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Agree, JCF is much more of a pigeon for Nadal than Coria. JCF has never won a set in 4 tries. Coria actually won a match and took at least a set in the 3 losses including a bagel. Furthermore, he was up a double break in the 5th set in the epic Rome match and by all accounts outplayed Nadal for...

Fed, Safin, Hewitt, Roddick did play with two of the highest caliber HOFers (higher than Edberg & Becker) - Sampras and Agassi. All 4 of them have a winning record over Sampras. How many slams did Edberg, Becker win during 93-98 when Sampras finished #1? Just 1. As Grimjack pointed out, they...

An NFL player also may not be able to run a 4.40 forty. See this article that doubts the validity of the 40 yard times that NFL touts so proudly: http://www.olympic-usa.org/11611_32384.htm That said, I agree that NFL has more athletes than tennis. One reason is the nature of the game: a...

How can this be in Federer's favor? If Moya, Enquist, Rafter et al had been better than what they turned out to be, they would've reduced Sampras and Agassi slam counts from 96 to 02 (just like Sampras, Agassi, Courier reduced the tally of Edberg and Becker). By 2004, they would have been in the...

There were more dangerous big-serving net rushers in the 90's than today. I think this is because of fast surfaces and carpet tournaments. (The other day I was looking at the breakdown of Sampras and Federer's career. Both had about the same # of titles at age 24, but Sampras had 11 carpet...

Agree that although the power level at the top hasn't increased, it seems like so many players outside of top10 can crack a 100MPH forehand: Blake, Verdasco, Gonzalez, Turusunov, J. Johansson, Grosjean, Monfils, Gasquet, Ishtomin, Calleri etc

I agree with most of what you are saying except the last statement. Sampras is better than anyone today except Fed. True he had a matchup problem with Hewitt, but even Fed has a matchup problem with Nadal.

Whenever there is a thread about Sampras/Federer, each player's fans try to denigrate the other by saying "He faced nobodies". I believe both of them are so far above everyone else that they would have cleaned up no matter who they faced. The only difference seems to be that Fed is remarkably...

Well, if Brady had James, Harrison, and Wayne as supporting cast, and a dome with perfect conditions to play in, he would put up similar numbers. Before Deion Branch came into his own & Dillon joined the team, the Patriots offense was not by any means elite. Yet Brady won two Super Bowls during...

Usually I agree with your analysis, but I think you are off the mark on Tom Brady. His playoff record is unmatched, and he has a better passer rating in his 5 years than Manning. See this: http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Article.php?Page=106 Just like Federer, he has a good chance of...

laurie, you probably have seen this page already. It backs up your statements. "Pete Sampras, known for having one of the best serves in pro tennis, hit 11 first serves with an average radar gun velocity of 120mph and and an average spin rate of 2699rpm, easily the highest combination of ball...

This year, unlike in years past, the level of difficulty - in terms of contenders & challengers - was about the same at the FO & Wimbledon. At RG - Nadal, Federer, and Coria were the three major contenders with Ferrero, Safin, Gasquet, Ferrer etc. as the dangerous floaters. At Wimbledon Federer...

These days, in big matches, Federer sticks to his bread and butter baseline game. However, he has better movement, more athleticism, better transition game, more ability to finish off points at the net, and ability to chip-and-charge on opponent's serves than the average baseliner. He is also...

I think Nadal will win a minimum of 6 slams (3 FO, 2AO, 1USO). If he develops further, he could win even more. Chang was unfortunate to be in the Sampras era, but it's hard to see him have any more success in any other era. While Gilbert's claim is an exaggeration, it has some validity. He is...

VamosRafa has a point: Folks are too quick to give Gasquet credit for what he MIGHT do, and denigrate (to some extent) what Nadal has ALREADY done. (This is the same attitude you see in NBA drafts: Coaches and fans are excited more about potential than tangible results - they would rather select...

Federer, McEnroe, Sampras

One would think that these players who could have "capatilaized" on the weaknesses of a player who dropped just 2 sets in 6 GS finals, won 5/6 non-clay slams in 2 years, lost just ONE non-clay match in more than 12mo. would have had more success in their careers, and been top-tier all-time...

Kevin, I think there are quite a few dangerous big servers/power players around even now, guys such as Joachim Johansson, Mario Ancic, Feliciano Lopez (on grass), Ljubicic, Gasquet, Blake (ok, he just emerged now), Fernando Gonzalez (hardest forehand), Verdasco (another monster forehand)...

I think he means that there is much more pressure to hold your own service game when playing Federer. Both Pete & Fed can hold their games equally well, but you better be on against Fed or you will get broken and the score will be 6-1, whereas against Pete you can relax during your service...

Sampras had the ability to hit spectacular winners from the baseline - running forehands that used to literally stun Agassi, and awesome DTL backhand winners. But these were occassional as most of the time his ground game was not consistent. It was more of hit-or-miss type. Agassi always had far...

I don't recall Dent pulling off big upsets recently. OTOH, Ginepri has beaten Roddick, Safin, and stretched Fed & Agassi. And Ginerpi is not a SVer. These things happen - lesser players can get on a hot stretch regardless of playing style. For fun, let's replace Federer with any one of those...

6.2 (overnight) rating - that's incredible. For reference, the first two games of the NBA finals got a 7.0 rating. Just underscores how popular Agassi is, and what he has meant to the game.

These Edbergs, Beckers, Krajiceks, and Rafters were so great that in the '93W-'95USO timeframe, they made ONE slam final combined. And you had titans like Pioline, Todd Martin making slam finals.

You can think of the new radar readings as: they are inaccurate today, and add about 5MPH to the speeds or they are accurate today, and the old readings were off by about -5MPH. I believe in the latter. Does anyone know if a similiar thing has happened in baseball, and whether there are any...

Kevin, I agree that new radar technology is more accurate and tends to give out higher readings than before, but when do you think this change occured? I did more digging into the Nadaq100 site, and I found some match stats of both Sampras and Federer in 2002. In two matches, Sampras...

I have read about this, too, but I am not sure what year this new radar technology came into being or by how much, if at all, the current speeds are inflated. See this page on the Nasdaq-100 site that lists the fastest serves in their tournament history...

Yes, roughly ranges from 114MPH-118MPH. I have noticed Federer's avg. 2nd serve speed to be around 95MPH. I have 2nd serve stats from only two of Sampras's matches: In the 2001 USO final against Hewitt, his avg. 2nd serve speed was 95MPH, in 2002 USO final against Agassi, it was 103MPH...

Kevin, I think the second night match that Federer got (vs. Rochus on Sunday) was because it was deemed by CBS - which was broadcasting day matches - as less attractive than other matches. So, basically Fed has been given only one night match on the basis of his appeal. That said, evidence...

Women's tennis was definitely much more popular in the US between 2000-2002, but mainly because of a lot of successful American women - Williams sisters and Capriati. Especially Serena in 2002-2003 was a huge star as evident from her endorsement deals then. But with the relative lack of success...

Yes, I saw the Johansson match, Roddick dominated all the statistical categories except that he lost the important points. Johansson was laughed off the court by Hewitt in the very next match. And he was beaten by Agassi in this year's AO despite pumping in a record 51 aces. Had Roddick been...