I think that Nadal's dominance on clay has more to do with Nadal being by far the GOAT than it does with his opponents not knowing how to play on clay.

That is not to say that the same can't be said for Federer's dominant run, but I just think it applies to Nadal a lot more so.


EDIT: To elaborate further, the reason I think this is because Federer stopped being so dominant when the opposite increased and nothing has shown anything can stop Nadal on clay.

lol doubles

Losing to James Blake at 2008 olympics is another example of why Federer was not at his peak that year. It's not because Blake suddenly became so much better that he can beat Federer, who's playing at his peak.

God daaaaaammmmnnnnn

Roddick = GOAT

So you're of the position that Federer was significantly worse at age 26 than he was at age 24? I'm just trying to clarify everyone's positions because they keep changing a lot it seems.

Yes, evidence clearly suggests that Federer's level dropped significantly during 2008, compared to 2007. It was later revealed that his play was effected by mono which makes sense since he went from crushing everyone to losing to Blake, Stepanek, Fish etc. Since he recovered from mono, he became good again but definitely not back to his absolute peak level. His peak lasted for 4 years from 2004-2007 which is a long time in tennis or any sport for peaks to last.

Okay fair enough, but now I'm lumping you in with ATA then and am going to cease discussing this with you. You're the main offender of "saying it matters when Federer wins and doesn't when he loses." To claim he's significantly worse at 26 than he was at 24 is absolutely wrong and goes against absolutely everything we know about sports and athletes. It just makes no sense at all. The evidence doesn't suggest he got significantly worse, it suggests the other players got better. 26 is part if an athletic peak and this is supported by his still elite play in 2009. You're not being objective at all.

Borg and McEnroe never won a grandslam again after 25. It is not only possible to get worse, these guys who dominated tennis never won again.

In Federer's case, I didn't say he got significantly worse magically. I clearly explained that he had mono and it affected his play. That after he recovered from that, he was pretty good again but not at his absolute peak. You want me to claim that he was at his absolute peak from 2008-2011 as well just to satisfy you even though that's not the case?

LOL


you are contradicting yourself
federer reached 5 of 6 french open finals 2006-2011 ...

You're going to have to point out my contradiction because I don't see it, and I looked hard.

Where you from cashy?

austria, why

federer played in a hilarious weak area and stopped dominating as soon as todays players showed up?
nadal opponents arent bad on clay!

why was federer able to dominate anybody but nadal at the french open from 2006-2011 apart from one slip-up then?

Oh I see. Well that does slightly knock Nadal's accomplishments on clay, but could also mean Federer is historically megaelite on clay also.

I will grant that Federer keeping up his dominance vs. the non-Nadal field does make Nadal's clay dominance slightly less impressive. Though his dominance of Federer is still pretty solid.

alright guys now let's post some more brooklyn decker boobs.

such a weird debate, cause i think everyone in this thread really likes watching both of these dudes play.

Definitely. Best thing to come out of this argument is that I'm like a lot more interested in tennis than I was before it. I can't wait to go to the US Open and hope to watch them play each other.

ATP has this for their head to head if I neglect clay

2004, hard, Nadal
2005, hard, Fed
2006, hard, Nadal
2006, grass, Fed
2006, hard, Fed
2007, grass, Fed
2007, hard, Fed
2008, grass, Nadal
2009, hard, Nadal
2010, hard, Fed
2011, hard, Nadal

So yeah, a monstrous 6-5 asswhooping in Fed's favor there. In other words, they're close to breakeven on the other surfaces over their careers, and Fed gets completely whomped on clay. Comments like "oh, but Nadal lost too early to play Fed back in the day" neglect that these days Fed is now losing too early to play Nadal at the end of slams.

I'm too lazy to dig up the updated version of these stats, but from a post from after the 2009 US Open, here were the records of the top 5 guys against each other since the end of 2007 (so basically the 2008 and 2009 seasons):

Nadal 19-9
Murray 14-9
Federer 11-14
Djokovic 9-15
Del Potro 5-11

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_878238.html

I think this discussion should wait until Nadal is consistently making every grand slam QF when he's 29 years old.

Have to think the peaks of todays players will be 2-3 years longer because of improved nutrition/strength training etc. We've begun to see that esp in other sports.

Obvious Feds dominance will be longer than Nadals due to style of play.

Let's see Federer's stats against top 5 guys during his peak. You're showing Nadal's score against top 5 guys during his peak while showing Federer's score against top 5 guys during his non peak years.

Also, your head to head shows that Federer was 5-2 against Nadal during his peak and 1-4 against Nadal when the latter was in his peak. How are these numbers meaningful? Head to head only matters if they both peak at the same time and their accomplishments are similar. Instead we have Federer's peak from 2004-2007 and Nadal's peak from 2008, 2010-11.

i am pretty sure this is not the most important question. nadal is obviously a pretty bad matchup for federer.

a better hypothetical would be to take these guys in their peaks and let them play a ton of matches against the top 10 peak modern players across the various courts.

Which one of us was talking about Federer's winning record on other surfaces again? Why bring it up at all if it's not meaningful?

Also, you're defining Federer's peak by where he was most successful. This is not necessarily the same thing as where he was the best tennis player. Like everything else in this thread that's been said 37 times or so, but hey.

Yes.

Federer is GOAT tennis player
Nadal is not in top 3 GOAT tennis players
Bitchface is WOAT poster

Heard Mcenroe say today that if Nadal wins Wimbledon he would probably be his #1 of all time. Also said he thinks Tsonga will beat Djokovic so we'll see.