Hypothetically, In your opinion, who would have won the Slams race if the Big 3 were all born in 1981 ?

[Spencer Gore]

If they're all born at the same time Federer is down to single figures in slams, if he's lucky.

 

[Chanwan]

Very possible. But by that logic Nadal would have retired at 24 if he played in the 70s or 80s. Like I said, when we do such a phantasy thread we have to assume he plays at least as much as he has been.
Fair point. I just think that the longer we go back in time, the less chance Rafa has of a long career. 1981 might still work though.



The psycholoy part woud affect everyone in his own way in this senario though and I think Nadal already made sure he could deal with pressure, at least in Paris. No player has ever had so much pressur of dominating one slam as much as Nadal has for 17 years straight, not even Sampras and Federer in Wimledon.
Again, fair point. My point is merely that it's a big difference to being the guy at 19-20 already rather than beating up on Fed and saying 'oh, but he's the best'.


Why would he be seeded 3 more often?
He wouldn't necessarily be, but if Fedalovic were prime and peak at more or less the same time, one of them has to be the third seed and the other two have a more steady year round presence.

Nadal however was already beating Federer when Roger was on top of the world. Also Nadal being spanish I highly doubt he would have played a different style at all.
Not saying it would be massively different, but Rafa's current style was outright kryptonite for Fed. Small differences could make it less kryptonite-like.



While this might be true I still can't see him winning only 13 slams overall because the competition in 2000-2004 wasn't any better than in later years and Roger wasn't a threat until 2003/2004 and also not on clay anyway. So Nadal might have had some easy wins in the early 2000s and obviously less in his older years. The thing is if Nadal ends up with less slams than he has now then I can't see why Roger and Djokovic would have more than him. If at all they all are around the same numbers just due to adaptation of their game, psychology factors etc. But aside from Nadal' injuries, he might be the only player in history who has a shot at winning 10+ RG in any decade(s).

Provided he had the same longevity, I can't see him staying at 13 either. As you say, he's virtually guarenteed 10+ RG's and while I would think he picks up less on grass and HC with Fedalovic all being the same age, he would sneak in a win every now again regardless. As for easy wins in the early 2000's, it wasn't Fedovic who were kicking his ass on HC prior to AO 09 (here AO 04), so - all things being equal (which they wouldn't be), I don't see him winning HC slams before Fedovic matured. W 2002 would be very possible though.

Rest of my answers are in your comment.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Rafa, don't forget he was much better at a much younger age than the other two, plus he led the H2H in the Djokovic rivalry from 2006 through until 2015, plus Fed and Djokovic would have slowed each other down by trading slams at AO and Wimbledon whilst neither were stopping Nadal at RG, Nadal would nab his fair share of US Opens also.

 

[roysid]

A player who can't hold off "physically grown up" opponents is obviously completely out of the running for GOAT, I'm sure you must agree.

Thats one viewpoint and i completely respect that.
The question is hypothetical and there so many variations that could emerge that nobody knows for sure what would have happened.

Roger might have been obliverated as he wont get a time when these two are not developed.

Or as i hypothesize, roger wont have the disadvantage of being 5 years older and dominate.

Or something else..who knows

 

[Dean Winchester]

Thats one viewpoint and i completely respect that.
The question is hypothetical and there so many variations that could emerge that nobody knows for sure what would have happened.

Roger might have been obliverated as he wont get a time when these two are not developed.

Or as i hypothesize, roger wont have the disadvantage of being 5 years older and dominate.

Or something else..who knows

Even Mr @Spencer Gore knows that in all probability, if they are aged same then every year the first Slam goes to Nole, the second goes to Nadal, the 3rd goes to Federer as Federer is the better man on Grass than those 2 and grass was faster that time, then comes the 4th slam which was also pretty quick in the 2000s, so who benefits from that other then the guy who just won wimbledon ????

Even if Nole takes some USOs and Nadal takes 1-2 non clay slams before Fed begins his run, it would end up even stevens for all of them, at least in the same ball park with not much variation, possibly Federer ahead due to the nature of the W+USO alone. ..... So Fed being in single digits is all BS, all 3 are crossing Sampras considering how bad the next gen would be plus Murray/Stan aren't doing any damage to Federer in BO5, so the 2010s would also have been a Big 3 era .....

 

[Raz11]

Since Nadal and Djokovic is born 5 years earlier than they will be playing in a faster conditions which should help Federer a bit.

It is valid that Federer may not have been as successful since he would not have been able to build his confidence against Nadal/Djokovic but it has been stated by them that they also improved trying to overcome Federer as well. Nadal/Djokovic may not have developed the level they did had it not been for peak Fed being the obstractle thus Federer may have been able to build his confidence anyway. I think Federer would have had plently of time to develop his hard/grass confidence since they all started to win on hard/grass consistently around the same age anyway.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

wow, just 1 vote for Djokovic... ?

I thought Federer is underrated here, but it seems Nole is actually underrated ....

If Fed fans don't understand why they are called arrogant, here is an example. They constantly assert that Fed is the best despite all of the evidence and statistics to the contrary, they just can't come to terms with the fact that he is 3rd out of the 3.

 

[Spencer Gore]

Even Mr @Spencer Gore knows that in all probability, if they are aged same then every year the first Slam goes to Nole, the second goes to Nadal, the 3rd goes to Federer as Federer is the better man on Grass than those 2 and grass was faster that time, then comes the 4th slam which was also pretty quick in the 2000s, so who benefits from that other then the guy who just won wimbledon ????

The grass wasn't faster.

 

[Dean Winchester]

The grass wasn't faster.

2002-2005, certainly faster than what was after 05

 

[Spencer Gore]

2002-2005, certainly faster than what was after 05

What change did the ground staff make after 2005?

 

[mike danny]

Thats one viewpoint and i completely respect that.
The question is hypothetical and there so many variations that could emerge that nobody knows for sure what would have happened.

Roger might have been obliverated as he wont get a time when these two are not developed.

Or as i hypothesize, roger wont have the disadvantage of being 5 years older and dominate.

Or something else..who knows

Fed being obliterated if he was the same age as Djokodal is peak TTW. As if Fedr is Dimitrov LMAO.

 

[The_Order]

What change did the ground staff make after 2005?

They made it like clay, how else do you think Nadal got to the final?