Grand Slam for Fed?

[zagor]

Originally Posted by hoodjem

Like I said, Fed cruised against Tsonga (2, 3, 2)!

Murray is no Tsonga(who played a poor match and is an easy match up for Fed).

Fed is the favourite on Sunday of course but I doubt anyone would be surprised if Murray win his first slam either,he's certainly not without his chances and knows how to play Fed on HC.

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by egn

Honestly it is hard to compare amongst the eras but the tournament numbers definitely can't be counted. Tennis is a lot more difficult on the body now and although Laver has 199 a handful are 4 man and 8 man touranments, small round robins and various things like that. Impressive but none the less different. Fed only plays one 8 man tournament a year. A bit more needs to be taken in account and I have been looking into that while re creating my list. A lot more needs to be taken into account. It is clear the candidates for GOAT are Laver, Rosewall, Fed, Tilden, Sampras, Gonzales and Borg. A case can be made for all of them. If Fed does win the calendar slam and finishes his 6 year as number 1 I would probably bump him up to 2 leaving Laver as 1 and Rosewall as 3. Reason being Rosewall was great but never dominated the tour like Laver or Fed.

60 he was sharing with Pancho
61 he just squeaked it out though Pancho had more titles his win against him at the French Pro gave him the year
62 in essence was a gift Pancho retired his main challenge..
63 Pancho returns a bit out of form and Laver comes to challenge him.
64 Laver takes over its all history from there

Though it says apparently Laver and Rosewall were both equally ranked its not accurate Laver was 15-4 against Rosewall...so its tough to say. I would put Fed probably 2 though.

Here's what I have for Rosewall in terms of world no. 1:
1960—Gonzales(8 )/Rosewall
1961—Rosewall
1962—Rosewall
1963—Rosewall
1964—Laver . . .

Go here:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=295675

[CyBorg]

Oh, I see. Rosewall was never a true number one. He was just lucky that Pancho was "off his game".

What a crap argument that one can make about a lot of players.

Pancho just wasn't as durable a player anymore in the 1960s. Older, no longer as consistently motivated. Rosewall was winning all the big titles in the early 60s, not Pancho.

[urban]

Federer deserves the win. He played a very good tournament, and built up confidence in the quarters, when he got through a hot player with Davydenko, and saw his nemesis Nabal ousted. I thought, that Murray was in with a chance, but had to win one of the first two sets against the frontrunner Federer, to get a foot into the match. His first set serving was dismal with only 45%, but he had his break chances there, and later in the third even had some set points. At least he wasn't giving up, but put on a fight in the last set. The younger players have to get their act together in the course of the season. Del Potro looked lackluster and doesn't seem to be completely fit, and Djokovic, whom i saw against Tzonga, was in disappointing form and should regroup his whole tennis approach. Nadal is a question mark, but he and Delpo should give Federer trouble at Roland Garros.

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by urban

Federer deserves the win. He played a very good tournament . . .

Obviously. But if someone takes an off-his-game, weakened Nadal out again at Roland Garros, then Fed will probably take another FO title. Then, who would you bet on to win Wimbledon?

I stand by my earlier contentions: it's a two-man show; with Nadal weakened no one remains to challenge Fed so he wins a GS in a manifestly weak era.

[urban]

Imo Nadal didn't played that bad at the AO, since the DC win, he showed some improvement, compared to the USO and the late season last year. He should focus on the clay season, pace himself and build up his form, peaking at RG. In Murray's case, i heard some remarks by Wilander at the outset of the AO tournament, that Murray played too conservatively waiting for faults, to beat Federer or Nadal. Del Potro has to deal still with his USO win. I expect him to regain his fine form of last year in the summer, and to be strong factor at RG. I thought, over the full tournament, he was the best player at RG last year, despite his sf loss.
The player, i don't have a clue to understand, is Djokovic. He seems to go lackluster through the motions at the big events, he has lost his sharpness. He had good draws in all his last majors, but had disappointing losses in all cases. All these experienced players above have to regroup their game after their inititial run to the top, and after some lows have to make a certain improvements in their game. But Hoodjem, you are right, that there are no interesting new faces on the horizon, except maybe Cilic, who may be a factor on fast courts.

