Andre Agassi picks Rafael Nadal ahead of Roger Federer as tennis's greatest all-time

You guys are funny with your perpetual quest to convince others that your player is the greatest of all time. I'm not a big Fed fan and can't stand Nadal. Having said that, both are easily the best ever to date. I wonder... what is the average age of people posting here? My guess is 12.
 
Sampras is most underrated tennis player on this forum. It's f..king hilarious

Sampras is overrated here. People want to put him in the same tier as Fed. It's funny. Because based on clay alone Fed is 3 tiers above Pete.

Non clay, Fed has 2 more majors, 1 more WTF title, tons of more masters, gold, silver.

And this with having a rival who is arguably the same or even higher level than Pete.

Give Agassi to Fed and Fed has 22 majors, give Rafa 5 times younger than Pete to Pete's prime and Pete has 12 majors or less.

People are lucky, I'm generous and separate them only by one tier. By clay and Nadal factor alone Fed should be 2 tiers above Sampras.
 
WTF is a tier? Seems like a pointless arbitrary concept invented by TTW trolls in order to insure eternal confusion and flame wars. Can we just admire the greats' games instead of pointlessly arguing about how to split them into "tiers"?
 
OK. This thread is awesome.
Request to mods....please do not delete it.
I would love to see it bumped every time NAdal loses to one more pigeon at his prime and peak.

And, pic of Agassi smoking Meth is needed to make this thread more relevant.
 
You guys are funny with your perpetual quest to convince others that your player is the greatest of all time. I'm not a big Fed fan and can't stand Nadal. Having said that, both are easily the best ever to date. I wonder... what is the average age of people posting here? My guess is 12.

True, but at least Fed's religion is based on actual records and numbers. Other religions are mostly based on faith alone.

Except for Laver maybe, who actually has the numbers.
 
Sampras is most underrated tennis player on this forum. It's f..king hilarious

But his fans overrated him.

Some even said Nadal has to win 34 slams in order to be in the same league as Sampras, and Federer has to win 42 slams.
 
OK. This thread is awesome.
Request to mods....please do not delete it.
I would love to see it bumped every time NAdal loses to one more pigeon at his prime and peak.

And, pic of Agassi smoking Meth is needed to make this thread more relevant.

Yeah, I remember Mac contradicting himself:

Rafa the goat even when losing in 1st round in the holy grail of tennis at his peak.
 
WTF is a tier? Seems like a pointless arbitrary concept invented by TTW trolls in order to insure eternal confusion and flame wars. Can we just admire the greats' games instead of pointlessly arguing about how to split them into "tiers"?

A "tier" means that someone is agreed to at least be in the discussion for that level.

For example, Daniel Nestor is not in the top tier, but Federer is.
 
I'm quite shocked and also disappointed by Andre's change of heart. He says that Nadal had to deal with Federer,Djokovic and Murray. Fine, let's have a deeper look at that for a minute -

First off all, Federer was never a big deal for Nadal because of the massive matchup advantage he's always enjoyed over him. Just moonball to his BH and that combined with nice high bouncing surfaces which suit his 1D game and playing on clay for the majority of Fed's prime, it was never a daunting prospect.

Second, Nadal was thoroughly owned by Nole in 2011 when both players were in comparable primes and it took Nole's level to fall through the floor for Nadal to catch up from 2012 onwards.

Third, Murray? Ahem Nadal hasn't even faced Lendilised Murray, infact Nadal's escaped a major challenge in the form of Murray 2.0 on HCs and grass. 2 years and counting.

So, I'm not sure if Agassi thought this through, but my gut feeling is he's based this completely on the Fed-Nadal H2H because otherwise Fed trumps Nadal outside clay in achievements, it's not close.

One feels, Agassi is hinting at Hewitt and Roddick being weaker opponents for Roger but their achivements don't quite match up. Also I wish Agassi would've come out in the closet and said he picked Nadal because of the H2H, kinda chickened out there maybe due to the fear of a backlash.

