Any player ever said Nadal is the best player of all time?

[beast of mallorca]

The Fed ****s are really insecure with Nadal huh. What a shame. Even him not playing, the Ghost of Rafa still haunts them. What a shame indeed.

 

[NadalAgassi]

on another note, federer was never dominated on all surfaces by one player at his peak, whereas nadal was dominated on all surfaces by one player at his peak , djokovic ....

2011 was not Nadal's peak. It was his worst year of clay court tennis since 2004, and you yourself have said he hit his peak on grass in 2008 and has been gradually going down each year on the surface since with his 2011 level being below 2008, 2010, and even 2007 easily. Only on outdoor hard courts at times was he arguably peak, but no surprise peak Djokovic would beat peak Nadal on that surface.

 

[kalyan4fedever]

For rafa fans can you please come back claiming he is great after he surpassed feds 17 slams, you are being too needy and desperate.

 

[abmk]

2011 was not Nadal's peak. It was his worst year of clay court tennis since 2004, and you yourself have said he hit his peak on grass in 2008 and has been gradually going down each year on the surface since with his 2011 level being below 2008, 2010, and even 2007 easily. Only on outdoor hard courts at times was he arguably peak, but no surprise peak Djokovic would beat peak Nadal on that surface.

in he 2007 finals, sure he was better than at any point in wimbledon 2011, but he was shakier in the earlier rounds in 2007 ...

he was just as good in 2011 as he was in 2010 on grass.... in fact if anything he fended off a stronger challenge from delpo in 4 sets in 2011 , but went 5 sets vs haase/petzschener in 2010, looking much more unconvincing ....

he reached the finals looking better than djokovic did in 2011 ...

2011 is easily part of his grass court peak ...

nadal in 2011 was better than in 2005 on clay ... maybe not 2006 and later though ...

still won the FO, MC and was the finalist at other two masters .... for any other claycourter not named borg, that would be part of peak ......

still losing both matches on clay in straights is not something that can be overlooked ...

how many other better years has he had btw ? 2008, 2010 ..... maybe 2007 ( maybe ) .... so how is 2011 not part of his peak ? does that mean his peak is is only 2 , maybe 3 years ?

 

[cc0509]

he didn't play better in the final .... he started off impressively, but then again fell apart ....

If he had maintained his form and composure from the semis ( that's a big big IF ) , he could have beaten the slightly shaky nadal ....

Maybe, but that is a feature of Federer when he plays Nadal in slams. Federer starts off hot and then implodes! Total mental thing imo but on clay at the FO I don't think Federer has the confidence against Nadal because Nadal is the superior clay player, but on grass or HC, Federer has more confidence.

 

[cc0509]

Yes I agree on the last paragraph. However I am not the one who keeps bringing up the H2H though and desperately trying to make excuses for why it is so bad. The ****s, the ones who claim the H2H isnt important and is zero blemish on Federer's legacy are the ones who keep bringing up the H2H and making ridiculous excuses for it (showing that they feel it is so unimportant to Federer's unblemished legacy after all, otherwise they wouldnt feel the need to do so).

Sure the H2H is a blemish for Federer but all of the greats have blemishes. Sampras has no FO slam, Nadal was defeated in 7 straight finals against Djokovic, three of them were slams(first player to lose in three consecutive slam finals), etc. etc.

 

[abmk]

Yes I agree on the last paragraph. However I am not the one who keeps bringing up the H2H though and desperately trying to make excuses for why it is so bad. The ****s, the ones who claim the H2H isnt important and is zero blemish on Federer's legacy are the ones who keep bringing up the H2H and making ridiculous excuses for it (showing that they feel it is so unimportant to Federer's unblemished legacy after all, otherwise they wouldnt feel the need to do so).

it is a blemish no doubt , but not as much as some make it out to be ,

I'd cut off points from federer for :

not winning 1 of 3 - wimbledon 2008 F, AO 2009 F, AO 2012 SF ... in particular the AO 2009 final ..

not winning 1 of the 4 RG matches vs rafa ( that is of course minus the 2008 one )

not winning 1 or 2 more of the non-RG matches on clay - rome 2006, hamburg 2008 ........

that's it

but everybody has blemishes on their resumes ....... just that the blemishes on the resumes of others like sampras/borg/nadal etc ...are far more consequential ......

in any case the H2H has cut into federer's resume quite a bit already, considering he was the 2nd best player easily in most of those tournaments and would be favoured to win most of those if not for rafa ....

