You are comparing roddick to an overrated german S&V who did not have to beat Federer or Sampras for that matter, to win his crowns.
Infamous Sampras hater Rusedski: Federers's serve is in the category as Sampras
- Thread starter Heuristic
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You are comparing roddick to an overrated german S&V who did not have to beat Federer or Sampras for that matter, to win his crowns.
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
You are comparing Becker to an overrated American who didn't beat Federer to win anything.
Becker wouldn't have beaten Federer either.
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
PrinceMoron
Legend
Saw Rusedki wandering around Wimbledon
Nobody noticed
Nobody asked for his autograph
Nobody noticed
Nobody asked for his autograph
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SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Brutal man. I would have asked him to sign my PS85
That's strange. Is it because he is of Candian descent? The Britts are crazy about tennis
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
It's because he's a zero.
Dolgopolov85
G.O.A.T.
Eh, he had to beat Edberg and that sure beats having to play Pioline or Roddick.
Bobby Jr
G.O.A.T.
Again, conditions changed over time to the extent that, generally, raw serving stats have dampened somewhat.
I compared their stats year for year to each other. Even past his prime his were better.
ICanBeSerious
Rookie
Here is a serve that sampras had not see in his life..
moonballs
Hall of Fame
Pete does have a wry sense of humor.
I remember one year he was facing a first time Russian finalist in Wimbledon final. The guy apparently didn’t pack enough shoes so he had to ask for some shoes from Safin. When asked whether he would be gracious enough to loan his opponent some of his shoes, Pete said yeah sure I will give him some clay court shoes.
Funny you should bring that up. His second serve is what hhurts him the the most in comparison to the big servers. He wins a lot of points off it because he is the greatest player of all time from the baseline. It doesn't need to be as good as the big servers, and it isn't.
Even taking height into consideration, it is nowhere near the best second serve's.
Mostly high clocks on the radar and fairly high distribution of aces (don't need to be monstrous, some are content with body serving if it works), and of course precision but that goes hand in hand with ace percentage.
Dolgopolov85
G.O.A.T.
lol, no, all that happened is Sampras took aggressive a return position and tried to step into it. Yeah, sure, with guys like Goran or Krajicek around, somehow Sampras never saw a Fed second serve in his life, eh?
ICanBeSerious
Rookie
Sampras never had the variety of fed's serve specially kicks and slices
lol. Sampras had a great kick and spin serve which is part of why it was so darn difficult to deal with even though the pace was manageable. He also had good precision and disguise.
TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
Raw serving stats have improved exponentially tour-wide, to a comical degree thanks to poly. Not even generally...completely, across the board, on every surface. The conventional wisdom is that the conditions favour returners but the data overwhelmingly refutes this. The courts have slowed down some but that’s compensated for by the emergence of poly.
(which isn’t to say that a guy like Federer is benefited by these conditions, as poly tends to blunt the effectiveness of an all-court/s+v game in favour of the big serve + 1)
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SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Didn't have the benefit of modern sport science or homogenized conditions to favor his style like Fred.
D
Deleted member 733170
Guest
Sampras should be going to church every day to count his blessings that courts weren’t as homogenised as they are today. If they were he would have had half the trophy cabinet.
arvind13
Professional
on the 90s post wimbledon american hardcourts and indoors I see pete besting djokovic. at the 90s rebound ace AO with 90s tennis balls, i see them being even. on Indian wells, miami and clay i see djokovic besting pete.
arvind13
Professional
homogenised can be slow or fast. If courts in 90s all played like grass and indoors of the 90s, sampras would probably have double the trophys and atleast one calender slam
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Not if they were homogenized in his favor ala Fredster. PETE almost had 16-17 majors under varied conditions, just imagine every court playing as a grasscourt.
D
Deleted member 307496
Guest
Courier on grass is a joke. Goran is worse than Roddick. Becker was past his prime and making errors every 2 seconds.
Sampras has a losing record against LLEYTON HEWITT on grass lmfao.
Oh and Agassi is less accomplished on grass than him too and worse on the surface.
Bobby Jr
G.O.A.T.
No, you compared 1st serve points won which includes, massively, the play that backs up the serve. A player with a great forehand can use it to boost the winning percentage of a lesser serve than someone who has a better serve but can't back it up quite as well.
Your attempt to use stats in a definitive way like that shows the serious limitations of your argument.
Notwithstanding, the year you cited for Roddick was played in broadly faster overall conditions than any year of Federer's prime which helps all server stats - something I shouldn't have to explain yet again.