As far as Sampras goes, Fed has equalled/surpassed every major record of Pete except YE#1s. And 3 slams from 14-17 is huge, and Pete should thank his lucky stars that Nadal was around otherwise it would've been a chasm. And Fed could potentially add 1/2 more slams so 4-5 slam gap from 14 is massive.
 
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LOL. "He's done it all in Federer's prime." Nothing says "prime" like Federer in his 30's.

And what all has he done, exactly? Win the French Open 8 times? And he had to do this with Roger Federer, clearly a true Clay Court Master. The guy who got beaten down by Kuerten with a bad hip at the French in 2004.

If anything, the evidence suggests neither Federer nor Nadal is the greatest ever, and both of them (and now Djokovic and at times Murray) are taking advantage of one long, weak era.
 
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It's a public poll just like anywhere else on the internet. Other public site like The Tennis Channel have Sampras ahead of Nadal, at least for now. The future may change depends on how much Nadal wins.

Capiche ?

It is not your "most fans," which is pure exaggeration.
 
Sampras and Federer are on the same tier. End of story. I'm sorry, but anybody who says otherwise is trying way too hard to be a fanboy.

Sampras, Nadal, and Borg are all in the same tier, which is 1 tier below Federer. Federer's accomplishments are unrivaled by any other player in the open era. His 3 major advantage over Sampras is huge and his other significant accomplishments either beat Sampras or equal him, save for the number of year end #1 finishes. Sampras was great, but did not dominate the game the same way Federer did in best years...degree of dominance is important when comparing two great players in my opinion. Sampras was my favorite player growing up, so I don't think it is fair to say that I am just saying this because I am a Federer fanboy. It is a pretty weak argument though (one not supported by numbers and facts) to try and argue that Sampras is in the same tier as Federer ( in my opinion).

I don't agree with Agassi that Nadal has surpassed Federer already...I actually think if Nadal dropped down in the rankings and never won anything significant again that Agassi would change his mind and go back to Federer. One of his reasons for putting Nadal ahead is that he is not done yet. That implies that he is assuming that Nadal will continue to win more majors.

The only other players that can go in Federer's tier are players from before the open era. If Nadal wins a few more majors he might have an argument to be included in that tier. Likewise, Borg might have been able to reach that tier if he hadn't retired so early.
 
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A TW thread is no indicator of "most fans."

So what is an indicator of "most fans"? They did a poll at the AO website I think it was in 2012 and Fed was unanimously voted as the greatest over Laver too. Tennis channel has him as the greatest. Jack Kramer called him the greatest and he's had the privilege of seeing both Laver and Federer play.

Fed's won fan favourite award for almost a decade, which is an official ATP award. Where are your stats and facts?
 
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Sampras, Nadal, and Borg are all in the same tier, which is 1 tier below Federer. Federer's accomplishments are unrivaled by any other player in the open era. His 3 major advantage over Sampras is huge and his other significant accomplishments either beat Sampras or equal him, save for the number of year end #1 finishes. Sampras was my favorite player growing up, so I don't think it is fair to say that I am just saying this because I am a Federer fanboy. It is pretty weak argument though (one not supported by numbers and facts) to try and argue that Sampras is in the same tier as Federer ( in my opinion).

I don't agree with Agassi that Nadal has surpassed Federer already...I actually think if Nadal dropped down in the rankings and never won anything significant again that Agassi would change his mind and go back to Federer. One of his reasons for putting Nadal ahead is that he is not done yet. That implies that he is assuming that Nadal will continue to win more majors.

The only other players that can go in his tier are players from before the open era. If Nadal wins a few more majors he might have an argument to be included in that tier. Likewise, Borg might have been able to reach that tier if he hadn't retired so early.

Nadal is in a tier with Lendl. Both of them have 13 big 5 titles and are missing one of them (Wimbledon and WTF).

