Recent content by Cabeza del Demonio

The era of servebots dominating the tour has passed. Even today's tall players have solid ground game and know how to construct a point without relying on their serve too much. Zverev, Tsitsipas, and Medvedev are all 6'5 and over, but none of them are as serve-reliant as Sampras or Ivanišević...

Player for player: #1: Both were insanely dominant. Djokovic was more consistent but Federer played at a higher level. For the purposes of ranking competition, this is about a tie. #2: Nadal in 2006 was already dominating clay and was a contender on grass, but nowhere to be seen on HC. Murray...

Thiem Team represent!

Nadal in 2009 was insanely good defensively. He would retrieve outright winners from Verdasco, full sprint for 5 hours. Then he came back and did that again against Federer. I can only imagine how much that required physically and mentally. He fought like a Roman gladiator taking on one beast...

Del Potro is the gentle giant of tennis. Always a likeable player, wish he had won the Stefan Edberg award at least once. His resilience coming back from injury time and time again, combined with his endearingly humble and friendly attitude is hard for anyone not to respect.

This would be quite the slugfest. I wish they had a chance to play each other there once. Wawrinka in 2015 was a notch above Mountain Man on clay, though.

I think for a hypothetical matchup between players of different eras, you'd have to take into consideration the court surface itself. Wimbledon changed the type of grass they used in 2002 (or thereabouts), which played noticeably slower. There were matches like the 2002 Hewitt-Nalbandian final...

Can't argue with the logic there. The elusive title of GOAT must go to Sir Andrew Barron Murray, Lord of Tennis.

Both of those played a role, but most importantly, Soderling was one of the world's best claycourters in his prime. He would've probably won a French Open or two had his career not ended abruptly in 2011.

Best of All Time? In terms of peak playing level and shotmaking ability, without a doubt. There are other contenders like McEnroe, Borg, and Federer, but overall I would hand it to him.

Thieminator Thieminating. What else is there to say?

I wouldn't say GOAT quite yet. Gotta keep in mind the former greats like Laver, Gonzales, and Rosewall achieved feats that Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer could only dream of equalling.

And that total dominance he has imposed on one surface shouldn't take away from his mastery of all surfaces. Few players could ever hope to be as accomplished on all 3 surfaces as Nadal is. Career Slam at 24, Surface Slam at 22, won on all 3 surfaces in the same year, has 2+ titles and 5+ finals...

Truly amazing collection of shots. Djokovic can do it all. The way he slides into those backhands, rips it at mach speed, and lands it on a dime. Never seen such a combination of refined skill and raw athleticism that the Djoker possesses. Happy birthday to Novak Djokovic, a player like no other.