Can we all agree that Rafa on clay is the scariest thing in tennis, bar none?

BlueClayGOAT

BlueClayGOAT

Semi-Pro
Rafa may not be the most versatile tennis player ever (which in itself is a bit of a laugh, since he did manage to win Slams on 3 surfaces in a calendar year), but if Earth had to challenge aliens at a sport, we would choose Rafa Nadal on clay in a best of 5 match. Discuss.
 
Can't deny that, at least regarding the FO. It was pretty funny and sad this year everyone pretty much gave up before the match even started. This is amost 10 years after his scariest RG run lol.
 
MeatTornado said:
Can we all agree that brand new users should stop making so many threads about settled debates?
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The great thing about the internet is that you can choose to ignore things you don't like. Imagine that.

As for the discussion, I feel people somehow don't always realize how totally effing unprecedented Rafa's RG feats are. They are sort of taken for granted now. If Federer had a record like that at Wimbledon, he'd have been crowned King of Switzerland by now.

The guy has lost 2 matches in 13 years. 2 matches. Say it out loud. And his knees were busted in one of those 2.

Is there precedent in all of sport for such relentless domination?
 
New users seem to come in here with some pretty strong views....like they've been here before or something. o_O

No OP, the scariest thing to me in tennis is RF in God-mode on a medium to fast court. Demolition derby. Evisceration by dissection. Surgery with a scalpel.

Just ask Hewitt, Agassi, Blake and any number of others when THEY were in their primes and got destroyed.

Borg may have been better on clay on a given day than Nadal IMO. But then I hate clay so maybe you clay-lovers can sort it out among yourselves.
 
BlueClayGOAT said:
Rafa may not be the most versatile tennis player ever (which in itself is a bit of a laugh, since he did manage to win Slams on 3 surfaces in a calendar year), but if Earth had to challenge aliens at a sport, we would choose Rafa Nadal on clay in a best of 5 match. Discuss.
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Tallest midget?
 
nikdom said:
New users seem to come in here with some pretty strong views....like they've been here before or something. o_O

No OP, the scariest thing to me in tennis is RF in God-mode on a medium to fast court. Demolition derby. Evisceration by dissection. Surgery with a scalpel.

Just ask Hewitt, Agassi, Blake and any number of others when THEY were in their primes and got destroyed.

Borg may have been better on clay on a given day than Nadal IMO. But then I hate clay so maybe you clay-lovers can sort it out among yourselves.
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I love how you assume things about people and label them- 'clay lovers'?

Believe me when I say that I joined this website only a week ago- although I've followed tennis for years.

For the record, I consider Federer to be the best I've seen. And he was scary at his peak.

But Nadal on clay is just something else. He has rampaged through RG multiple times without ever looking anything remotely close to troubled. Even Federer on his favorite surfaces doesn't approach the winning % and the relentless thrashings Nadal could produce on clay.
 
BlueClayGOAT said:
I love how you assume things about people and label them- 'clay lovers'?

Believe me when I say that I joined this website only a week ago- although I've followed tennis for years.

For the record, I consider Federer to be the best I've seen. And he was scary at his peak.

But Nadal on clay is just something else. He has rampaged through RG multiple times without ever looking anything remotely close to troubled. Even Federer on his favorite surfaces doesn't approach the winning % and the relentless thrashings Nadal could produce on clay.
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Clay season ended a couple of months ago. A little late for the party no?
 
At the same time, it's necessary to realise that grass doesn't allow the same manner of domination that clay does. A big server on grass can suddenly catch fire and take anyone out. If you have an off day with your serve, and meet a big server sending down rockets, it's goodbye.
On the other hand, it needs more to take out a really good claycourter on dirt. You cannot rely on one weapon and it's easier to break serve.
 
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Results don't lie I guess. Zoning Fed or Djoker at WIMBY/AO is a close experience despite the differing numbers. I feel like Rafa won a couple RGs that he shouldn't have ('11 and '13) if we're being honest with ourselves. Those 2 slams were real turning points...

(To be fair everyone has won slams they probably shouldn't have: Djoker USO'15, Fed AO'17)
 
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vex said:
Results don't lie I guess. Zoning Fed or Djoker at WIMBY/AO is a close experience despite the differing numbers. I feel like Rafa won a couple RGs that he shouldn't have ('11 and '14) if we're being honest with ourselves.
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Agree about 2011 and 2014. But at the same time one can say Federer was lucky to win Wimbledon 2009 final, leave alone Djokovic in AO-even if we leave some other years, in 2013 he should have lost in the fourth round. I still remember that bad call on a big point against Wawrinka and I still remember Djokovic not saying ANYTHING about that. (there is no doubt he knew the ball was on the line)
 
Newcomer said:
Agree about 2011 and 2014. But at the same time one can say Federer was lucky to win Wimbledon 2009 final, leave alone Djokovic in AO-even if we leave some other years, in 2013 he should have lost in the fourth round. I still remember that bad call on a big point against Wawrinka and I still remember Djokovic not saying ANYTHING about that. (there is no doubt he knew the ball was on the line)
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Yah I edited my post on basically the same point. Slams turn on incredibly small breaks when your talking about 3 ATGs fighting each other.
 
