Federer USO 04 final V Nadal USO 10 final - Who wins?

[YouCantBeSerious]

Originally Posted by BigServer1

This board needs a lot more "fun". We should look into starting a thread where we prove that no name journeymen would beat legends of the past.

Rosol, Gulbis and Volandri immediately spring to mind. If we do it right, this could go all the way back to William Renshaw's time, lmao.

Excellent! That's certainly a great idea.

I think we have 2 different ideas based on roughly the same concept:

- The one you propose, based on demonstrating that C-list players beat the greatest players of all time indirectly.

- Make some analysis based on matches between players of overlapping generations and extrapolate to create a sort of uniform quantification which might provide The Holy Grail of TTW Forum (an answer to the old age question of WTF is the GOAT).

[YouCantBeSerious]

Originally Posted by Mustard

I think Spadea beat them all at some stage.

Perhaps so, but I dare you to demonstrate that any one player (either directly or indirectly) beat Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Perhaps so, but I dare you to demonstrate that any one player (either directly or indirectly) beat Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.

You've got me there. I think Gerulaitis even beat Borg in an exhibition match.

[zagor]

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Fed is out of his prime, obviously. He was out of his prime 2 1/2 years ago. That's why this is the first slam he won in 2 1/2 years, he got lucky (roof, Nadal out, amongst other factors). He played great, don't take me wrong. Sometimes luck makes things a little easier though.

First of all, there are a number of examples of players winning slams past their primes so your effort to back me into a wall here doesn't really work.

Secondly, Fed beat the defending champion and #1 in SF and a home crowd favourite and a talented player many posters here use as a part of a strong era argument in the final.

Regarding roof and Nadal losing out early:

-Novak said he preferred to play under the roof when interviewed at Wimbledon this year and Murray has a bunch of indoor titles.

-Nadal was bound to lose early once after getting into so many scrapes in early Wimbledon rounds, he can't rely on journeymen choking each time.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Nadal is out of his peak as well, and has been for almost 2 years. He only got to those finals last year because nobody got in his way before the final.

Disregarding what implications your claim here would have on the strength of this recent era when a past his peak player reaches the personal record # of finals in a row and is more consistent at slams than ever in his career, how long Nadal's peak is really? Middle of 2008, beginning of 2009 and 2nd half of 2010 which makes it for one year overall I guess?

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

You look at the 5 year difference, but if you look at the years on tour and the mileage Nadal has due to his playing style, you easily realize he's very close to being at the same level of Fed as far as "being out of his prime".

Sorry but no, Nadal is nowhere near the same stage of his career Fed is, even factoring in the so called hard playing style argument argument.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

No double standards.

LOL, but of course not.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Alright. But Sampras was past his prime. I mean, he wasn't even in the Top 10 back then, was he? If that's not the definition of being past his prime for a guy who until very recently had the record of Weeks as #1 I don't know what is.

Sampras was all about slams and that only got even more pronounced as he got older, during 2000-2002 period Sampras reached 4 slam finals which is a far better gauge meter than his ranking.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Nadal? Nadal is clearly past his prime. For nothing else than his tendonitis. Some players go out of their prime because they become sluggish, they lose their drive to win, or because they lose speed, serve, or whatever. Nadal is past his prime only because of his physical troubles. I suppose that's better than being out of your prime because of natural decline, in the sense that if you manage the tendonitis you still have a chance of playing at or near peak form.

Right, Nadal missed one tourney (which he already won) and all the sudden his prime is over? Wimbledon is far more important than Olympics, Nadal missed in 2009 and bounced back just fine. We'll see how things are come USO, I certainly wouldn't bet on Nadal losing before SF.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Fair enough. For me, after 2008, I've always gotten the feeling that Nadal could win against RoFed everywhere. That's the point at which Nadal broke into prime form (second half 08 up to first quarter 09). Then his knees doomed him again. Such a pity.

That's not the answer to my question, 2020 is also after 2008.

Nadal's prime "insert here", Nadal's peak "insert here", go.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Again, age is only a factor. Winning % is also deceiving because you need to account for other reasons besides playing level (injuries, opponents, luck, etc). Yes, luck also counts (ask Djokovic, because as awesome as he was in 2011 he got lucky a couple of times).

So maybe you shouldn't use it in your argument then? You didn't seem to think it to be deceiving when you tried to use it as proof 31 year old Fed is still in his prime, now did you?

