No, you're the one who's wrong.What was roger doing at 19 ?
Edit: you're actually incorrect as well, he turned 19 during madrid 22 (1 − 8 May) Carlos' birthday is the 5th of may
Djokovic lost to Safin in the second round of Wimbledon 2008.
Imho not even lowest among RG this decade:
How do you know that for sure lol we're only speculating on 2 players playing almost 20 years apart.
Do you base your opinion on the level of ATG's based on how they would do in different eras ? I mean is that your 1st criterion ? Because that's not something you ccan verifiy ...Bttw I'm also some one who believes that tennis as a proffession gets gruadually better ...top 50/100 players are way better IMO than they used to be 20-30 years ago.
That's an unusual combo...so i guess young Nadal is keeping the fort against young Carlos for you 2 guys lol . Do you think Carlos outslams Fed in his 20's (17) ?
I guess we will never know know for sure since carlos wasn't born in fed/novak's era...
He might but l look at it this way ; if we were to switch Carlos and Nadal (04-08 <--> 22-25) I don't think nadal is winning much more than he won in that era ..he's not beating sinner on HC for me He end up with the same tally maybe 1 more wimbledon which would bring him to 7 like carlos. On the other hand Carlos wins most of those clay titles like nadal...roger took his sweet time on that surface...He also gets the 09 AO imo and rustles 1 or 2 non clay slams out of fed inishing with a 6 or 5 tally but this is all speculation .... I hate this exercise tbh
I look at the achievements than do an eye-test... I don't think wilander survives the sheer pace and intensity of a nadal for example...it's easy for me to extrapolate that( based on my own judgement which could be wrong).
But this is why I dislike inter-era match ups ...how do you hope to have an accurate estimation of levels when players play under so much different conditions ...the variables are innumerable. After looking at the achievements and strength of field I simply rely on my eye test ( which could be wrong , not claiming it's better ) to determine which player plays at a higher level. I'm put off by simulation of if this guy did this he'd do that....^To this I’d just add that quality at the lower rungs ≠ tennis becoming harder for those at the top. Tennis is an obscenely top-heavy sport and surface/condition convergence (optimal game-style — power baselining mainly — varies less from surface-to-surface than ever before, “problematic” courts like sticky RA and 30% fescue grass with bad bounces replaced, no more indefinite final sets, no more Super Saturday, emerging players priced out by training/coaching/dietary demands w more straight-line paths to improvement given how much of this has been whittled down to a science—see: Djoko’s hyperbaric chamber, multi-million dollar team—etc ), the tour catering to players (abolishing blue clay cuz Djokodal went wah-wah, tournament day-night preferences of main attractions followed slavishly by organizers) and stable technology has made it “easier” for top players to compile numbers than any point in OE history. I expand on this in another post:
An unrealistically extreme thought experiment to illustrate the effects of tour convergence: try to picture a permanent switch to all-clay in 2005. Average per-match quality doesn’t move much, so what changes? Well Nadal, health remaining the same, ends up the undisputed numerical GOAT…because while he didn’t get “better” and the tour didn’t get “worse,” things got easier for him.
Mind you I don’t think TB3 are exempt from this, they benefitted from homogenization too - but they, blessedly, had each other to keep one from making a mockery of tennis. And there were still wisps of parity-forcing variety for much/all of their early primes/peaks (I mean the tour transition to poly wasn’t even complete til around ‘09 ffs).
No agreed , but after looking at the numbers and weighing in the perceived quality of comp. I prefer to rely on my eye-test insteead of these hypothetical match ups that don't satisfy me.
Let me put it this way if we absolutely have to do a simulation ( which I'm very unsure of how it would play out in reality because it's not reality lol)
I’m just saying “but what applies to those who trail you in the ranking also affects you indirectly” is not something my case hinges on, and I even agree with the statement.
True, but in the same way Djoko got more years being in an advantageous position than Federer, same thing with Alcaraz now. Djoko got the upper hand in 2022 (even though he could not compete becuase of COVID in many tournaments) and 2023, but from 2024 until Novak retires Alcaraz has/will have the advantage.
statements made by the utterly deranged
the Murray who was 26-21 on clay at tour level at that point? wow what a big match
ehh Nadal wasn't the one preventing long rallies in the 2nd set, and i think it would be dangerous to take your reading into the mythical 3rd set, where they went 9-9 in 10+ rallies. peak of the sport RG '08 Nadal barely better not just in scorelines but eye test too, compared to peaking Glutenovic in his 2nd-worst conditions?
