Do you consider Nadal a Tier 1 great?

Do you consider Nadal a Tier 1 great?

  • Total voters
    342
Phoenix1983

Phoenix1983

G.O.A.T.
It's universally agreed that Federer and Laver are Tier 1, and the vast majority also put Sampras and Borg in that category.

Nadal's place seems to be more debatable though. Personally, I think he is definitely in Tier 1 (has a slightly greater resume than Borg in my opinion), but others point to his skew towards clay, and relatively low number of Wimbledon titles, as a reason why he should be excluded from Tier 1.

What are your thoughts?

:twisted:
 
Anti-Fedal said:
I don't consider Federer or Nadal Tier 1 greats
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Your username makes that opinion oddly surprising. On the topic, I think that we ought to define tier one as players who have legitimacy as the GOAT so for that reason I agree with KillerServe that Nadal is mid tier 2 whilst Laver and Fed are at tier 1.
 
Phoenix1983 said:
It's universally agreed that Federer and Laver are Tier 1, and the vast majority also put Sampras and Borg in that category.

Nadal's place seems to be more debatable though. Personally, I think he is definitely in Tier 1 (has a slightly greater resume than Borg in my opinion), but others point to his skew towards clay, and relatively low number of Wimbledon titles, as a reason why he should be excluded from Tier 1.

What are your thoughts?

:twisted:
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I guess most people who don't rank him in tier 1 are "historians" who:

1) don't appreciate the current game as a whole, thus don't appreciate any current player.

2) consider that the 4 best players in the history of the sport are Hoad, Gonzales, Rosewall and Laver, with an honorable mention to Tilden, Cochet, Lacoste, Vines, Riggs, Budge, Sedgman, Segura, Johnston, Kramer, Perry...

3) dig Federer because he is recognized by many as the goat, or at least the guy you have to include in all goat discussion. But everybody know he benefited from a weak era.

4) therefor Nadal can't be great, because it is necessary to consider Fed's opposition as weak.

5) Mozart in his peak years was on par with Led Zeppelin in their prime.

Edit: I forgot, in the honorable goat mention: Kodes, Kozuleh, McKay, Davies, Ayala, Buchholz, Stolle, Roche, Pietrangelli, Santana, Borotra, Riessen, Fraser, Newcombe, Nastase, Smith, Ash.
 
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Yes. When you dominate a surface and a grand slam that much and also win all of the other grand slams, you deserve to be included in "tier 1". He also has a positive h2h against all of the other top players of his generation, which is a pretty big deal since imo it's the best generation tennis-wise.
 
Anti-Fedal said:
I don't consider Federer or Nadal Tier 1 greats
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Your standards must be crazy if you don't consider Federer tier 1 great.

If a guy who has records at WTF, USO, W, AO and weeks nr.1 in the open era is not tear 1, then I don't know who is.

Along with gazillions of other open era records.
 
102 weeks at #1. Tier 1 fosho. :lol:

As for Borg? He was THE predominant figure of his era as was Sampras. Ralph is a bit like Agassi but a ton of slams on RG,that's it. If Ralph is gonna be promoted to tier 1,then we must also promote Mcenroe, Lendl and Agassi to tier 1.

The overrating of essentially a clay court specialist makes me nauseous and I hope it stops!
 
Since this is a poll about one's opinion, I can then say that Nadal is not great at all.

In fact, in appreciation of Hitchens' great work, a book should be written called:

"Nadal is not great: How cheating destroys tennis"
 
jg153040 said:
Your standards must be crazy if you don't consider Federer tier 1 great.

If a guy who has records at WTF, USO, W, AO and weeks nr.1 in the open era is not tear 1, then I don't know who is.

Along with gazillions of other open era records.
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Tier 1: Laver, Rosewall, Gonzales, Tilden

Fed and Nadal won't ever get near there IMO
 
Although he is slight above PSampras and BBorg in my book, hr is definitely below RFederer.
 
Tier 1 right now is reserved for guys like Sampras,fed,rosewall, pancho and laver. With nadal and Borg at the top of tier 2
 
Flash O'Groove said:
I guess most people who don't rank him in tier 1 are "historians" who:

1) don't appreciate the current game as a whole, thus don't appreciate any current player.

