From 2003 to 2023, which years were weak era and strong era?

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Very easy.

When your favorite player is winning and winning consistently, it is a strong era.

But more important than that, much more important than that is when your favorite's biggest rival is winning big and consistently winning big, it is a weak era.

The second trumps the first. The first can exist if the second doesn't happen.
 
Well, one would have to wonder if the players of the new generation know and are prepared to play the Majors tournaments.
By results, physical and mental preparation, they do not seem to be ready to overthrow the old guardian who is the last survivor and exposes them under that format.
For these fairly young players, GS tournaments are too big for them.
:(
 
I know this is a controversial take since it's almost unanimously agreed that the Weak Era was from 2003-2007, but I am actually going to argue that it was from 2003-2010. Yes, 2008 was a great year for the sport when Rafa started to come into his own off of clay, and yes, 2009 gave us a great match between Fedal in Australia, but the underlying dynamics of the Tour had not changed. Once Nadal was out on injury, Roger was gobbing up the slams again, finally squeaking his way to a RG and 15th slam title at Wimbledon, both of which could have been denied to him had his competition held strong. Roger capped off his part of the Weak Era by thrashing Murray in Australia in 2010, leaving the rest of the spoils to Nadal who waltzed his way to 3 majors without anyone capable of challenging him. It wasn't until Novak broke through Roger in New York in 2010 that the underlying dynamics of just 1 great player having a realistic shot at the majority of the titles changed to 3 great players actually competing in great tussles for the titles and the big 3 era began.

TLDR; 2003-2010 was entirely weak aside from 2008, therefore the whole period should be considered the Weak Era with an asterisk by 2008, rather than cutting off the Weak Era at 2007.
 
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Holmes said:
I know this is a controversial take, since it's almost unanimously agreed that the Weak Era was from 2003-2007, but I am actually going to argue that it was from 2003-2010. Yes, 2008 was a great year for the sport when Rafa started to come into his own off of clay, and yes, 2009 gave us a great match between Fedal in Australia, but the underlying dynamics of the Tour had not changed. Once Nadal was out on injury, Roger was gobbing up the slams again, finally squeaking his way to a RG and 15th slam title at Wimbledon, both of which could have been denied to him had his competition held strong. Roger capped off his part of the Weak Era by thrashing Murray in Australia in 2010, leaving the rest of the spoils to Nadal who waltzed his way to 3 majors without anyone capable of challenging him. It wasn't until Novak broke through Roger in New York in 2010 that the underlying dynamics of just 1 great player having a realistic shot at the majority of the titles changed to 3 great players actually competing in great tussles for the titles and the big 3 era began.

TLDR; 2003-2010 was entirely weak aside from 2008, therefore the whole period should be considered the Weak Era with an asterisk by 2008, rather than cutting off the Weak Era at 2007.
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So:
Strong Era: 2011-2023
Weak Era: 2003-2010
 
Kralingen said:
Nah. If you must know, my rankings:

Strong era: 2012, 2009
Good to great: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013
Acceptable: 2004, 2014
Getting weaker: 2006, 2010, 2015, 2016
Banter era: 2017-19
Viral pandemic era: 2020-21
Fatally weak, metastasizing era: 2022-
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I envy your memory. Those of us who find it harder to forget 2006 could never place it outside of the "Fatally weak, metastasizing era"
 
Holmes said:
I envy your memory. Those of us who find it harder to forget 2006 could never place it outside of the "Fatally weak, metastasizing era"
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It could well have been fatal if not for the emergence of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and to a lesser extent Del Potro, Murray, and Tsonga.
 
Kralingen said:
Nah. If you must know, my rankings:

Strong era: 2012, 2009
Good to great: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013
Acceptable: 2004, 2014
Getting weaker: 2006, 2010, 2015, 2016
Banter era: 2017-19
Viral pandemic era: 2020-21
Fatally weak, metastasizing era: 2022-
Click to expand...
I love it :cool:
 
Kralingen said:
It could well have been fatal if not for the emergence of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and to a lesser extent Del Potro, Murray, and Tsonga.
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Non factor off of clay. Him making a surprise appearance in the Wimbledon finals changes nothing other than cosmetics - of course we'd rather watch some developed rallies rather than Roddick falling over in yet another pitiful attempt to find the net.
Others were mostly non-factors everywhere.
 
Kralingen said:
Nah. If you must know, my rankings:

Strong era: 2012, 2009
Good to great: 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013
Acceptable: 2004, 2014
Getting weaker: 2006, 2010, 2015, 2016
Banter era: 2017-19
Viral pandemic era: 2020-21
Fatally weak, metastasizing era: 2022-
Click to expand...
Strong: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012
Moderately strong: 2005, 2007, 2013
Good side of average: 2004, 2014
Average: 2003, 2015
Bad side of Average: 2006, 2010, 2016
Career Inflation: 2017, 2018, 2019
Asterisk: 2020, 2021
Darkest Era: 2022, 2023
 
NatF said:
Strong: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012
Moderately strong: 2005, 2007, 2013
Good side of average: 2004, 2014
Average: 2003, 2015
Bad side of Average: 2006, 2010, 2016
Career Inflation: 2017, 2018, 2019
Asterisk: 2020, 2021
Darkest Era: 2022, 2023
Click to expand...
This is the one.

