I wasn't one of those people. Prior to his 2015-16 mega-run I had him in the 13-15 window. After he won the French I said he might get 16/17.
And it's all been apart of the precedent except that I and most others didn't expect a deep fall in 2017.
Betting on Novak getting 8 Slams in my world is betting against Lendl, Sampras and Connors as considerably lesser players, which they just weren't. I am one of those who believe the Big 3 numbers are all inflated because of marketing and draw manipulation but I'm still of the mind-set they won't be able to overcome precedents by such massive margins.
There's only one athlete who has absolutely decimated what many thought was possible and that's been Tom Brady and yet one could argue if Leonard Marshall doesn't hit Montana maybe he would have accomplished the same.
No, again this is IMO an incorrect assumption. First of all, I do think Novak is better than them, but that doesn't even matter.
Other things could be true without needing the bold to be true.
The tour could be kinder to the best players now regardless of age, Djokovic could be among a group of modern athletes that tend to last longer than their predecessors, Novak could be uniquely primed in spirit, form, and all court prowess to win many slams in the next couple years etc...
If Federer won 3 slams at 35/36, then Novak winning a certain amount before that shouldn't be that out there (I actually agree that Federer has a better style for longevity btw but still it should show the "precedent" is overrated).
What you are saying would make sense to say it is very unlikely anyone, Novak, Rafa, Fed etc will play slam winning tennis at 40. That is something that I would agree with in terms of precedent and common sense.
In this case, Novak has already won 3 of the 8 since 30, so to frame it as he wont win "8 since he turned 30" just seems an oddly contrived way to arrive at an "it's impossible due to precedent" conclusion.