i remember noting in #484 to Nat on the Fognini thread, that it's hard to argue that old Djokovic was so favored by not facing younger ATG talents, and simultaneously argue that '24-onwards Janlitos are (only?) comparable to post-prime Big 3. meanwhile the more extreme Fedfan route is to selectively grant and retract ATGness depending on if Djokovic is losing to Janlitos, or argue that Janlitos aren't true ATGs in the first place
Borg frauded out by squandering his age advantage and getting straight setted by Laver on green clay
prime Djokovic in Cinci retired against Murray, shat the bed vs Federer twice, and lost to Isner and Robredo. it's not "by equal measure" at all!
how does this make sense though? '14/'15/'17 Federer at Wimbly was a better server than Roddick for the purpose of going up against his peak self as a returner (due to disguise and +1 abilities), and did literally everything (besides FH power-based ballstriking) else better; and then he was a better server and all-courter than Hewitt, by bigger and more important margins than all the other stuff (since you already, presumably, similarly grant Roddick making it close with Hewitt, on the basis of just his serve + FH advantage)
1. if you reframe to "who was better by level in that period" you get Nadal > Federer >= Djokovic, which aligns with their big titles (8 Slams + 1 Oly, 5 + 2 YECs, 5 + 2)
3 Ws, 3 Fs in his prime and that era; 3 + 2 '17-onwards. Murray was 1 + 6
but you didn't have that for Nadal in '09, '10, or '13, only in '19 (based off the Hitman '03-'23 thread, all of which i'd agree with fwiw), and Nadal wasn't being blocked by peak Fedole in any of those years, so how is that relevant?
The next generation of ATGs is going to be relegated to comparisons with 4th tier players like Gonzo, Monfils, Tipsarevic once 30s versions of Sincaraz beat them in slams. Turtles all the way down.
Fair enough I guess, my broader point was that despite the Alcaraz second set lapse Djokovic still had to dig monstrously deep to win that match in historically bad conditions for him (and go on to have a perfect rest of the season) and deserves credit thus. I find all these pre/post prime debates regarding the match futile when it was functionally a coin flip match by the third set.
Not quite fair given that the Murray loss was injury-related; that 2012/15 Cincy Federer >>> 2023 Cincy Alcaraz; and that peak HC masters Isner is no joke, might well be > 2023 Cincy Alcaraz as well (considering also Karl literally had to save MP vs HuHu in SF). The Boredo loss was bad of course, wasn't Djokovic on a honeymoon or something at the time?
Oh?
the one who was 4-2 by 19 (Laver 37), with:
but the point is about Djokovic's level, not his superior competition. he was plenty capable of playing poorly in Cinci in his prime, so his poor '23 performance doesn't even out with Alcaraz's poor one in his pre-prime (especially since we now have Alcaraz's '25 run as a near-prime point of comparison, with even the Rublev tussle being more reasonable than the Monfils, Dolgopolov, and Simon tussles). that said, good on Djokovic for fighting and winning the close match
1. don't see how unclose Berdych match is at all relevant
you need to make an actual case for what you said, not just point to 2 matches in a whole career
Like majors won and that sort of thing? Berdych hit very flat so made more errors. Sinner hits with more topspin (meaning more consistency) and he moves better laterally.
Smash's argument is too extreme perhaps, but, to be fair, 17/18 is not at all the same as 20/21 in terms of development (taken all together: physical, mental, technical).
Sure, Djokovic never showed a historically great peak level in Cincinnati, still overall I'm taking prime Djokovic over 2023 Cinciraz clearly, who wasn't historically great at all.
Two tiebreaks though. First set wasn't close (and wouldn't've ended in TB had Fred not choked serving for it, albeit under some pressure), but the second legitimately was, as was early 3rd set till Federer saved double BP (famously with refined serving) then broke and held comfortably till the end of set/match. So old past-prime Berdych did play that Federer close for 1.5 sets, what it tells us?
So looks like the view you're offering is still problematic if you're driven to conclude from it that Roddick was able to push Federer thanks to Federer underperforming... this is the pathway that opens up arguments to the effect of Federer actually being an overrated fraud and stuff.
agreed, but Borg was certainly within striking distance of Laver (79.5% vs 81.8% WL for '74), and Borg winning RG '74 (a mere month later than the April losses) with all those dropped sets, was quite a display of physicality. that's pretty similar to the case with Alcaraz-Djokovic in '23, with USO '22 as Alcaraz's proof of physicality. so the initial premises of the importance of physicality in proximity to prime form and thus h2h with older players, are still faulty.
agreed
ah, forgot the bo3 didn't extend to R16, so didn't catch that in TA
yep that's the one with a legit ? imo, and it's just explained by form. not some permanent mark of shame
not much, considering it was 1.5 sets and so doesn't constitute a close match
1. i think e.g. Djokovic-Wawrinka h2h was underperforming but Djokovic != overrated fraud, so don't see where the issue is
Physicality means a lot but not quite everything especially when there are still meaningful improvements to make in various areas for a very young player, I do acknowledge that. The manner of those losses on Alc's part was certainly problematic, but you can say that's not Djokovic-specific - neither mugging up masters matches nor losing indoors nor even cramping in slam semis (lel) is exclusive to the Djokovic H2H for Karl now; it simply reflects the general reality that he's not as goaty as some would like to believe. Looks like Alcaraz isn't actually going to become unbeatable, so no undisputed goatness for him no matter how much he ends up winning, really.
