ESPN: Is Federer the Greatest Athlete?

Seany said:
Ummm....Roger only had 7 slams at that point, and Novak had 5.

You have no idea what you're talking about do you? Roger was never in the greatest sportsman of all time back then either.
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Tiger Woods was from the moment he turned pro.
 
Well not too many sports counts 4 major tournaments more so than a year end championship, or year end #1.

And comparing athletes in team sports vs individual sports is not very PC to begin with. And also with sports that plays in a multi game series vs single game.
 
smoledman said:
Tiger Woods was from the moment he turned pro.
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Being a hard core golfer and tennis player, I can tell you there is a very dramatic difference between the highest levels of success in competitve golf and tennis. Tiger is a remarkable competitor no doubt. And a good athlete.
 
I'm just saying that Federer failed his first important hurdle - 2006 French Open final. That's something that never happened to Jim Thorpe, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps.
 
Anybody claiming Woods is the best are as foolish as those saying Nadal>Federer

Until Woods at least equals 18 majors, Nicklaus will always be the greatest golfer ever.
 
roberttennis54 said:
Maradona is not even the greatest football player ever. Not to mention he has repeatedly taking drugs to enhance his performance. Ultimately he did not achieve as much as Pele and was arguably an inferior player.

I don't see how it's harder to become a legend in football than tennis. If anything it is easier, since there are more positions. Where as in tennis it's like they all play in the same position.
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soccer is the world's game, tennis is the rich/upper midclass game.
 
Leto said:
Ridiculous to name anyone the GOAT over every sport, in the history of all time so far.

Tennis fans can't even agree about a GOAT, based on "era" differences (spanning as little as 5 or 6 years in many arguments), let alone finding consensus amongst a much larger audience covering every single sport, over hundreds of years...
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it's all opinion...but at least for the women ppl like babe dikirson are up there.
 
JustBob said:
Nicklaus is the greatest golfer, not Woods.
Eddie Merckx is the greatest cyclist, not Armstrong.
Gretzky is the best in terms of accomplishments but Mario Lemieux was more skilled.

And comparing team sports to individual sports is a bit silly.
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wrong on all 4 accounts...
 
Russeljones said:
Henry Cooper is a nobody but Ali needed a lot of help beating him. Something that could never have been said about Sugar Ray Robinson. Better boxers than Ali include Joe Frazier. Floyd Mayweather. Manny Pacquiao. The K brothers. Ali was a product of Don King and money. He would be an inferior athlete to many modern boxers and would probably need to be in cruiserweight today to have any chance at success. He has a name though, which is why you see him in such lists.
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klit, manny and floyd aren't better. maybe henry armstrong, sugar ray and joe louis.
 
Russeljones said:
It's an Olympic sport and amateur wrestling and judo are big in Japan.

"Experts" has a very wide meaning to the boxing public. There are numerous boxing organizations, assoications, federations etc. and it's all about politics and money. Talking ill of Ali was never politically correct but I couldn't care less about that. The man was a racist, bigot, abused people of his own race racially, I don't know how that's classified. He never had a great KO record, a title defense record and graceful? If you think Djokovic is graceful then I can't argue with you can I? Ali was tedious to watch. He had a great chin and stamina, the rest was marketing.
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he was a racist? more like the jim crow us was a racist nation.
 
Seany said:
Anybody claiming Woods is the best are as foolish as those saying Nadal>Federer

Until Woods at least equals 18 majors, Nicklaus will always be the greatest golfer ever.
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1 stat doesn't make you the greatest...tiger is tied or better than him in most other stats....
 
Federer does make a good case for himself. There are some extra ordinary records created in other sports as well so you cannot have one answer that everyone can agree with. Federer - One of greatest athletes, definitely.
 
roberttennis54 said:
Maradona is not even the greatest football player ever. Not to mention he has repeatedly taking drugs to enhance his performance. Ultimately he did not achieve as much as Pele and was arguably an inferior player.

I don't see how it's harder to become a legend in football than tennis. If anything it is easier, since there are more positions. Where as in tennis it's like they all play in the same position.
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Maradona was addicted to cocaine. He did not use drugs as a performance enhancer. On the contrary his drugs cost him his career and almost his life.

