Level of competition: Djokovic era vs. Federer era

Djokovic2011 said:
Thing is, I'm still pretty confident that Djokovic would be winning as much as he is even if the younger gen had stepped up more. He's that good right now.
Click to expand...

World #1, absolutely. Winning as much as he is? Eh. He should look THAT good against the bozos he's playing.
 
mattosgrant said:
I think both eras were like many others, sometimes the competition was quite good, other times less so. I thought 2004-2005 was a pretty deep field. Critics will say there wasn't a 2nd all time great in his prime, but the top 10 were mostly all strong players and Roddick/Hewitt were a lot better players than many on this forum seem to think. 2006 and 2007 were less good. I consider 2008-2010 the Nadal era generally, but it was more a Federer era than a Djokovic one, with both being top players during it. 2008 and 2009 were pretty strong, 2010 definitely not.

2011-2013 were quite strong, 2014 less so, and since the start of 2015 pretty weak honestly.
Click to expand...
Agreed! Except 2007 was pretty strong, with both Federer and Nadal playing solid on all all surfaces, and the rise of Djokovic half way through the season.
 
VexlanderPrime said:
Its not tho. His "research" says nothing about the quality of tennis, only the consistency amongst whatever level of tennis is being played.

I don't understand why anyone cares what his compeitition is. Of what Prime Fed's comp was. Who cares? Both guy were LIGHT YEARS beyond thier competition. The level that David Ferrer is playing at says NOTHING about the level that Djoker is playing at. No relation what so ever. So who cares if a guy is playing against weak or strong competition. Just evaluate his level, forget about the competition.
Click to expand...

This part is very true except some people are incapable of being objective.
 
MichaelNadal said:
It's an annoying habit. I wouldn't know how else to make the hours go by at work. You should know above anyone since you're 2/3rds of the way to my post count in 1/4th of the time :p
Click to expand...
Haha, difference is I'm not saying I've given up on this great sport. Far from it just lately! :p
 
Djokovic2011 said:
No other players you've got your eye on babe? There must be someone that takes your fancy! :)
Click to expand...

Not anyone that can make it past the first round of anything, so no point really. Not even from a fanboy standpoint, but being completely real, the state of tennis is complete ass right now. And not in a good way.
 
MichaelNadal said:
What's to talk about? Both were << than Rafa's [emoji14]
Click to expand...
Nadal has won forty six clay court titles including 9 FO.There was no strong competitor, no clay court goat to challenge him.If there was another great clay court player, nadal's title count would be much low.So, nadal used the extremely weak era in clay.
 
nmanimaran15 said:
Nadal has won forty six clay court titles including 9 FO.There was no strong competitor, no clay court goat to challenge him.If there was another great clay court player, nadal's title count would be much low.So, nadal used the extremely weak era in clay.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, peak Fed and Ultron definitely suck on clay lol. :rolleyes:
They'd have 4 FO's each without him.
 
The_Order said:
LMFAO I haven't read through this whole thread yet but:

2011-2015 Berdych > 2004-2008 Hewitt and Roddick

That is astonishing!

Not to mention 2011-2015 Tsonga = 2004-2008 Roddick.

What a joke and people thought I was trolling all these years...
Click to expand...
Dude, some of these people believe peak Djoker would crush peak Nadal and Fed. They believe he's the greatest person to ever pick up a racquet.

Nadal on clay it should be stated.
 
zvelf said:
I appreciate the criticism, and there is something to it in that my method is inexact. However, because the performance of Djokovic's competitors are that much signficantly better than Federer's competitors, the point still stands that Djokovic is not playing in a weak era.
Click to expand...

I disagree. The results are flawed and therefor the conclusion si flawed too. Before trying to compare differents eras, which is very complicated, your method should at least be able to identify the most dangerous competitor for Djokovic/Federer, and it fails to do it:

You have Berdych more dangerous than Cilic, Ferrer more dangerous than Wawrinka, and worst of all, Murray and Federer more dangerous than Nadal, who won only 5 slams, beating Novak 4 times! Do you think this describe accurately the threats for Djokovic?

Likewise, Safin and Djokovic are ranked too low among Federer's competition. After all they did defeat him twice.

So what your method do is measure who are the players who achieved the most in slam in these two time span, with a slightly biais toward consistency (in your ranking, a player who win a slam earn 7* more than a player who lose in the 1st round. In the atp ranking, he earn 20* more). It's totally correct to say that the player who have achieved more is the better player. But it's not automatically correct that he was the biggest threat. Players like Cilic, Safin, Del Potro Wawrinka, who are very erratics, are most of the time non-factor, but in some tournaments they win it all, unlike players like Ferrer or Murray or even Federer today. For a champion, if Djokovic play Cilic on fire at one tournament and Wawrinka on fire in next one, he face a harder competition than he face twice Murray or Ferrer.

