Gary Duane
Talk Tennis Guru
You have zero proof that both Nadal and Fed were not playing at prime level in their respective dominant part of the year. You simply want to believe that everyone else is playing badly, and that this proves that younger players are the weakest ever. So you state again and again that this is fact, based on zero evidence besides your own conclusions based on your feelings about what is happening right now.Thiem did fine against Rafa today considering his last match finished so late. Nothing extremely impressive as Nadal was not playing all that well and had to come through on some BP to save himself. But I'm not going to hate on Thiem for this performance like I did for his poorer Barcelona performance. He's at least making some moves, not his fault the rest of his generation was subpar.
By complaint is with the whole generation being pathetically weak than any one player. By far the weakest series of generations in history. Never before has there been anywhere near such a gap between all time great players. It's a complete joke that Federer and Nadal have swept the big events so far with barely any challenge from the younger generation, no matter how well they are playing (which is good, but not close to prime level). I expected both Federer and Nadal to have their swansongs and win another major, but I never expected that they would be completely dominating tennis again, as great as they are.
No matter how many times I and others state that it MAY be due to other factors, you will have none of it.
Essentially what you are saying is: "This is how I see things, and I know I am right."
There is no one here who is itching more for younger players to break through then me. I don't necessarily like the way things are right now any better than you do. I just postulate different reasons, and one of them is an absolute breakthrough in medicine and treatment that is allowing older players to recover faster. Lack of recovery has always been the main reason why aging players stopped dominating. Going back many decades aging ATGs were extremely dangerous in single matches against younger players but were unable to string together successive wins to go deep in majors and other longer tournaments.
Seeding helps older players. TBs help them, shortening matches. More and more matches decided in three sets helps them. Ice baths, eggs, so many things help them recover.
When I was young my father and his generation would not even walk around the block at my age, and they ate food that was horrible for them. They drank a lot, ate a lot of red meat, lots of salt, and in general they did a lot of things that people today would not even think about doing.
I don't drink, watch what I eat, read everything I can get my hands on about diet, don't go near soda and diet drinks, and I still run at night. There are now quite a few people in their 60s who function more like people in their 50s, and in some cases in their later 40s.
Life expectancy in the US is knocked down by people who do nothing to stay in shape and who are hugely overweight, but around the world life expectancy keeps going up and will probably go up even more.
There is no sharp line any more between "better living through chemistry" and "leading a clean life". For all we know some of the substances that are illegal or that fall into a gray area may increase health and longevity.
I see no reason not to believe that in sports the age of decline is not being pushed back at least a couple years.
But you and others consistently treat this idea as if it is nonsense.
I simply don't agree.