 

[abmk]

Maybe, but that is a feature of Federer when he plays Nadal in slams. Federer starts off hot and then implodes! Total mental thing imo but on clay at the FO I don't think Federer has the confidence against Nadal because Nadal is the superior clay player, but on grass or HC, Federer has more confidence.

agreed .... but in RG 2011 final, I think it was rafa who looked way more nervous at the beginning ... in fact even afterwards he wasn't that confident as he usually is vs fed .....

 

[RF-17-GOAT]

Fed is the G.O.A.T.

 

[Chillaxer]

Btw, let's not forget that Nadal has won 11 Grand Slams. There's only 3 players who have more Slams than Nadal.... Federer(17), Sampras(14), and Emerson(12).
In a couple years Nadal will probably pass Emerson and Sampras.
Infact if it wasn't for Djokovic's fluke God-like year in 2011, Nadal would've won Wimbledon and the US Open. And Nadal truly should've/could've won this year's Australian Open 5 set marathon against Djokovic.
Nadal would be sitting on 14 Grand Slams right now.

Not to mention RG/Wimbledon 09, which would have done Fed. But it's all ifs and I guess Fed had his downs too. I do think Nadal is the greatest in pushing himself, against adversity, mentally etc, but Federer is just a better player, more in control and is a smarter player. Personally Nadal excites me a lot more, but that's preference. I'd be happy enough if Nadal were 2nd of all time and him and Roger were the 2.
Next few years will be interesting because Nadal should be hungry, I want to see him surpass Sampras but Roger and Novak are not going away.

 

[Lorna]

I seem to remember Mats Wilander once being quoted as saying in his opinion Nadal was better than Federer - quite a few years ago around the time of RG.

 

[dh003i]

jeez, like he was a lock vs federer who took novak took the edge at the US Open or a lock vs tsonga @ wimbledon ( as streaky as he might be , still beat rafa @ queens ........ nadal would be favoured of course, but doesn't mean tsonga wouldn't have a chance ...) ...

nadal should also be thanking federer for taking out djokovic at the last year's FO, otherwise it may have been a Rafail slam ( 4 slams final losses in a row to one player ! )



based on what exactly ?

novak had 3 BPs at 4 all in the 4th and blew a sitter of a FH at the net @ 5-3 in the 4th set TB ... He could have easily closed it out in the 4th ....

murray wouldn't have been that easy for nadal at the AO either ( if novak were not there )

The careers of Laver/Rosewall/Gonzales/Tilden are by some distance better than rafa's at this point ...

IMO borg is ahead by some distance as well ( AO wasn't even close to having the prestige/field of a true major during his time ) .... and borg won the indoor events @ WCT, year ending championships, which were far more prestigious and tougher than the AO at that time ....

rafa is better than emerson by some distance as well ......

Just counting the no of majors is a very simplistic & wrong way of assessing players ....One needs to look @ the context of those generations ...

I agree completely with this post, although I don't try to compare pre-open Era and Open Era players, with the exception of Laver who I group in the Open Era.

I don't see a legitimate criteria we can use to make the argument for Nadal as a contendor for the greatest of all time (in the Open Era). I'm done trying to make arguments for one particular player. In my opinion, the candidates are Laver, Borg, and Federer. However, if we're talking about what I'd call "1st tier" greats, I'd say the list is Laver, Borg, Federer, Sampras, and Nadal. There is no question that Nadal is a level above the greats of the 80s in my mind.

Now if we're going to still include Sampras as a candidate for the greatest of all time, I think we also have to include Nadal as a candidate (because he's won all Majors, whereas Sampras never won the FO). I just think that Sampras and Nadal (right now) have a weaker argument for them than the first 3 I mentioned.

 

[フェデラー]

Btw, let's not forget that Nadal has won 11 Grand Slams. There's only 3 players who have more Slams than Nadal.... Federer(17), Sampras(14), and Emerson(12).
In a couple years Nadal will probably pass Emerson and Sampras.
Infact if it wasn't for Djokovic's fluke God-like year in 2011, Nadal would've won Wimbledon and the US Open. And Nadal truly should've/could've won this year's Australian Open 5 set marathon against Djokovic.
Nadal would be sitting on 14 Grand Slams right now.

