you can't have a discussion about the goat without general acknowledgement. if nobody acknowledged federer as the goat, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

if everybody acknowledged federer as the goat, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

so while "people" as a collective are morons, "they" most certainly have a significant impact on the acceptance of any given goat discussion. to not acknowledge that is asinine.

further, like it or not, you're a "person" in nadal's camp just as much as i'm a "person" in fed's camp.

re: wiki, i agree it's faulty, but moreso due to the length of federer's career than as an automatic unsuitable argument. it would be far more relevant to look at "fed's wiki at 25" than compare "fed's wiki at 29 vs. nadal's wiki at 25"... so yes, clearly that was my mistake.

finally, we're not "evaluating sports" here. we're discussion who, in a given sport, is the goat. we're evaluating accomplishments and overall acceptance of a specific term applied to a player.

How do you respond to the fact that the clay competition has been pretty terrible for Nadal? Federer being by far his main competition during that time, someone who's worst surface is clay by some margin.

04-11 - Federer

Aussie Open: W SF W W SF F W SF
French Open: 3R SF F F F W QF F
Wimbledon: W W W W F W QF QF
US Open: W W W W W F SF ?

So sick.

I used to be a Federer fanboy (nowhere close to as blindly say like kevin)

But I would argue staunchly about Federer being the GOAT (even when he was losing to Nadal) because tennis is Grand Slams and Fed has the most

But that's an awful way to view sports and especially tennis.

Grand slams play a huge part, but head to head, competition they played, how many he projects to win also all have to factor in. Once I stopped being blindly stubborn about Fed's 'wikipedia', it became much less clear and eventually realized that while Fed might be the GOAT because of his trophies, Nadal is the better tennis player and will likely end up with as many or more grand slams in a more competitive timeframe.

Federer fans can continue to say Nadal supports are making excuses, but it's simply true. Nadal has faced much much tougher competition en route to his finals (mostly because of Fed)

You can be a New Jersey Nets fan all you want and cite the back to back finals appearances in the early 2000s, but the fact is that the Eastern Conference was a joke and they wouldn't have been that competitive in the Western Conference playoffs, maybe a second round showing at best

Competition matters. Fed didn't play a bunch of scrubs but a core top of Nadal-Fed-Djok-Murray is SO much tougher than Fed-Roddick-Hewitt-80 year old Aggasi

C-Vig,

If you actually read the majority of my posts in this thread you will see I am a fan of both and my view is;

Federer is the GOAT right now but Nadal will end up the GOAT.

--

Edit:- I have no idea why I voted for Federer in the poll

C-Vig is ignoring that Federer isn't in his prime these days. That his peak ended in 2007. He's ignoring that Federer's 2004-'07 is BETTER than Nadal's current peak. If both their peaks are similar, we could use the competition is tougher these days argument. But Roger's peak was simply better. He won 24 STRAIGHT finals during his peak. You know who gets to the finals? He also won the year end championships(where only the best play and no easy matches) 5 times including last year when Nadal was in his prime. Nadal won it 0 times. If you think Nadal is the GOAT, how do you explain him winning "only"(for GOAT standards) 4 majors on 2 surfaces(grass n hard courts) combined? Borg won 5 majors on grass alone by the time he was 25. How do you explain him winning 0 ATP year end championships? How do you justify putting him ahead of Roger when he was 2-5 against Federer during Federer's peak years and he's 6 grandslams behind. He might very well go on to become the GOAT. He has the potential to do so but he's not there yet

This isn't true though. Won more majors vs. Roddick and Aggasi does not = "BETTER".

If Roger Federer never played the French at all, he would still have 15 Grand Slam titles, and a winning record vs Nadal!

This is why the head-to-head is stupid. If you make Federer worse on clay, he actually looks better vs Nadal using head-to-head. This is nonsensical. A guy can't be worse and better at the same time.

I'm not talking about just majors. His overall results(not just majors) during that period, not just one but EVERY surface. You should also take into account the praise he was getting from other legends who played this game for his PLAY not just his results. They were convinced that they(laver, nadal, sampras, agassi, borg) were watching the most complete player they've ever seen.

All fine and dandy but nobody is acting as if their h2h record is the be-all-end-all. It does help demonstrate that they've been pretty comparable on other surfaces with Nadal having a huge edge on clay. Given that Nadal played him a few times as a pup in Federer's prime and that Nadal will be favored in any match they play going forward, and I think it becomes less close in Nadal's favor and does become a pretty meaningful data point.

KB24,

IMO a 22-year-old Nadal was better than a 26-year-old Federer who actually both played in real time, and that alone makes me pretty confident that prime Nadal is/was better than prime Federer.

