How do head-to-head records affect your view of GOAT?

[AsaHartz]

Can a player be considered the GOAT if he has a losing record against other players in his generation? To be fair, this assumes an appropriate number of matches between the two.

For instance, Nadal has beaten Federer 10 out of 15 times that the two have played. Federer also has a losing record against Murray at (2-3). Personally, I think that the Murray-Federer record is not as telling because one of those victories came during the height of Federer's mono. However, Nadal's record against Federer begs the question: can a player be considered GOAT if he is consistently beaten by a contemporary player.

The counter-argument is that Nadal may very well be the greatest clay-court player in the history of tennis and most of their meetings have been on clay. Roger has won 4 out of 6 matches not on clay.

Any information on players such as Laver, Sampras, Bjorg, etc... and their head-to-head records woudl be interesting.

 

[oest10]

I think that the fact that you can't name more than 2 losing records speaks for itself. (no offensive reaction, dont take it like that) I know another losing record of Federer's by the way, which is against Dominic Hrbaty. 1-2. However, that one too is debateable because the Slovak has beaten federer only pre-2003, and Federer destroyed him at Wimbledon lately.

I am a hug Federer fan, but I question that he can undisputedly be called the GOAT. Nadal's always had a firm grip on no.2, by now he's taken it from Federer. But only looking at the period of 2003-2007, Federer is the absolute GOAT, I don't think there's any doubt about it.

Nadal's the clay court best.

 

[NamRanger]

Richad K beat up on Sampras pretty badly, doesn't mean Sampras wasn't the best of his era.



Federer lost to Murray a few times, mainly due to fatigue (Cincinnati where he blatantly tanked), and his illness which threw off his early 2008 schedule.


Right now they are very even. Federer has gotten the better of Murray at the big event, while Murray did record a win over Federer at Madrid.

 

[DoubleDeuce]

This has been repeated again and again : Most of Rog-Rafa head to heads are on clay..There isnt many HD meatings because Rafa couldnt make it to meet him on any other surface. Therefore it is not a good measure for the purpose you are talking about.

 

[MajinX]

i dont think how good a player is determied by a head to head record to some certian players, we all know nadal is one of federers biggest rivals, and nadal knows his game well, everyone has some sort of weakness, kinda like how gonzales cant touch roddick, and how roddick cant touch federer, and so on.

 

[ksbh]

Good question. The answer is no. Especially when a player has a losing record in grand slam finals. Roger Federer is 2-4 against Rafael Nadal in grand slam finals. This will always play against the argument that he is GOAT. I haven't see any GOAT candidates being dominated in such a way.

Can a player be considered the GOAT if he has a losing record against other players in his generation? To be fair, this assumes an appropriate number of matches between the two.

 

[David L]

It doesn't matter because Nadal has obviously been the better player on clay and 9 of his 12 wins have come on that surface. Evert has a 10-3 advantage over Navratilova on clay, but they met more on other surfaces to balance the h2h out. It's not enough to look at the h2h alone; you have to look at the context too.

 

[burosky]

Short answer is no. This is like comparing apples to oranges.

So there was this 14 year old kid who completely owned Fed when he was playing juniors. Their head to head was 20-0. Let's say Fed was considered GOAT, what would that 14 year old be? This is just an exageration. Don't jump out of your seats.

 

[urban]

It matters, of course. This is not a head to head between a top player and a dark horse, or about players before or after their primes, but between the two top players in their prime years. And its quite one-sided. The surface argument has limited quality. Borg met his socalled nemesis McEnroe only on fast courts (grass, indoors, hard), never on clay. And nevertheless it was 7-7. Sampras beat Agassi mostly on fast courts. Today nobody cares about it, only the numbers count. And imagine, if Agassi would have beaten Sampras 20-10, that would mean a quite complete juxtaposition of the two players in terms of alltime ranking.

 

[dh003i]

It matters, of course. This is not a head to head between a top player and a dark horse, or about players before or after their primes, but between the two top players in their prime years. And its quite one-sided. The surface argument has limited quality. Borg met his socalled nemesis McEnroe only on fast courts (grass, indoors, hard), never on clay. And nevertheless it was 7-7. Sampras beat Agassi mostly on fast courts. Today nobody cares about it, only the numbers count. And imagine, if Agassi would have beaten Sampras 20-10, that would mean a quite complete juxtaposition of the two players in terms of alltime ranking.

You're full of non-sense. Borg was one of the all-time greats on grass, so it makes sense he'd hold his own against McEnroe on the surface. In fact, no-one in their right mind would say McEnroe was a greater grass-courter than Borg.

Whether or not Sampras a H2H vs. Agassi of 20-10 or 10-20 wouldn't make one bit of difference in who we consider the greater player. It is Sampras; 14 slams is better than 8.

Same reasoning goes for this decade. Federer is the best player of this decade. What matters is the # of grand slams one wins, one's ranking, one's winning %, etc.

