Federer has the most Grand Slam Titles, right?

Ok, verified. Voted Federer.

fyp. i try to watch tennis objectively, and cringe when commentators like fowler assign hindsight reasoning to why someone randomly double faulted or shanked a ground stroke. but '09 aussie was an uncanny display of failing in big spots, timidity and soul ownage. i remember cheering for him in that match, but by the end of it being disgusted with him. the tears iced my disrespect for him.

after he got broken back in the 5th set last week it was pretty evident he had resigned himself to failure. [ ] heart of a champion

Not sure about the first 5 years. I don't know where to get all the historical betting lines. But look to 2006 Wimbledon where Fed was 66% to win the tournament and, behind Roddick, a 20 year old Nadal was 3rd favorite. James Blake rated as the 5th best player. Did he strike as much fear and upset potential into the top player(s) as Delpo does today? I don't know. But in the past 3 years i'm almost certain fading Fed in every circuit & slam match was profitable. This contributes to the theory that he was overrated from an era of sparse competition.

In a few years, Novak will be GOAT. Nadal and Djokovic will run the show for the foreseeable future.

OK keep talking about the last three years, sigh. I agree, it's absolutely possible, even very likely that based on his uber domination over a long time period, the odds on him were so short that betting against him when his decline began was profitable. Makes sense. But I also think it's true before that, betting on him was hugely profitable. Cherry picking the last three years is hardly being objective.

Anyway, my question to you (whick ties in directly to the question of did under or overperform expectations) was, do you think Fed should have won more grand slams then he did?

He won 16. You think he underachieved right, so how many slams do you think he should have won?

You haters are pretty funny.

You cherrypick a time period that coincides with his decline instead of looking at his entire career.

You list every loss he's ever had after being ahead, and say that's evidence that he's a choker (like she should never lose or soomething) conveniently ignoring that most of those losses again, came during his decline.

You point to his loss to Djoko as further damning evidence of choking, completely ignoring how remarkable it was that a 30 year old Fed came within a hair of beating the GOATing Djoko.

You say his crying is a reason not to respect him, as if that's not relatively common for a great one losing a big match/game.

You keep bleating like a mantra that his competition was bad but ignore the question of how many grand slams you think he should have won.

And then, you claim that you're objective. Hilarious.

I say to you the same thing as I say to all the haters. Federer is not perfect, never said he was. But IMO, he is the GOAT. If you disagree, tell us who you think is the GOAT and make your case. Good luck.

Fed is the GOAT as of now (measured by some undefinable metric consisting of accomplishments, h2h records against other GOAT contenders and skill) and will likely remain it for some time. Prior to this year, I thought Nadal might succeed him but it's rather unlikely now. Djokovic is very unlikely to become GOAT (and sure as hell isn't at the moment) UNLESS he pulls a Graf next year and wins the Golden Slam (all majors + Olympic Gold in one year..)

As for ability, I feel that Nadal's best tennis loses against Djokovic's best tennis, Djokvic's best tennis loses against Fed's and Fed's loses against Nadal.

A prime Murray remote controlled by Jimmy Connors would beat them all, though!

I found another problem w/the poll:

How can you include someone with such mild accomplishments of Djokovic, while also leaving off young upstarts with high potential like Donald Young, Milos Roanic, Bernard Tomic (just defeated Wawrinka FYI) and Jack Sock?

lol

If Novak won all four majors this year, could have happened if he beat Fed at the french. I think he might have beaten Rafa...he's now in his head.

I still don't think you could class Novak as the goat.

I do believe Djokovic would've defeated Nadal in the final of the French. Close to a calendar slam, you could say, but no closer than Fed who won 3 slams and made it to the final in the other on at least 2 occasions afaik.

Yeah Novak's accomplishments are hardly mild. Calling him the GOAT though is LOL preamature.

Should be interesting next couple of years. Fed on the way down, probably less than 50% to win another slam. Assuming that new young talent is still a couple of years away, then Nadal is the only one standing between Djoko and say 10 or so slam wins in the next three years assuming that he is the GOAT as some are saying.

If Nadal doesn't succumb to injuries, Djoko keeps outplaying him and does win all those slams then he will probably supplant Fed as the GOAT. If however he plays at a level well below this year, loses to Nadal a few times, loses maybe to a few others, wins a mere 5-6 more slams in his career or even less ... well, then he will go down in history as a great player, one of the best of his generation who had one GOATish year but not to be seriously mentioned in discussions of who the alltime GOAT is.

