I never said that Murray would have won 5 titles. I said that about Roddick. However, Murray would have a couple maybe. The point is 16 titles would have been shared. At least 12 of them if Federer would have been just as good as Jim Courier. You are overlooking the psychological factor that I have stressed upon. It is not about how many times Federer has physically blocked Hewitt's or Roddick's way. The point is with him around, these supremely ambitious athletes could not approach a tournament with full confidence. I think it is fair to say that, given his nearly inhuman consistence in the professional era (not just the titles, but the semis and finals reached). Look at it this way. Bradman was sometimes dismissed for a duck or completely fooled by a bowler, but which bowler went into a match not dreading him and feeling pretty small? The aura of invincibility matters.
I am not overlooking the pyschological factor.
I am arguing exactly the opposite -- tennis is a pyschological game, perhaps the most demanding of them all if you believe sports pyschologists.
In order to be a champion, you have to overcome the pyschological factor --so if these players did not, thats another ding against their "much touted championship calibre" that Fed denied.
I am saying that this argument does not fly in a sport where the difference between good and great lies in the few inches between the 2 ears.
With regards to the number of titles, you claimed Roddick would have won 5/6. I showed in a post on this thread that Roddick lost a total number of 6 times to fed. But in any given scenario of a game between players, the ratio of wins to losses is never 100% --it is more 1:1 or 3:2.
So since you claim that fed was so great that he denied Roddick 6 times, lets examine the fact through corrolaries. yes, fed beat him 6 times. But had fed not been the God you claim, then a realistic estimate of the results in those encounters would have been Fed 3: roddick 3, which means Roddick at best would have won 3 GS's.
When you juxtapose that with Roddick's record elsewhere, it just does not compute -- Roddick is not a great in his own right who has been denied his legitimate spot by Fed as you claim.
Same for Murray -- fed has beaten Murray 2 times. Under the same scanario murray would at best have had 1 victory.
The more crucial piece is that out of federer's 7 year dominance on the tour, we have yet to find (other than nadal) a single player who consistently challenged federer in the later rounds of tournaments. maybe Roddick, if you stretch but thats it ?
When you look at prior eras, the same cluster of 5 or 6 players would always be in the semis --year after year. Thats called consistency, thats called a clustering of talent. If amongst those 4, even 1 would have been as great as Fed and won most, we would have still seen a clustering of 3/5 others regularly in the latter half of the draw. We did see that in the earlier periods but not in Fed's. That is a story in itself.
Oh come on! When did past greats like Connors, McEnroe, Edberg, Sampras or Becker get near enough the French to be swept year after year? The reason Nadal has a 13-8 career advantage over Fed is because Fed was up there in the FINALS, in tournament after tournament, waiting for Nadal (usually they were 1-2 seeds). That was nine times as I recall. the Nadal-Fed equation would look different if Fed did like most past champs did: lose roughly in the fourth round in their least favorite surfaces. Ergo, if Fed was Sampras and did not make it to say 8 out of those 9 engagements, the score would have been something like 5-8 (well Fed beat Nadal on clay too, so I can't be sure) and no one would complain. Let me reverse the question: do you realize that Fed would be regarded as one of the greatest clay courters if Nadal wasn't born?
Erm, if you recall my earlier post, I said that fed and nadal were pretty even in GS play. I said that despite the fact that Nadal has a 5-2 edge in GS, only because I made concessions for the clay court wins by Nadal.
So the talk of French doesnt make sense wrt Fed- nadal. I am observant enough to make concessions when required.
Even so, the fact remains that he has not come close to running Nadal (the best clay courter of his time) close on French clay. By contrast, consider lendl who made 2 finals and 5 semis on grass, his worst surface. He came within a couple of blown calls of beating becker on grass, actually beat Edberg on grass. As well as McEnroe, becker, and Connors on grass (other than W)
For the record, Connors has won on clay. McEnroe made the finals of French and should have won. He has also made the French semis twice. Edberg made the finals and the semis as well at French. The only one who have poor records on clay are Becker and Sampras --so let us not dilute the issue here.
