Tennis_Hands
Banned
1. I don't care if you call the competition in Majors "weak." They just better have some substance to it other than "x-player was old." (and no one -- other than people on an Internet forum -- called any of those Majors weak).
2. And no, competition is not defined by age. Period. A younger player is not automatically more competitive than a younger player. More often than not, a younger player will be more competitive than an older player, but it is not automatic. Take Federer from 2011-2015. No one thinks that he was less competitive than all of the younger players he played.
Yes, it's an anomaly that the older guys are dominating the older guys. But it's only an anomaly of "concern" when someone other than Federer is doing it. Why is that? Why is Federer's longevity "celebrated" but everyone else's is questioned?
3. You call my suggestion of you expecting an 18-time slam winner to stop Djokovic a straw man. My response? Call it whatever you want. Thiem/Zverev/etc aren't living up to your own personal expectations. You think it's all about them, apparently. You fail to recognize that they're playing a No. 1, 18-time slam winner. During the 2008 Australian Open, who stopped then-No. 1, and 12-time major winner Federer? Was it Berdych or Tipsarevic? No. It was Djokovic....a player who would go on to win 18-slams. Evidently, it takes a future all-time legend to convincingly stop a present all-time legend. From all accounts, Thiem and co. aren't future legends (maybe it's too early to predict, who knows?) so you want more from them, which leads me to believe that you're expecting them to be legends. And they probably won't be, meaning that they aren't good enough to stop Djokovic.
4. Federer never stopped Djokovic? 2011 RG? 2012 Wimbledon? He very nearly beat him in several other slam matches which could have easily gone his way.
And I have no idea why you are limiting Nadal and Djokovic's rivalry to just the last 7 years. And yes, Djokovic beats Nadal on HC and Nadal beats Djokovic on clay. No one complained when Federer was beating everyone everywhere except for grass. But all of a sudden, everyone pearl clutches when Djokovic starts to dominate.
5. As for Federer's competition: I already mentioned Nadal. Hewitt and Roddick? They weren't competition. At all.
1. But I do. Apart from the obvious particular paths of the champion to the title, I pointed also at the general lack of adequate competition from a younger ATGs at the top, and, as I already pointed out, Tennis is a top heavy sport with its specific dynamic between successive generations. That is the substance that you are looking for.
2. You can deny it as much as you want: the history of tennis renders your denial to accept it irrelevant. I showed it using YOUR OWN picks. 1 out of 12 champions from those picks was an older generation over younger generation player, and for that one match the winner said it is the first time he feared he could lose the match. That was a statement from a player who, by then, was a 4 time champion of the event. He then went on to lose that event to the same player he feared from losing from already from the year before. That tells a fracking amazing story in confirmation of what I am talking about, so, who are you to dispute facts and the history of the sport?
3. No, I call you suggestion that only an 18 times Major champion will fulfil your criteria for a "worthy competition" a straw man, because all those players I mentioned were not 18 times Major champions, yet they did just fine to displace the older than them generations of ATGs. BTW, your example is quite feeble. Safin stopped Federer too at the same venue, and when Federer was arguably even more dominant, and Safin wasn't a "future 18 times Major winner", so that prerequisite is not necessary in any way, shape or form, to call for a worthy competition. For all the laughable flak Fed's era gets for his competition, in it there were players who, on their day had a much higher peak than any of the also rans from the current era could dream about. I don't "want" anything from anyone. In fact, if you were following what I am saying and consider what you say about Thiem et co, you will realise that you have come around to consider yourself the current competition weak. How else could you explain what you just said about them, if you don't expect them to provide a highest level of competition?
4. I specifically said the last 7-8 years. Federer's best years were up until Wimbledon 2012, after that he slowly stepped back, had a terrible 2013, a 2014 which was showing a signs already that his game is getting severely hampered by his equipment disadvantage and an year that became a basis for him completely retooling his game to continue to be competitive, so I put a rather precise framework as to what I mean.
You have no idea why I am limiting Djokovic and Nadal's rivalry to the last 7 years? I am putting the lack of such in the context of this discussion about the CURRENT weak era that has been such from some time, so I discussed one of the major points that makes it such: one of the key rivalries in recent years on the highest level. Hardly a very difficult concept to understand!
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