Why Fed is GOAT-It's in the courts
 

After researching this a bit I am shocked there isn't more talk about it.

Fed plays best on faster surfaces. However, in order to get longer rallies that supposedly please the crowd, they have slowed down hard courts, grass courts, then of course we have clay.

To draw an analogy from Boxing, if they changed the ring size from 20X20 to 10X10, you'd never had heard of Ali.

Likewish, if Fed played on the faster surfaces, does anyone doubt he'd have a handful more GS's? Nadal is near unbeatable on clay, but for a reason. It's like putting Foreman in a 10X10 ring, he'd be unbeatable under those circumstances. I don't see how anyone can deny this.

Fed started as a Serve & Vollyer, finishing points off quick. Then as the courts slowed and slowed he adapted to all court, now he is almost totally a baseliner. I agree there should be diverse courts, but to SLOW THEM ALL DOWN? That just is not right.

Would Nadal have beat Fed at Wimbledon on fast grass? This is a big deal, and it needs to re-evaluate GOAT, and also the big three baseliners abilities.

Borg was a great baseliner, but he did it on faster surfaces, if courts were slower like today you could say he'd probably win more GS's.

Has Fed declined, or is it that the courts have progressively gotten slower, is it a cooincidence that as courts became slower and slower Feds loses increased?

No, it's not a coincidence. Really slow courts make it difficult against retrievers like Nadal and Djokovic.

I think it is a combination of the two. He would likely still be picking up slams right now with faster conditions, but I don't think he would be winning three of four. Two in a decent year instead of one.

Such a dumb statement, we saw Fed on fast grass in Halle, against fresh newcomer Haas.

Can someone tell me, if Roger and many tennis fans don't like slow surface, then why did they slowed down all surfaces?

If you remember back to Dubai 2012,Andy Murray said that if all courts were fast like Dubai, Federer would be the number 1.

Yeah, like 6:3 6:3 last year...:)

Zato sto kenjaju, eto zasto!:)Da je dobio finale, svi bi pricali o tome kako je London ultra brz, hehe.

Fed was asked about the speed of the courts in London this year. He isn't the only one to say anything, and no one ever said that the courts in the O2 were ultrafast, only somewhat low bouncing.

All the more reason why it's laughable when people try and compare Laver and Fed, when Laver won 3 of his 4 that year on grass, as if Fed couldn't have done this many times over, much less once.

What more reason? One person expressed his opinion and that's all.

Watch the 1994 Wimbledon final between Sampras and Ivanisevic. It was a servefest for 2 sets, followed by a tanking by Goran in the third set as he ate a bagel. I had high hopes for a Goran victory after his brilliant semi final win over Becker, yet the final was a complete dud, showing the most dull side of 1990s grass-court tennis. The clay-court scene was full of epic rallies at the time, yet grass was getting more and more dominated by 1-3 shot rallies throughout an increasing number of matches. Now, grass-court tennis back then could be entertaining if there was many volleys and net play, but even that was being made more and more harder to do in the 1990s. At Wimbledon back then, I remember being in awe of serving, especially Goran's first serves, Sampras' clutch second serves, and Krajicek's draw dropping displays of serving precision in 1996. I even remember John Lloyd calling for grass-courts to be abolished for good due to the increasing dominance of powerful serves.

Clay-court tennis was about epic rallies, and getting engrossed in the battle. I found this to be by far the most entertaining section of the tennis tour, and it would go on for most of the year being shown on those old ATP highlights shows.

The grass-courts of Brisbane, Wimbledon and Forest Hills were all considerably different. Brisbane was high bouncing for a grass-court due to the Queensland heat, Wimbledon was low bouncing but at least it bounced okay, whereas Forest Hills was a bog of a court that barely bounced at all.

I think you have to be careful not to get carried away with this. Court speed is a hot topic right now because a journalist asked Fed about it at the WTF. But the majority of the tournaments slowed down their courts quite a few years ago. There were a few, like Paris indoors, that kept a fast court as everyone else slowed down, and one or two others - Cincy - that have kept their courts fast, but most of the courts slowed down a long time ago. So to say that Fed's decline was caused by the slowing of the courts is inaccurate. Now, if half of those courts that got slowed down got sped up again, Fed's decline might not be a decline at all, but like Murray said in Dubai, he might actually rise to the top again.

I'd bet that some tournament directors are starting to think about that.

Thanks Mustard btw grass is still very fast, Tsonga for example played 2 cons SF in Wimbledon

Yes, I agree it's still fast, but it clearly has firmer and higher bounces now than before. In September 2001, Wimbledon changed its grass-court surfaces from 70% Rye and 30% Creeping Red Fescue, to 100% Rye. 2002 saw the slowest and strangest Wimbledon I've ever seen, with a lot of upsets, serve and volleyers struggling, and 2 baseliners in the final (including a Wimbledon debutant), but it seemed to stabalise in the years after that.

Yeah that was really strange final between Hewitt and Nalbandian but only year later Scud reached final so maybe they speed surface a little...

Variety is key .. I don't want to see 2 shot rallies all year, and I don't want to see 20 shot rallies all year either.

I'd rather there be a variety of surfaces, and strategies in use.

We've gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. We need to get to a happy medium.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/sp...anted=all&_r=0

this was an interesting article from around the olympics about wimbledon and the head grass guy

This year, maybe they treated the grass differently because of the Olympics, Wimbledon was as fast as it's ever been, and when they closed the roof it was ridiculous.

As the promoters have stated, so the fans "Get to see longer rallies".

Forgive my logic, but if Fed plays best on faster courts, and the courts have year by year have been slown, how can anyone not say that Fed, who even his critics agree is great, would not be "Greater", which they base on wins?

Let's keep it simple; If we said Nadal vs Fed on Clay who would you bet on and why?

If we bet indoor court on the older, faster surfaces, who would you bet on, Nadal vs Fed?

This is simple, I hope it doesn't devolve into this and that. With faster surfaces Fed would have won many more GS's, despite his age, so for the sake of promotion Tennis has devolved, or evolved depending on what style you like, but to change mid stream, to allow someone like Murray to be on the same page as Fed is very wrong.