[Nathaniel_Near]

Originally Posted by Tennis_Hands

You chose the wrong options to make your point. No biggie.



I have excplicitly stated what the one and the other option give.

You may perceive 2 Career Grand Slams and a positive H2H with Nadal as more "positive", than Federer further distancing himself from the rest of the field in the Open era Majors count and holding the number of titles record at two of the four Majors. I don't. Especially, if one of those two Majors is Wimbledon (or, for that matter, if both 2 Major titles are at SW19, giving him 9 overall)

There are all sorts of weaknesses in everybody's resume. Noone has a perfect resume and never will have one.

So it really is a choice between playing on your strengths or rectifying your weaknesses. I know what I would choose.




Yet, you talk about 2 Career Grand Slams, when we know perfectly well, that it is a term, used (in general) to just show the versatility of certain player and is even less meaningful, in the grand scheme of things.

Why engage in counting meaningless "achievements", if the number of Majors won is so overinflated, according to you?



The Majors are and will forever (as far as the Game is the same) be the most important thing in Tennis. There is some confusion about their importance, because of the separation before the Open era, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter.

As every Major title is a monumental achievement in itself (and more so now with the unified field and tournament scheme than before) I do not understand how people are disregarding the difference between 18 and 19. How come that it doesn't matter so much?

I hear you say, that for Federer to get the #1 position at the age of 32 would be massive. Sure, you will agree, that to get Wimbledon (or even two of those) at 32 or later would be massive too (it would be general conisistency against superhigh tennis level).


I think, that a lot of historians are slanted towards the old romantic perception of Tennis, being a sport within rivalries. A perception, that is wrong in itself, since the rivalries happen along the way and, in general, no two playerrs of the same generation are modified around their main rival's style. Even Nadal's style, which can be described as the worst possible matchup issue related to Federer's game, doesn't fit the bill exactly (although being the closest to modelling his game around someone elses's weaknesses).

H2Hs can be and are largely a product of circumstances. No need to overinflate that.

Bold - unfortunately and probably irrevocably incorrect.

As for the rest of the post, it doesn't get at the heart of why option 2 is so profoundly superior to option 1. The perception of the importance of Majors is overinflated to the extent where it has become a black and white judgement. When Federer got to 15 Majors, the amount of talk about him being certainly better than Sampras 'because he has 1 more Major' was virtually unintelligible. Not everybody was of this view though and enough people would point out that it was the addition of the RG title among other things that set Roger a little bit apart from Pete.

19 > 18 would certainly be true in the context of tennis achievements if it was the singular aspect of tennis achievements... except that it isn't, not even close. Logic is good.