Ish: good stuff

Would be interesting if you split Novak stats into pre/post mid 2010 when he allegedly met that quack doctor.

All I was saying is that even if nadal didn't get hurt, Stan was winning that match.

Reminded me of that drubbing delpo gave rafa at the open. 2 2 and 2.


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But injuries are a part of it.

Part of federers greatness is that he beats people and makes it look so effortless.

Rafa has to expend so much more energy and add wear and tear to his body earlier in tournaments. Where Fed shows up and rolls Dustin brown in 100 minutes

The reason fed stays healthier is he can beat most scrubs in 3rd gear.


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I know injuries are part of it. Rafa going out early doors in wimbledon etc makes it look like he isn't great on a statistical sample when in reality he was ****ing awesome on grass.

I completely agree and it just piles on why Roger is the GOAT

I don't have confidence the model can compare players directly over time too well, but you can still look at how they actually performed.


The jump Novak has going from 2010 to 2011 isn't exactly unprecedented, Nadal has two bigger jumps, but definitely has his big jump in ability at a later age than Nadal.




Id be cautious about comparing different players here. These guys tended to play pretty different schedules and that would make the numbers not apples to apples for 2 reasons:

1) Federer naturally didnt get to play his best courts as often as the other 2, and Nadal and Djokokic have the highest clay and hard court match % respectively, a product of playing to their strengths. Though I would argue this is a knock against Federer given that his best 2 courts are grass and indoor hard and like 20% of top level tennis is played there

2) Game wins on fast courts are a little more valuable than game wins on slow courts due to how the hold/break math works out. Probably something like 59% on grass ~= 60% on clay.




That said, it seems pretty hard to argue that Novak's 2011 season isn't the best of the modern era.

In what sense exactly?

Id think there are broadly two categories of injury:

1) A sharp discontinuity in ability caused by some injury. Maybe the player struggles through a couple of tournaments, takes a break and comes back healed, and eventually returns to full form. This is handled to some extent in the model. Its probably far from perfect, but if there is evidence of a sharp drop off / increase it moves the players ratings faster than normal.

2) Long term nagging stuff that causes a player to effectively age prematurely, which seems to be what Nadal has. This wont really get handled in any special way. My primary purpose is to predict the probability of tomorrows matches, and if a player is getting worse because they are getting old, they have a nagging, long term, non-discontinuous type injury or they are getting fat, it doesn't really matter to that purpose.

I am a firm believer Novak's 2011 is tops.

Federer had several really great years

Agassi had one amazing year.

John Mc


I'm going to be sad in 10 years when the men's game is like the woman's game. Just a bunch of ok players.


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Ok a tournament on this surface would be an awesome addition....I'm assuming it's always a huge advantage to have your opponent be on the grass.



Also, lol carpet

I just noticed something watching tennis clips. Andre Agassi is a really useful player in this discussion. Not because he's in it, but because he's almost there, and he played matches against such a variety of players across eras.

He played against (and you can easily find footage on youtube)

Novak
Federer
Nadal
Sampras
Mcenroe (who played Borg and Nastase and Gerulaitis)
Connors (who in turn played Borg and Laver and Rosewall and Nastase and Gerulaits and Tanner)
Lendl (who played Borg and might be the most underrated all time great IMO)
Becker
Edberg
Wilander
Safin
Roddick (I just include these last 2 guys because they are often brought up in Federer era discussions)

And other champions/competitors like Chang/Ivanisevic/Courier/Stich/Rafter/Muster/Bhagdatis/Berdych/Hewitt/Noah etc...

I mean, it only takes one middle link (Connors) and you can get all the way from Agassi (who played all of today's big 3) to Laver. That's pretty unreal. Literally the only 2 top players from the last 40 years who never played Agassi are Bjorn Borg and Andy Murray. Obviously Agassi was at different stages of his own career, but nevertheless, it's quite fascinating.

Pretty much every great player in history played against either Agassi or Connors at some point. And Agassi and Connors played each other twice.

I remember watching that grass/clay match. Was funny as they had to kept changing their shoes due to the different grips required.

Would be awesome if they done a few tournaments like that. I'm not actually sure what side it would be would be an adv.

Opponent being on grass seems an obvious advantage. Big advanatage to be on a slow court while your opponent is on a fast court. Just think, serving onto a grass court and receiving on clay.

Yeah would surely be a huge advantage to be on the clay to the point where it might even be a bigger advantage than serve depending on which players were playing.