Another scenario, is that Nadal just fades away, Djoko has no serious competition, wins a ton of slams and has a career similar to Feds. Then perhaps all the people who are down on Federer today will be down on Djoko as well saying how he had no competition, played in a historically weak era when he won most of his slams, he will have a loss or two along the way after being ahead which will be evidence that he is a choker and who knows, he may even shed a tear after losing an important match which will lead to people dissing him.

Either way, should be interesting.

Djokovic and it's not all that close

It's ok, Novak will calendar it in 2012 then there won't be much question

It's not Federer. You can't be considered the best player of all time if you have been absolutely owned by any one other player.

Blindly looking at total championships and not adjusting for strength of competition is just dumb.

Nadal has absolutely owned Federer, and Nadal has a very tough time with Djokovic. Federer is out of the conversation in my mind. I think Sampras in his prime was even better than Federer.

Tennis is not played on one surface. It's played on 3 different surfaces. Sampras never even reached the final of the French. How can he be the GOAT when he has less slams than Federer and was horrible on one of the 3 surfaces they play on?

If Federer had Sampras's clay competition, he'd have had 21 slams. But instead, he has the greatest clay courter in the history playing in the same era. The reason for Fed's poor h2h record against Nadal is that during his prime years, Nadal never made it the hard court slam finals. Nadal is 11-2 on clay against Federer. Had Federer sucked on that surface like Sampras did or like Nadal did in hard court slams during Fed's prime, he'd be 6-5 against Nadal.

He should have known better than to make all those clay finals.

Sampras done nowt at the French.

Did he ever win a clay event I can't remember if he did or didn't.

So although he was brilliant on hard court and grass, not being good on clay rules him out, no?

Its debatable who'd beat who on grass and hard between him and Fed but fed would beat him easily on clay.

If Federer and Nadal are roughly even on non-clay surfaces, and Nadal is much much better on clay, then how does that not make Nadal the better overall player?

I agree he choked in that final set. But unless you expect him to be a robot, he'd face nerves, have doubts just like any other human. If you look at the US open final set this year, I got the feeling that Nadal gave up. He stopped going for shots and looked pretty timid. I see people having no problem with admitting that Nadal got tired after the tough first 3 sets but don't extend the same for Federer after the tough first 4 sets in that Aussie final. Do you expect him to be ON every single time and have no doubts, no nerves, no exhaustion?

My feeling is that unless it's a trend, you can excuse moments of frailty. Federer has proved that throughout his career, he has overcome his own doubts and nerves far more than any other tennis player in history.

They are roughly even overall but that's misleading. Federer is 2-0 against Nadal in Wimbledon finals during his prime years. And Nadal never made it to the US Open or Aussie final during Federer's peak years, 2004-2007. Their records are roughly equal because their primes didn't intersect. When Federer was in his prime, Nadal wasn't good enough to make the other finals. But when Nadal was in his prime, unfortunately a declining Roger Federer still played good enough in slams to make the finals or semi finals every year since 2004, only to lose to a peak Nadal.

It's true they're playing in the same era. But because of their age difference, their peaks happened at different times. So, their head to head will always be mis interpreted if you look at it in vacuum and don't consider the surface or their peak periods.

Odds? Or still leveling?

Yeah... those are good points, but it doesn't address the fact that Federer compiled a ton of slams when his toughest outs were Andy Roddick and Leyton Hewitt. I also think Djokovic's recent dominance over Nadal is problematic for Fed backers. If a case can be made that Nadal is better than Federer (I'd say it's safe to say that one can at least make a case), and Djoko is emerging as better than Nadal, then it's really hard to still say Federer is better than both of these guys. If Nadal were old now it would be one thing, but he's not- he's in his prime, and he is getting bested by Djokovic on 2/3 of the surfaces. It's a problem for both Federer and Nadal.

Anyone who makes tries to debate that anyone has ever had a tennis year comparable to Djoko's this year is lost... this guy is playing better than anybody ever has right now.

Novak beat Rafa quite easily in the ATP 1000s on clay this year... Will be interesting next year at the French to see who wins it.

Also on a note we should have an atp1000 event on grass....

We can leave Fed out of the argument b/c it is circular at this point. Mac's 84' run was not worse than Djoc's this year. 82-3 that year, didn't play in the Australian (not abnormal back then, Australian sometimes skipped before counting slams was a big deal) and won 2 of the 3 slams he played and lost in the finals of the French. Lost to Lendl in the French which was kind of the end of an era - it ended the serve and volley game, the new racquets started the power top spin/baseline game. Anyway, Djoc's year is top 3 no question but you can't say 'best AINEC.'

this thread will be so much fun once djoker grand slams all over it in 2012

he has shot at slamming 2012 if he doesn't keep quitting.