Furthermore, bringing these players into the discussion as well as their supposed weaknesses on clay runs counter to your premise --on one hand you claim Fed is GOAT. On the other hand you bring up the adjustment failures on clay of becker, Sampras et al to exonerate Fed. At least be consistent with your standards -- do you want us to judge Fed by the GOAT standard or do you wants us to judge Fed by the all time great standard.
I have been consistent in judging Fed by the all time great standard, affording him concessions for Nadal and clay et all. But you want him to be treated as GOAT yet you are quick to revert to a lower judgmental standard when it comes to defending his weaknesses.
With regards to fed being one of the greatest claycourter but for Nadal, please dont delude yourself --he would have to get past Borg, Vilas, lendl, Wiander, Kuerten, and a host of others before he got a whiff of that moniker. And these players would have toyed with Fed on clay.
Mono lasts for a month after treatment begins, but weakness lasts for 2-3 months. In Fed's case, it was undetected for some time.
No, actually I am skeptical that rehabilitation takes a year for a top athlete. I have seen athletes play after recovering from mono --but that is purely anecdotal. So lets just say I am unconvinced of this pending some medical clarification.
In any case, I am not sure why we are debating this. My point was that Nadal beat him in 4 consecutive French Opens (1 SF, 3 F) and I questioned whether all of those can be explained by mono.
The point being when you meet the same opponent 4 years in a row, and if you are the "GOAT", I would expect you to stretch your opponent to 5 sets at least once on your opponent's favored surface. Not talking about a win --just a 5 set match. Tell me that you can compete.
Yes. It was a blimp in the Fed saga. He pushed his body to the extreme, heightened his skills to the maximum, and won when the GOAT was not fully fit and not capable of unleashing his best weapons to their optimum capacity. Fair enough! Good for Nadal! Now that he has written his checks, he deserves a pension that he can collect later. I hope he recovers and wins a few more.
This is still not relevant. 4 wins at French, a win in Australian and another at W. Even if 3 of those wins are discounted on account of mono, my point above stands. He has not mounted a semblance of a challenge to Nadal on clay. Nadal on the other hand has --on Nadal's least fav surface, grass. leaving aside the "mono induced loss" (as per you), Nadal still dragged fed to 5 sets in the 2007 W final.
No it is you who is wrong. The grass at Wimbledon has slowed down considerably. There are actually rallies nowadays and I have been watching Wimbledon for more than twenty years now (as you have). Just a boom boom serve will not get you out of the woods. During the nineties, Nadal would be nowhere near a big W final, let alone win it. Today Ivanisevic would struggle to get to the semis.
Oh I didnt claim that the grass has not slowed down.
But you forget, Ivanisevic made 3 W finals and he stretched Agassi to 5 sets in the final in a year when the Wimbledon courts were the slowest in living memory (and thats not just my assessment, its Agassi's as well). And Agassi had the best return in the game in the past 20+ years.
And I'm sorry, but for the slowdown in grass, rallies dont happen when a player serves 20+ aces and 20+ service winners in a match --that was Ivanisevic on grass.
The tennis world has changed. Muster would do well on clay, but would never reach no. 1 today by playing 13 tournaments in a year only on clay. Fed would have owned him on clay. He is as fit and a far, far, far better all round player.
Muster won several tournaments on clay. thats why he was number 1. The ranking system operated differently and what Muster did optimized his results at the top. That is to set the record straight since you seem to conflating the actual no 1 ranking with the best player on tour moniker.
In any case, his ranking is an irrelevant point. Whether he would be beaten by fed on clay (debatable) is also a moot point and completely tangential to the discussion.