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
So basically in no way like Roddick lol
Bobby Jr
G.O.A.T.
Context needed. On the already slow courts (clay) serve stats will have improved probably owing to giving more and more players the ability to serve in a way which puts all returners at a comparative disadvantage. On the previously quicker courts - much of the season's hard courts - were the ones that were progressively slowed (courts and balls) servers have had less outright advantage because it pushed them towards clay-like conditions. The net result was a general disadvantage where big serves were most beneficial historically.
A book-ended case in point example can be seen at Wimbledon this year. It was notably slower conditions overall and the big servers struggled to do well in the tournament so much so that 6 of the last 8 players could not be considered big servers (just Federer and Querrey). 3 of them were outright clay court specialists who barely win anything significant off clay (Goffin, Pella, Bautista Agut). Now look at the amount of aces/unreturned serves served by the big servers throughout the tournament. They declined significantly.
The slowing of courts has diminished the effectiveness of big servers more than the advent of poly has helped return games as a block effort.
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Lol the same Hewitt who was using Fred like a ballboy at the same time? Same age? Lol stop while you're ahead.
Courier beat Edberg on his way to the finals. Who did Roddick beat in 2004? 2005? That's what I thought.
Becker won a slam the year after Pete beat him, unlike any of the clowns Fred faced in his first 3 years.
Edit: Agassi's Wimbledon results>>Hewitt's. Thanks for playing.
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TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
No, actually, the improvements are, if anything, only as and perhaps even LESS pronounced on clay. I’ve examined the context very extensively; believe me, I was in your camp (with regards to this) for many years.
The last paragraph is verifiably false, and ace %’s, unreturned %’s (less data on this but bear with me), first serve points won, second serve points won, first serves landed in etc have all increased massively on grass/HC as well, with double fault rates plummeting.
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Bobby Jr
G.O.A.T.
Only with a rose-tinted view of it... For example:
Mostly because of the next shot after the first serve being so much improved by modern strings
Again, mostly because of the next shot after the serve being so much improved by modern strings
And yet again, mostly because the ability to get your serve in had been significantly improved with modern strongs. More spin = more margin = easier to land with fewer errors.
The key here is that disambiguating serve stats from factors other than the serve itself is extremely difficult and often misleading in various directions.
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D
Deleted member 307496
Guest
Sampras had the advantage for the most part when he played Hewitt and he still lost to him twice on grass.
'93 Edberg, lol. Guy was practically finished at that point.
Wow, Becker won a slam in '96 beating MICHAEL CHANG. I'm real impressed. Love how you forget to say Becker won a slow hard slam and we're talking about fast grass which is essentially a different game.
And LOL. Hewitt is better than Agassi on grass as a whole. Agassi lost to freaking Rafter two years in a row.
Cashman
Hall of Fame
I'm reluctant to read too much into serve stats that try and compare pre- and post-poly eras. The extra accuracy available to servers these days has completely revolutionised the way first and second serves are used.
I mean, there's a reason nobody was serving like Isner and Karlovic in the '90s despite the courts being much faster then than now. The strings have made consistent, high-accuracy servebotting a viable strategy.
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SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Federer has also lost to Hewitt twice on grass, one in 2010 - LOL
'93 washed up Edberg had as many Wimbledons as Fred's greatest rival Nadal. Also made the Aussie final that year, same # of finals "prime" Roddick made either year he played Fred, lmao
If Becker was capable of beating a grinder to win the Australian Open, what you called a slow hard slam, then he definitely wasn't missing after every other shot was he
Wimbledon is the end all be all of grass. Agassi has the better credentials there, he's the better grass, Wimbledon and overall player.
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D
Deleted member 307496
Guest
Federer doesn't have a losing record to Hewitt on grass though LOL.Federer has also lost to Hewitt twice on grass, one in 2010 - LOL
'93 washed up Edberg had as many Wimbledons as Fred's greatest rival Nadal. Also made the Aussie and Wimby final that year, double the # of finals "prime" Roddick made either year he played Fred, lmao
If Becker was capable of beating a grinder to win the Australian Open, what you called a slow hard slam, then he definitely wasn't missing after every other shot was he
Wimbledon is the end all be all of grass. Agassi has the better credentials there, he's the better grass, Wimbledon and overall player.
Edberg was washed up though, that's the point.
Becker's serve sucked during the '95 Wimbledon final, there's no ifs and buts about it. Stats support that argument too by the way and I've also watched the freaking match.