In football it's much harder to become a legend since hundreds of millions of people in the world practice this sport. To stand out in a team of 11 players is the next feat. To basically carry a team to the WC like Maradona did is a unique achievement.

As a pure athlete I would bring forward Michael Jordan.
 
One of the best domination wise against the field. The h2h against Nadal is a huge blow though; I mean people say the Patriots have taken a huge hit by losing to the giants twice in super bowls...even if they beat the Giants in another Super Bowl...their legacy is tarnished compared to the 1980s-1990s 49ers or 1990s Cowboys who were undefeated in Super Bowls.

And that's a team sport! In an individual sport to be dominated h2h is a pretty big blow to dominance/being the greatest. Maybe, he is still the greatest of all time. But not the greatest athlete which invokes images of complete dominance overt everyone in your sport.
 
ViscaB said:
Maradona was addicted to cocaine. He did not use drugs as a performance enhancer. On the contrary his drugs cost him his career and almost his life.

In football it's much harder to become a legend since hundreds of millions of people in the world practice this sport. To stand out in a team of 11 players is the next feat. To basically carry a team to the WC like Maradona did is a unique achievement.

As a pure athlete I would bring forward Michael Jordan.
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Maradona failed and was sent home for performance enhancing drugs in the 94 world cup.

He himself later admitted that the entire Argentine team had doped in the qualifications.

During his time at Napoli, he repeatedly faked urine test. Considering he was always rumoured to have taken steroids in the 80s, plus on two other occasions he failed admitted/proven to have doped, there is no way he should be the greatest sportsman ever.

Secondly, his achievements do not match Pele's. At Barca he did not win the league, he never won the European Cup. Pele achieved much more. Also I believe Pele was ultimately a better footballer. If you had two equal teams and then stuck Pele in one and Maradona in the other, the team with Pele would win more.
 
roberttennis54 said:
Secondly, his achievements do not match Pele's. At Barca he did not win the league, he never won the European Cup. Pele achieved much more. Also I believe Pele was ultimately a better footballer. If you had two equal teams and then stuck Pele in one and Maradona in the other, the team with Pele would win more.
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We will never know. Pele never played in the big European leagues. Maradona I believe had inferior teammates for the national team than Pele did.

Pele also played football in a time where it was not yet as professional as in Diego's days. For Messi in this day and age it's even harder to shine since teams have become much more tactically disciplined and players are in so much better physical condition. If you look at football from just a decade ago even it just strikes you have slow it was.
 
ViscaB said:
We will never know. Pele never played in the big European leagues. Maradona I believe had inferior teammates for the national team than Pele did.

Pele also played football in a time where it was not yet as professional as in Diego's days. For Messi in this day and age it's even harder to shine since teams have become much more tactically disciplined and players are in so much better physical condition. If you look at football from just a decade ago even it just strikes you have slow it was.
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Excluding players from team sports makes the discussion much more transparent. It's impossible to weigh the influence of one player on another 10.
 
ViscaB said:
We will never know. Pele never played in the big European leagues. Maradona I believe had inferior teammates for the national team than Pele did.

Pele also played football in a time where it was not yet as professional as in Diego's days. For Messi in this day and age it's even harder to shine since teams have become much more tactically disciplined and players are in so much better physical condition. If you look at football from just a decade ago even it just strikes you have slow it was.
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Pele played the big European countries for Brazil, in Europe and he beat them. Pele played in friendlies against the big European teams and he beat them. These friendlies meant something and he still won. Playing in the European Leagues did not mean as much since the best South American players did not tend to play abroad as much. Not to mention he was not allowed to leave.

I disagree with your last point. In fact I think the opposite is true. In this day and age it is easier to shine. There is far more football coverage, every brilliant thing you do is put on youtube. Pitches are better than ever, dangerous tackles have been outlawed. More importantly the medication the players are given now days is like a science fiction novel. Now days footballers can play their best every game for 90mins. Hence they shine more.
 
