
Yevgeny Kafelnikov (Quarterfinalist)
Wayne Ferreira (Fourth round)
Michael Stich (First round)
Marc Rosset (First round)
Jim Courier (Second round)
Richard Krajicek (First round)
Stefan Edberg (Second round)
Todd Martin (Fourth round)
Andrei Medvedev (Second round)
Guy Forget (Second round)

vs this years top 16.

1. Roger Federer (Final)
2. Rafael Nadal (Champion)
3. Novak Djokovic (Second Round)
4. Nikolay Davydenko (First Round)
5. David Ferrer (Third Round)
6. Andy Roddick (Second Round)
7. David Nalbandian (First Round)
8. Richard Gasquet (Fourth Round)
9. James Blake (Second Round)
10. Marcos Baghdatis (Fourth Round)
11. Tomas Berdych (Third Round)
12. Andy Murray (Quarterfinals)
13. Stanislas Wawrinka (Fourth Round)
14. Paul-Henri Mathieu (Third Round)
15. Fernando Gonzalez (Second Round)
16. Radek Stepanek (Third Round)
 
Congratulation Rafael Nadal. What a great final that was. Since yesterday the match between Ivanisevic and Rafter was the best of the last years. But this final was even better. Already looking forward to the next year.

P.S. I hope you watched how happy was that cnut from a certain Spanish club.
 
brophs said:
If you read my post you'll see I said I didn't think the opposition was that much better, rather than claiming as you are suggesting that they were better than what Sampras faced. For me Courier and Agassi are the Djokovic and Nadal of today's game. The rest are decent players, who have it in them to pull out the occasional grand slam, not unlike Hewitt, Safin and Roddick.


QUOTE]

Hewitt, Safin and Roddick are or were far better than Davydenko, Ferrer and Nalbandian. But Nadal is different gravy than Agassi and Djokovic is of a similar level to Courier now and will get better. I`ve backed the Serb at 4/1 for the US Open as the bookies have over-reacted to yesterday`s win. Nadal isn`t as effective on hard courts because his lethal top spin isn`t as much of a factor on that surface. He should be third favourite at Flushing Meadow, not second.
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The reason none of the people in the seeds are recognised is because Federer and Nadal are so fecking good that none of them have the chance to win anything.
 
The quality of strokes, stamina and court coverage in last nights finals, was by far the best i have ever seen. What an awesome match.
The pass that Federer hit in the fourth set when he was down match point and had to stretch on the backhand was just out of the world.
Even though i am a Federer fan, i have to say Nadal deserved to win.
 
Yeah, I am still trying to figure out how some of the shots went in... Out of this world, really.
 
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