Lendl also has many things over Nadal. He was better on clay than Nadal was on HC. He has 4 YE #1s, 270 weeks at #1, and 4 seasons with a 90+ winning percentage. He could also handle being the favourite. Nadal never had champion like back to back seasons like Lendl's 86 and 87.
 
Sampras and Federer are on the same tier. End of story. I'm sorry, but anybody who says otherwise is trying way too hard to be a fanboy.

I don't think so. I think you have to put Federer in a tier above Sampras because of the three slam difference, weeks at number one ,etc.
 
LOL. "He's done it all in Federer's prime." Nothing says "prime" like Federer in his 30's.

And what all has he done, exactly? Win the French Open 8 times? And he had to do this with Roger Federer, clearly a true Clay Court Master. The guy who got beaten down by Kuerten with a bad hip at the French in 2004.

If anything, the evidence suggests neither Federer nor Nadal is the greatest ever, and both of them (and now Djokovic and at times Murray) are taking advantage of one long, weak era.

So who is the greatest then, because there has to be someone. Or do you not believe in the concept at all?
 
Not sure if it was you, but were you the one who said Sampras and Nadal is separated by 1 tier ?

I did say that. Nadal isn't even top 5. He has dominated 1 surface and the least respected one at that.

He is also a terrible champion. Look at his performance as world #1. Or his ability to defend titles off the dirt.

So Federer and Sampras are in the same tier great but Nadal is one tier below them.

To sum it up, the gap between Federer/Sampras is much smaller than the gap between Sampras/Nadal.

Got it !
 
WTF is a tier? Seems like a pointless arbitrary concept invented by TTW trolls in order to insure eternal confusion and flame wars. Can we just admire the greats' games instead of pointlessly arguing about how to split them into "tiers"?

It's to get along and getting along is fashionable these days.
 
Nadal is in a tier with Lendl. Both of them have 13 big 5 titles and are missing one of them (Wimbledon and WTF).

Lendl also has many things over Nadal. He was more dominant on clay than Nadal was on HC. He has 4 YE #1s and 4 seasons with a 90+ winning percentage. He could also handle being the favourite. Nadal never had champion like back to back seasons like Lendl's 86 and 87.

True, but you are also ignoring many important things in Nadal's favor, and you are ignoring the most important factor. Nadal has 13 majors to Lendl's 8. No matter what the other stats show, you can't make up a 5 slam difference.

Lendl is clearly a tier below Nadal in my opinion. I think he is actually closer to 2 full tiers below Nadal than he is to being on the same tier. A 5 major difference is extremely large and should not be discounted.
 
True, but you are also ignoring many important things in Nadal's favor, and you are ignoring the most important factor. Nadal has 13 majors to Lendl's 8. No matter what the other stats show, you can't make up a 5 slam difference.

Lendl is clearly a tier below Nadal in my opinion. I think he is actually closer to 2 full tiers below Nadal than he is to being on the same tier. A 5 major difference is extremely large and should not be discounted.

I'm not ignoring it. I am just simply not ignoring Nadal's utter failure indoors.

Also, I wonder how many times Lendl would've won Wimbledon on today's grass. He did what he did without surface homogenization.
 
So Federer and Sampras are in the same tier great but Nadal is one tier below them.

To sum it up, the gap between Federer/Sampras is much smaller than the gap between Sampras/Nadal.

Got it !

Federer and Pete both dominated grass, outdoor HC, and indoor HC.

Federer has 302 weeks at #1 and Sampras has 286 weeks at #1.

Nadal has dominated clay and has 133 weeks at #1. It isn't even close.
 