Finally you will never convince anyone that we aren't now in a weaker era (not weak in absolute terms), in comparison with the late 2000's and early 2010's when Federer and Nadal where much better player than now. Both Federer and Djokovic have played in weaker eras and stronger eras, and both of them have been able to capitalize on the weaker one to win many slams. They didn't have the opportunity to play in weaker eras because they were lucky. They had the opportunity to play in weaker eras (once again relative to other eras) because they played at a very high level of a very long time, moreso than most other all time greats. More than Sampras, more than Borg, more than Agassi, more than Nadal, etc.

At the end of their career, it will be laughable to argue that they faced easy competition when Federer had to compete with Nadal and Djokovic in the second part of his career, when he was still playing at a level high enough to defeat more normal finalists (like Murray). Likewise Djokovic was playing at a slam winning level since 2007, and all he had to show for it are SF appearance because Nadal and Federer.
 
@OP
Well, it’s a nice informative statistic and I appreciate it, but it doesn’t have any decisive meaning in considering which era is weak or not.

That’s simply because a slam result is always just a relative thing compared to the abilities of all other players in the same era.

Theoretically, all the players 2-12 from 2004-2008 can be better than all the players 2-12 from 2011-2015 and vice versa, and still a statistic like this won’t be the slightest indicator of which is the case in reality.

It’s the same with the dominance of one player against all others. A player who wins every match in a season can be mediocre himself and just play in a weak era OR can be the GOAT with even the 2nd best player of all time in his own era, if he is just so much ahead of anyone.

So such relative comparisons never mean too much. I even remember some typical “circular logic” failures here, where people wanted to show a player being good BECAUSE he lost more than another player!

The “logic” behind it was about as follows:
Player A and player B are both All-Time-Greats
Player A loses more than player B
So player A must have had the better competition
But player A is also an ATG, so he must have been better than player B, because he became it against better competition.

Everybody should see that this is a fallacy.
 
nmanimaran15 said:
Both federer and Djokovic are not great clay court players.If there was someone like Borg, it would be a different story. Nadal had the benefit of clay weak era.
Click to expand...

Just bc they don't slug around running behind the baseline doesn't mean anything. You don't make 4 and 5 FO finals sucking on clay. This opinion is based more on their style than reality.
 
Not everything is about Novak vs. Federer or some GOAT war.

Some of us are fond of past generations. I can guarantee that prime Roddick would be a way bigger threat to Novak and Federer right now than Murray is. Roddick was pushing peak Federer at Wimbledon way more than Murray did last year. And even started beating Federer again in 2008 after Federer started to slip slightly.

That's just one example. The early 2000s had a bunch of young guys in their primes. Imagine if Sampras had no new generation to deal with and was still a top player in 2006. People would consider it a stronger era based on name recognition. That's the logic people are using.
 
WhiskeyEE said:
That's just one example. The early 2000s had a bunch of young guys in their primes. Imagine if Sampras had no new generation to deal with and was still a top player in 2006. People would consider it a stronger era based on name recognition. That's the logic people are using.
Click to expand...

latest
 
VexlanderPrime said:
You realize I'm a Djoker fan right? I'm just not blindly waving pompoms, I'm being honest about his current competitors. Which in no way detract from his own level of play BTW.
Click to expand...

Which is totally irrelevant to me. I didn't post this because I'm a big Djokovic fanboy. I like Djokovic but he wouldn't be in a list of my 5 favorite tennis players. I posted this to stop claims that Djokovic has played in a weak era. 2015 may be comparatively weak, but so many people are acting like 2015 is the entire Djokovic era, which is ridiculous.

Reaching the QF is nothing to be proud of amongst supposed "elite" players. Stan SHOULD reach the QFs.
Click to expand...

Right, but you also shouldn't expect Stan to beat three of the greatest players of all time. There's elite and then there's the very top. Not everyone can be at the very top.

As to you other attempted point - you honestly think that Ninja and all the other trash players you mentioned are on Djoker's level and could beat him if he plays even his A- game? You're nuts. Murray, a great player in his own right, can't beat Djoker unless he's playing at a B+ level. Stanimal v. Djoker AO'13 - Even when stan is playing lights out, he loses to a A/A+ Djoker. These other scrubs literally cannot beat him unless his level is below average.
Click to expand...