Surely peak Roddick was considerably better than past-prime Birdie though.
It clearly hurts Djokovic's goat case considerably (in the eyes of refined connoisseurs like Fedfans, anyway) that he struggled with Stan so much in slams, doesn't it? In that context, Djokovic is both overrated (for being widely declared goat when he's not) and a fraud for weak-era'ing his way to being overrated like that.
Yes for a personal rivalry given what had happened since AO 2022..not legacy wise...RG2020 and USO 2013 more significant.But RG 2022, who wasn't even a SF but a QF is massive
right, and so he was able to play a better Federer close for somewhere between 2.5-4 sets depending on how you evaluate and slice? i still don't get the point for comparison's sake
i think the Wawrinka h2h is disappointing, but i don't really think it's very convincing evidence for him being an overrated fraud. the fraud part (to whatever extent one wants to argue it) has to do with how he got his numbers, and the overrated (ditto) part has to do with things like his various peaks, his condition versatility, his technical completeness - specific game-related critiques. the most you can really say is that Djokovic choked 2 Slams away and had a bad matchup due to his mid +1, but that's not really relevant to the foundational elements of Djokovic's GOATness (besides mental strength i suppose)
you're stealing what i said about Federer-Sampras >: (
yeah, could have serve-returned better overall, esp in the sets he lost
should we not expect Federer to have explicitly GOATed in a Wimbly F in his peak years against a good matchup, in the same way that you expected Djokovic to play better than merely acceptable (if that) tennis to win Slams vs mugs in his post-prime?
"Where's he going Boris, out wide or up the T?"
2004 Federer being clearly better than 2017 (all 2013+) Federer at Wimbledon is the point.
It's a significant contributor to Djokovic's prime slam performance simply not being in Federer's league, good as it was still; and that's a significant contributor to the argument that Djokovic actually isn't as good a player as Federer.
It's a basic truism anyone knows, no stealing required or intended, lol
even if we just turn off our brains and do close set power scaling
but that's the case with or without the Wawrinka losses, and is the case for every non-Federer GOAT. meanwhile, prime Federer's Wimbly performances, with or without Roddick '04, are in another league from everybody besides prime Sampras and Borg. my point is that these individual matches don't move the needle much on their own and so don't need to/shouldn't be scrutinized so much in any direction
right, but that was a pretty analogous convo, and there also you were worried about the Implications for peak and prime Federer. why do you have an issue with Federer not maximizing his peak vs '04 Roddick, while also having actively disagreed with '01 Federer peaking vs '01 post-prime Sampras, given that Sampras in general > Roddick (so that the former playing less well than usual would stick out as much as the latter playing better than usual, even if their levels are largely comparable)
is this not just mythology at this point? i see no reason to believe that '04 Roddick's weaknesses, of the kind that you laid out for Sinvedev IW '26 F, were not at least as present when he held up admirably to '04 Federer, and i don't see how his ballstriking makes up for that (unless you improperly weight that as part of his baselining abilities, esp in a comparison to prime Sinner and primeish Medvedev). like yeah i think a GOAT in their highly-praised peak years, not being perfect against their pigeon, is an underperformance, especially when i can see repeated middle-of-the-court service-box-deep rallies in that 2nd set mug period
I certainly don't expect Djokodal would've done it to such an extent (clear H2H advantage obviously, but not to the point of almost never losing).set 2? and in set 4, not sure if you pinpoint shakes to 5-5 or even earlier, because games 5, 7, and 9 were all good from Federer
i think Federer's serve and FH aggression was quite a bit below par, and that allowed Roddick into the match
if nullifying the other person's strengths and getting away with areas of weakness are functions of GOATness, then was Djokovic ultra-pigeonizing ATG serve+1er Tsonga a function of his GOATness? or was it a matchup issue?
i don't think prime Federer would have pigeonized prime Nishikori to the same extent as prime Djokovic did! but i don't really care about that
set 2 featuring Federer managing 1 single BP courtesy of Djokovic missing a third ball FH at 30-30, right
How does this work? Federer was only broken twice in so many games, there's no way that could count as 'quite a bit below par' on serve in any way. You could reasonably find fault with Federer's return game there, but not his serve lol.