But he's not, so your argument is completely invalid. I don't see how Djokovic having an amazing year is a "fluke". Was Nadal's 2010 a flue? Were Federer's 05-06 flukes?? Djokovic showed that he too can conquer the top two, especially Rafa, whom he made an absolute joke of last year. Your post is just full of "should have" and "could have", but at the end of the day, he didn't, so please get over it.

 

[Iron Man]

I agree completely with this post, although I don't try to compare pre-open Era and Open Era players, with the exception of Laver who I group in the Open Era.

I don't see a legitimate criteria we can use to make the argument for Nadal as a contendor for the greatest of all time (in the Open Era). I'm done trying to make arguments for one particular player. In my opinion, the candidates are Laver, Borg, and Federer. However, if we're talking about what I'd call "1st tier" greats, I'd say the list is Laver, Borg, Federer, Sampras, and Nadal. There is no question that Nadal is a level above the greats of the 80s in my mind.

Now if we're going to still include Sampras as a candidate for the greatest of all time, I think we also have to include Nadal as a candidate (because he's won all Majors, whereas Sampras never won the FO). I just think that Sampras and Nadal (right now) have a weaker argument for them than the first 3 I mentioned.

Borg never won the US open and the Australian open so why exclude Sampras in your logic ?

 

[Povl Carstensen]

The ****s, the ones who claim the H2H isnt important and is zero blemish on Federer's legacy are the ones who keep bringing up the H2H

Not really.

 

[Povl Carstensen]

The Fed ****s are really insecure with Nadal huh. What a shame. Even him not playing, the Ghost of Rafa still haunts them. What a shame indeed.

Not really.

 

[Povl Carstensen]

There is a lot of "I think so and so said...", I think quotes and source would be in place in a thread like this.

 

[NikeWilson]

For rafa fans can you please come back claiming he is great after he surpassed feds 17 slams, you are being too needy and desperate.

Well, the first half of those Slams he won was during a time where the field was very weak. It was a time where Andy Roddick was his #1 foe.
It was a time where Hewitt and Safin and old Agassi were also of his toughest opponents. None of these guys are comparable to a Prime Nadal, a Prime Djokovic, or even a Prime Agassi and Prime Sampras.
Federer was very lucky to dominate during a time where tennis was at a very low point.

 

[dh003i]

Well, the first half of those Slams he won was during a time where the field was very weak. It was a time where Andy Roddick was his #1 foe.
It was a time where Hewitt and Safin and old Agassi were also of his toughest opponents. None of these guys are comparable to a Prime Nadal, a Prime Djokovic, or even a Prime Agassi and Prime Sampras.
Federer was very lucky to dominate during a time where tennis was at a very low point.

Yet Federer has been ranked no lower than #3 during the time when Nadal or Djokovic were #1, and is now again #1 at 31 years old.

Prime Federer would still be doing phenomenal in this era.

 

[dh003i]

Borg never won the US open and the Australian open so why exclude Sampras in your logic ?

I think Borg's FO-Wimbledon double-victories were very impressive.

 

[Mustard]

The only time Borg played at the Australian Open was in 1974, as a 17 year old and before he had even won a major.

 

[Crisstti]

Yet Federer has been ranked no lower than #3 during the time when Nadal or Djokovic were #1, and is now again #1 at 31 years old.

Prime Federer would still be doing phenomenal in this era.

He has been number one since 2008 when Rafa has been out injured... just saying.

 

[TheFifthSet]

He has been number one since 2008 when Rafa has been out injured... just saying.

Federer was closing in on Rafa's ranking even BEFORE the injury -- if we accept that Rafa's injury was exruciatingly debilitating at the time he played Rosol, it still doesn't matter much -- if it took only one tournament in which Rafa was injured for Federer to surpass Nadal as number two and Novak as number one, then obviously the injury didn't play that big a factor and it wasn't that big of a gap. If Nadal defended his points he STILL woulda lost the ranking to Fed if Fed reached the final and won (that's IF), so even if he was at 100% it was imperative that he performed well.

 

[djokovicgonzalez2010]

Djokovic said it until late 2011, then he started saying it was Federer
Murray has said both, but just Federer lately

 

[NadalAgassi]

Sure the H2H is a blemish for Federer but all of the greats have blemishes. Sampras has no FO slam, Nadal was defeated in 7 straight finals against Djokovic, three of them were slams(first player to lose in three consecutive slam finals), etc. etc.

Indeed, all do, except for Rod Laver, the one GOAT candidate with a truly unblemished record with no flaws.