Your criteria is nonsensical. If a bunch of players can beat Djokovic, who is arguably a top 5 player of all time, when Djokovic is playing very well, then we don't just have a strong era, we have the strongest era of all time. That standard shouldn't be necessary to say Djokovic played in a strong era. That said, 2008-2013 is a contender for strongest era of all time.
 
Last edited:
VexlanderPrime said:
Its not tho. His "research" says nothing about the quality of tennis, only the consistency amongst whatever level of tennis is being played.
Click to expand...

How can players who consistently reach the QF of majors and beyond not say anything about the quality of these tennis players? I already refuted NatF, who's saying stuff like "The toughness and level of play of an opponent in a match or tournament can't be gauged from how well they performed consistently across 5 years." Really? You two are just completely denying reality now. So Federer making it to 23 straight slam semis or better doesn't say anything about the quality of his tennis? That it only says something about his consistency? That's effectively what you two are saying. That's ridiculous on its face.
 
VexlanderPrime said:
And what is the correlation between the level of play of those names and 2006 Federer?

I'll save you some time. There is NONE. Hence the fatal flaw of this entire thread.
Click to expand...

So who Federer plays has no impact on how difficult his matches are and whether he is likely to win or lose? Good to know this is your stance. Would putting up a bunch of first graders against Federer say anything about his achievements if he beats them? Do you really believe this stuff?
 
zvelf said:
How can players who consistently reach the QF of majors and beyond not say anything about the quality of these tennis players? I already refuted NatF, who's saying stuff like "The toughness and level of play of an opponent in a match or tournament can't be gauged from how well they performed consistently across 5 years." Really? You two are just completely denying reality now. So Federer making it to 23 straight slam semis or better doesn't say anything about the quality of his tennis? That it only says something about his consistency? That's effectively what you two are saying. That's ridiculous on its face.
Click to expand...

You do realize that Sampras wasn't nearly as consistent as Federer in the Slams? He used to lose early in a lot of the Slams in his prime, even in his peak years - 1994 US, 1997 US or 1996 Wimbledon for example. Yet there are a lot of people out there who think that Sampras at his best would beat Federer at his best on fast surfaces? So yes, consistency doesn't tell you about the level of play a particular player can produce. Sampras is still regarded as one of the best players ever and is a contender to being the best player on fast surfaces of all time despite the losses that I've given (among other).

Btw being consistent now isn't a big deal because all the surfaces are closer to each other + there are no true fast courts anymore left on tour. Even Federer got upset a couple of times in 2003/2004 because a lot of the surfaces were still fast back then. Today, we see Djokovic, Federer, Murray, Berdych, Ferrer and crew make every quarter of just about every big tournament. It's boring.
 
ledwix said:
We can imagine breaking up Andy Murray and his AO final performances into five distinct players, each of which is only 1/5 as consistent as he. Would the level of play be higher or lower if we had five Andy Murrays who had less consistency? Neither, it would be the same. We would just not remember these flash-in-the-pan players, since they would have only made one slam final each and lost it. So there would be no great, consistent Murray player, but the competition would be just as much in any given match.

Murray is better than less consistent players career-wise, but not necessarily more difficult to defeat in a big match. For example, who has a better chance of beating Djokovic in a slam right now? Murray or Wawrinka? Recent history says it's Wawrinka, since while inconsistent, he employs a volatile enough strategy that he will have a chance some days. With Murray, he usually satisfies his seeding expectations but plays too safe to get over the finish line. Ferrer and Berdych have been similar.
Click to expand...

Murray satisfied his seeding expectations as the number 2 player in the world and somehow this means he's "not necessarily more difficult to defeat in a big match"? Uh, yes, it does mean he's more difficult to defeat in a big match. If consistency of strong play doesn't matter, then I guess players shouldn't care about seeding and tournaments can be complete random draw, right? Somehow I don't think that will go over too well. As for Wawrinka, yes, he's 2-6 against Djokovic in the last 2 years while Murray is 1-11, but Murray has the better overall head-to-head against Djokovic 9-22 instead of Wawrinka's 4-19! Somehow Wawrinka getting 1 more win than Murray in the past 2 years suddenly means Wawrinka is a much bigger threat. That's not really the case. Who just lost to Raonic and who in turn beat Raonic?
 
MichaelNadal said:
Bc it's just THAT damn weak lol. How can you not say something about it? Same dudes from Fed's era but 10 years older.
Click to expand...

I guess you can't read because the only people who were high achievers in both Federer's era and Djokovic's era are Nadal and Federer and Djokovic.
 