This is just a sad attempt to discredit Federer.

If Sampras had been as good as Federer on clay, he wouldn't gotten to several FO finals, and lost all of them (or maybe not, his clay-court opponents arguably weren't as strong as Nadal).

 

[boredone3456]

You're full of non-sense. Borg was one of the all-time greats on grass, so it makes sense he'd hold his own against McEnroe on the surface. In fact, no-one in their right mind would say McEnroe was a greater grass-courter than Borg.

Whether or not Sampras a H2H vs. Agassi of 20-10 or 10-20 wouldn't make one bit of difference in who we consider the greater player. It is Sampras; 14 slams is better than 8.

Same reasoning goes for this decade. Federer is the best player of this decade. What matters is the # of grand slams one wins, one's ranking, one's winning %, etc.

This is just a sad attempt to discredit Federer.

If Sampras had been as good as Federer on clay, he wouldn't gotten to several FO finals, and lost all of them (or maybe not, his clay-court opponents arguably weren't as strong as Nadal).

Exactly. GOAT is a summation of a players results against all their contemporaries at the time as well as their results at the majors and by the ranking system. Yes Fed has a losing record against nadal, which you could put as one con, but when you compare that to everything else he has done and some of his dominating records against others players, like Roddick for example, you have to admit its one tiny bit of a large pie, so to speak.

When people look at Fed, they will look as his streak at Wimbledon, his win streak at the us open that is still ongoing, his ability to push his greatest rival (Nadal) on his rivals best Surface(this years french open final of course being an exception to this), bottom line federer's overall achievements, like those of most greats, will stand for itself, regardless of his specific record against one person, i.e Nadal. Nadal is great, but if he holds a winning record over Fed but doesnt acheive the things Fed did(Multiple consecutive year end number ones, wimby and us open titles) or even come close to them, would you still put Nadal ahead of Fed on the all time greats list just because he had a winning record over him? Even if Fed has overall acheived more? I personally would not.

 

[urban]

Uh, Uh. Ever so sensible, when it comes to Federer. I only said, that the head to head matters, no more, no less. Besides: Borg played only 2 matches on grass against Mac, one win, one loss. Other matches were on carpet or hard, where Mac was seen by most experts as better than Borg. Also i think, that Mac was indeed the better and more natural grass courter. Most experts would agree with this assumption. It speaks volumes of Borgs athletic and mental abilities, that he held Mac to a 7-7 draw on fast courts. And indeed: If Agassi would have had a clear advantage in the mano a mano thing, his place in history would be higher. He evidently has the more complete tennis CV than Sampras, including majors, masters, Olympics, Davis Cups and so on.

 

[joeri888]

Good question. The answer is no. Especially when a player has a losing record in grand slam finals. Roger Federer is 2-4 against Rafael Nadal in grand slam finals. This will always play against the argument that he is GOAT. I haven't see any GOAT candidates being dominated in such a way.

It was 3 times on clay He's got a 3-0 record on clay in Slam Finals and a 13-1 on other surfaces. Their h2h says a lot more about Nadal's clay domination than of him being a 'bad matchup' for Federer (which he is as well). Every h2h has it's own story and this one is a story about clay mostly. In this case I don't see it as a reason to exclude Federer from any GOAT-debate.

 

[David L]

It matters, of course. This is not a head to head between a top player and a dark horse, or about players before or after their primes, but between the two top players in their prime years. And its quite one-sided. The surface argument has limited quality. Borg met his socalled nemesis McEnroe only on fast courts (grass, indoors, hard), never on clay. And nevertheless it was 7-7. Sampras beat Agassi mostly on fast courts. Today nobody cares about it, only the numbers count. And imagine, if Agassi would have beaten Sampras 20-10, that would mean a quite complete juxtaposition of the two players in terms of alltime ranking.

It would not matter a great deal and it would matter even less if 15 of Agassi's 20 victories came on clay. Everyone would know this was Sampras' weakest surface. It matters more that Sampras did as badly as he did on clay and lost to any Tom, Dick or Harry.

 

[hewittboy]

It matters, of course. This is not a head to head between a top player and a dark horse, or about players before or after their primes, but between the two top players in their prime years. And its quite one-sided. The surface argument has limited quality. Borg met his socalled nemesis McEnroe only on fast courts (grass, indoors, hard), never on clay. And nevertheless it was 7-7. Sampras beat Agassi mostly on fast courts. Today nobody cares about it, only the numbers count. And imagine, if Agassi would have beaten Sampras 20-10, that would mean a quite complete juxtaposition of the two players in terms of alltime ranking.

I dont think Sampras is considered so much better because of the head to head, but because of his better career in winning slams, dominating for periods which Agassi never did, consistent over many years at the time which Agassi wasnt, etc.....I do agree with you though on what people value as far as head to head. Nobody really cares how the head to heads are distributed as far as which surfaces they played on, only the final numbers.