 

[90's Clay]

Indeed, all do, except for Rod Laver, the one GOAT candidate with a truly unblemished record with no flaws.

Yea.. Thats one thing about Laver.. You can't knock Laver for any type of blemish.. Really any other player you can. (Pete's lack of French title, Fed Nadal's blow doll etc)


If there truly is a "greatest".. Resume wise and lack of any blemish its Laver BY FAR

 

[dh003i]

Indeed, all do, except for Rod Laver, the one GOAT candidate with a truly unblemished record with no flaws.

Laver didn't have as many Majors as Sampras or Federer, although the comparison is difficult. Some of Laver's Major victories came before he was a pro (in the pre-Open Era), years when he was clearly not the best player in the world. On the other side, there were some years where he had won the professional equivalents to Majors and was probably the best player in the world (such as Wembley), but they aren't counted as Majors.

 

[Mustard]

Indeed, all do, except for Rod Laver, the one GOAT candidate with a truly unblemished record with no flaws.

Laver also has a blemish. He never won the WCT Dallas tournament, and he really wanted to win it.

 

[Mustard]

Laver didn't have as many Majors as Sampras or Federer, although the comparison is difficult. Some of Laver's Major victories came before he was a pro (in the pre-Open Era), years when he was clearly not the best player in the world. On the other side, there were some years where he had won the professional equivalents to Majors and was probably the best player in the world (such as Wembley), but they aren't counted as Majors.

Before April 1968, there were no open majors.

Laver dominated the amateurs in 1962, and won the Grand Slam, and it's true that he was probably only the fourth best player in the world at the time (behind Rosewall, Hoad and Gimeno). After a slow start in his opening months as a professional, he started to improve and get more consistent, eventually becoming the best professional in the world in 1964. He won the Professional Grand Slam in 1967 (winning the French Pro, Wembley Pro, US Pro and Wimbledon Pro).

Then in the open era, Laver wins the Grand Slam in 1969, where professional and amateur players could all play. Laver won 200 tournaments, 77 of which were in the open era.

 

[abmk]

He has been number one since 2008 when Rafa has been out injured... just saying.

nadal has been number one only when federer was out of form ( mono in first half of 2008 and back pain in late 2008 and early 2009 ) and in 2010 ( after AO ) ........ Just saying ...

 

[abmk]

Indeed, all do, except for Rod Laver, the one GOAT candidate with a truly unblemished record with no flaws.

except that :

the best players were missing in the amateurs and then the fields were extremely small in the pros ...don't say that the full fields don't matter , because laver was defeated by drysdale - hardly a top 10 player ..... @ the USO in 68 .... even he was prone to upsets ....

poor performance in the majors after 69 ....

didn't win the WCT in 71 or 72 ....a title he really wanted ...would be atleast some sort of "compensation" for poor performance in majors after 69 ...

 

[abmk]

Federer was closing in on Rafa's ranking even BEFORE the injury -- if we accept that Rafa's injury was exruciatingly debilitating at the time he played Rosol, it still doesn't matter much -- if it took only one tournament in which Rafa was injured for Federer to surpass Nadal as number two and Novak as number one, then obviously the injury didn't play that big a factor and it wasn't that big of a gap. If Nadal defended his points he STILL woulda lost the ranking to Fed if Fed reached the final and won (that's IF), so even if he was at 100% it was imperative that he performed well.

nadal was not injured physically when he played rosol ....the only thing that was injured was his pride ...

/END

 

[Povl Carstensen]

Well, the first half of those Slams he won was during a time where the field was very weak. It was a time where Andy Roddick was his #1 foe.
It was a time where Hewitt and Safin and old Agassi were also of his toughest opponents. None of these guys are comparable to a Prime Nadal, a Prime Djokovic, or even a Prime Agassi and Prime Sampras.
Federer was very lucky to dominate during a time where tennis was at a very low point.

31 year old Federer at nr 1. now deflates that argument.

 

[tudwell]

Well, the first half of those Slams he won was during a time where the field was very weak. It was a time where Andy Roddick was his #1 foe.
It was a time where Hewitt and Safin and old Agassi were also of his toughest opponents. None of these guys are comparable to a Prime Nadal, a Prime Djokovic, or even a Prime Agassi and Prime Sampras.
Federer was very lucky to dominate during a time where tennis was at a very low point.

Why are you such a Nadal hater? Nadal was a slam champion from 2005 onward, and you consider that a weak field? Shame on you.