Alternate name for 2017-19 might be the “knock-off” era, as the names were relatively similar to strong era early 10s stuff… Big 3, Cilic, resurgent DelPo, new school guys like Thiem, Dim, Raonic, Nishikori etc. but they were a) declined from their previous heights and b) papering over the cracks of a zombified tour (nearly half the top 100 over 30, Kevin Anderson in Slam finals, Jack Sock YE top 10 and Masters finalist, etc). And the flashes shown by Zverev Tsitsipas Medvedev Shapo Thiem etc really never developed into being clear heirs to the Big 3 in the way they were hyped to be.
 
NatF said:
Strong: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012
Moderately strong: 2005, 2007, 2013
Good side of average: 2004, 2014
Average: 2003, 2015
Bad side of Average: 2006, 2010, 2016
Career Inflation: 2017, 2018, 2019
Asterisk: 2020, 2021
Darkest Era: 2022, 2023
Click to expand...
I'd include 2022 in the asterisk category.
 
Holmes said:
Non factor off of clay. Him making a surprise appearance in the Wimbledon finals changes nothing other than cosmetics - of course we'd rather watch some developed rallies rather than Roddick falling over in yet another pitiful attempt to find the net.
Others were mostly non-factors everywhere.
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That 2006 Wimbledon version of Nadal would tear his competition apart and he would be a great rival to Joker, unlike Carlitos who can't last three hours of play against his veteran opponent.
:D
 
The last year worth on TTW on top of before that has rendered these discussions fun but in the end useless. lol
 
Strength Level of Field in last 20+ years and projection for next 2-3 years in yellow where alcaraz, rune, sinner and djokovic will raise the level (hopefully).

352550991_1458127375018574_7137893790602797296_n.jpg
 
2003-Weak
2004- Pretty good
2005- Very strong, Quality year
2006- At the time it seemed pathetic but comparing it to the last 3 years its aged better LOL. Still. Pretty weak though
2007-Weak. 2 man tour
2008-Weak. 2 man tour
2009- Probably the best year in terms of quality across the tour. Or tied with 05.
2010-Weak as well. But I dont see anyone beating that Nadal if it was strong as hell. He was peaked out IMO.
2011- Nadal/Djoker were amazing, the rest of the tour was pretty garbage
2012- Strong. Quality year. Alot of guys playing awesome.
2013- The last good year

2014-present. Not worth talking about they are such bad years with no new elite players that have taken the game over. 2 (maybe 3 straight) generations of utter crap. Wawrinka peaking for a brief bit aside
 
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James_Bolt said:
We see repeatedly the mention of "weak era"/"strong era".
When did these eras start and end?
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Oh look new fedalfan troll is in the house joining weakest trolls era on internet. No creativity , no originality just endless whining and thirst for attention lacking in life.
 
Holmes said:
You put it very harshly, but true. There really is no way to sugarcoat the quality of 2003-2010
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It's true, because the 90s born players have shown us nothing but disappointment.

Top tier players in 2003-2010 doesn't allow any old past prime players win slams, let alone dominated the era
 
TMF said:
It's true, because the 90s born players have shown us nothing but disappointment.

Top tier players in 2003-2010 doesn't allow any old past prime players win slams, let alone dominated the era
Click to expand...


Do you still have that list of all-time records, tallies, statistics that you always used to post? Can you hit me with it once more?
 
Holmes said:
Baghdatis, Bjorkman, Ljubicic, Kiefer and friends filling up the slam semis sheets (Baggy and Kiefer in one slam no less). So far, this has just 2023's Tommy Paul to compete with.
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But at least Fed was at his best, not a mid 30's geriatric and Nadal himself played great outside HC.

I never said it wasn't weak, but at least Fedal saved it from the abyss. Nothing to save 2020-present.
 
initialize said:
Lmao at Holmely and Oceans trying to convince anyone that the last 6 years were stronger than 2003-2009, which was a massively stronger era than the current turd era we are dealing with.
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I feel confident in my assertion that Prime Novak, Nadal, Fed, Murray and Stan competing for slams is stronger than Federer, Hewitt, Nalbandian, baby Nadal, and Baghdatis doing the same. Also happy to see more and more of my fellow tennis fans sharing this view.
 
Holmes said:
I feel confident in my assertion that Prime Novak, Nadal, Fed, Murray and Stan competing for slams is stronger than Federer, Hewitt, Nalbandian, baby Nadal, and Baghdatis doing the same. Also happy to see more and more of my fellow tennis fans sharing this view.
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If by "fellow tennis fans" means the few delusional Novaktards, I agree. And regardless what you think about that era, there is no denying the last 6 years have been much, much, much weaker
 
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