Only 9 times in Federer's career...

[fed_rulz]

Originally Posted by Mustard

Federer is lucky he never faced prime Goran. Even Agassi got aced 37 times in the 1992 Wimbledon final.

Agassi does get aced a lot. not surprising here.

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by TMF

The most aces Goran ever handed Federer was 11.

And that was Goran playing badly, with his overall confidence in the gutter. By that point, his days of being in the top 10 for 6 years were long gone and he was in a terrible slump.

[DjokovicForTheWin]

Originally Posted by Mustard

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

LOL, this guy has every excuse in the book lined up

[Andres]

Originally Posted by Mustard

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

Needless to say, he needed shoulder surgery for that entire period. He played Wimbledon 2001 while his shoulder was literally falling off, and he had to take painkillers before and after every match. And yet, he managed to average 30 aces a match during the entire tournament.

[TMF]

Originally Posted by Mustard

And that was Goran playing badly, with his overall confidence in the gutter. By that point, his days of being in the top 10 for 6 years were long gone and he was in a terrible slump.

Karlovic is an ACE master, and yet, he met Federer 11 times to only delivered 22 aces at best. I cannot see Goran would do any better than Karlovic.

Anyway, this is pointless since no one agree that Roger is susceptable to get aced as much as Agassi.

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by TMF

Karlovic is an ACE master, and yet, he met Federer 11 times to only delivered 22 aces at best. I cannot see Goran would do any better than Karlovic.

That's because you're not looking closely enough. Goran has twice broken the 200 aces barrier during a Wimbledon tournament (206 in 1992 and a record 213 in 2001). He also served 1,477 aces on the tour in 1996, and had the most aces of any player on tour in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2001.

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by Andres

Needless to say, he needed shoulder surgery for that entire period. He played Wimbledon 2001 while his shoulder was literally falling off, and he had to take painkillers before and after every match. And yet, he managed to average 30 aces a match during the entire tournament.

And he still held off the surgery after winning Wimbledon, which in hindsight, was a mistake.

[FlamEnemY]

Woah, talk about random stats.

[TopFH]

Originally Posted by Mike Sams

And the worst at converting BPs.
1/17 in BP conversions against Nadal at FO 2007
1/12 in BP conversions against Nadal at Wimby 2008

And the GOAT at winning slams: 16.

[NamRanger]

Originally Posted by Mustard

Goran was in a dark place from the start of 2000 until the start of 2001 Wimbledon. That was Goran at his worst, playing awfully, in frequent sulks and having to retire from one match due to smashing all the racquets in his bag. The lowest point was at the 2001 Australian Open, where Goran flew for 22 hours, lost in the first qualifier, and then flew back another 22 hours.

If you don't believe me, just check Goran's results in that period. They are awful, to say the least.

Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.


Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

[Andres]

Originally Posted by NamRanger

Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.


Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

2001? He was in the top20s only because of his dreamy Wimby run. He was #125 before Wimby for a reason.

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by NamRanger

Good thing Goran couldn't have been playing that bad because he faced Federer in the RO16 and QFs of the tournaments he encountered Federer in. So obviously he had to be good enough to string enough wins to be a good enough player to beat a rookie Federer who had almost no match experience, and was utterly prone to meltdowns.

At the 2000 London Indoors, Goran (ranked 61) beat Wayne Black (ranked 142) before losing to Federer (ranked 66).

Originally Posted by NamRanger

Oh wait, he got utterly smashed. Federer owned a veteran Goran when Federer wasn't even good. In their 2001 match on carpet, I believe Goran was somewhere in the top 20s, so he wasn't exactly god awful. Federer was just not a good match-up for him.

At 2001 Milan, Goran was ranked 123 in the world when he lost to Federer (ranked 27). Goran had beaten 33rd ranked Nicolas Kiefer in the first round, a good win, and got a walkover in the next round.

[pc1]

One of Federer's great strength is getting the return in play so I'm not surprised by the stat. People are comparing Agassi to Federer in this way and pointing out that Agassi is inferior to Federer in this way, which is true. However the key stat to me is how often a player can break serve and while Agassi could be aced more than Federer he did break serve more often by percentage than Federer. That being written it is a very impression feat by Federer.

I would tend to think a Ken Rosewall in the past was very hard to ace also. Rosewall could get a lot of seemingly unreturnable serves into play.

[roysid]

I thought that acing Nadal would be more tough. He stands 20 feet behind baseline whereas Federer stands close to baseline while returning.

[monfed]

Originally Posted by Mike Sams

And the worst at converting BPs.
1/17 in BP conversions against Nadal at FO 2007
1/12 in BP conversions against Nadal at Wimby 2008

That is indeed appalling but hardly surprising,isn't it. Ralph's sliders/kickers give absolute FITS to Fed's BH on the AD side(where the BPs are usually played), always have. That's one thing he's improved on in their recent encounters.

Goran's flat, fast serves would be easier compared to Nadal's sliders for Fed on the BH side. Fed's extremely good at absorbing pace/redirecting.

[Bobby Jr]

Originally Posted by monfed

Goran's flat, fast serves would be easier compared to Nadal's sliders for Fed on the BH side. Fed's extremely good at absorbing pace/redirecting.

With today's strings every serve a peak Goran hit in a match would be better than any Nadal could hit. Goran's down the T serve had massive swing on it - imagine it with modern strings.

[monfed]

Originally Posted by Bobby Jr

With today's strings every serve a peak Goran hit in a match would be better than any Nadal could hit. Goran's down the T serve had massive swing on it - imagine it with modern strings.

True, but my point was Fed returns fast serves better compared to kickers which Ralph's dishes out but it wasn't something Goran used to do iirc. What do you feel?

[Andres]

Originally Posted by monfed

True, but my point was Fed returns fast serves better compared to kickers which Ralph's dishes out but it wasn't something Goran used to do iirc. What do you feel?

Goran used the lefty wide serve more than Nadal. You all knew it was coming, yet there was nothing you could do about it. Imagine that thing coming at you at 120 mph, instead of 100 mph.

[monfed]

Originally Posted by Andres

Goran used the lefty wide serve more than Nadal. You all knew it was coming, yet there was nothing you could do about it. Imagine that thing coming at you at 120 mph, instead of 100 mph.

Speed doesn't hurt Roger's BH return, it's the vicious kick that Ralph generates,which as far as I remember, Goran didn't(Goran was a flat server, given the conditions this is understandable). The interesting thing is that Fed performs better on Ralph's FS than second serve,that sums it up.

[Andres]

Originally Posted by monfed

Speed doesn't hurt Roger's BH return, it's the vicious kick that Ralph generates,which as far as I remember, Goran didn't(Goran was a flat server, given the conditions this is understandable). The interesting thing is that Fed performs better on Ralph's FS than second serve,that sums it up.

The only flat serves that Goran served were wide on the deuce sides (being a lefty, this caught everyone off guard). Everywhere else, his first serve was a topspin-slice. A extremely fast one, though, but very spinny. And his slice serve was a killer.