Is Federer's 5X3 Massively Underrated?

M

McEnroeisanartist

Hall of Fame
After Federer won this year's Australian Open, I saw a lot of news articles that stated Federer was the first man to win at least 5 titles at 3 of the Grand Slams.

This seemed to really downplay his achievement as they didn't provide context on how extraordinary this achievement is.

No other man has even won at least 3 titles at 3 of the Grand Slams. Think about that. Sampras not even good enough to win 3 Australian Opens. Djokovic not even good enough to win 3 U.S. Opens. Nadal not even good enough to win 3 titles at a Grand Slam other than the French Open.

Put another way for his rivals to achieve this: Djokovic would have to win 2 more Wimbledons and 3 more U.S. Opens. Nadal would have to win 3 more Wimbledons and 3 more US Opens.
 
Yeah, it was underrated by the news that Federer won his 18th Grand Slam, extending his record. Simple as that.

His 5x3 is impossible for anyone else to have, since it requires 15 slams. The next greatest slam count is 14. It's hugely significant and highlights his consistency on all hard courts and his dominance on grass.
 
Overrated, because of a paucity of wins at the French on the most unique surface, only squeaking through when Nadal had been eliminated.
 
El Diablo said:
Overrated, because of a paucity of wins at the French on the most unique surface, only squeaking through when Nadal had been eliminated.
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Please elaborate . What does winning less of FO have to do with lesser mention of 5* 3 ? Or your contention is because he has only 1 FO there should be no talk of the other 3 majors ?

Or you just need some ointment for your rear ?
 
Tennisanity said:
Yes, 5x3 is vastly underrated. Along with Djokovic's 4 in a row. Everyone claims how the CYGS is the greatest achievement, then when Djoko accomplishes pretty much the CYGS (yes I know technically not, take it easy Laver farts) no one talks about it.
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I think having to play Murray in RG final kinda removed the shine from winning the CYGS. If he had beaten a proper clay courter like Nadal, hype would have been much bigger.
 
Gazelle said:
I think having to play Murray in RG final kinda removed the shine from winning the CYGS. If he had beaten a proper clay courter like Nadal, hype would have been much bigger.
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To me that sounds like a terrible argument. You can only play who is in front of you. There was also nothing shabby about the current #1 (and then #2, after Novak himself), who was having a great clay season. Besides, he beat that very Nadal the year before.
 
merwy said:
To me that sounds like a terrible argument. You can only play who is in front of you. There was also nothing shabby about the current #1 (and then #2, after Novak himself), who was having a great clay season. Besides, he beat that very Nadal the year before.
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Apart from the first set, that match looked like how a Federer-Roddick RG final would have looked like.
 
"Federer's 5x3 is Massively Underrated" posted by the OP three months ago. And now this. What does it mean when you keep banging the same drum perseveratively like this??
 
Tennisanity said:
Yes, 5x3 is vastly underrated. Along with Djokovic's 4 in a row. Everyone claims how the CYGS is the greatest achievement, then when Djoko accomplishes pretty much the CYGS (yes I know technically not, take it easy Laver farts) no one talks about it.
Click to expand...

Serena did that twice and people still try to put Court and Graf over her. Tennis fans are hypocritical morons.
 
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merwy said:
To me that sounds like a terrible argument. You can only play who is in front of you. There was also nothing shabby about the current #1 (and then #2, after Novak himself), who was having a great clay season. Besides, he beat that very Nadal the year before.
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You're absolutely right, but at 2013 FO, nobody watched the FO final. The semi was the climax.
 
El Diablo said:
Overrated, because of a paucity of wins at the French on the most unique surface, only squeaking through when Nadal had been eliminated.
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So Roger and everyone else should have just stopped playing the moment Rafa was beaten fair and square? It is a tournament. It is not some boxing match. If Rafa was so good then he should have stopped Roger every single time. The GOAT showed his resilience and got it in the end.
 
Gazelle said:
Apart from the first set, that match looked like how a Federer-Roddick RG final would have looked like.
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As a Djoker fan, this is a fair statement.

Nonetheless I think we gotta give it a pass considering 1) he straight settled Rafa out of RG the prior year and 2) he suffered some unfortunate luck in failing to beat Rafa for some Prior RG titles. We all know which one... no need to... Point. Fingers. (LOL)

On topic I think the 5x3 is underrated in that somehow I hadn't really heard it mentioned before now. No doubt it was but it was drown out by 18
 
McEnroeisanartist said:
After Federer won this year's Australian Open, I saw a lot of news articles that stated Federer was the first man to win at least 5 titles at 3 of the Grand Slams.

This seemed to really downplay his achievement as they didn't provide context on how extraordinary this achievement is.

No other man has even won at least 3 titles at 3 of the Grand Slams. Think about that. Sampras not even good enough to win 3 Australian Opens. Djokovic not even good enough to win 3 U.S. Opens. Nadal not even good enough to win 3 titles at a Grand Slam other than the French Open.

Put another way for his rivals to achieve this: Djokovic would have to win 2 more Wimbledons and 3 more U.S. Opens. Nadal would have to win 3 more Wimbledons and 3 more US Opens.
Click to expand...

Let's put it to the test!

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/greatest-mens-open-era-achievement-poll.588395/
 
tennisaddict said:
Please elaborate . What does winning less of FO have to do with lesser mention of 5* 3 ? Or your contention is because he has only 1 FO there should be no talk of the other 3 majors ?

Or you just need some ointment for your rear ?
Click to expand...

Kind of the same reason why people keep giving Fed a hard time by not beating Nadal for his 09 FO. Its "not real"!
 
El Diablo said:
Overrated, because of a paucity of wins at the French on the most unique surface, only squeaking through when Nadal had been eliminated.
Click to expand...