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Yes, Fed was a beast in Wimbledon, although not as much of a beast as Nadal was/is in Roland Garros..

Never claimed anything of a sort, the comparison was between Nadal and Fed at Wimbledon, during Fed's prime he was never troubled during early Wimbledon rounds as Nadal did his whole career basically.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

I don't expect Nadal to do well at age 31 in Wimbledon because of many reasons. It's a long time off to engage in any meaningful predictions also..

That's too bad, because Nadal fanboys like yourself are going to have to reap what you've sown.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

OK, I respect your opinion. I, obviously, respectfully disagree.

Well yes obviously, but it would be helpful if you could elaborate further on what your point actually is, what's the correlation between 26 year old Nadal losing to a journeyman at Wimbledon and a 31 year old Fed "almost" losing to another journeyman (though much better than Rosol) after having 7 years (2003-2009) of reaching the final without having trouble in early rounds whatsoever?

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

I missed zagor's concern somehow.

Let me address it: No, I am very respectful of Federer's success. It's an amazing feat what he has done, and we are lucky to live in this age (not just because of RoFed but also because of Nadal, and Djokovic left his imprint firmly planted in history due to last year).

I am a skeptic though. And I like to approach problems with a creative perspective. Add to that the fact that I consider most Federer radical supporters have unfairly dismissed and disrespected Nadal far too long.

But no, I'm not a hater, far from it. There's plenty of haters around though. Unless only "Fed haters" annoy you, you have plenty of them to choose from for you to preach to, if "hating" as an attitude in the abstract, regardless of its object, annoys you so much.

Except that no player but Fed has such dedicated haters that post/make threads almost exclusively about him, he is their object of obsession so to speak.

But hey, not to worry, that I personally suspect you're a double account holds no weight whatsoever, I'm not a mod and I never reported anyone.

[YouCantBeSerious]

Originally Posted by zagor

But hey, not to worry, that I personally suspect you're a double account holds no weight whatsoever, I'm not a mod and I never reported anyone.

I'll have to answer the rest of your post later (gotta go now), but: Why the acrimony?

You are sounding awfully passive/aggressive there.

Seriously, I actually enjoy having these conversations with you because you obviously are well educated and articulate (for a Fed fan, sorry I had to take the chance to make a pun).

But honestly, why are you so mad at me? We are just talking about tennis. I like to play devil's advocate and look at things from a different perspective, and since you feel compelled to respond I have the feeling you somehow enjoy the conversation too. And if you don't, I'm sorry, feel free to ignore my foolishness.

[zagor]

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

I'll have to answer the rest of your post later (gotta go now), but: Why the acrimony?

You are sounding awfully passive/aggressive there.

Not at all, just saying how things really are, my experience here has taught me to be vary of double accounts (not claiming you are, I may suspect it but I'm not sure) that is all.

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Seriously, I actually enjoy having these conversations with you because you obviously are well educated and articulate (for a Fed fan, sorry I had to take the chance to make a pun).

But honestly, why are you so mad at me? We are just talking about tennis. I like to play devil's advocate and look at things from a different perspective, and since you feel compelled to respond I have the feeling you somehow enjoy the conversation too. And if you don't, I'm sorry, feel free to ignore my foolishness.

Yes, the debate is interesting and I am quite enjoying it.

[SLD76]

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

Why would anybody in their sane mind serve faster than they need to?

you truly make no sense.

[The_Order]

LOL who are we kidding here? Rafa would've smashed him. Fed's form in 04 wasn't great he struggled against a 350000 year old Agassi.

Hewitt was terrible, went into the match with no belief whatsoever that he could pull off the win and the way he played that day made Fed look better than he is.

When Rafa is playing as confidently as he was in that 2010 US Open campaign, Federer isn't capable of stopping him no matter what form he's in.

[YouCantBeSerious]

Originally Posted by SLD76

you truly make no sense.

You are the one that doesn't make sense. If you are tired on a 4th set and you don't need to push your serves to win against your opponent, why would you?

[R.Federer]

Originally Posted by YouCantBeSerious

You are the one that doesn't make sense. If you are tired on a 4th set and you don't need to push your serves to win against your opponent, why would you?

LOOOL epic post

[Hitman]

I didn't realise that my one question would result in such an epic thread! Whoa!

[Fed Kennedy]