Tsonga is an ATG serve+1er, really? I don't think he was ever consistent enough to qualify. His peak was high but rare. Djokovic is 3-0 against peak Tsonga in slams anyway, but those were decently competitive matches even though two of them featured Djokovic in peak form himself (AO 08, WB 11), and the third had him escape match points (RG 12). Non-peak Tsonga was indeed no match for prime Djokovic, I don't think much would change against prime Federer.
Lol, why? Are you basing this on past-prime Federer losing some matches to him? Pure kek. Djokovic had already failed back when he managed to lose to Nishikori in a slam in the midst of his prime, that he won their next 20 matches cannot erase that.
Federer vs Nadal at Wimbly '06: only got 2 BPs in set 2 thanks to Nadal donating 3 UEs in each game, and got 0 BPs in set 3. peak Federer useless on return for half of a Wimbly F against an even worse server, what it tells us?
i think Federer only managing 70.9% 1st SPW (and that's after tossing out those 2 games in the 2nd set), is pretty obviously bad vs Roddick? no matter how well Roddick returned (which was elite at minimum fwiw), he wasn't athletically and technically capable of keeping Federer to his 4th worst 1st SPW performance at Wimbly in the entire '03-'19 span, on his own merit... leaving those 2 games in, it would be Federer's absolute worst... meanwhile Federer kept Roddick to his 6th worst 1st SPW performance at Wimbly between '03-'09, and Federer obviously had those abilities, so we can safely give him credit for his returning...
not sure what else you'd call a top 10-15 (depending on conditions) 1st SPW player in the poly era, considering everybody above him was a bot or Federer. also that's certainly how Tsonga managed all of his most signature Slam performances (AO '08, Wimbly '11, RG '12)
he would have closer matches and could get more than 1 win in a comparable timespan, especially considering he already beat a decent prime Federer once while not peaking
i'm basing it on Djokovic having the better return for dealing with the likes of Nishikori, along with his rally tolerance, counterpunching, and defense. i think if Davydenko could beat prime Federer a couple of times and push him hard in a couple Slams, Nishikori could get close to the same just by not choking as much
Federer pigeonized Safin regardless of AO '05
UPDATED : for better visualisation also Novak 08 YEC and Nadal 08 OG were added.
Nadal peaked in the third set and Fred was already two sets up so could relax a bit, I don't think that matters. (Mucking up the tiebreak somewhat was a bit of a blemish but nothing else, Primerer's tiebreak record in Wimbledon late rounds was near-perfect anyway.) The second set was closer than it should've been, in fact Nadal was statistically the (slightly) better player until he failed to serve it out - takes some shine off Federer's performance maybe, but pretty much everyone else had bigger struggles than that in their best runs save Borg/Nadal at RG. The eventual break was kinda chokey from Ned but not that bad, two of the errors were against awkward Federer shots (short low slice and deep return) even if not perhaps not rushed enough to count as forced. The netted FH was routine though, and obviously poor timing to double fault, so not really good either.
I thought you were talking about the 09 final rather than the 04 final, my bad. I do continue to disapprove of all this talk like Roddick was some bum, he actually played impressively well for significant stretches. The smaller but also significant stretches where he didn't (particularly giving up mug breaks in sets 2&4) prevented him from pushing it to five sets. I would, however, agree that Federer overdid s&v there, which hurt his serve points won % somewhat, but then again that sort of thing usually worked against Roddick, who wasn't the sharpest returner/passer; he did perform unusually well in that regard.
Tsonga's overall stats might have been alright, but he lost easily rather too often and not just to Djokovic, for me to consider him deserving of "ATG serve+1" moniker.
Really? One, since when is Nishikori a better player than Davydenko? Two, since when is Nishikori not prone to choking? Feels like Davydenko's choking was more exposed because he was actually able to get into winning positions in sets quite often, while Nishikori was more prone to getting rekt; should that really be held as a reflection of greater fortitude?
Not on firm courts.
where? all i said was
well yeah i said
i said
where does this imply superiority?
prime Nishikori Slam chokes: vs Paire at USO '15
like i said with the clutchness discussion, you can say that the trait in question shouldn't count for as much, but you can't deny the existence and relative strength of that trait
fair enough, maybe a better example of my overall point is prime Sampras pigeonizing Chang regardless of YEC '95, or Vilas pigeonizing Mottram regardless of Hamburg '77
In that 2006 Wimbledon final, after Federer won the first set 6-0, Nadal broke Federer in the first game of the second set, and Nadal was a break up until he served for the second set at 5-4. Federer won the second set 7-6. That was the key moment for the match. Nadal did win the third set 7-6.