Easy to forgive him for this as Nadal is the undisputed Clay GOAT. If not for him Fed would have several RG titles. Its not like he has losing to any random player on clay.
 
El Diablo said:
Overrated, because of a paucity of wins at the French on the most unique surface, only squeaking through when Nadal had been eliminated.
Click to expand...

Yes, "overrated" when no one else in the history of the open era has done it. Pete didn't even get close to doing this since he "only" won 2 AO's.

And please enlighten us why clay is a more "unique" surface than grass. If your thesis is correct, explain why clay (supposedly so "unique") has three Masters 1000 events and countless lesser tournaments, while grass has no Masters 1000's and only a handful of tourneys.
 
But is 5x3 better than 15,0,0? Or 10,5,0?

What does the distribution tell us over and beyond the total count?
 
tennisaddict said:
I think you are intelligent enough to answer your own question
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But I see both arguments here a lot. On the one hand all that matters are the number of wins. On the other that the distribution of wins is more important.

What is better, 16 Wimbledons or 4 CGS?
 
GabeT said:
But I see both arguments here a lot. On the one hand all that matters are the number of wins. On the other that the distribution of wins is more important.

What is better, 16 Wimbledons or 4 CGS?
Click to expand...

16 GS in one event would be a crazy stat. For me that is insane
 
It's unreal, mightily impressive, about as impressive as winning 3*3 in the pre-poly times.;)
 
5 x 3 is actually 5 x 4 .If you look at the top 5 titles (Slams + WTF) then Federer has won 4 out of 5 of those titles at least 5 times. No one is even remotely close to this.

Relatively over-rated is this idea of the double career slam. I wouldn't rate that anywhere near Federer's 5 x 4.

Tim
 
timnz said:
5 x 3 is actually 5 x 4 .If you look at the top 5 titles (Slams + WTF) then Federer has won 4 out of 5 of those titles at least 5 times. No one is even remotely close to this.

Relatively over-rated is this idea of the double career slam. I wouldn't rate that anywhere near Federer's 5 x 4.

Tim
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This is true, since the double career slam is 8 slams in total. The 5x3 is nearly double that, at 15. I don't see how anyone would ever say they would prefer to win 2 slams at each event over 5 at "only" 3.

3xA
 
Tennisanity said:
Yes, 5x3 is vastly underrated. Along with Djokovic's 4 in a row. Everyone claims how the CYGS is the greatest achievement, then when Djoko accomplishes pretty much the CYGS (yes I know technically not, take it easy Laver farts) no one talks about it.
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Did you see his competition? Incredible achievement yeah, but Murray and 34 y/o Fed were his main competition lol.
 
Winning three of the four slams at least five times! I've been hyping 5X3 since it happened! It's an unreal achievement, and very underrated.
 
For sure 5x3 is underrated, even more so when we consider nobody else has 4x3.

Perhaps we talk of 2x4 more because we have 3 active ATGs who can do it, 2 of them since the US Open in 2013 - it seems more achievable, thus we talk about it more. For instance, Fed had 1 chance to do it it (2011), while Rafa had 2 shots (2014 and 2017), considering only the finals they reached after having at least 2 wins in each of the other 3 slams.

Of course, Fed is unlikely to ever do it, so Rafa fans looked (look?) at 2x4 as a way to bring him closer to Fed (or further ahead, depending on who you are and how you think) in the all time greats discussion. Nole only won RG last year and was much behind in any conversation before that despite his great achievements, but the hype was great after he finally lifted that trophy

In any case, let me ask you a question: forgetting all other carreer stats and who the players I'm talking talking about are, how close to or further ahead is 5x3 from/than 10x1 + 2x2 + 1x1?
 
timnz said:
5 x 3 is actually 5 x 4 .If you look at the top 5 titles (Slams + WTF) then Federer has won 4 out of 5 of those titles at least 5 times. No one is even remotely close to this.

Relatively over-rated is this idea of the double career slam. I wouldn't rate that anywhere near Federer's 5 x 4.

Tim
Click to expand...
How about 5x3 vs 15 Wimbledons? Or are they the same?
 
Rogerjohnson81 said:
Federer is the player with a complete game and ownership of a wide array of slams at different tournaments. Nadal dominated clay but nothing else. Djokovic dominated the Aussie Open but didn't dominate anything else. Fed dominated Grass, the US Open and Aussie Open.
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Don't forget the 5 French Open Finals ;)
 
I don't think it is underrated. I think it is brought up constantly as one of the best examples of Federer's amazing achievements in the game. People (rightly) rate it highly.

I think Nadal's FO record is more underrated. It's often only brought up to discredit his slam count for lack of variety, rather than being appreciated as it should be as one of the freakiest records in tennis history, and one that is unlikely to ever be replicated.
 
Tennisanity said:
Yes, 5x3 is vastly underrated. Along with Djokovic's 4 in a row. Everyone claims how the CYGS is the greatest achievement, then when Djoko accomplishes pretty much the CYGS (yes I know technically not, take it easy Laver farts) no one talks about it.
Click to expand...
It's the next best thing. Until someone other than Laver accomplishes the Calendar Slam, the non-calendar Slam achieved by Djokovic is the second best accomplishment the sport has to offer.
 
If Djoker or Nadal manages 2X4, then that's competition to 5X3 . Any stat related to winning all 4 has a lot of wightage.

Else 5 titles(atleast) at 3 different slams rule. People also forget one tremendous achievement. Two slams he won have 5 consecutive times.
Its so so tough to win 1 slam 5 consecutive times. Borg, Nadal I reckon are the only others to do it. And Roger has done it at two different slams.
 
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