2) consider that the 4 best players in the history of the sport are Hoad, Gonzales, Rosewall and Laver, with an honorable mention to Tilden, Cochet, Lacoste, Vines, Riggs, Budge, Sedgman, Segura, Johnston, Kramer, Perry...

3) dig Federer because he is recognized by many as the goat, or at least the guy you have to include in all goat discussion. But everybody know he benefited from a weak era.

4) therefor Nadal can't be great, because it is necessary to consider Fed's opposition as weak.

5) Mozart in his peak years was on par with Led Zeppelin in their prime.

Edit: I forgot, in the honorable goat mention: Kodes, Kozuleh, McKay, Davies, Ayala, Buchholz, Stolle, Roche, Pietrangelli, Santana, Borotra, Riessen, Fraser, Newcombe, Nastase, Smith, Ash.
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New clown on the block. How can Nadal be tier 1 being so 1-surface-heavy in terms of achievements, being pathetic indoors, having 0 WTF's and a very modest number of weeks as #1? He is clearly a tier below Federer and Sampras and I'd say it would be magnanimous to put him on equal footing with Laver and Borg. The 'Channel' Slams are not comparable given the CC-like characteristics of Wimbledon in Nadal's time (2nd week particularly).

Nadal should stand alone as a tier 3 great imo.
 
Phoenix1983 said:
Borg only ranked No 1 for 2 years (officially) as well. Yet he is considered a Tier 1 great.
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And that's another opinion that people are entitled to. If we're basing this on what one group of people think then why not just ask those people, why have a thread?

[EDIT]

Also, that's one criteria. Just because I believe the ranking affects Nadal's status doesn't mean I automatically think it affects everyone equally. Borg had the records for most wins at two majors during his career.
 
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90's Clay said:
Tier 1 right now is reserved for guys like Sampras,fed,rosewall, pancho and laver. With nadal and Borg at the top of tier 2
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Agreed. I think Nadal will make it to tier 1, or I hope he does, he deserves to make it there for the hard work he put in, but Nadal still needs to do a bit more than win on clay and beat Federer. ;)
 
Russeljones said:
New clown on the block. How can Nadal be tier 1 being so 1-surface-heavy in terms of achievements, being pathetic indoors, having 0 WTF's and a very modest number of weeks as #1? He is clearly a tier below Federer and Sampras and I'd say it would be magnanimous to put him on equal footing with Laver and Borg. The 'Channel' Slams are not comparable given the CC-like characteristics of Wimbledon in Nadal's time (2nd week particularly).

Nadal should stand alone as a tier 3 great imo.
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You call someone else a clown and then make a clownish argument yourself.

Subjective BS like this channel slam is not worth as much as that channel slam doesn't cut it. And when it comes to surfaces , how do you compare with guys like Laver who played when 3/4 slams were on grass? Should we just discredit them as well.

If Nadal were to get to 14-15 slams even if they were RG, he would be a Tier 1 great. Simply put, being the undisputed greatest specialist of all time makes you an overall great. Winning 5 slams on clay is not the same as 7 or 9. Every slam you win just means you are that much better on that surface than anyone else.

You can be great by doing a lot of things well or you can be great by doing a few things REALLY well. Nadal is the latter.
 
You've made some debatable points but going by your logic, the guy in your avatar doesn't deserve tier-1 either. Never so much as sniffed a French open final, leave alone winning one!

Russeljones said:
New clown on the block. How can Nadal be tier 1 being so 1-surface-heavy in terms of achievements, being pathetic indoors, having 0 WTF's and a very modest number of weeks as #1? He is clearly a tier below Federer and Sampras and I'd say it would be magnanimous to put him on equal footing with Laver and Borg. The 'Channel' Slams are not comparable given the CC-like characteristics of Wimbledon in Nadal's time (2nd week particularly).

Nadal should stand alone as a tier 3 great imo.
Click to expand...
 