Newcomer said:
Agree about 2011 and 2014. But at the same time one can say Federer was lucky to win Wimbledon 2009 final, leave alone Djokovic in AO-even if we leave some other years, in 2013 he should have lost in the fourth round. I still remember that bad call on a big point against Wawrinka and I still remember Djokovic not saying ANYTHING about that. (there is no doubt he knew the ball was on the line)
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Went back and watched that point. The call was definitely wrong. The ball hit on the back half of the line but was in for sure. I don't think it's fair to say Djoker knew whether or not it was in. Consider the chair agreed with the linesman... Djoker was focused on blocking the bounce back not exactly where it landed. Not sure why Stan didn't challenge, was he out?

Regardless, the point wouldn't have ended there, Stan needed to finish a somewhat short ball or they'd have replayed it if the call had simply been corrected. Actually watching g again it seems the lineman call affected Djoker's swing so it should have been replayed. Still... it was BP 2nd serve. Even if Stan had won the point (no guarantee) he needed to consolidate. Lol, lotsa factors in this one. I'll give you that it probably ranks even higher than USO'15 as slams Djoker probably shouldn't have won.
 
nikdom said:
New users seem to come in here with some pretty strong views....like they've been here before or something. o_O

No OP, the scariest thing to me in tennis is RF in God-mode on a medium to fast court. Demolition derby. Evisceration by dissection. Surgery with a scalpel.

Just ask Hewitt, Agassi, Blake and any number of others when THEY were in their primes and got destroyed.

Borg may have been better on clay on a given day than Nadal IMO. But then I hate clay so maybe you clay-lovers can sort it out among yourselves.
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LOTS OF SALTY, SOUR HATE IN THIS POST...
 
BlueClayGOAT said:
Any numbers on that?
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This is a list of the main career statistics of former tennis player John McEnroe. McEnroe won a total of 155 ATP titles (a record for a male professional) during his career — 77 in singles, 78 in men's doubles, and 1 in mixed doubles (not counted as ATP title).He won seven Grand Slam singles titles. He also won a record eight year end championship titles overall, the Masters championships three times, and the WCT Finals,a record five times.His career singles match record was 875–198 (81.55%). He posted the best single-season match record (for a male player) in the Open Era with win-loss record: 82–3 (96.5%) set in 1984 and has the best carpet court career match winning percentage: 84.18% (411–65) of any player.
 
nikdom said:
New users seem to come in here with some pretty strong views....like they've been here before or something. o_O

No OP, the scariest thing to me in tennis is RF in God-mode on a medium to fast court. Demolition derby. Evisceration by dissection. Surgery with a scalpel.

Just ask Hewitt, Agassi, Blake and any number of others when THEY were in their primes and got destroyed.

Borg may have been better on clay on a given day than Nadal IMO. But then I hate clay so maybe you clay-lovers can sort it out among yourselves.
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We don't want to ask Hewitt or Blake or Agassi. What if we ask someone who was an ATG like Novak or Rafa?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
To show I don't just try to take down Fed's accomplishments I'll throw in my hat and say while Rafa's Clay court accomplishments are impossible to ignore and put him over top it's still hard for me to say just how great it really was because of the weak era and poly strings. I can't put him as "untouchable" because of that.
 
tennisaddict said:
Scariest thing for me is peak Safin.
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There's no such thing as "peak Safin." There's fits & spurts Safin, absolutely, but he never put together a complete season in which he stayed healthy and dangerous enough to consistently win big titles. Not enough to point at conclusively and say he was at his peak performance level anywhere. Witness the 5 year spread between his two Grand Slam wins and the lack of any other titles won in 2005 when he took home the Aussie Open. Safin was a slightly more accomplished David Nalbandian.
 
nikdom said:
New users seem to come in here with some pretty strong views....like they've been here before or something. o_O

No OP, the scariest thing to me in tennis is RF in God-mode on a medium to fast court. Demolition derby. Evisceration by dissection. Surgery with a scalpel.

Just ask Hewitt, Agassi, Blake and any number of others when THEY were in their primes and got destroyed.

Borg may have been better on clay on a given day than Nadal IMO. But then I hate clay so maybe you clay-lovers can sort it out among yourselves.
Click to expand...
That's not really that impressive a crop of opponents.
 
Strongest / most dominant, yes. Scariest, no. Relentless defence is not scary, it's annoying and frustrating as hell. What's scary is a barrage of winners flying past you which you can do absolutely nothing about. The scariest thing in tennis is Ivo's serve, because if it's a good one, you're nearly helpless.

I mean, look at it this way: being locked in a rally against a great defender, the player still has some chance to win the point, at least one out of five if he's any good. Against a massive bot 1st serve, the chance is almost non-existent, because it's close to impossible to get it into play, the returner must first guess correctly and then execute well in half a second.
 
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