To say that pele is even close to Maradona is a disgrace to Football, if you seen any videos of football of pele you would know that he wouldn't have a chance against 80's 90's or 00's defenses. Even Messi or Ronaldo are way better players than Pele. Not to mention that pele played with players ad good as him in the brazilian national team.
As far as Maradona doping it never happened to take advantage, actually he used cocaine and if anything it undermined his game. In 94 what happened is that he was under a diet and took vitamins and stuff like that, when his personal trainer was in the USA went to a pharmacy and bought a vitamin supplement that was endorsed by the NBA, and he thought that it was therefore permitted to use by the FIFA but it happen to have ephedrine which is forbidden by fifa. After that the AFA forbid the players to have their own personal trainers without supervision. He never said that he or anyone else doped. What he said many times is that many players used to go to parties and did cocaine, but nothing to improve their game.
You can go anywere in the world and say Maradona, Messi or probably Ronaldo (even Pele) and people would know how they are, say federer and many wont know. Tennis is not as popular in the world as football.
Anyways there is no doubt that right now Federer is in the at least top 20 "athletes" of all time.
 
Comparing players from different eras in any sport is stupid !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Federer played Laver both at their best, Federer would win 6-0 6-0 6-0 yet Laver is still in the GOAT discussion. Sports evolve, standards get better, comparisons decades apart are enormously stupid.
 
Golf isn't a sport... It's a game. Just like bowling, swimming, gymnastics etc... I don't consider anything a sport unless it includes both offense and defense. A sport is where you physically compete against another opponent... Where you have to react to what your opponent does and vice versa. Therefore I would never include Tiger in a discussion about greatest athlete.
 
ViscaB said:
We will never know. Pele never played in the big European leagues. Maradona I believe had inferior teammates for the national team than Pele did.

Pele also played football in a time where it was not yet as professional as in Diego's days. For Messi in this day and age it's even harder to shine since teams have become much more tactically disciplined and players are in so much better physical condition. If you look at football from just a decade ago even it just strikes you have slow it was.
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Totally.

Maradona took a mediocre team like Napoli and made it one of the best teams in the world, defeating italian giants like Juventus and Milan to win the league a couple of times and even won the Uefa Cup.

Napoli was NOTHING before Maradona and he made it one of the best teams in the world. Not to mention leading Argentina to a WC championship and another final (with a broken ankle). That team was Maradona + 10 too.

Pele was playing with a lot of stars (In Brazil they sometimes consider Garrincha a better player than Pele) and at a club level only played in Santos.
 
F L O B B E R said:
Golf isn't a sport... It's a game. Just like bowling, swimming, gymnastics etc... I don't consider anything a sport unless it includes both offense and defense. A sport is where you physically compete against another opponent... Where you have to react to what your opponent does and vice versa. Therefore I would never include Tiger in a discussion about greatest athlete.
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So much ignorance compressed into a single post, amazing.
 
Seany said:
So much ignorance compressed into a single post, amazing.
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For the win:

bobby-fischer-life-nov-12-1971.jpg
 
tusharlovesrafa said:
That's given."It's not how hard you hit,it's about how hard you get hit and you keep on moving forward."fed stands no chance in front of Rocky.Did you hear that Sly's Son died??:(
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Federer is a perfect example of this phrase.

Back on topic, I believe it is somewhat stupid to compare different sports and eras. This is because you can't ask an athlete form one sport to do be the best in another sport. I mean, you can say Messi is the best footballer in the world, yet he won't be able to do the stuff Federer does with a racket and vice-versa. Every sport has a different mental, physical and tactical approach, so it is very, very difficult to compare different sports.
 
hersito said:
To say that pele is even close to Maradona is a disgrace to Football, if you seen any videos of football of pele you would know that he wouldn't have a chance against 80's 90's or 00's defenses. Even Messi or Ronaldo are way better players than Pele. Not to mention that pele played with players ad good as him in the brazilian national team.
As far as Maradona doping it never happened to take advantage, actually he used cocaine and if anything it undermined his game. In 94 what happened is that he was under a diet and took vitamins and stuff like that, when his personal trainer was in the USA went to a pharmacy and bought a vitamin supplement that was endorsed by the NBA, and he thought that it was therefore permitted to use by the FIFA but it happen to have ephedrine which is forbidden by fifa. After that the AFA forbid the players to have their own personal trainers without supervision. He never said that he or anyone else doped. What he said many times is that many players used to go to parties and did cocaine, but nothing to improve their game.
You can go anywere in the world and say Maradona, Messi or probably Ronaldo (even Pele) and people would know how they are, say federer and many wont know. Tennis is not as popular in the world as football.
Anyways there is no doubt that right now Federer is in the at least top 20 "athletes" of all time.
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Are you unwell my friend?
 