Flash O'Groove said:
I disagree. The results are flawed and therefor the conclusion si flawed too. Before trying to compare differents eras, which is very complicated, your method should at least be able to identify the most dangerous competitor for Djokovic/Federer, and it fails to do it:

You have Berdych more dangerous than Cilic, Ferrer more dangerous than Wawrinka, and worst of all, Murray and Federer more dangerous than Nadal, who won only 5 slams, beating Novak 4 times! Do you think this describe accurately the threats for Djokovic?

Likewise, Safin and Djokovic are ranked too low among Federer's competition. After all they did defeat him twice.
Click to expand...

You're misunderstanding what the data says. The data isn't about who specifically is more dangerous to Djokovic or Federer. It's about who's more dangerous to everyone. If more people are more dangerous to everyone, then it's a stronger era. If fewer people are dangerous to everyone, that is, they don't achieve as much, then it's a weaker era. My point is simply to refute claims that Djokovic has been playing in a weak era as Federer played in a notably weaker one.

So what your method do is measure who are the players who achieved the most in slam in these two time span, with a slightly biais toward consistency (in your ranking, a player who win a slam earn 7* more than a player who lose in the 1st round. In the atp ranking, he earn 20* more). It's totally correct to say that the player who have achieved more is the better player. But it's not automatically correct that he was the biggest threat. Players like Cilic, Safin, Del Potro Wawrinka, who are very erratics, are most of the time non-factor, but in some tournaments they win it all, unlike players like Ferrer or Murray or even Federer today. For a champion, if Djokovic play Cilic on fire at one tournament and Wawrinka on fire in next one, he face a harder competition than he face twice Murray or Ferrer.
Click to expand...

Murray has won 2 slams unlike Cilic and del Potro and before the end of his career, he'll have more than double the number of tournament titles than Cilic, del Potro, Safin, and Wawrinka. Djokovic is 14-0 against Cilic. Even 2014-205, Djokovic only leads Federer 8-6. Murray is only 1-11 against Djokovic in that time, but that's still better than Cilic. So no, Cilic is not a bigger threat to Djokovic than Federer or Murray. Stan at 2-6 in 2014-2015 may be a bigger threat than Murray but the sample size is too small to draw a definite conclusion. Stan is definitely a lesser threat than Federer. In any case, as I noted, the data isn't specifically about who's the biggest threat to Djokovic.
 
tennis_pro said:
You do realize that Sampras wasn't nearly as consistent as Federer in the Slams?He used to lose early in a lot of the Slams in his prime, even in his peak years - 1994 US, 1997 US or 1996 Wimbledon for example.
Click to expand...

Yes, and that's why he's not as great a player as Federer.

Yet there are a lot of people out there who think that Sampras at his best would beat Federer at his best on fast surfaces? So yes, consistency doesn't tell you about the level of play a particular player can produce. Sampras is still regarded as one of the best players ever and is a contender to being the best player on fast surfaces of all time despite the losses that I've given (among other).
Click to expand...

Sampras was relatively bad on clay. That's all what this means. You can still be considered an all-time great if you achieve great consistency everywhere else. 7 Wimbledon titles. That's great consistency. Do you know what will not make someone an all-time great? Poor consistency.
 
CYGS said:
At least it's a conclusion drawn from data analysis, not some subjective opinions from fanatics.
Click to expand...

Numbers don't always give you the entire story and can be skewed to suit your bias.

There are way too many variables other than the ones OP conveniently picked to suit his/her agenda.
 
i think the answer lies in who had better rivals:
federer had roddick, nadal, hewitt, safin
djokovic has 34yo federer and post lendl/surgery murray.
i think federer had it tougher based on roddick and nadal alone.
 
Considering that I consider Pete the second greatest player of the Open Era after Federer, no, Djokovic will not have surpassed Sampras with 13. While consistency matters, I didn't say it's the ONLY thing that matters.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
The reason level of competition debates are pointless
2 3
Replies
122
Views
8K
5555
5555
P
Faced with a REAL weak era (2016), I don't see how it's possible to say 2008-2015 was weak
Replies
42
Views
4K
ABCD
A
M
Greater Appreciation for Federer's Achievements
Replies
0
Views
608
McEnroeisanartist
M
N
Djokovic strong competition in 2011 and weak competition in 2015 myth.
4 5 6
Replies
251
Views
16K
chjtennis
chjtennis
clout
Big 3 all have very similar career trajectory
Replies
1
Views
453
clout
clout
Back
Top