I prefer the notion that he just toys with them at this point. loveinvain got to that.

I think he'll prob watch clips of the 5-3 game vs Federer if he can't find a good comedy On Demand

I wouldn't put up much of an argument with someone if they said Nadal > Federer. I just have a problem with Novak entering the discussion after one sick year. I get it that you guys have a different definition but tbph I find it, for want of a better word, pretty stupid. I think alot of others do as well which is why it's been such a heated debate. It's been fun though.

for the guys who are experiencing recency bias w/r/t novak, whats the shortest amount of time one can play well that its counted as a peak? I mean if someone went through a major and didnt lose a set would you guys say he has the best peak? I understand the lifespan of a prime tennis player is short but a year seems like its not enough time to establish a great peak. I guess its pretty subjective though.

If I told you guys before the US Open final the following:

Nadal would be up 2-0 in the first and second sets. Then win the third set tiebreaker.

How many would've predicted Nadal would lose that match, let alone lose 2-6, 4-6, 7-6 and 1-6? Djokovic's return game and his ability to go from defense to offense has been beyond sick this year.

lol give me a break. yea compare courier agassi becker to 18 year old nadal, no backhand roddick, and 50 year old agassi.

can someone please define feds peak? im pretty sure someone said it was 03-07 which is quite convenient bc it discounts nadals 08 thrashing of fed. fed fans are smart! it also kind of confuses me bc, when nadal went away fed had a pretty amazing year in 09 again (only 2 GS's he lost were finals and he lost both in 5th sets losing 6-2). then nadal comes back, djokavic gets better and feds level drops down in '10. weird how that happens

this is completely disingenuous and frankly ******ed.

2005 end of year rankings

fed, nadal, roddick, hewitt, davydenko, nalbandian, agassi, coria, ljubicic, gaudio

2006:

fed, nadal, davydenko, blake (not a rival!), ljubicic, roddick, robredo, nalbandian, ancic, gonzalez

theres a reason why we don't really see

theres a reason why we don't see unranked baghdatis' or 21 ranked kiefers in the semifinals anymore. for the most part the top players are around at the end of most majors (3 of the top 4 made the SF of every major!)-- it didnt happen back then that way. and this is bc outside of federer no one was very good. fed wasn't really challenged, and this isnt bc omg this must make him GOAT, its bc he got to face arguably the weakest competition in individual sports history.

i mean you people act like fed can somehow control getting to play weak players in the SF and F, like his greatness somehow causes the rest of the field to play their matches differently.

if only nadal had that aura maybe he wouldnt have had to go through federer to win his grand slams

Federer's peak is 2004-2007. In 2008, he wasn't just losing to Nadal but to lot of players he never lost to. And it started from Aussie Open, not after the wimbledon final. Apparently, he was playing through mono for much of the early part of the year. Once he was fine, he was back to being amazing but not back to his Godly '04-'07 standards. His form from the US open 2008 to the US open in 2009 tells us that Federer doesn't have to be at his absolute peak to beat most players not named Nadal(who obv is insanely good besides being a terrible match up for Fed's one handed backhand).

And no, it's not possible for Nadal to stay 18 for 4 freaking years. And no, Agassi wasn't 50 years old. He was still good enough to make the US open final in 2005.

And yes, no matter how much you try, Blake was never a rival to Federer during his peak. Not anymore than Fernando Verdasco or Mardy Fish is a rival to Nadal.

Frankly GeoffRass22, I am very appalled by your utter lack of logic. A guy finishing in top 5 ONCE doesn't automatically become a rival to a guy who was the #1 for 237 consecutive weeks. It's unbelievably absurd that you even consider this. It's similar to arguing that a player like Cedric Ceballos is a rival to Jordan because they both finished in the top 5 scorers in one season.

im not saying hes a rival, im saying that it seems convenient for you to just dismiss james blake because you know hes not very good and it helps prove the point that feds competition wasnt very good

also, so what about 2009? when nadal went away and fed crushed again? did he just regain his peak?

also, lol, verdasco and fish this year were much MUCH better than james blake was, and they were barely top 10 players not...ranked 4th in the world

Frankly KB24 i am appalled at your/cashy/tdarkos lack of objectivity

you guys have this box where only things that prove Fed is GOAT fits, anything else is nonsense or can be lol'd away

you can really look at that list of people fed got to play for 7 of his grand slam titles and think that the difference between them and the competition nadal has had to face is only "small" but seems bigger bc fed was that much better? REALLY?

