If there was just one as talented as any of the Big 3

[jussumman]

Consider today the Big 3 cancel out (or have for most of their careers) each other's total slams, but imagine in the future there is just one as talented, he should dominate and accumulate 40 slams+ over a 15-20 year period and surpass any of these with a "weaker era" situation. Agree?

 

[dumb-person]

Hard to say. I can see someone getting bored of padding slams by competing with mugs. Fedalovic racked up their numbers because they were motivating each other, i remember when i was playing badminton at my local club i started together with my friend, we quickly became one of the best u12 juniors in our state, we were practicing so hard without even thinking of stopping, lot of great matches between us, lot of bad blood too despite being a good friends, we wanted to beat each other so badly. Our rivalry motivated us for like 5 years until we were 15-16 then i caught a bad injury and had a 6 months break, meanwhile my friend changed school, got a girlfriend, left everything and when i came back i had it hard to keep my motivation levels high and deep inside i felt alone so when i was 16 1/2 i stopped training too.

 

[Swingmaster]

Hard to say. I can see someone getting bored of padding slams by competing with mugs. Fedalovic racked up their numbers because they were motivating each other, i remember when i was playing badminton at my local club i started together with my friend, we quickly became one of the best u12 juniors in our state, we were practicing so hard without even thinking of stopping, lot of great matches between us, lot of bad blood too despite being a good friends, we wanted to beat each other so badly. Our rivalry motivated us for like 5 years until we were 15-16 then i caught a bad injury and had a 6 months break, meanwhile my friend changed school, got a girlfriend, left everything and when i came back i had it hard to keep my motivation levels high and deep inside i felt alone so when i was 16 1/2 i stopped training too.

And look at players like Thiem and Osaka. Taking long breaks when they should be peaking.

 

[Lleytonstation]

Consider today the Big 3 cancel out (or have for most of their careers) each other's total slams, but imagine in the future there is just one as talented, he should dominate and accumulate 40 slams+ over a 15-20 year period and surpass any of these with a "weaker era" situation. Agree?

Not possible. They would have to win too many matches and would be burnt out.

 

[Oval_Solid]

paul sampras will be his name

 

[HailDjokovic]

No one is reaching even 10 slams without a consistent rival to motivate them.

 

[Rafa4LifeEver]

Consider today the Big 3 cancel out (or have for most of their careers) each other's total slams, but imagine in the future there is just one as talented, he should dominate and accumulate 40 slams+ over a 15-20 year period and surpass any of these with a "weaker era" situation. Agree?

Forget big3 level players, sir. Even a Wawrinka or Delpo level talent would be fine for me.

 

[jussumman]

paul sampras will be his name

Not Leo Borg?

 

[Cortana]

No one is reaching even 10 slams without a consistent rival to motivate them.

This. Main reason why they all got to 20.

People talk how Federer would have won 30+ slams without Djokovic and Nadal. Truth is that he would probably retire at 15-17 slams, no matter what age.

 

[titoelcolombiano]

OP has described Federer's situation 2003 - 2007 between the Pete / Andre and Nadal / Djokovic eras.

 

[daphne]

Consider today the Big 3 cancel out (or have for most of their careers) each other's total slams, but imagine in the future there is just one as talented, he should dominate and accumulate 40 slams+ over a 15-20 year period and surpass any of these with a "weaker era" situation. Agree?

Yeah, perhaps close to 100 slams. If not more.

 

[Fedforever]

I agree.

At some point, inevitably, someone will emerge who has the talent and mentality of a Fedalovic but with the luck to have no-one or maybe only one rival as good as him. The only thing that could prevent that is returning to surface variation.

 

[TearTheRoofOff]

OP has described Federer's situation 2003 - 2007 between the Pete / Andre and Nadal / Djokovic eras.

ahawhawhawhawhawhahwahwawhawhaw.

Exceptional poasting.

 

[blablavla]

Consider today the Big 3 cancel out (or have for most of their careers) each other's total slams, but imagine in the future there is just one as talented, he should dominate and accumulate 40 slams+ over a 15-20 year period and surpass any of these with a "weaker era" situation. Agree?

keep in mind that the Big 3 were helped immensely by:
- surface homogenization
- lack of equipment regulation, i.e. ever stiffer rackets with bigger head size, poly strings
and then ATP and ITF decided to change the balls as well, and change the grass at Wim
and as well scrapping the indoor carpets

so, all in all, same baseline play is now the winning strategy for every tournament, every surface

that's quite different to the past, when clay required baseline play, while grass demanded S&V, and there was a variety of fast and not that fast hard courts

if one day ATP and ITF will see that people are bored of the countless defense botting in tennis, and they will bring back some variety, or add some limitations on equipment, it won't be that easy for 1 player to dominate 11 months of tennis during 15-20 years

 

[jussumman]

Yeah, perhaps close to 100 slams. If not more.

Settle down lol A 15 year period with 2- 3 slams per year comes out to about 38 (far from 100) and the motivation (lacking competitive Bigs playing with them at same time) would be surpassing the Big 3 as much as possible.

 

[Deleted member 771911]

The talented one did come but it never happened for him. Still, I’ll stan Dimi to the end.

 

[jussumman]

keep in mind that the Big 3 were helped immensely by:
- surface homogenization
- lack of equipment regulation, i.e. ever stiffer rackets with bigger head size, poly strings
and then ATP and ITF decided to change the balls as well, and change the grass at Wim
and as well scrapping the indoor carpets

so, all in all, same baseline play is now the winning strategy for every tournament, every surface

that's quite different to the past, when clay required baseline play, while grass demanded S&V, and there was a variety of fast and not that fast hard courts

if one day ATP and ITF will see that people are bored of the countless defense botting in tennis, and they will bring back some variety, or add some limitations on equipment, it won't be that easy for 1 player to dominate 11 months of tennis during 15-20 years

Very good points. Future changes are unpredictable and this estimate assumes homogenization.

 

[daphne]

Settle down lol A 15 year period with 2- 3 slams per year comes out to about 38 (far from 100) and the motivation (lacking competitive Bigs playing with them at same time) would be surpassing the Big 3 as much as possible.

4x25=100