[Nadal_Power]

Originally Posted by urban

Imo Nadal didn't played that bad at the AO, since the DC win, he showed some improvement, compared to the USO and the late season last year. He should focus on the clay season, pace himself and build up his form, peaking at RG. In Murray's case, i heard some remarks by Wilander at the outset of the AO tournament, that Murray played too conservatively waiting for faults, to beat Federer or Nadal. Del Potro has to deal still with his USO win. I expect him to regain his fine form of last year in the summer, and to be strong factor at RG. I thought, over the full tournament, he was the best player at RG last year, despite his sf loss.
The player, i don't have a clue to understand, is Djokovic. He seems to go lackluster through the motions at the big events, he has lost his sharpness. He had good draws in all his last majors, but had disappointing losses in all cases. All these experienced players above have to regroup their game after their inititial run to the top, and after some lows have to make a certain improvements in their game. But Hoodjem, you are right, that there are no interesting new faces on the horizon, except maybe Cilic, who may be a factor on fast courts.

Something just went wrong with Rafa

In the first 5 months of last year he played just incredible tennis,fireing from all guns and running for every possible ball and point. But,it all took price and in May he was allready well tired. For example,Murray won 6 titles that year and Rafa stormed to 5 in less then 5 months. He booked place for WTF in the middle of May,the rest needed few more months for that

After RG he just wasn't the same. He finished last year with decent results but that wasn't his level.. he looks scared and insure of his abilities. Davydenko would never survived Doha in match with old Rafa,but at the moment he is not that player


I'm huge fan of this young man (today again we saw that he was the only savior from Fed's torutre in last 5 years) and really hoping he can be back to path of glory.. he can very soon became greatest Masters player in history and he is just two Slams from Agassi and great Lendl. Praying to all Gods to give his power to continue and be even greater player then he is now

[davey25]

Originally Posted by urban

Imo Nadal didn't played that bad at the AO, since the DC win, he showed some improvement, compared to the USO and the late season last year. He should focus on the clay season, pace himself and build up his form, peaking at RG. In Murray's case, i heard some remarks by Wilander at the outset of the AO tournament, that Murray played too conservatively waiting for faults, to beat Federer or Nadal. Del Potro has to deal still with his USO win. I expect him to regain his fine form of last year in the summer, and to be strong factor at RG. I thought, over the full tournament, he was the best player at RG last year, despite his sf loss.
The player, i don't have a clue to understand, is Djokovic. He seems to go lackluster through the motions at the big events, he has lost his sharpness. He had good draws in all his last majors, but had disappointing losses in all cases. All these experienced players above have to regroup their game after their inititial run to the top, and after some lows have to make a certain improvements in their game. But Hoodjem, you are right, that there are no interesting new faces on the horizon, except maybe Cilic, who may be a factor on fast courts.

Djokovic is a very good player and I can see how he is dissapointing at times. However I also thought his prospects were always a bit overrated. He has less long range potential than either Del Potro or Murray IMO, possibly even Cilic. When you look at his game it is very strong all around across most respects but nothing that stands out enough, not the extra blinding power of Del Potro or Cilic, or the craftiness and return of serve of Murray.

[samprasvsfederer123]

stupid to put gonzales on top of federer just plain stupid.

[hoodjem]

^^^ Interesting avatar.

Originally Posted by samprasvsfederer123

stupid to put gonzales on top of federer just plain stupid.

With only 8 years as the world's top player, and one of the greatest serves in the history of the game, I can see why you'd say that. Glad you approve.

[davey25]

Originally Posted by hoodjem

PC, Thanks. This is a very logical way to look at it.

Good synopsis.

I have my G-list this way now:
1. Laver
2. Rosewall
3. Tilden
4. Gonzales
5. Federer

If he gets a true GS, I would tempted to put Fed at least in fourth maybe third place.

Just out of curiosity in that case what would Federer have to do in order to move up to 1st in your personal list?

[whistleway]

Originally Posted by pc1

If he wins it all I would put him higher up on the all time list. Hard to top some like Laver with 199 tournaments, 19 majors, three Grand Slams.

Rosewall, one Pro Grand Slam, 136 tournaments won, 23 majors.

pc1, just a point of view - that both the pros you quote are from 1950s/60s, when they had the opportunity to get 2x majors, i.e. you count them at both amateur and pro level. To be consistent, you'd have to either count them strictly pro or leave out pro slams and just count amateur. After WW2, in late 50s/60s till Open Era is a unique point in tennis history with both tours being held regularly. To make a poor analogy, it would be kind of like counting junior and open era slams, for modern players, say like Edberg or Federer.

When you look at numbers during that era, that's the reason why we have laver at 19, rosewall at 23. Inflated because, one player can get 4 slams in one year at amateur level, while another can get 3 slams at pro level at the same year. And since Laver and Rosewall dominated both the tours a few years apart - over their career, the numbers look more impressive than they should be.

