Will Djokovic catch Sampras?

Will Djokovic catch Sampras in the forest if Pete is naked, deaf and greased up.

  • Yes - Djokovic will win more than 14 Slams

    Votes: 30 54.5%
  • Yes - Djokovic will win 14 Slams

    Votes: 11 20.0%
  • No - Djokovic will only win 13 Slams

    Votes: 6 10.9%
  • No - Djokovic is done at 12 Slams

    Votes: 8 14.5%

  • Total voters
    55

-NN-

G.O.A.T.
Time for another fresh, hot and original thread.

Will Djokovic reach 14 Majors and catch Pete?

Vote for a variant of yes or no.
 

cc0509

Talk Tennis Guru
Djokovic should probably be able to catch Sampras. So much will depend on the younger and up until now, useless players.
 

timnz

Legend
Well one could strongly argue that he has already passed Sampras given djokovics superior lower level achievement profile. Same number of wtf’s but 30 masters 1000 vs 11 for Sampras . That is a gigantic gap. It’s not easy to win masters 1000’s. Even if you grant Sampras 4 Extra masters 1000 equivalents (his Phily and Indianapolis wins from the 1990-1992 period) and Sampras 2 grand slam cups - Sampras would still only have 17 to 21 equivalents (depending on how you weight the grand slam cups)
 
D

Deleted member 716271

Guest
Seeing as Djokovic is on track to win 22 slams, I think the question should be "Will Djokovic catch Margaret Court?"
 

-NN-

G.O.A.T.
He can be past Sampras in 10 months.

Hmm.

Well I doubt Federer and Nadal will play as well in 2018 as 2017 and think Murray and Wawrinka won't be threats in 2018, so I expect to see at least one new Slam winner. Djokovic could well be there to capitalise big time.
 

Red Rick

Bionic Poster
Hmm.

Well I doubt Federer and Nadal will play as well in 2018 as 2017 and think Murray and Wawrinka won't be threats in 2018, so I expect to see at least one new Slam winner. Djokovic could well be there to capitalise big time.
USO is the big chance for the outsiders. I think the AO comes too early for everyone bar maybe Dimitrov, and all the non slam winners are further from the big guys on natural surfaces anyway, so unless Thiem flukes RG, I see little happening before the USO.
 

metsman

G.O.A.T.
Well one could strongly argue that he has already passed Sampras given djokovics superior lower level achievement profile. Same number of wtf’s but 30 masters 1000 vs 11 for Sampras . That is a gigantic gap. It’s not easy to win masters 1000’s. Even if you grant Sampras 4 Extra masters 1000 equivalents (his Phily and Indianapolis wins from the 1990-1992 period) and Sampras 2 grand slam cups - Sampras would still only have 17 to 21 equivalents (depending on how you weight the grand slam cups)
How about all the grass masters Sampras should have been winning? Sampras had 0 masters on his best surface, Djokovic has at least 4 depending on your delineation of slow and fast hard court. Hmmm...
 

timnz

Legend
How about all the grass masters Sampras should have been winning? Sampras had 0 masters on his best surface, Djokovic has at least 4 depending on your delineation of slow and fast hard court. Hmmm...
You can't assume that Sampras necessarily would have won that many. It is worth noting that in his whole career Sampras only won a total of 3 non-Wimbledon grass tournaments (in contrast Federer has won 9 non-Wimbledon grass tournaments).
 

metsman

G.O.A.T.
You can't assume that Sampras necessarily would have won that many. It is worth noting that in his whole career Sampras only won a total of 3 non-Wimbledon grass tournaments (in contrast Federer has won 9 non-Wimbledon grass tournaments).
I didn't assume anything. I asked you what the counts would be, and if they should even matter, if Djokovic had 3 masters on his worst surface, whatever you want that to be, 0 on hard, and Sampras had 3+ on grass.

Unless you think that some surfaces or conditions matter more when evaluating players or that grass isn't a surface that matters when evaluating players, then the masters distribution across surfaces should raise major red flags. Yes, the tour is primarily HC now, so you can say that HC is favored more because it's more predominant so young players train for it more to have more success, but when Sampras was growing up, two of the four majors were still on grass so grass-court style tennis was still widely taught. This is without even getting into the fact that the importance of most masters back then was negligible compared to today, although you do address that by adding comparable titles onto Pete's count. Yes, I know you will reply with "Sampras was good on hard, he had plenty there", but hard is not his best surface, he shouldn't be penalized for having two great surfaces because that's usually what happens when people compare Nadal/Djokovic to Federer/Sampras because the former don't have a 2nd dominant surface, so it's not a fair comparison.
 
I still have my doubts he will get to 13.
People are just too hyped up about Djokovic's comeback.
He can win more Slams, but I am not sure he will. I still have no sample of the "new" Djokovic, so it is impossible to tell.
 

Shank Volley

Hall of Fame
It's pretty amazing how fast things can turn around in sports. A little over a year ago people were still talking about the chances of Djokovic catching Federer as a 50-50 proposition. There's a lesson here about not taking things for granted, or being wary of hubris and self-satisfaction.
 

vex

Legend
And Bjorn would have won 17 majors and 9 FO's had he not lost motivation.

And Lendl would have won 15 slams had it not been for Mac, Connors, Becker or Edberg.

And Fed would have 27 slams had Rafa not come along....

You can play the "what if" game till you keel over.
Agreed
 

Red Rick

Bionic Poster
And Bjorn would have won 17 majors and 9 FO's had he not lost motivation.

And Lendl would have won 15 slams had it not been for Mac, Connors, Becker or Edberg.

And Fed would have 27 slams had Rafa not come along....

You can play the "what if" game till you keel over.
But what if we played the "what if" game till we keeled over
 

mike danny

Bionic Poster
2018 will be important for Djokovic. If he doesn't win anything next year, he probably won't catch Sampras.

The young guys aren't going to be garbage forever.
 

SpinToWin

Talk Tennis Guru
I still have my doubts he will get to 13.
People are just too hyped up about Djokovic's comeback.
He can win more Slams, but I am not sure he will. I still have no sample of the "new" Djokovic, so it is impossible to tell.
Yup. Who knows how well he has recovered from the elbow, if he's unlucky, he may have chronic issues with it henceforth.
 
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