The biggest myth in the ongoing Sampras-Federer debate....

[Tropikal_Knights]

sampras federer........give me a break .......at their peaks fed would whip him ......

lets say they played on hard, clay and grass samp would only beat him on the grass i.e. wimby and that only due to his far superior serve.....

movement groundies volleys fed peak was perfection

[mattennis]

This has been discussed ad nauseam.

You can not compare different eras, even if conditions had stayed the same (like 90s vs 80s), much less when conditions have changed that much (current era vs any previous era).

My take is that, even when conditions stayed basically the same, for example 90s vs 80s, it is senseless to say that Sampras was "better/greater" than Lendl or McEnroe, because 10 years apart is too much, they are from different eras, so nobody has a clue about how many great tournaments+YE nº1 would McEnroe or Lendl have, had they been born 10 years later, or had Sampras been born 10 years earlier.

The current era is even more problematic because for the first time in tennis history, all tournaments conditions are quite similar, medium to medium-slow, and it obviously produces a very low number of different GS winners (basically the best two or three players of the moment) and because of that those "top-players" numbers will be clearly inflated (the argument is called "the Decathlon example" as I have stated many times).

So almost the only sensible thing to say is that X player was the best or most successful player of Y era, Z player was the best or most successful player of W era, maybe C player was the second best or second most successful player of H era,.....

For example, Federer has been the most successful player in the current era (last decade or so), Nadal the second most successful, Djokovic the third (and being able to order them is possible only because they play in the same era). Or for example Sampras was the most successful player of the 90s, Agassi the second most successful, Courier the third.....

And even that simple thing is tricky, because sometimes an "era" is not well defined at all and is totally subjective.

The most funny thing about all this is that Sampras fans hated me ten to fifteen years ago when I told them this sensible view of things, and now Federer fans will hate me because of the very same reason (not all, in fact I know for a fact that many Federer fans actually agree with me wholeheartedly, some of them from these forums as well).

[RF_fan]

Originally Posted by 90's Clay

What?? Courier has 4 slams and was deadly at his peak.. Hes got more slams then Hewitt, Roddick and Davydenko COMBINED.

And he accomplished all this in a shorter career really compared to what those guys had.. Especially prime for prime

And how many slams would Roddick, Hewitt and Davydenko would have if it wasn't for Federer? Besides Sampras couldn't compete with Courier on clay.

[wangs78]

Originally Posted by biaggi35

Back then every top player was in danger in the first rounds of Slams because of the faster conditions. When you consider this, you realize Courier and Becker's stats were very good. Ivanisevic was one-dimensional, but he was a beast at Wimbledon (look at his results) and that's where Sampras won half of his GS.

Great point. I think people on these boards often forget that had they not made the grass at Wimbledon slower, we'd still be seeing players like Philippoussis, Ivanisevic, etc. making it deep into tournaments with little more than a booming serve. I for one am happy we don't see that anymore, because let's face it, that isn't tennis. And while Sampras was an all-round player - a HUGE part of his success was due to that booming serve. Without it, he'd have 5-6 slams, MAX. Maybe even none, because it was that serve that allowed him to S&V with success. He didn't win his points off of groundstrokes like Agassi. He was also not like Edberg who utilized a CRAZY kickserve to pull his opponent wide and give him time to approach the net.

[Federer20042006]

Originally Posted by Indio

Fed04-06: You love how I cite numbers?? I love how you ignore the more relevant ones and focus on those that you think you can re-shape to bolster your weak case. What's with all the attention on Roddick's and GI's clay court results? The clay court action was the least important part of my comparison. My interest in GI as an opponent for Sampras has little to do with clay-court results--you know as well as I do that the likelihood of them having met in a late round at the French was remote at best. And I love how you claim that AR's good results in Rome were flukes. Naturally, GI's successes on clay were all well-earned victories. If you want to prove (and I do mean prove, not offer up one unsubstantiated opinion after another), that GI was better than the stats suggest, turn your attention to his mediocre hard-court record.
Speaking of idiotic statements, your claim that GI would have won more tournaments had Sampras and Agassi not been around is a classic. Do I have to explain it to you, or can you work it out for yourself?
If you believe there are some valid points to be made by examining details of various players' careers, do not ask me to look up the information and present it. YOU DO IT.

I have no idea where you're even pulling those surface stats from. Give me the website you're pulling them from and I'll be glad to post them here.

The point is, Ivanisevic isn't even close to being the most one-dimensional Top 10 player in history. That was an incredibly ignorant, idiotic statement.

You're the one who made the extreme claim, and you have yet to go through all the Top 10 players in history and show how Ivanisevic is somehow more one-dimensional than them. You can not be asked to prove a negative. You made the claim, it's your responsibility to back it up.

Roddick's clay court results do not compare to Ivanisevic's overall. Winning percentage means nothing in this case. Goran kept showing up in plenty of clay events even after he was past his prime. Roddick, even in his prime, was doing his best to duck playing on clay.