Hope what I wrote makes some sense - I am not being very articulate today.

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by davey25

Just out of curiosity in that case what would Federer have to do in order to move up to 1st in your personal list?

Originally Posted by pc1

Hard to top some like Laver with 199 tournaments, 19 majors, three Grand Slams.

Rosewall, one Pro Grand Slam, 136 tournaments won, 23 majors.

Federer would have over 60 tournaments won, 19 majors, 1 Grand Slam.

To this I would add Gonzales's eight years as world no. 1. I would also add Tilden's US Championships titles record of six straight wins, and his Davis Cup dominance of seven straight years.

This is a reasonable way to look at it IMO. To be number one, Fed would need to top all these numbers.

Federer is definitely the best player of this era and of his generation. I'm no Fed-hater. But to be the best of all time, he needs to be better than anyone and everyone else.

Yes, that bar is pretty high, but I didn't put it up there--these guys did.

[davey25]

Originally Posted by hoodjem

To this I would add Gonzales's eight years as world no. 1. I would also add Tilden's US Championships titles record of six straight wins, and his Davis Cup dominance of seven straight years.

This is a reasonable way to look at it IMO. To be number one, Fed would need to top all these numbers.

Federer is definitely the best player of this era and of his generation. I'm no Fed-hater. But to be the best of all time, he needs to be better than anyone and everyone else.

Yes, that bar is pretty high, but I didn't put it up there--these guys did.

Thanks for your answer. I was just curious what you thought the standard was at this point.

[hoodjem]

You're welcome. IMO Fed is definitely one of the greats already.

He could become the greatest of all, but I think that would depend on him--how motivated he is, and how long he wants to play. These other guys who set these records pretty much played into their later 30s.

[urban]

Just a note to the load of titles of Laver (199) or Rosewall (130), which some people here and on other forums call inflated, and discredite. The amateur and open titles were won in at least 5 rounds tournaments. The pro titles had smaller draws, but often were played as round robins with sf and finals, so you had often 5 rounds, too. Look at the finalists, quarters or semis of those tournaments of the pro tour, and you see, that the opponents were always top class players. It wouble be, if Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djoko, Davydenko and Delpotro would play a Masters Cup every week.
Also, Laver for instance won 54 open titels in open era since 1968/69, all regular tournaments, when he was 30 years and older. He won this amount in the last third of his career. So you could add another 100 for the two thirds of his career, when he was on the height of his physical and mental powers. If you subtract ca. 20-25 four-man events from the 199, which can documented, it still leaves Laver with actual 175 titles in his career. Same for Connors, if you don't count the minor Riordan titles in his resume, he still has around 100 titles in open era. *******s try to dismiss those numbers, but they don't go away so easy.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by urban

Just a note to the load of titles of Laver (199) or Rosewall (130), which some people here and on other forums call inflated, and discredite. The amateur and open titles were won in at least 5 rounds tournaments. The pro titles had smaller draws, but often were played as round robins with sf and finals, so you had often 5 rounds, too. Look at the finalists, quarters or semis of those tournaments of the pro tour, and you see, that the opponents were always top class players. It wouble be, if Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djoko, Davydenko and Delpotro would play a Masters Cup every week.
Also, Laver for instance won 54 open titels in open era since 1968/69, all regular tournaments, when he was 30 years and older. He won this amount in the last third of his career. So you could add another 100 for the two thirds of his career, when he was on the height of his physical and mental powers. If you subtract ca. 20-25 four-man events from the 199, which can documented, it still leaves Laver with actual 175 titles in his career. Same for Connors, if you don't count the minor Riordan titles in his resume, he still has around 100 titles in open era. *******s try to dismiss those numbers, but they don't go away so easy.

You can also argue that Laver, Rosewall and Gonzalez also had to play all time greats like each other, Ashley Cooper, Segura, Trabert, Hoad, Sedgman, Hoad, Gimeno, Kramer, Anderson in a field that had no easy rounds. Gonzalez for example in 1959 defeated the amateur champions Cooper and Anderson on a tour with 14 wins and 0 losses against Anderson and 20 wins and 0 losses against Cooper. Against any of the amateurs Cooper and Anderson were virtually unbeatable.