Whiskey, I totally see your point regarding Fed being miles ahead of Nadal. As far as Sampras goes, consider looking at this from this angle -

Fed's equalled/surpassed Sampras in every major record except YE#1s. Let's look at it in detail -

17 slams>13
302 weeks>286
5YE#1<6
6 WTF > 5

Now for the slam breakup-

4 AO>2
1 RG>0(Sampras lacks a career slam, big talking point)
7 Wim= 7
5 USO = 5

Sampras wasn't even a factor on clay, while Roger is ahead with 1RG and the career slam. Fed could've easily had 4-5 RGs without Nadal, Sampras didn't even make a RG final. Don't even get me started with Fed's "consistency" records, because it would be a mauling.

1 whole surface where Roger is ahead of Pete, the latter has no such clear edge in his favour. Cmon Whiskey, the writing is on the wall.
 
Federer and Pete both dominated grass, outdoor HC, and indoor HC.

Federer has 302 weeks at #1 and Sampras has 286 weeks at #1.

Nadal has dominated clay and has 133 weeks at #1. It isn't even close.

I'm sorry but I don't agree. If Nadal is a tier below Sampras then no question Sampras has to be a tier below Federer.
 
Fed has tons of stuff more than "just" 3 majors:
-masters, Pete is not even close
-WTF title
-weeks nr.1, consecutive weeks nr.1
-23 semis, Pete doesn't come close
-24 consecutive finals won, Pete doesn't come close
-more additional GS finals
-career slam

Also 3 majors in itself is enough to separate them. 3 majors is huge. That is career of Hewitt + Roddick. Also winning last 3 majors when you are past your best is a lot harder. Any additional major past 14 is insanely hard. That's why nobody in the open era is close to 17.

But even for the biggest skeptics who think 3 is not enough, Fed still has tons of stuff.

And I didn't even mention more than half of stuff Fed has over Pete including Olympic gold+silver.

Doesn't really matter, because Fed is a tier above Sampras. We can argue Fed had to deal with nr.2, five years younger and surface goat, otherwise he has 22 majors and CYGS. I think if we put Fed's career in context he has 22 majors, so we can argue that he is 2 tiers above Pete with 22 majors.

Agassi doesn't come close to Nadal as rival. Agassi was the best after Pete already won most. Also they are the same Age, while Nadal has age advantage over Fed.

People use some common sense. Fed had to deal with a rival who is arguably even better than Sampras himself, bad matchup and a lefty and has age advantage.

I appreciate everything you've said, and I do have Fed as GOAT and clearly ahead of Sampras.

However, I think that when a player achieves a certain level, they are indisputably Tier 1, irrespective of whether another great like Fed has even greater achievements.

In chronological order, I think the following have to be considered Tier 1:

Bill Tilden
Pancho Gonzales
Ken Rosewall
Rod Laver
Bjorn Borg
Pete Sampras
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal

Now, of these, I rank Fed 1st and Laver 2nd, and consider them the only true GOAT contenders. However it doesn't mean that I remove any of the others from Tier 1, because it would be disrespectful to them.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.
 
Whiskey, I totally see your point regarding Fed being miles ahead of Nadal. As far as Sampras goes, consider looking at this from this angle -

Fed's equalled/surpassed Sampras in every major record except YE#1s. Let's look at it in detail -

17 slams>13
302 weeks>286
5YE#1<6
6 WTF > 5

Now for the slam breakup-

4 AO>2
1 RG>0(Sampras lacks a career slam, big talking point)
7 Wim= 7
5 USO = 5

Sampras wasn't even a factor on clay, while Roger is ahead with 1RG and the career slam. Fed could've easily had 4-5 RGs without Nadal, Sampras didn't even make a RG final. Don't even get me started with Fed's "consistency" records, because it would be a mauling.

1 whole surface where Roger is ahead of Pete, the latter has no such clear edge in his favour. Cmon Whiskey, the writing is on the wall.

I give Sampras some bonus points for accomplishing what he did without surface homogenization. Sampras was a S&Ver so it was hard for him to win on clay. Not that it matters much.

Having said that, I also think that surface homogenization hurt Fed due to surface slowing.