It's really not. Even so, Agassi has slightly better credentials at Wimbledon than Hewitt. How many times was Agassi stopped by Sampras at Wimbledon? Twice? Hewitt was stopped at least three or four times. Unlike Agassi his draws sucked, not to mention he should've gotten the second seed in '05 over Roddick (going by ranking AND form at the time) otherwise he'd have an extra final to back up his resume there.
Agassi and Hewitt definitely are comparable on grass even though Andre is the much better player overall.
TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
Why is it MOSTLY the next shot and not the one that preceded it? I don’t really accept your premise. The serve + 1 has indeed replaced the serve + volley as the percentage point-finisher, I agree with that and have dedicated many posts to arguing as much, but I don’t believe the put-away forehand has improved more than the serve. Especially since it follows that the forehand return has also improved, in absolute terms. I believe it is a mixture of both things, but with more emphasis being placed on the serve.
Also, I’m not sure how big first serves being easier to land in is anything but a point in my favour here. My argument was, after all, that poly has benefited serving more than returning. Tour-wide fs %’s increasing dramatically (as well as every statistic across the board, including aces and unreturned %’s, not just the ones you have quoted) slants things in favour of the serve. You more or less stated truisms that support my position in that paragraph.
No disrespect meant, but you were objectively wrong on your initial claim that serving stats have dampened, then also wrong on your claim that they’ve mainly improved on clay courts; at the very least a concession could have accompanied this more measured, revised take. Again, apologies if I’m sounding short but I’ve had a variation of this convo for the past few years with different people and when you couple that with failing to acknowledge instances where you were wrong in favour of tinkering with your position, it just makes me wanna tap out.
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SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
He does to Rafter though
Washed up Edberg had comparable results to prime Roddick the year Courier took him out. That's the point.
Sampras served below 60 percent throughout that match, still got the win. Roddick also didn't serve well in 2005, and chose to hover a foot in front of the net and watch with awe as Fed passed him over and over again. His forehand sucked in every match onwards, but you already know this. Becker was still a much, much more accomplished grasscourter and player.
D
Deleted member 307496
Guest
When he was on the tour for like 6 months, sure.He does to Rafter though
Washed up Edberg had comparable results to prime Roddick the year Courier took him out. That's the point.
Roddick also didn't serve well in 2005, and chose to hover a foot in front of the net and watch with awe as Fed passed him over and over again. His forehand sucked in every match onwards, but you already know this. Becker was still a much, much more accomplished grasscourter and player.
Edberg is obviously the much better player, I'm not even disputing that - but to use him as a "big name" at a time when guys like Jonas Bjorkman were cracking the top 4 is not doing you justice my dude.
Roddick wasn't the best opponent Federer faced that Wimbledon, it was Hewitt. Like I said he should've gotten the second seed going by ranking and form at the time, he lost early in '03 and got stopped by Federer in the quarters the year before but that doesn't dispute the fact he was playing WAY better come '05.
Becker's better than both but let's not talk up that final, he wasn't playing well in it. And that '96 AO victory isn't wonderful by any means. A slam is a slam but beating Michael Chang at the AO isn't great IMO.
Bobby Jr
G.O.A.T.
Not so. I argued fairly explicitly that comparing the serve stats from Fed's prime vs Sampras's prime made Sampras's serve look better by dint of nothing other than the surfaces massively complimenting servers. And they did so to a greater extent than the advent of modern strings has clawed back.
And to that point to look at Sampras and Fed's serve stats to debunk Rusedski or anyone else's claims that Fed might be in some way a better server than Sampras is leaning on stats that were collected in such different scenarios (courts and strings) as to make definitive calls based on those stats ultimately flawed.
It is fairly obvious that if Sampras played on the slower courts (and balls) of this era his serve would have been comparativley less effective than any benefits he (and everyone else) would have gained from using poly. Not least because he would have also played far more matches in situations which were wholly unsuited to his strokes and tactics. If he'd been forced to be more of a grinder then he would have been yet even worse off.
The whole finer stats argument defies empirical evidence we have about how much zippy courts benefit players who have big serves. Even to this day we see at random events where the courts are particularly fast players playing above grade more than usual... and vice versa when courts are unusually slow (or slower than normal) as was the case at this year's Wimbledon.
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SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Let's not talk up Pete beating a 4 time slam champion who beat a 2 time Wimbledon champ en route to the final, a Wimbledon finalist and eventual champion, and a 6 time slam champ and 3 time Wimbledon champion and 7 time finalist who would win another slam after that defeat and instead harp on the virtues of Fed beating an injured mug and one slam wonder twice...sounds right.