So I don't discount Laver's 199 tournament victories. Laver actually maintained that high pace when Open Tennis started. I don't think Laver was any better than he was in the Pros when Open Tennis started. I actually think Laver was declining but his level of play was so high in the Old Pro Tour that he was still able to win the Open Grand Slam in 1969. I also am of the opinion that is why Rosewall was able to win tournaments into a late age, because his former high level was so high that even at an older age, he could still win at a lower level of play.

Look at a typical small tournament Laver won in 1964-Laver won the Round Robin by defeating Sedgman, Rosewall and Hoad.

Gonzalez also in 1964 defeated Anderson, Laver, Hoad and Rosewall in consecutive rounds. The odds of defeating any one of them is very low yet in the Pros at that time, champions were playing champions.

My point is that while some tournaments were only three rounds, winning those three rounds could be tougher than winning some majors. Players tend to rise to the level of their opposition and the champions entering the Pro Tour at the time had to rise to a higher level. It was true of Gonzalez, Laver, Hoad and Rosewall.

[hoodjem]

Originally Posted by pc1

Laver actually maintained that high pace when Open Tennis started. I don't think Laver was any better than he was in the Pros when Open Tennis started. I actually think Laver was declining but his level of play was so high in the Old Pro Tour that he was still able to win the Open Grand Slam in 1969.

I believe that we had established that 1967 was probably Laver's peak year. And that by 1969 when he won the Open GS, he had declined slightly.

[Steve132]

Originally Posted by urban

Just a note to the load of titles of Laver (199) or Rosewall (130), which some people here and on other forums call inflated, and discredite. The amateur and open titles were won in at least 5 rounds tournaments. The pro titles had smaller draws, but often were played as round robins with sf and finals, so you had often 5 rounds, too. Look at the finalists, quarters or semis of those tournaments of the pro tour, and you see, that the opponents were always top class players. It wouble be, if Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djoko, Davydenko and Delpotro would play a Masters Cup every week.
Also, Laver for instance won 54 open titels in open era since 1968/69, all regular tournaments, when he was 30 years and older. He won this amount in the last third of his career. So you could add another 100 for the two thirds of his career, when he was on the height of his physical and mental powers. If you subtract ca. 20-25 four-man events from the 199, which can documented, it still leaves Laver with actual 175 titles in his career. Same for Connors, if you don't count the minor Riordan titles in his resume, he still has around 100 titles in open era. *******s try to dismiss those numbers, but they don't go away so easy.

I think that you misrepresent the posters that you are criticizing.

You mention Federer, so let's use his record as an example. To date Federer has won "only" 62 tournaments. However, of that total 16 are majors (with 128-man draws), another 16 are Masters tournaments with 56 to 96 player draws and four are year end championships to which only the best 8 players are invited. As such, 36 of his 62 titles have been won in big tournaments.

Moreover, during Federer's career ALL the leading players who are not injured show up at every major and the YEC, and players rarely miss Masters events (except for Roddick during the European clay court season, but he is not a major contender at these events). To win a major or even a Masters title today you almost always have to beat a field consisting of all the world's best players. This was by no means generally the case in the 1960's, when the field was split between amateur and pro ranks. During the 1970's there were rival pro tours, and many of the tournaments that Connors won were very small (sometimes 8 or even 4 man invitational events). If you doubt this, look at a list of Connors' titles. Most were won in tournaments that were - even at the time - regarded as small.

Over the past 20 years players have focused their energies increasingly on winning the biggest events rather than on accumulating a large number of titles. Sampras was not that much different from Federer in this respect. His total of 64 pro titles includes 14 majors, 11 Masters titles and 5 year end championships. Federer's last 7 titles have included all 4 majors (U.S. Open 2008 to Australian Open 2010), Masters titles at Madrid and Cincinnati and only one smaller tournament, Basel 2008. I have little doubt that if he wanted to he could have entered and won many smaller tournaments. That, however, is not the main priority for him or Nadal or any other of today's leading players.

To sum up, the argument is that the number of pro titles won is at best a criterion of extremely limited value when comparing players across generations (although it is far more useful when comparing contemporaries). I yield to no one in my admiration for Laver, but my admiration is not based primarily on the number of titles he won but rather on the way that he dominated the game, which is not reflected solely in his total of career titles.

[Rogeforever]

Originally Posted by cakewalk_draw

Not a chance. Federer doesnt have any chance of winning even the AO. Either Tsonga or Murray will beat him.

...LOL Not "even" the AO I wonder what happend to ROGER----did he develope a Knie-Problem or some pulled abdominal muscles??? I remember Roger beat all of them Davydenky, Tsonga and Murray or was that in another Year???