Who of big 3 is most gifted?

Who is most gifted in hitting a yellow fuzzy ball?

  • Fed

  • Rafa

  • Nole

Results are only viewable after voting.
F

FailBetter

Semi-Pro
Of course they are all extremely talented. But as we know there are several other aspects to tennis as mental toughness, mindset, tactics, physique, work ethic etc.

Who is most gifted in hitting a yellow fuzzy ball?

And who would be your favorite outside big3?
 
Enga

Enga

Hall of Fame
I think Nadal. Hes not the only one in his family in pro sports. There are 2 others. He also started winning earlier.
 
er4claw

er4claw

Rookie
Federer has more talent in a single nerve cell than the other two have combined in their whole body. Bull is a hard worker created by uncle toni and forced to play in a mechanical unnatural way. Djokovichs "talent" prevents him from hitting the easiest shots in the game.
 
True Fanerer

True Fanerer

G.O.A.T.
Doctor/Lawyer Red Devil said:
Federer gifted the most matches from match points up so it has to be him, amirite?

LOL but seriously, it's Federer. Magician really.
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J

JasonZ

Hall of Fame
vex said:
Probably Fed. His ability to roar back from extended injury layoff with next to no warmup and win AO’17 really impressed me.

If he had chosen a 2HBH rather than a 1 I shudder to think of what he could have been.
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I never understood why Federer didnt learn the 2HBH and mixed it with his 1HBH. He probably would have one of the best 2HBH of all players after a very short time of training. His head to head with Nadal would have been much different then.
 
Gary Duane

Gary Duane

G.O.A.T.
But it depends on the definition of gifted. I'm a pianist. My hands stretch to 11ths, meaning I can and always could play a lot of stuff most people can't play.

With Novak's stretching ability and movement, his abilities in that area are as gifted as they could be. Any time a player can do things that no one else can do, that's a gift. So the top players are all gifted in their own ways.

But I do think it came more easily to Roger. I don't deny his hard work, but things just seem more effortless. That, unfortunately, does not include the gift of winning the most important point more than others.
 
Gary Duane

Gary Duane

G.O.A.T.
loosegroove said:
Imagine Novak with Fed's serve! I think that would be ridiculous too.
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It's not just the serve. Fed in no way has the best serve for his size compared with all other players. Sampras was on another level. But his numbers for winning games are as high as anyone his height. So it's about his service game.

If Novak had the same level serving as Fed, God only knows how many majors he would have, and there would be no comparison. He'd be leading by a mile.
 
Last edited:
RF-18

RF-18

Talk Tennis Guru
A guy who won all four majors simultaneously and winning every major title of the sport but also besting them in the h2h encouonters must be more gifted than the two guys who didn't do such thing. They are not as complete. One guy only wins on clay and the other guy won his slams against Gonzaleses and Baghdatises of the world.
 
TennisFan3

TennisFan3

Talk Tennis Guru
Novak Djokovic. He can make the hardest shots look easy. His ability to change direction is the best ever.
 
The Fedfather

The Fedfather

Legend
Rafa gets no love in the poll, but considering he was a child prodigy, learned to play with his left hand because he's ambidextrous and could just do that, his FH, the feel he has at the net, I don't see him as less talented than Djokovic.
 
King No1e

King No1e

G.O.A.T.
Djokovic is close, but it's no doubt the one and only Roger Federer.
To be fair, consistency and mental fortitude are skills too, which Nadal is plenty talented in.
 
metsman

metsman

G.O.A.T.
Gary Duane said:
But it depends on the definition of gifted. I'm a pianist. My hands stretch to 11ths, meaning I can and always could play a lot of stuff most people can't play.

With Novak's stretching ability and movement, his abilities in that area are as gifted as they could be. Any time a player can do things that no one else can do, that's a gift. So the top players are all gifted in their own ways.

But I do think it came more easily to Roger. I don't deny his hard work, but things just seem more effortless. That, unfortunately, does not include the gift of winning the most important point more than others.
Click to expand...
Federer had the highest talent ceiling. And yes, some things came much easier to him than others, but to say the overall game did when most of it was a mess until he was 22+ is just wrong. He worked extremely hard to clean up his footwork, gain strength, and shot selection. Nadal, Sampras, Borg, Becker won majors as teenagers, Djokovic played one of his best majors at 20, Mac was playing some of his best tennis at 20-22. Those guys had a lot more natural physicality than Federer at a young age, and that's a pretty big deal. As did a lot of people because the list of players better than him at 19-21 is extremely long and includes several 1-2 slam winners.

