Devilito
Hall of Fame
This isnt about who has the best serve technique..its about who has the best serve.
this isn't about who's the tallest. It's about who has the best serve. Figure it out
This isnt about who has the best serve technique..its about who has the best serve.
this isn't about who's the tallest. It's about who has the best serve. Figure it out
They definitely have better first serves.
Look...we are talking strictly serves here. do isner/karlovic/raonic have the rest of the game pete has? NO. Does their height effect their mobility? yes BUT their one shot, the serve is better than petes. I don't see how anyone can argue that.
Isner's serve is light years ahead of sampras..you clown. Sampras's serve is not even in the same league
you cant make up for a 2 foot(height + limb length) reach advantage no matter how good you are.
You changed your claim from - they have better 1st/2nd serves to just 1st serves. So, which is it ? IMHO, their 1st serves are comparable, there is'nt a whole lot of difference -- additionally Pete was more clutch with both serves.
Isner's serve is light years ahead of sampras..you clown. Sampras's serve is not even in the same league
you cant make up for a 2 foot(height + limb length) reach advantage no matter how good you are.
Isner serve is better than Sampras??? How??? Show me one statistics which proves that Isner has better serve than Pete Sampras.
Just because Isner is tall does not mean he has better serve than Sampras. Del Potro is also very tall, but his serve is not even in the league of Sampras.
Just ask prime Mardy Fish, the top 10 player of this era about how it feels to get beaten by 40 year-old man 15 years past his prime. :lol:
Originally Posted by sunny_cali
You changed your claim from - they have better 1st/2nd serves to just 1st serves. So, which is it ? IMHO, their 1st serves are comparable, there is'nt a whole lot of difference -- additionally Pete was more clutch with both serves.
The great thing about Sampras' serve was that he was able to call upon it when he needed it. However, I still feel that Karlovic and Isner have better serves. They are serves and nothing else for the most part. Sampras has a great forehand, great volleys, and great movement. The others, not so much. Saying their serves don't count because they are tall is sort of like saying an NBA team only won the Finals because they had the best player in the league.
I didn't mention del potro.
I mentioned raonic/isner/karlovic.
Statistics for service points won are misleading because they factor in what happens after the serve.
We are strictly speaking about the serve as a standalone shot and those 3 have better serves. 1st and second.
I mistyped. both 1st and second serves.
Pete did have the best serve of all time. I have sat at ground level directly behind the ad box corner as players tried to return his heat. I have watch as Pete's aces whistled past the returner and came flying directly towards my face.
Pete had the best first-serve-then-second serve combination that the sport has ever seen. It's as if he was taking two attempts at a first serve. However, this means that he was very dependent on his serve for getting himself into an attacking rhythm, for giving himself a very high number of relatively weak replies on which to pounce. . .so, if someone could only manage to return Pete's serve and then, on the strength of his ground game, seriously disrupt Pete's rhythm by pinning him behind his baseline, that would be Rafa. Rafa would not seek to take the ball early as Andre did, but rather, Rafa would stand so far back as to return enough of Pete's serves to drag Pete into countless back court rallies.
And you might be underrating him - he could be much worse than delusional. Sampras jock sniffers are a scary lot...You're delusional.
Not to start a 'Nature vs. Nuture' debate, but... Get real. He's 6'1" and coordinated. Plenty of people on this board are probably just as coordinated. But a) his parents moved to So Cal - he was born in DC - if they hadn't moved, he may have never... ; b) parents then scraped together the $$$ to send him to a very good tennis program (Jack Kramer Club - Palos Verdes, CA); c) somehow he was steered away from playing other sports - he admitted in high school he was know as 'the tennis guy'; d) he was also steered toward playing serve and volley - he didn't make that decision on his own at 15.The guy has more talent in his pinky then you'll ever dream of...
Huh?? Roddick beat Nadal quite soundly on slow HC? In which fantasy world was that? Roddick has beaten Rafa 3 times, at the USO when Rafa was 18, on the fast HC of Dubai, and when he redlined and shocked himself and the world in 2010 at Miami in three tight sets. Rafa has beaten Roddick twice on clay (at DC), once on grass, and four times on HC (USO, WTF and IWx2).Nadal struggles with the likes of Isner and Roddick based on serve alone in an unbelievably slow environment. Sampras has a better serve package and more game to back it up. Seriously doubt Nadal would ever trouble Pete on anything but an extremely slow HC (which Roddick has beaten Nadal on quite soundly) and clay.
Huh?? Roddick beat Nadal quite soundly on slow HC? In which fantasy world was that? Roddick has beaten Rafa 3 times, at the USO when Rafa was 18, on the fast HC of Dubai, and when he redlined and shocked himself and the world in 2010 at Miami in three tight sets. Rafa has beaten Roddick twice on clay (at DC), once on grass, and four times on HC (USO, WTF and IWx2).
Nadal has never played Isner in an 'unbelievably slow environment'. He's played and beaten him three times, at RG, Madrid and IW. I think if Rafa played Pete it would be a good match but considering Rafa has beaten everybody on the tour and has the second best in history career winning percentage on all surfaces, Rafa would have a pretty good chance of winning.
Added to the fact that some of today's guys are the greatest passers of all time.