You are only looking at Nadal's GrandSlam Finals competition where he was consistently facing Federer. Look at his competition from Round 1 to semis and then compare it to Fed's from his peak. It's very comparable.

Nadal's finals competition looks better because he is in the same era as Federer and Djokovic. Look at Sampras's finals competition. Check out the finals competition of Agassi's. Do you know who Andre beat to finally win the French Open? Do you know the quality of players Borg was beating during the 6 French open finals? Yep, me neither. This era is special. It's special because we have 1 player who consistently makes the finals or semis and another 2 players who are starting to do the same the last 2 years.

So yes, without a doubt, the later stages of grandslams are tougher right now. But that's because we, tennis fans, are lucky to have these amazing players play well at the same time. I also think Federer wouldn't have 16 grandslams if he had the same grandslam finals competition that we have right now. But if you extend that to Sampras, Borg and Laver, they wouldn't have won the number of grandslams(if any) they won with this competition either.

But instead you're only singling Federer out of the camp of all-time greats for things he has no control over. Let's apply that to Sampras, Agassi, McEnroe, Borg, Lendl and Laver too. None of those guys would have as many grandslams as they did if Federer, nadal and Djokovic played in their era. They had lol easy competition compared to what we have now.

yes i know thank you for agreeing with me, and if you were sitting here saying agassi/sampras/mcenroe/borg/lendl/laver were >>> nadal i would use that argument on them too!

i think we can both agree that fed/nadal are very close it could be close enough where its a matter of preference. its just frustrating when people completely dismiss the competition argument

edit: also, i listed their SF AND F in that post i made not just finals, and nadal had far and away the tougher SF competition as well, i can go to the QF too but i dont think that will bode too well for federer.

And one could easily say ...


I am appalled at your lack of objectivity.

You have this box where anything that detracts from Fed's accomplishments fits, anything else is to be ignored.

You can look at the list of people whe Fed got to play for his GS titles and say that's the ONLY reason Fed won. Feder was nothing special. He just kept winning and winning year after year because noone else could play the game.

Federer keeps facing Djokovic in the semis of the grandslams while Nadal gets Murray. I think this is a huge break for Nadal, especially on non-clay surfaces in the past.

And yes, please go into the QF competition. I think you'll see for yourself why this sudden competition jump argument in non-top 3 positions starts to fall apart.

Geoff,

Answer me this:

How much better was Federer than everyone else in those peak years?

03 Wimbledon: (8) Schalken, (5) Roddick, (UR) Philippousis
04 Australian: (8) Nalbandian, (3) Ferrero, (UR) Safin
04 Wimbledon: (7) Hewitt, (10) Grosjean, (2) Roddick
04 US Open: (6) Agassi, (5) Henman, (4) Hewitt
05 Wimbledon: (21) Gonzalez, (3) Hewitt, (2) Roddick
05 US Open: (11) Nalbandian, (3) Hewitt, (7) Agassi
06 Australian: (5) Davydenko, (21) Kiefer, (UR) Baghdatis
06 Wimbledon: (7) Ancic, (UR) Bjorkman, (2) Nadal
06 US Open: (5) Blake, (7) Davydenko, (9) Roddick
07 Australian: (7) Robredo, (6) Roddick, (10) Gonzalez
07 Wimbledon: (20) Ferrero, (12) Gasquet, (2) Nadal
07 US Open: (5) Roddick, (4) Davydenko, (3) Djokavic

Those are Federer's last 3 rounds during the Grand Slams he won during his "peak"