Yeah Fed had the best pure combo of hands/feet/wrist but having the raw physiological gifts to bring that all together is a talent too.
 
xFedal

xFedal

Legend
Gary Duane said:
It's not just the serve. Fed in no way has the best serve for his size compared with all other players. Sampras was on another level. But his numbers for winning games are as high as anyone his height. So it's about his service game.

If Novak has the same level on serving as Fed, God only knows how many majors he would have, and there would be no comparison. He'd be leading by a mile.
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Why doesn't Novak have a great serve like Fed,despite having 3cm more on him? Because he only practice hitting his serve 75 to 100 times while Federer practices it 200 times ?
 
AnOctorokForDinner

AnOctorokForDinner

Talk Tennis Guru
metsman said:
That's just disrespectful to Sampras (and Federer too for that matter by saying he under-performed by that much)
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Quite the opposite.

Sampras, while a great racquet talent and a nimble athlete, had a condition that permanently limited his endurance and longevity (career endurance), and made almost perfect use of his opportunities from 1993 onwards by excellently timing his peaks over the course of seasons, matches and points. Trying to play everything with maximum intensity like Nadal would've ruined his body within years.

Federer has no such unfortunate limitations and is absurdly talented in all aspects of tennis apart from this ability to time peaks correctly. With Sampras's ability in that regard Federer's results would have been stupendously supreme, if they are humongous even as it is.
 
metsman

metsman

G.O.A.T.
AnOctorokForDinner said:
Quite the opposite.

Sampras, while a great racquet talent and a nimble athlete, had a condition that permanently limited his endurance and longevity (career endurance), and made almost perfect use of his opportunities from 1993 onwards by excellently timing his peaks over the course of seasons, matches and points. Trying to play everything with maximum intensity like Nadal would've ruined his body within years.

Federer has no such unfortunate limitations and is absurdly talented in all aspects of tennis apart from this ability to time peaks correctly. With Sampras's ability in that regard Federer's results would have been stupendously supreme, if they are humongous even as it is.
Click to expand...
Federer has always peaked for majors, aside from times like 11-12 or 14 where he went pretty hard in small tournaments to get #1 (but still did the ultimate peak timing job to win Wimby), but Sampras did that too.

I feel like people always forget that Federer was 12-2 in major finals at one point. Sampras high-water mark was 13-2, but that didn't include any clay, although it did include 1 pre-prime major.

Demanding that Federer win most of the matches that people ding him for since then over the years is tantamount to directly admitting that Nadal, and especially Djokovic, are not fit to hold his jock as players. Yet, people still want it both ways.
 
AnOctorokForDinner

AnOctorokForDinner

Talk Tennis Guru
metsman said:
Federer has always peaked for majors, aside from times like 11-12 or 14 where he went pretty hard in small tournaments to get #1 (but still did the ultimate peak timing job to win Wimby), but Sampras did that too.

I feel like people always forget that Federer was 12-2 in major finals at one point. Sampras high-water mark was 13-2, but that didn't include any clay, although it did include 1 pre-prime major.

Demanding that Federer win most of the matches that people ding him for since then over the years is tantamount to directly admitting that Nadal, and especially Djokovic, are not fit to hold his jock as players. Yet, people still want it both ways.
Click to expand...

The last paragraph highlights the logical knot sharply indeed. Either the B3 are equals and it's ok for fred to lose to his equals with age working against him, or he is the superior specimen who underperformed in close tussles as a mental weakness.

I do believe the latter, as awesome as Djokodal legitimately are Federer is still something else. I feel like Federer is truly the realistically perfect player except for this close matches thing, of course he's not totally perfect otherwise but it's not humanly possible so Fed comes as close as possible. Likewise, Nadal is the (realistically) perfect clay courter, Sampras is perfectly clutch, McEnroe has the perfect short-term peak.
 
True Fanerer

True Fanerer

G.O.A.T.
King No1e said:
The insane angles Federer pulls off every once in a while, Djokovic produces every match.
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Are you trying to say that Djokovic is a better shotmaker than Federer? Lol.

He's really good at stretching and turning defense into offense. He hits a lot of deep balls in the middle of the court. That's what he does mostly. Of course he hits some winners, but nothing close to Federer when it comes to hitting the ball PAST his opponent.
 
BlueB

BlueB

Legend
Djokovic was the only one that was actually recognized as a "golden child" and future best tennis player in the world, as a very small kid.

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
 
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