It's close betwen Fed and Wladimir Klitschko IMO.

Midget boxers like Floyd and Manny don't count. Weight classes shouldn't exist.
 
I was too lazy to read the OP. I assumed we're talking about current athletes.

edit: Guess not. Then yeah disregard my post.
 
WhiskeyEE said:
It's close betwen Fed and Wladimir Klitschko IMO.

Midget boxers like Floyd and Manny don't count. Weight classes shouldn't exist.
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Ever heard of pound for pound rankings? Manny and Floyd are up there as the greatest boxers of all time. Denying that is 100% denial. And Wlad is undefeated for more than 8 years and is closing in on the all time world title defense record (25). Wlad is also nearing the longest uninterupted title reign record.

and just to put things into perspective

The 1980 issue of "THE RING" polled 25 boxing experts and asked
who was the greatest fighter ever. The result was:

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Joe Louis
3. Henry Armstrong
4. Muhammad Ali
5. Benny Leonard
6. Willie Pep
7. Rocky Marciano
8. Jack Dempsey
9. Roberto Duran
10. Jack Johnson

The heavyweight heavy list is noted by many at the time. But this is before the time of some very good modern boxers (the aforementioned included).
 
Russeljones said:
Ever heard of pound for pound rankings? Manny and Floyd are up there as the greatest boxers of all time. Denying that is 100% denial. And Wlad is undefeated for more than 8 years and is closing in on the all time world title defense record (25). Wlad is also nearing the longest uninterupted title reign record.

and just to put things into perspective

The 1980 issue of "THE RING" polled 25 boxing experts and asked
who was the greatest fighter ever. The result was:

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Joe Louis
3. Henry Armstrong
4. Muhammad Ali
5. Benny Leonard
6. Willie Pep
7. Rocky Marciano
8. Jack Dempsey
9. Roberto Duran
10. Jack Johnson

The heavyweight heavy list is noted by many at the time. But this is before the time of some very good modern boxers (the aforementioned included).
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lol "pound for pound." News flash buddy, there's no such thing.

Like I said, midget boxers don't count. Wlad would beat the snot out of Floyd, Manny, or any other midget boxer you could throw at him. That makes him a better boxer and a better athlete. Anyone who has to rely on weight classes to compete shouldn't be named here.
 
who could beat the snot out of who aint the point

pugilism is a sport of technique n skill. fat vlad havin more weight on him than floyd dont make him a better boxer
 
TeflonTom said:
who could beat the snot out of who aint the point

pugilism is a sport of technique n skill. fat vlad havin more weight on him than floyd dont make him a better boxer
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I don't care who has the best boxing technique, just like I don't care if a 5'0" tall guy has the best tennis technique. I care who the best boxers and tennis players are. Size and muscularity are factors in athleticism and sports.

That's like having height classes in basketball.
 
JustBob said:
Nicklaus is the greatest golfer, not Woods.
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Agreed and IMO Nicklaus always will be greater.


Eddie Merckx is the greatest cyclist, not Armstrong.
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or Miguel Indurain. Definitely not Lance though. He is a Tour de France specialist, he doesnt have the complete resume of the others. I dont even care that he is a heavy doper since they all probably are, but he is a one trick pony compared to the others and relies on the strength of his teams for his wins.


Gretzky is the best in terms of accomplishments but Mario Lemieux was more skilled.
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Agreed.
 
It's highly silly to compare players from different eras and different sports and say that one player is the greatest of all time. What yardstick can you use to make these kind of comparisons ? It would be injustice to all the great athletes if you compare them and say one guy is greater than the rest of all..
 
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