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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/14/2009 1:29:59 PM |
Tennis is not a sport
WTF?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??
Granted I haven't picked up a racquet since I was a teenager but I remember that after running around all over the court all day it sure as hell felt like as much of a sport as football, basketball or wrestling.......... | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/15/2009 11:56:52 AM |
Federer is a fanastic player but only Nadal, Murray and Djokovic are his major competitors. Sampras had Agassi, Becker, Courier, Bruguera, all multi slam winners to deal with.
First of all: who the heck is "Bruguera?"
You're judging the quality of his competitors by how many slams they've won, but what if Federer, or any player is so great that virtually no one else can beat him for a slam? I think federer is that good. I have seen little in any other players game, past or present that would present regular difficulty for Federer. | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/16/2009 11:24:55 AM | | I would say No. In terms of competition whom does Federer have as competition other than Rafael Nadal ( whose injured via foot) It all depends if The "Old Rafa" returns the one that gave Roger a hard time. If that is the case I'd say he has a better position for the better players of Tennis. Yes he will win the most titles. No doubt. Are his rivals as good as Pete Sampras's? I t hink not. Although im a Rafa fan. All in all Roger is a great player who has elevated the game to a standard Tennis hasn't been too since Sampras and Andre. | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/17/2009 3:43:01 PM | who is bruguera??? Maybe the best clay court player of the 90's
2 roland garros wins | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/17/2009 3:44:20 PM | not judging him by that. but if he had to deal with Sampras, Becker, and agassi he wouldnt have 15 slams in an era with those 3.
Rafa wouldnt beat any of those 3 except on a clay court | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/17/2009 4:18:56 PM | Add me to the people who think Fed is the greatest of all time (so far). I sort of felt this way when he had 13 Grand Slams, since Sampras never even got to a final of a French. Sorry, but clay court tennis is a HUGE part of tennis, the way it's played in much of the tennis fanatical world. Argument was over when he won the French, and now that he's won 15, I don't see how a person can argue for Sampras and I'm noticing Pete fans are shifting their argument to Laver.
( the only little weak link in his game is becos of his single fist back hand , which lacks power , which is exposed by opponent, who don't have power in his shots that are coming to roger's backhand side. Thatshow , Nadal able to win over roger ,especially in clay courts. Nadal is really the only guy who can consistently exploit Fed's so called weak backhand, and far as that goes, Nadal's forehand cross court to a righty's backhand gives everybody problems. On paper, a tall guy with a two hander like Soderling, Berdych, Novak, or Safin would have the best chance of handling that shot, but it's basically like a kick serve over and over again. And Nadal intentionally makes it land short so hitting it on the rise is less of an option, by the time it gets to the baseline it's over the heads of even a guy like Novak Djokovic, who I once saw having to return a Nadal forehand with both hands of his backhand OVER his head. And he's like 6'2". It's a genius shot really (it's very aggressive even if it's not a flat screamer, the opponent is forced to camp out further and further back behind the baseline, and it's so money, he rarely misses it, this shot that helps him establish superior court position so easily) , Nadal has the best point construction on clay I've ever seen.
Fed's backhand is very good, it just might seem weak compared to his forehand, which is consistently the best I've ever seen in tennis. I think the problem is that for a while in order to beat Nadal on clay, he started coming over it way more than he used to. When he was dominating with 3 slam wins a year, he was slicing his backhand a lot more, playing a style nobody else on tour really was, using his slice like a jab, pushing people out of position with strange placement and unpredictable pace, it made it very difficult for players to get a rhythm. He did need to come over it more against Nadal on clay, but as a consequence, he started playing more like a conventional player, and everybody else became more comfortable playing him.
When Fed came on the scene, his backhand was sometimes described as the finest one hander in the game. If not the finest, certainly one of the best along with Guga's, Gaudio's, and Pavel's. (this was before Gasquet really) Nadal just has a very unique style that is a bad matchup for Fed on clay. But it's not that he's got a bad backhand. Most players, from Agassi to Soderling to Roddick, still describe him as having no weaknesses. And they know something about tennis.
<div class='quote'>Federer is an amazing player and superb all-round athlete. He may well be the best ever player, although there IS an argument that he hasn't had to compete with as many greats as, say, Borg or Sampras did in their day.The tour is tougher than ever. I think people mythologized the players they remember while growing up as a kid. The top players are roughly comparable (although I don't think we're ever going to see another guy with a continental forehand in the top 25, let alone top 10, let alone number 1 a la Stefan Edberg), but you get down to 20, or 50, or 100 in the rankings, and those guys are vastly superior to the guys who held those spots in the rankings 15, 20, 30 years ago. Every round is a potential disaster. Not sure if Sampras would have even reached the round of 16 even during his prime in today's French Open draw.