08 French: (21) Almagro, (3) Djokavic, (1) Federer
08 Wimbledon (12) Murray, (UR) Schuttler, (1) Federer
09 Australian: (6) Simon, (14) Verdasco, (2) Federer
10 French: (19) Almagro, (22) Melzer, (5) Soderling
10 Wimbledon: (6) Soderling, (4) Murray, (12) Berdych
10 US Open: (8) Verdasco, (12) Youhzny, (3) Djokavic
11 French: (5) Soderling, (4) Murray, (3) Federer

Those are Nadal's last 3 rounds in Grand Slams wins thus far in his "peak"

*i wasnt sure if i should list his french opens from 05-07 bc while he definitely wasnt at his peak you could probably argue he was already the best clay court player and so he had the benefit of, outside of federer, destroying weak clay court fields

im not sure kevin, my point simply is--

lets just say hypothetically if we were to rank them 1-10-- if nadal is a 10 but faces an average field of 6.5 during his peak, and federer is a 9.9 but faces an average field of 4 during his peak, this does not make federer>nadal imo at least

loveinvain

wrong, i have said multiple times that federer is a fantastic player and could very well be the GOAT-- i just take issue with the people who lol at nadal and think there is absolutely no argument

So, tell us now:

Agassi/Ferrero/Roddick/Hewitt(all 4 former #1s and grandslam champions), Nalbandia/Blake/Robredo etc....

sound loleasy compared to say...

Almagro^2/Murray/Simon/Soderling/Verdasco etc...?

And yes, Nadal has been the best clay court player since 2005. On that surface, his competition counts during his non-prime years too.

I haven't seen anyone lol at Nadal. I only see people who admire his skills, heart and character. Just didn't accomplish enough, especially on non-clay surfaces, to be in the GOAT conversation yet but has done plenty to enter the all-time great list. Many people already rank him higher than Borg and Sampras overall despite not winning as many slams as them precisely because of the competition he faced in his grandslam finals and his success on every surface.

maybe not "loleasy" but a huge step down thats for sure. roddick is really the only one of that group that made it through both eras, in 2009 the year he probably played his best tennis, he ended the year #7 in the world. while 2003 he ended #1 and 04 #2

2011, a year you could make the argument hes > he was 03-06 (at least equal), he isn't even in the top 20.

the competition really isn't that close

id say ferrerro/hewitt are definitely worse than soderling/verdasco/murray, might be worse than simon (theyre basically hte same player), obviously better than almagro although nadal played almagro on clay both times so him as a "weak QF" is a bit misleading because almagro is a clay courter so while he was ranked 21st and 19th id say there was a good chance he was better than that on clay

from his wiki:

That list of competition is both awesome and hilarious

Of course the competition is stronger today, that's just sport evolving. I'd say the majority of sports are tougher now than they were 10 years ago. You seem to think the likes of Hewitt/Ferrero/Safin were some kind of bums that couldn't beat a Top 20 player of today.

Agreed. Hard to tell how bad it was at that the time but looking back on it it makes it incredibly lol.

wow, i wish i could make up numbers this easy to fit any argument i want. no need to look at real numbers.

The way you're dismissing players like Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, Ferrero makes me think you severely underestimate what kind of talent, skill, work ethic and temper you need to become a grandslam champion and #1 player. It's like you're penalizing Federer for elevating his game to such a level that he was too good for his own era.

When you were in school, did you ever score the highest in any single exam? How about being the 1st in class? First in school? First in state? First in the country in anything? How about first in the whole world? Yep, that's what Hewitt/Safin/Roddick/Ferrero did...Hewitt and Safin were the same guys that were beating Sampras. I don't think you appreciate their level of skill as much because Federer's game was too good for them. This should speak for Federer's greatness, not against

right but now ur implying players like murray/soderling/verdasco/berdych dont have the "talent/skill/work ethic/temper" to become a grand slam champion and #1 player.

how do you know they wouldnt have done so and more if they had played during the 01-04 era? you dont.

theyre not #1 now bc they dont have that stuff, theyre not now bc the competition is measurably tougher

Instead of just lumping me in and saying I am not objective, can you show me where I haven't been objective - and please remember, somebody disagreeing doesn't mean they aren't objective, not everyone can agree with you so don't act like the know it all kid that has to get angry and think everyone is stupid b/c someone is defending their viewpoint.