When talking about who is more "one-dimensional," bringing up how they perform on different surfaces is kind of part of the argument. You're clearly one of those clueless *******s who thinks Ivanisevic was some sort of Karlovic/Isner clone - nothing but a serve - who somehow got to #2 in the world and finished Top 10 6 years in a row.

[helloworld]

Originally Posted by RF_fan

And how many slams would Roddick, Hewitt and Davydenko would have if it wasn't for Federer? Besides Sampras couldn't compete with Courier on clay.

How many slams would Courier, Agassi, Becker, etc. have won without Sampras? MANY!!
And Sampras did beat Courier at the French Open, biggest clay tournament on earth.

[ultradr]

Originally Posted by Indio

is that PS faced considerably better opposition during his reign than RF faced during his.

It's not the question of better or worse.


IMHO, RF faced fewer competitions during this pocket of somewhat void period(2004-2006).

• 2001-2004, tour condition drastically changed. Some of top players either failed
  or struggled to make transition to new slower conditions.
• New homogeneous condition of baseline tennis all year long helped him collect large number
  of slams in short time until 5 year younger generation matures: Nadal,
  Djokovic and Murray.

RF is definitely one of the greats but grossly over-appreciated.

[mental midget]

Originally Posted by TMF

^
Your homogeneous theory is a flaw because Borg was consistently winning RG and Wimbledon back-to-back. You can argue homgeneous sufaces is even tougher to win because the entire field can compete at high level, unlike specialists where there's a few players that are contestant to win on certain surfaces(lol). All rounds are tough today because they are great baseliners on all surfaces. I suppose you believe it would be better for Sampras had every surfaces played like Plexi(). And even specialists in the 90s weren't always making the final(eg Courier who isn't a grass specialist yet made the 1993 Wimbledon final). That's proved there's holes in the 90s where the window of oppotunities for non-great players can win a slam. Unlike today, all surfaces are heavily guarded. There's no weak players sneaking in to grab the slam.

Don't forget even though the surfaces are more homogeneous today, the players still have their best and worst surfaces. For Nadal is clay and hc, Roddick is hc and clay, Roger is grass and clay, etc....

a variety of surfaces meant you had proportionally less players specializing in the metronomic low-error baseline game we see today. that, coupled with the fact that the surfaces were generally faster across the board meant upsets were more likely—a guy could get hot and ride it to victory. these days even a 'zoning' player is forced to contend with slower courts, generally, and statistically speaking, the competition on the other side of the net is likely to be more consistent off the ground than in years past.

while it's true some of the top players have their preferred surfaces, the fact is that playing style has indeed become more homogenized. it's a more grueling style of play, no question, but it takes some variables off the table as well, and at the end of the day, the guys who are incrementally better at that style enjoy a year-round advantage over the field, whereas in the past the advantage would shift more markedly from season to season, surface to surface. today's grass is slower, and it's still quite different from HC—the problem is, though, the guys approach both with roughly the same game plan, and that is the leveling influence.

[Indio]

To those who insist that the courts in the four majors play more or less similarly, explain the following:
1 Why did Andy Roddick reach just the 4th rnd at the French, and then only once, yet succeeded in reaching the QFs or better 19 times at the other three?
2 Why did Tim Henman, from 2001 to 2004, reach three SFs and one QF at Wimbledon, yet succeeded in going beyond the 4th rnd at other majors only in2004?
3 Why did Coria reach the 4th rnd only once at Wimbledon, but made the QFs or better four times at the others?
4 Carlos Moya, from 2003 to his retirement, played Wimbledon only twice, once reaching the 4th rnd. In the other majors, he reached the QFs four times.
5 Davydenko has reached the 4th rnd at Wimbledon only once, but at the other three majors, he's reached the QFs or better ten times.
6 David Ferrer has reached one QF at Wimbledon. At the other three, he's reached ten QFs or better.
7 Del Potro has done no better than two 4ths at Wimbledon, but at the others he has reached the QFs or better seven times.

Obviously the changes made to court surfaces, Wimbledon in particular, have had some effect but it appears that that effect is being exaggerated by those who fail to appreciate the high level of tennis produced by today's top players.

[Indio]

Fed2004-06: I'm tired of your insulting, abrasive style of conducting a debate. You aren't worth the time and the effort.

[Federer20042006]

Originally Posted by Indio

Fed2004-06: I'm tired of your insulting, abrasive style of conducting a debate. You aren't worth the time and the effort.

Typical passive-aggressive internet behavior. You make an outrageously idiotic statement, and when someone has the "nerve" to call you on it, you play the, "who, moiiiii?" card.

Whenever someone says someone "isn't worth the time and effort" on the internet, they are admitting defeat, without actually "admitting defeat," because I guess that hurts their pitiful pride or something.

Stop being a myopic ******* and read up on the history of tennis for a change, rather than starting imbecilic, inflammatory threads. Everyone else here is tired of you.