Federer has beaten nearly every record of Pete's, so he's clearly better. But I don't know if they are distanced enough to be in separate tiers. It's all semantics anyway. My top 4 are Federer, Sampras, Borg, and Laver. Those are the best of the best.
 
I appreciate everything you've said, and I do have Fed as GOAT and clearly ahead of Sampras.

However, I think that when a player achieves a certain level, they are indisputably Tier 1, irrespective of whether another great like Fed has even greater achievements.

In chronological order, I think the following have to be considered Tier 1:

Bill Tilden
Pancho Gonzales
Ken Rosewall
Rod Laver
Bjorn Borg
Pete Sampras
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal

Now, of these, I rank Fed 1st and Laver 2nd, and consider them the only true GOAT contenders. However it doesn't mean that I remove any of the others from Tier 1, because it would be disrespectful to them.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.

The bold part is essentially the crux of what I think. Makes perfect sense. Barring something crazy like a guy coming along that wins 25+ slams, they are all in tier 1 to me. Thanks for putting my thoughts into words for someone who was too lazy to do so.
 
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I appreciate everything you've said, and I do have Fed as GOAT and clearly ahead of Sampras.

However, I think that when a player achieves a certain level, they are indisputably Tier 1, irrespective of whether another great like Fed has even greater achievements.

In chronological order, I think the following have to be considered Tier 1:

Bill Tilden
Pancho Gonzales
Ken Rosewall
Rod Laver
Bjorn Borg
Pete Sampras
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal

Now, of these, I rank Fed 1st and Laver 2nd, and consider them the only true GOAT contenders. However it doesn't mean that I remove any of the others from Tier 1, because it would be disrespectful to them.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.

I understand now what you mean. But I think this is discriminating and unfair. Because you just widened the tier so almost anyone can make it in.
It's like you say 1 million dollars is enough to be a millionaire. Then we put a guy with 900 million and a guy with 2 million in the same tier. Hey, they are both millionaires, so they are the same tier.

Just makes the tier system useless if we do that.
 
I give Sampras some bonus points for accomplishing what he did without surface homogenization. Sampras was a S&Ver so it was hard for him to win on clay. Not that it matters much.

Having said that, I also think that surface homogenization hurt Fed due to surface slowing.

Federer has beaten nearly every record of Pete's, so he's clearly better. But I don't know if they are distanced enough to be in separate tiers. It's all semantics anyway. My top 4 are Federer, Sampras, Borg, and Laver. Those are the best of the best.

I see what you mean and mostly agree. But let me ask you this, When Edberg and Mcenroe made RG finals with a S&V game and they both almost won it, why couldn't Pete? Sorry I don't mean to corner you but my reason of putting Fed a tier above Pete is because Pete's game was wired to faster surfaces, almost that of a fast court specialist. Just saying, don't have to respond though if you don't feel like it. ;)
 
I give Sampras some bonus points for accomplishing what he did without surface homogenization. Sampras was a S&Ver so it was hard for him to win on clay. Not that it matters much.

Having said that, I also think that surface homogenization hurt Fed due to surface slowing.

Federer has beaten nearly every record of Pete's, so he's clearly better. But I don't know if they are distanced enough to be in separate tiers. It's all semantics anyway. My top 4 are Federer, Sampras, Borg, and Laver. Those are the best of the best.

To be honest I don't buy homogenization excuse for Pete. Because Agassi is worse player than him, but even he was able to win everything on every surface. How do you explain that?
 
I see what you mean and mostly agree. But let me ask you this, When Edberg and Mcenroe made RG finals with a S&V game and they both almost won it, why couldn't Pete? Sorry I don't mean to corner you but my reason of putting Fed a tier above Pete is because Pete's game was wired to faster surfaces, almost that of a fast court specialist. Just saying, don't have to respond though if you don't feel like it. ;)

Are you really implying that Federer's game isn't "wired" (whatever that means) to faster surfaces?
 