Russeljones said:
New clown on the block. How can Nadal be tier 1 being so 1-surface-heavy in terms of achievements, being pathetic indoors, having 0 WTF's and a very modest number of weeks as #1? He is clearly a tier below Federer and Sampras and I'd say it would be magnanimous to put him on equal footing with Laver and Borg. The 'Channel' Slams are not comparable given the CC-like characteristics of Wimbledon in Nadal's time (2nd week particularly).

Nadal should stand alone as a tier 3 great imo.
Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
I'd say Nadal is top of tier 2, roughly equal with Borg. I flip flop between who I think is greater all the time. On the surface Nadal has greater achievements, but Borg dominated two surfaces which couldn't be more different. So yeah they're at the top of tier 2 IMO. Nadal will reach tier 1 one though.
 
ksbh said:
You've made some debatable points but going by your logic, the guy in your avatar doesn't deserve tier-1 either. Never so much as sniffed a French open final, leave alone winning one!
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Debatable is choosing to ignore the major achievements of the guy in my avatar which give significant weight to the argument in support of his being a tier 1 great. Good try though.
 
Chico said:
No. No way.
Open era tier 1 greats are:
Laver, Borg, Sampras and Federer.

That is it. Nadal is not even close.
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lol what does he have to do to be "close"? He is only 2 slams off sampras and has a career slam, he's one ahead of Borg (though i think Borg could have achieved more)
 
kragster said:
You call someone else a clown and then make a clownish argument yourself.

Subjective BS like this channel slam is not worth as much as that channel slam doesn't cut it. And when it comes to surfaces , how do you compare with guys like Laver who played when 3/4 slams were on grass? Should we just discredit them as well.

If Nadal were to get to 14-15 slams even if they were RG, he would be a Tier 1 great. Simply put, being the undisputed greatest specialist of all time makes you an overall great. Winning 5 slams on clay is not the same as 7 or 9. Every slam you win just means you are that much better on that surface than anyone else.

You can be great by doing a lot of things well or you can be great by doing a few things REALLY well. Nadal is the latter.
Click to expand...

That doesn't work. The thread's title is unambiguous I thought. It isn't subjective BS to point out the siginficant difference between the grass Borg played on and the one Nadal played on. If I wanted to stress that to further detract from his Channel Slams I'd have added the current lack of grass specialists, which in itself lends credence to the school of thought that modern grass is nowhere near as special as it once was. I merely pointed out one of several reasons why it's much too premature to talk about Nadal as a tier 1 great.

Laver has his own shortcomings (as all players part of the discussion do) and I would cite the most significant of those being the level of competition he faced at home in Australia. The reason I used the word 'clown' is the presumption that Federer's achievements are undermined by a weak era. This argument is usually used by posters who have no inclination to be objective and harbour a bias against Federer. The last sentence could probably be flipped to suit any number of tribes here but I reckon the "weak era" argument is one of the weakest approaches I've seen here as a way to denegrate what Federer has achieved.
 
I do genuinely suspect him for PED use, but I also do believe his records make him the best clay courter in history.
 
kragster said:
You call someone else a clown and then make a clownish argument yourself.

Subjective BS like this channel slam is not worth as much as that channel slam doesn't cut it. And when it comes to surfaces , how do you compare with guys like Laver who played when 3/4 slams were on grass? Should we just discredit them as well.

If Nadal were to get to 14-15 slams even if they were RG, he would be a Tier 1 great. Simply put, being the undisputed greatest specialist of all time makes you an overall great. Winning 5 slams on clay is not the same as 7 or 9. Every slam you win just means you are that much better on that surface than anyone else.

You can be great by doing a lot of things well or you can be great by doing a few things REALLY well. Nadal is the latter.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with that. Nadal's achievements are differents, not better nor inferior. He doesn't have the diversity of other all time great, but none of them achieved anything close to what he has done on clay. His overall clay achievement will never be topped.

Beside, Sampras diversity is superficial. He dominated fast surfaces, and it happened that 3 out of 5 majors event were played on fast surfaces. But Sampras is inferior on his weaker than Nadal on his by a huge difference.

Nadal deserve to be a tier 1 player because he is the ultimate player on a surface, in a way no one else was before him on an other surface, for a longer time than any one else. And he is not finished yet.
 