Bjorkman made the semis of Wimbledon in 2006 at 34. You aren't doing yourself any favors by using him as an example of a weak tour.
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Deleted member 307496
Guest
You carry on about Agassi on grass so why not rofl.
Bjorkman didn't touch the top 4 after that time though. Wonder why... perhaps it's because the tour was slightly more structured in later ages? 06 was a sucky year too by the way.
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
That amazingly structured tour allowed a 34 year old doubles specialist to crack the Wimbledon semis. Prime Bjorkman would have won a calendar slam no doubt.
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Deleted member 307496
Guest
Federer is cited as being at his peak at 34 so why can't Bjorkman have reached his? Schuletter reached the 08 Wimbledon semis, as did Safin.
mxmx
Hall of Fame
And Sampras as good as what Federer did outside the serve...
SaintPetros
Hall of Fame
Good point. So Djokovic is better than Fred, as we suspected all along.
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TheFifthSet
G.O.A.T.
Well firstly, you explicitly stated that raw serving statistics have been dampened as a response to a poster that cited Roddick’s superior serving statistics in the early 2000s. You disregarded that rather substantial advantage Roddick held for what reason other than thinking the raw statistics are lower now, sans any adjustment even being needed to be made?
Raonic’s serve is of a similar quality to Roddick’s and his backcourt game is worse yet he holds at just a high a rate today. He is no quality grinder either yet his serving statistics have held up just fine, and are better than everyone’s from the 90s by a country mile (even limiting it to the top 10, he holds up alright: 86% of sgw.)
I think if the conditions of yesteryear complemented servers, they would complement serving...less so service games won than statistics that are less dependent on surrounding factors (like aces, unreturnables, df frequency,
It hasn’t been whittled down to a science, yes, but this aversion to making definitive statements was notably absent when you stated that Federer’s serving statistics would be as impressive as Pete’s given the appropriate adjustments.
In point of fact, the top servers of today all hold with a far, far greater frequency than the ones of yesteryear do. Which statistics, specifically, uptick for Fed in your scenario and under what conditions? If he were to play in the 90s, with a full gut set-up?
It doesn’t add up that serving statistics in the 90s need to be adjusted to reflect the reality of the serves effectiveness as a stand-alone shot compared with this era when those aforementioned statistics were that much lower in the 90s. In every category, not just sgw%.
Disagree. He’d have more free points off the serve, not less, and the margin the strings enable would allow him to serve land his first serve in the mid
60s at the very least.
Where he would suffer is off the return.
Which also fails to make it like-for-like. Reflexively, I operate under the assumption that this hypothetical Sampras would be given ample opportunity to adjust to these conditions, perhaps even growing up in them.
I agree with that. Sampras would be a worse player today, in large part due to his (relative) woes off the return and from the back of the court.
These aren’t really fine stats that one has to zoom in on, though. They’re fairly apparent the instant one examines them, and in every aspect of serving.
Your point is well-taken, but I will add the disclaimer that a beefed up serve benefits everyone, not just big servers. These same grinders whose serves would have gotten attacked in the 90s can spin in a respectably-paced delivery in the 110s at a fairly high %, making a slow-court game a little more tenable on faster courts.
I don’t argue that today’s conditions and strings aid fast-court play...just serving, to a disproportionate degree. The return of serve and quality of passing shots have also improved, among other things (making s + v a less viable strategy).
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mxmx
Hall of Fame
Funny how people today like to call the likes of Edberg or Becker finished when someone like Federer plays so well at his age. Who says these players were not great at older ages either?
Please watch the whole match between Roddick and McEnroe at wtt. I know it was only one set. People should watch it to gain some perspective (if the full match can be found on youtube - I could not find it and watched it on tv). Roddick did not seem like he was fooling around.
To me, modern tennis players in general has nothing compared talent wise to players before 1999.
mxmx
Hall of Fame
Did you ever watch Chang play? I think people on ttw like to bring out the bully inside because he's a short asian or something. Chang is extremely underrated here. Please watch this video of Chang vs Lendl, back when tennis was still proper tennis.
Born_to_slice
Legend
Well, there are his contemporaries ahead of him in 2nd serve stats. Agassi, Courier, Muster, Rios...
His not so impressive 2nd serve won % has more to do with his S&V style of play than strings. It's even harder to control 1st serve and that's where he's in that above 80% club with Karlovic, Raonic etc. And you can get a lot of control from tightly strung nat gut (most of the tour still use it in hybrid setups). Control of modern strings is much more important for ground strokes than serve anyway.
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