Quote:
Originally Posted by KB24
Bitchface,
Nadal lost to Ivan Dodig in Montreal. Would you consider him a rival to Nadal? Do you believe great players sometimes play bad matches for variety of reasons and that one win doesn't make that player a rival? If you agree with all this and still think Blake is a rival to Federer during his peak, then I'd hope that you're simply trolling.
You keep pointing out that Federer had weak competition during his prime. But conveniently ignoring the fact is Nadal was the #2 player for 4 years during Federer's prime and Djokovic was the #3 for a year. Nadal might have been young but he was too good too early. Agassi was playing at a decent level for 2 of the years Federer was playing. Players like Safin and Hewitt and Roddick would've looked much better overall had Federer not absolutely crushed them. If Federer was playing in Sampras's era, I'm sure you'd have said players like courier, becker, chang are weak because he'd have destroyed them just like he did with the 3 former #1's. Those players look good because Sampras wasn't as dominant as Federer and he was weak sauce on clay where guys like Courier won their trophies.
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
Quote:
Originally Posted by KB24
I agree competition looks a little better today than Federer's competition. But it isn't by much. You have to jump the logic loops to convince me that an era where Mardy Fish and David Ferrer are in the top 10 and Andy Murray is the perennial #4 is somehow significantly better than what Federer was facing. Only the #2 and #3 are stronger today than in Federer's era but that's expected considering their names are Nadal and Federer. You don't get these quality players every 5 years. So of course, top 3 is a little more stronger today than in 2004.
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
Quote:
SF, F
(5) henman, (4) hewitt
(3) ferrero, (ur) safin
(5) roddick, (ur) phillapousis
(10) grosjean, (2) roddick
(3) hewitt, (2) roddick
(3) hewitt, (7) 50 yo agassi
(21) kiefer, (ur) baghdatis
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