Infamous Sampras hater Rusedski: Federers's serve is in the category as Sampras

[Bobby Jr]

And Sampras as good as what Federer did outside the serve...

Aside from having an obviously worse forehand and vastly worse backhand you mean?

 

[mxmx]

As with watching old footage, you have to factor into old statistics that the conditions massively benefited servers to an extent that serve stats from the 90s, for example, need to be adjusted to make fair like-for-like comparisons with modern day conditions.

For almost all of Federer's career the courts and balls have been changing in-general to dampen his serving statistics. Sampras didn't have that handicap, especially when you consider how mediocre his career was on clay which meant he played an even far lower proportion of his total matches on clay than Federer, Isner, Raonic etc. Sampras played only 14% of his career matches on clay. Federer not only had to contend with overwhelmingly slower hard courts but also played 19.6% of his career matches on clay.

Adjust for surface, or court speeds (if a fair method was possible), and Federer's serve stats look every bit as good as Sampras's.

What I meant was that if Sampras benefitted in conditions, balls etc, so does Federer in his era. I think moreso because the Atp seems quite biased to the top players these days.

 

[SaintPetros]

Aside from having an obviously worse forehand and vastly worse backhand you mean?

Forehand was used differently for Petros than Fed so I wouldn't say its obviously worse but yeah the backhands are in a different category. Having said that, for veing essentially an aggressive baseliner with occassional allcourt tendencies Fed's backhand has not been that impressive until recently. I mean from 2004-2005 it would have made Lopez blush at times.

 

[Deleted member 744633]

He even said on another occasion that the only thing Sampras had that was better was his second serve.

This is a very silly statement refuted by every statistic known to man but It made me wonder...

Is there ANY big server Federer had a better serve than? Well, Marat Safin has similiar stats to Fed in aces and first serves won (actually slightly worse in first serves won, even).. So that would be it..

Federer IMO better than anyone else besides the big servers. Now that's a great serve but not in Sampras category.


Please make your vote

 

[PrinceMoron]

It's because he's a zero.

Think one old guy with a walking stick clocked him



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[Heuristic]

Think one old guy with a walking stick clocked him



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He's a loser! A US Open final! BAH, I can do that easily!

 

[Pmasterfunk]

Sampras' strenth wasn't only big serve! It was also excelent net play and flexibility, for which incredible reaction is a must! Rusedski is obviously full of it...also tell me if i am wrong, but isn't Sampras' running stretching forehand was a treat for the eyes?!

The running forehand was pretty glorious.