Russeljones said:
Debatable is choosing to ignore the major achievements of the guy in my avatar which give significant weight to the argument in support of his being a tier 1 great. Good try though.
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You don't even realize that you are doing the exact same thing when it comes to Nadal. Sampras is a tier 1 great even though he was horrible on an entire surface, and couldn't manage one single final at RG, yet Nadal can't possibly be a tier 1 great because he has won too much on clay for your liking, and hasn't won the WTF. Oh, and let's not forget the old "weeks at #1" stuff as well as if sitting at #1 somehow makes up for being a total mug on clay and accomplishing next to nothing on the surface. This place is always good for laughs, that's for sure.
 
Flash O'Groove said:
I tend to agree with that. Nadal's achievements are differents, not better nor inferior. He doesn't have the diversity of other all time great, but none of them achieved anything close to what he has done on clay. His overall clay achievement will never be topped.

Beside, Sampras diversity is superficial. He dominated fast surfaces, and it happened that 3 out of 5 majors event were played on fast surfaces. But Sampras is inferior on his weaker than Nadal on his by a huge difference.

Nadal deserve to be a tier 1 player because he is the ultimate player on a surface, in a way no one else was before him on an other surface, for a longer time than any one else. And he is not finished yet.
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Only people with an agenda purposefully and systemically discount Sampras's YE #1's and WTF in a comparison with Nadal. It's not even close. Nadal right now is tier 3*, deal with it.

* I am not vehemently opposed to him being upgraded to tier 2 with Laver and Borg. The only reason I put him down in 3rd are his abject failures in Year end championships and lack of year end #1 credentials. The discussion is about greats and within that context I think a court surface speciality weighs less than year-on-year dominance.
 
Clarky21 said:
You don't even realize that you are doing the exact same thing when it comes to Nadal. Sampras is a tier 1 great even though he was horrible on an entire surface, and couldn't manage one single final at RG, yet Nadal can't possibly be a tier 1 great because he has won too much on clay for your liking, and hasn't won the WTF. Oh, and let's not forget the old "weeks at #1" stuff as well as if sitting at #1 somehow makes up for being a total mug on clay and accomplishing next to nothing on the surface. This place is always good for laughs, that's for sure.
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You can only point to RG and clay as a kink in Sampras's resume? As opposed to fewer Slam titles and fewer weeks as world #1, fewer consecutive weeks as world #1, ZERO Year End Championships (i.e. when the best play the best), more even spread in Slam titles won aka versatility? Nadal is too far adrift in too many departments to be tier 1, why is that so hard to swallow?
 
Flash O'Groove said:
Nadal deserve to be a tier 1 player because he is the ultimate player on a surface, in a way no one else was before him on an other surface, for a longer time than any one else. And he is not finished yet.
Click to expand...

This is very true.

Some people try to minimise Nadal's clay prowess, but they ignore the incomprehensible achievements he has achieved on that surface, which are greater than those of any other male player on any particular surface.

- 81 straight match wins
- 8 titles at one major venue (FO)
- Highest winning % at a particular major (98.3%, with 59-1 record)
- 8 consecutive wins at one tournament (Monte Carlo)
- Highest winning % on a particular surface (93.29%)

etc.

This utter level of dominance on one surface, combined with winning major titles on all other surfaces, regularly beating the GOAT etc, is enough to place him in Tier 1.
 
Phoenix1983 said:
This is very true.

Some people try to minimise Nadal's clay prowess, but they ignore the incomprehensible achievements he has achieved on that surface, which are greater than those of any other male player on any particular surface.

- 81 straight match wins
- 8 titles at one major venue (FO)
- Highest winning % at a particular major (98.3%, with 59-1 record)
- 8 consecutive wins at one tournament (Monte Carlo)
- Highest winning % on a particular surface (93.29%)

etc.

This utter level of dominance on one surface, combined with winning major titles on all other surfaces, regularly beating the GOAT etc, is enough to place him in Tier 1.
Click to expand...

Is the Topic "Do you consider Nadal a Tier 1 great?" or is it "Do you consider Nadal a Tier 1 clay great?"

The only thing you're doing is stackinng wood on the 'one-trick-pony' bonfire.
 
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