One guy was entering his prime and was better than a guy who was still in his but on the way out. That's more than enough information for me. I don't care how dominant Federer was vs. Roddick and Blake.

If Nadal came onto the scene when Federer was like 31, things would be a lot different.

Also, how much does your argument change if Nadal wins Wimbledon and the US Open this year giving him 6 of the last 7 GS wins? That's a pretty realistic possibility.

Look here's the thing. I have slept on this question and have come up with the definitive answer. Here it is : we will find out who the GOAT is tomorrow. If Nadal loses to LOL MURRAY, there is no way in hell he could ever be considered the GOAT because Federer would never lose in a Grand Slam vs a low WIM guy like Murray and Nadal has already lost to him twice. A third strike would be too much for Nadal to overcome. If he wins though, he will easily win another Wimbledon, have 11 major titles and easily be the GOAT.

One more major doesn't change anything. You need to educate yourself with Federer's accomplishments if you think players like Blake are his rivals during his prime. The fact that you mentioned Blake who never made a grandslam semi says a lot about your bias and ignorance in this argument. Roger won 3 grandslams in a year 3 different times. Nadal did that only once so far.

Also a 26 yr old Federer was no where near his prime. He was losing to players like Stepanek, losing in straight sets in 2008 at the Aussie semi, and losing a set 6-0 against Nadal at French. If after reading this, you think Federer was in still in his prime, then you are not using logic. No way a Federer in his prime would lose a set 6-0 to anyone in history or not win a tournament until Estriol Open where none of the top 5 played. His doctor later said he was suffering from mono during this period which would explain his fall from his stratospheric standards to "only" winning the US open at the end of the year in 2008.

The thing is, not argument should include 'if we discount clay'

Jesus, I had completely forgotten about those teams. Whatever happened to Keith Van Horn? I loved that guy.

What is this thread about again?

If we include only Rogers best surface (grass) they're about even.

If Nadal wins Wimbledon again GOAT no question.

You can if you are already conceding that Nadal is the Best Ever on clay and you want to determine who the best ever overall player is. There are 3 surfaces. The people who are discounting clay are already conceding that Nadal is far better on clay. Now, the debate is about the other 2 surfaces where Nadal was a no show when Federer reeled off 5 straight Wimbledons AND 5 straight US opens and 3 Aus opens during his prime period.

LMAO. How did you come to this conclusion? Federer has 6 wimbledons, Nadal has 2. Federer is 2-1 against Nadal in wimbledon finals. The one loss coming after he was past his prime and was having a ****ty year. Even without that excuse, 6 vs 2 and 2-1 is NOT about even in any universe other than your head.

i just wanna post this article for anyone who hasn't read it yet: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sp...l?pagewanted=1

so if 26 YO / 2008 Fed was not peak Fed, when did he get back to being peak?

lolllll wait so nadal bageling fed doesn't count now either because he wasn't in his prime?

you've now mentioned that french twice without even mentioning nadal as the guy who crushed him.

a month after nadal thrashed fed at RG they played at Wimbledon and played one of the best matches of all time, fed played amazing, nadal was a bit better (21 yo nadal, wat was fed doing when he was 21? i know we like to ignore those years too)

you see i know you dont like it but its possible for him to play his best and lose now. fed fanboys just loved the 2005 season when he just mauled lleyton hewitt and andy roddick

Andy Roddick would have like 4-5 Grand Slam titles if it wasn't for Federer and everyone would think he's one of the all time greats. Just because Federer destroyed him doesn't mean Roddick wasn't tough competition, it means that Federer was miles ahead of the competition.

The "competition" argument is so ****ing weak and dumb, GeoffRas you make me ashamed to be on the Nadal GOAT side.

He never got back to his peak again. Just check his winning % during peak years, which are mindblowing, and compare them to any of the years after 2007.

I never said it doesn't count. Try to follow the discussion. I was giving reasons why he wasn't in his prime in 2008.

Yes or No question: Do you believe that a Federer playing at his peak would lose 6-0 to Nadal on clay? If the answer is no, then he was past his prime in 2008. Because it was not just match but his results were ****ty in general for his standards for much of 2008.

And you can't figure out why people are harping on the competition point? It's really damn important when the Federer camp leans on arguments like this. Sure he deserves credit for mashing his competition like nobody else has. However, we have real information that Nadal could beat him when Fed was 25 and 26 and then around that same time Djokvic and Murray also became a elite. I'm not saying Federer was a better player in 2008 than he was in 2005, but he wasn't all that worse either.

Nadal is currently dominating the competition that Federer couldn't (compared to how he was earlier) and Nadal has also gotten the better of Federer h2h.