The discussion stemmed from your assertion that players like Muster would not be successful on the mens tour today (please note the original premise -- successful, not be #1; successful, not beat fed on clay). I said, yes he would to which you respond by bringing in his no 1 ranking and whether fed would easily whup him or not. When was this a part of the discussion ?
Thanks. This observation of yours makes Fed's consistency all the more remarkable. If technology and technologized fitness creates a scenario in which superior skill of X can be nullified in a flash if X feels a little under the weather on a given day in office, it means Fed has both: supreme skills and tremendous fitness. that is, unlike John McEnroe, who had superb hands, but, by his own hyperbolic admission, was not fit enough to touch his toes. When you think of the past, consider two things: would it be possible for a Rosewall to reach a slam final at 40 today? Would it be possible for an Ash to win one at 36? Would it be possible for a 39 year old Connors to reach the semis (in a period you think was more competitive than this one)? There can be no question about Fed's all round skills. Mac volleyed better than him. Connors returned serve better, Rosewall probably had the better touch, but pound for pound, with them on their best days and he on his, Fed would have eaten up all of them everything combined. He has old world racquet skills in greater measure compounded by a fitness that is preternatural by even today's standards. How many people in the history of the game have managed to appear for 41 consecutive grand slam tournaments?
And again, the same fallacy in argument that was displayed on the original GOAT thread.
In these hypothetical match ups between
Rosewall / McEnroe / Connors / Ashe / greats of yesteryear vs Federer
you expect all these greats to remain frozen in time -- no benefits of fitness, no benefits of racquet technology
while Fed comes in and whips their butt using his modern racquet and his superior fitness.
Nice scenario -- is this what you call when you play with the decks stacked in your favor ?
Now that is of course a counterfactual question. Nobody knows how fit McEnroe or Borg would be if he were born twenty years later.
The delicious irony and double standard in your own logic is probably hidden to you.
Nobody knows whether Mc or Borg would be as fit as now if they played 20 years later but YOU KNOW THAT FED WOULD HAVE BEEN AS FIT AS TODAY IF HE PLAYED THESE GUYS 20 YEARS EARLIER !!
Do you even pay attention to the train of thought you propound ? or in your mental time machine does time only flow forward --- Borg and McEnroe can only be brought forward in time to play Fed but without the benefit of any modern advancements related to the game ?
BTW: Before you continue on this line of argument, at least do yourself the favor of checking your facts. I pointed this out once in the earlier thread but apparently you didnt pay attention. Borg was one of the strongest and supremely fit athletes, even by today's standards --and that was 30 years ago. Even before Lendl, he was the epitome of fitness. Please stop using factually incorrect and erroneous data to construct arguments.
The point however is that they have not been able to absolutely dominate their own eras as Fed has. Not even close.
Again, the same countercyclical argument. Borg and mcEnroe did not dominate their eras because they played opponents worthy of the term "opponents", not minnows.
Unless you can show objectively a group of players who performed consistently and reached GS SF and F on a regular basis only to be denied by Fed, please give this line of reasoning a rest. Repeating something ad nauseum does not make it a trusim or a fact, neither does it rectify the flaws inherent in the logic within.
Moreover, both consider Fed to be the best.
maybe they do -- maybe not. I also suspect that 50+ year old men have more class than to propound their own greatness long after their playing days are gone and say "No, Fed's not the GOAT because I did better"
I think they know a bit more than you or me.
yes, they do. They know when to play and let others be the judge of their legacy and when to stand back and praise the new generation as a graceful act befitting the earlier generation. Something I suspect literal minded fans miss.
Even as we speak, I suspect JM is revising his opinion about top level tennis, Federer, and fatherhood.
Presumptious. I'm not sure what Fed having kids has to do with McEnroe being a dad. Or about top flight tennis.
Unless you are joking here, your intent to belittle past greats in order to prop Fed comes across as distasteful.
AuthorTopic: Calling kban, Rams, Dex and all other Fed haters (To be removed soon) (Read 3851 times)
December 15, 2006, 03:08:24 AM