To be honest I don't buy homogenization excuse for Pete. Because Agassi is worse player than him, but even he was able to win everything on every surface. How do you explain that?

Agassi had a better ground game though, he was solid off both wings which is why he won 4 AOs and 1 RG, while Pete got 2 AOs and no RG.
 
I see what you mean and mostly agree. But let me ask you this, When Edberg and Mcenroe made RG finals with a S&V game and they both almost won it, why couldn't Pete? Sorry I don't mean to corner you but my reason of putting Fed a tier above Pete is because Pete's game was wired to faster surfaces, almost that of a fast court specialist. Just saying, don't have to respond though if you don't feel like it. ;)

Sampras lost to the eventual winner the year he made the semis. Although it's true he got blown out and didn't even come close to winning, he had just had a tough 5 setter with Courier in the QF.

The main reason I have Sampras in the same tier as Federer is because I consider him tier 1. He isn't tier 2 in my mind. Tier 2 is for guys who only managed to dominate 1 surface or were great (but not completely dominant) on several.

I don't divide my rankings into many tiers. Only ~3.
 
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Are you really implying that Federer's game isn't "wired" (whatever that means) to faster surfaces?

Fed's won 4 AOs(could've easily been 5) and a RG, 4 IWs,2 Miamis,2 Torontos. His game isn't wired to any particular surface, but he does prefer it quicker against Nadal in particular.
 
The bold part is essentially the crux of what I think. Makes perfect sense. Barring something crazy like a guy coming along that wins 25+ slams, they are all in tier 1 to me. Thanks for putting my thoughts into words for someone who was too lazy to do so.

What's the point of even having tiers if you put a guy with 24 majors and a guy with 17 majors in tier 1?

Like I've said before lumping together a guy who has 1 million dollars with a guy who has 30 million dollars. Just because they both make millionaire cut and are both millionaires?

I guess like if you are 11 and 19 you are a teenager. Doesn't make sense.
 
By this logic , since 3-4 major difference is not significant

Sampras and Federer are on same tier
Borg and Sampras are on same tier
Agassi and Borg are on same tier
Novak and Agassi are on same tier
Murray and Novak are on same tier
Dmitrov and Murray are on same tier.

Therefore Federer = Dmitrov.

Some Fa-rds try too hard to separate Sampras from Federer by 1 tier when they know deep down that they are just trolling. Didn't you say Borg didn't play AO so AO don't count? Then Agassi should have 4 slams. How can 4 slams equal 11 slams then? See how your logic fails? At least try to troll with some sensible logic.
 
Sampras lost to the eventual winner the year he made the semis. Although it's true he got blown out and didn't even come close to winning, he had just had a tough 5 setter with Courier in the QF.

The main reason I have Sampras in the same tier as Federer is because I consider him tier 1. He isn't tier 2 in my mind. Tier 2 is for guys who only managed to dominate 1 surface or accomplished guys like Agassi who were quite good on every surface.

Fair enough, Whiskey, I can go with that!
 
If Sampras has more votes, that means "more fans" picked him. Not sure why you're can't figure that out.

You habitually abuse "most" in order to pump anything connected to one player in a manner suggestive of a larger population.

Enough of the game everyone knows.

The majority of tennis fans are not on this board, by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Some Fa-rds try too hard to separate Sampras from Federer by 1 tier when they know deep down that they are just trolling. Didn't you say Borg didn't play AO so AO don't count? Then Agassi should have 4 slams. How can 4 slams equal 11 slams then? See how your logic fails? At least try to troll with some sensible logic.

You are right. You on the other hand saying Fed and Rafa need 28 majors to be in the same tier with Sampras is very reasonable and logical and non biased.

I guess, I'm insane and biased and worshiper trying to argue 3 majors can be 1 tier compared to sensible stuff you are arguing.

I wish I weren't that delusional. How can I be logical and smart like you? Teach me master!
 
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