Ishmael, Carnivore

i'd forgotten about this thread. very interesting to see a few of the other arguments and some pretty good statistical analysis done (on games vs. tournaments for example. that was illustrative).

i was in the fed as goat camp pre 2017AO, and i think that match vs. nadal just seals it. nadal didn't play poorly (save a reallllly bad break point gift in the 5th). fed was just playing so good when he was on and when he let up even for a second, nadal took the sets. when it counted though, he came back from a break behind in the decider to hammer home the nail in the coffin.

that said, you do have to acknowledge some luck that all players have to some degree. i used to complain fed got the worst draws in those french opens sometimes, or at australia a few times, but realistically, everybody gets those. and fed gets INSANELY lucky too (murray out in the AO. djok out in the AO. Murray AND Djok out in Indian Wells - the one i'm watching now). that last one especially. fed went from a draw of nadal, djokovick, nishikori, murray to a draw of nadal, bye, sock, wawrinka lol. and yes fed got "lucky" to win the french, just as djok went all out with that epic shot at the US open and he got "lucky" to win the open. but just look at what happens when fed loses. he doesn't go on streaks after losing of playing badly. roddick basically RETIRED after that fed match at wimbledon. he just couldn't play at a top level mentally any more (maybe b/c he cared more about f*cking his wife, brooklyn lol).

but fed? sure he gets pissy ("i can't believe i lost to a player like that" referring to djok at the open), but he doesn't let it get him down and he puts in the work and time and mental effort to stay at this level. he had a few down years, but right now he's a threat to even novak and murray...at 36!

so the goat discussion in tennis is closed imo unless another federer comes along. nobody in his contemporary class can claim goat status anymore.

He seems pretty happy with the silver he got there during the presentation and in interviews thereafter. I've never heard him be happy to lose a grandslam final before.

But you probably forgot that he had to play a 19-17 third set against Del potro. It's still longest 3rd setter in history. There's no comparison between Roger and Murray on grass or any other surface. It's great that Roger didn't give tiredness as an excuse but it's evident to everyone else who saw the Del Potro match and then the final!

I've come to the conclusion that FED is a wizard and not human

I just googled Federer, and what do you know, he won another tournament today.

Ah, you missed out if you didn't seem him play this week. He is playing so fast and loose now since cementing his legacy. Awesome stuff.

he didn't just win a tournament. he won another masters 1000 level ATP tournament. that makes it 25 for him and 90 overall titles. he played *SO* well and at his age, it's amazing to see. for him to have improved his backhand to this level, and to still be improving his service game (esp his second serve) is straight up incredible. part of it is definitely his mental edge now. he feels so comfortable and is so grateful and feels fortunate to be able to play that he's upped his game quite a bit.

granted, he hasn't yet faced off against murray or djokovic, but he has now beaten nadal twice in a row (though both on hard courts). nadal may not be 2008 nadal, but he's still very difficult to play against as a righty. the fact that fed's backhand improved so much allows him to go toe to toe against nadal's forehand (something he couldn't even come close to doing 10 years ago).

anyways, every announcer, every tennis personality, and all pros interviewed are straight up amazed at the game fed's come into 2017 with. he's played 3 tournaments, a 500, 1000, and 2000 and he WON the 1000 and 2000 lol. he's earned like 3400 points on the year and is beating nadal by 1800ish points in the emerates race to london.

it's so clear fed is the greatest of all time. maybe not the greatest year (misses by just a bit), and maybe not the greatest tennis performance of all time (year goes to djokovic and match goes to wawrinka without a doubt - the greatest human performance of tennis ever i think was the finals where stan blew djokovic in his absolute prime off the court). but overall career is clearly fed.

Roger Federer should be tested to see if he is indeed human

And the GOAT strikes yet again

ya i was on the fence about who the 1 and only true GOAT was, but then Fed went and won the Miami Open in 2017...

lol. that's pretty funny. you forgot to attribute the statement though. i.e. "-said nobody ever"

it is pretty insane what's going on right now. i watched that match and the first set was so back and forth and crazy right until the end. then fed started holding serve much more easily in the second set, but he got behind at i think it was 2-3 serving at 15-40 and he somehow didn't get broken. and nadal double faulted again and fed's backhand struck a few times, and that was the end of that.

i'm eager for djok and murray to come back to see how he does against them. will they be able to come back from injuries as seamlessly as fed has? if they do and return to their 2015-2016 forms, will fed be able to take them as he has nishikori, wawrinka, nadal, and everybody else except for some no-name Dolstoy (or whatever his name is) this year on his road to being 19-1?

should be interesting. the only downside is that it seems federer isn't set on being #1 and instead on playing for as many years as possible in as best a form as possible.

so he's skipping 2 Masters events and 2 500 pt tourneys, basically the entire clay court season, in order to focus on doing well at the french open.

that means we won't really get to see him play against novak and murray until at the earliest, the french.

the good news: he has 0 ranking points to lose from this break

the other good news: he already achieved #4 and is unlikely to be knocked down to #5 since if rafa kicks ass, the points would have to come from likely wawrinka so stan would drop to #5 leaving fed at #4.

the bad news: he won't win any points so very likely won't finish the year at #1, meaning he probably won't get back that ranking for any more weeks since defending 3/4 titles in 2018 early on is a big big ask with everybody back and playing well and fresh next year.

the other bad news: he MAY end up #5 at roland garros, which would be a big negative since he wouldn't have his own quarter and he'd then end up with a tougher draw.

here's to hoping if nadal kicks ass, which he likely will seeing as how the only person seriously beating him this year has been federer, the points go from stan->rafa and fed stays at #4.

The best players all show up, and a a guy 10-12 years past his prime beats them all. No wonder everybody else looked bad 10 years ago.