<div class='quote'>not judging him by that. but if he had to deal with Sampras, Becker, and agassi he wouldnt have 15 slams in an era with those 3.
Rafa wouldnt beat any of those 3 except on a clay courtRafa is 2-0 against Agass. Beat him once on grass, once on hard court. He would beat Pete on clay worse than Pete would beat Rafa on grass.
Sampras was better than Becker, and at his best, on fast grass, Pete would be a handful for Fed. It might be 50/50. But Fed DID beat Pete on grass when neither were in their primes. If it wasn't for Nadal, Fed might have 20 slams by now. Fed is an incredible player on clay, and pretty much only loses to Nadal, the best clay courter I've ever seen.
The quality of tennis right now is very high. When you get a chance, watch old matches on The Tennis Channel. What's left of the matches you "remember" is probably a montage of player X, Y, and Z's finest moments. Becker missed a lot. He was clutch and a brute, but he wasn't the steadiest player. But if you only remember his best matches, you would swear he could beat anybody. Ditto for Safin and Goran. But it takes a special champion to win as often as Fed. He's a beast. | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/18/2009 5:04:22 AM | Hey Kewldoc,
Borg is a little before my time, but I think Fed would be a bad matchup for him. Then again, who knows. If he were playing today, Borg would be a completely different player technically. He would have to be. Stroke production is so different today and it's not simply about racket technology. When Agassi came on the scene, people were shocked at the huge cuts he was taking off both sides from every place on the court. He wasn't setting shots up doing the kind of point construction you HAVE to do with wood, hitting several shots to set up the winner, he was simply going for a screamer when he felt like it. Agassi started by playing with wood, and he was using a racket that was available to other players at the time. It can't simply be attributed to racket technology. Agassi just had a completely different philosophy. He took bigger cuts at the ball and he could keep it in, inspiring a whole new generation to hit like him, taking huge swings at the ball, and of those youngsters, the very best made it to the tour. I compare it to how they said the 4 minute mile was impossible, but once a guy did it, suddenly a lot of people could do the impossible. It was just a new approach to tennis.
Now, we really are seeing a whole new kind of player, ones who NEVER played with wood. Agassi's strokes look classical compared to some of the newer guys who take the racket back with their elbows pointing backwards, and their racket faces completely closed as they come at the ball, pronating severely through the contact point, all angular momentum, with a windshield wiper follow through. No way a person who grew up playing with a 15 ounce wooden racket would develop that kind of a motion.
Anyway, not sure my point is. Oh yeah, that the whole racket thing is overrated (I think the greater changes were Agassi making people rethink what was possible in terms of how hard you can hit consistently... the open stance, which makes the modern player use their legs way more on a groundstroke than in the past... and Big Banger strings...) , and who knows what kind of player Borg would be. Right now, watching him, I'm thinking Fed would just smoke him. With his speed, athleticism, endurance, and steely nerves, if he were born in 1985, he would be an impact player today, but a very different player in terms of stroke production. He wasn't a huge guy, would he be like a better Leyton Hewitt? I don't know.
What do you think? | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/21/2009 12:42:22 PM | sampras in his prime 1995 -99 would beat federer on grass
Becker 85,86,89-91 would beat Federer on grass especially if federer stayed back on the old grass.
sampras would beat fed on a hard court. and indoors
becker who was even better than sampras indoors would beat fed indoors.
laver won 2 grand slams in calender years and didnt play for 8 years because he turned profesional.
the rackets are different, the diets training fitness are different.
just because someone plays today they are not neccesarily the best. | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/21/2009 5:46:37 PM | | Roger is definitely an amazing athlete/tennis player and is without a doubt right up there as one of the greatest top 3 if not THE greatest of all time. It's hard to say cause Sampras was pretty good too. | |
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| Federer best of all time?
Posted: 7/22/2009 2:05:41 PM | Just a reminder, Fed beat Sampras. One match, but it was on grass at Wimbledon, so just saying that discussion, the Pete versus Roger one, doesn't have to be relegated exclusively to the realm of hypothetical.
It's interesting that pro players and commentators will say Fed is the best, and the people who most emphatically claim he isn't, are recreational players. I think people love the players they grew up worshipping, and in their minds, they'll forever be the best. It becomes dogma at some point. | |
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