Muster or Federer - Who had a better career on clay

Who had a better career(achieved more) on clay?

  • Muster

    Votes: 29 31.9%

  • Federer

    Votes: 59 64.8%

  • Tie

    Votes: 3 3.3%
  • Total voters
    91
I think we can all agree that Muster was the greater non RG player(as his 40 titles on clay attest to) and that Federer was the greater RG player (in other words he majored in majors). I'm pretty sure which career most people on here would prefer to have.
 
Djokovic2011 said:
I think we can all agree that Muster was the greater non RG player(as his 40 titles on clay attest to) and that Federer was the greater RG player (in other words he majored in majors). I'm pretty sure which career most people on here would prefer to have.
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The question was not who was the greater RG player but who had the better career on clay. Muster had the greater overall career on clay.
 
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Djokovic2011 said:
I think we can all agree that Muster was the greater non RG player(as his 40 titles on clay attest to) and that Federer was the greater RG player (in other words he majored in majors). I'm pretty sure which career most people on here would prefer to have.
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The statement needs tweaked.

Fed was the better tier 1 clay player.

Muster was the better tier 2.. tier n clay player , by virtue of Federer not playing those events.
 
Djokovic2011 said:
I think we can all agree that Muster was the greater non RG player(as his 40 titles on clay attest to) and that Federer was the greater RG player (in other words he majored in majors). I'm pretty sure which career most people on here would prefer to have.
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I bet Muster's 1995 French Open title was incredibly satisfying, because he had overcome so many obstacles in his career to get to that moment. That's a rather different experience to the experience of dominating the sport so much that winning becomes the norm, or an experience of winning a big title as a teenager and becoming an overnight superstar.
 
Mustard said:
I wonder how many know the full facts about Muster's achievements? Or even Federer's, for that matter? Muster is a man who once dominated tennis on clay, in a way that very few have, and Federer has never dominated tennis on clay.
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Both dominated on clay, but in a different way. Muster dominated on small clay events but Federer dominate the FO and only 2nd behind Nadal.
 
TMF said:
Both dominated on clay, but in a different way. Muster dominated on small clay events but Federer dominate the FO and only 2nd behind Nadal.
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As I've already pointed out countless times, Muster dominated on clay at all levels in 1995 and 1996. A win-loss record on clay of 111-5 and 18 tournament victories on clay in this period, is incredible.
 
Mustard said:
As I've already pointed out countless times, Muster dominated on clay at all levels in 1995 and 1996. A win-loss record on clay of 111-5 and 18 tournament victories on clay in this period, is incredible.
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I assume your vote on this question is that Muster had the better clay-court career. I would agree with you. For a couple of years, Muster's clay-court dominance was at least almost Nadal-esque (and certainly greater than anyone in between Borg and Nadal).

Even though Federer has the better career record at Roland Garros, he only actually won it once.
 
Zoid said:
lol at the 90's being a tougher clay era. Every damn player today that makes it on tour is a clay courter by nature. The number of attacking, fast court specialists could be counted on one hand (llodra, mahut, lopez etc.) The 90's was dominated by 2 greats who excelled on fast surfaces and struggled to make much of an impact at the french open. Nice semi run pete. Today the best players in the world are all good on clay, Roger, Rafa, Novak, Ferrer, Nishikori, Wawrinka etc etc. To win a clay title these days means you are unlikely to play someone who doesn't like clay. The 90's was filled with serve volleyers/Americans and Aussies who didn't even know how to move on the stuff. Michael Chang told his coach a year before WINNING the french open that he didn't know how to move on clay…and this guy was a great clay courter of the 90's…Everyone here has learnt tennis out of a textbook or youtube.
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Chang wasn't a great clay-courter of the 1990s. I don't say this for the nitpicking reason that he won Roland Garros in 1989, but for the much more substantive reason that it was one of only four titles he ever won on clay and that two of the others were on green clay. The only other clay-court titles he ever won were Atlanta (green) in 1994 and 1995 and Orlando (red, but his highest-ranked opponent was #41) in 1997.

His two great runs at Roland Garros shouldn't blind us to the fact that Chang was very much a hard-court specialist.

Chang never made the final of any of Monte Carlo, Rome, Barcelona, and Hamburg. On the other hand, he won Indian Wells three times, Cincinnati twice, and Miami and Canada once each.
 
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cc0509 said:
The question was not who was the greater RG player but who had the better career on clay. Muster had the greater overall career on clay.
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How so? Does winning 100 hard court challenger level tournaments accord a better hard court career than winning one USO or AO? I don't get this logic.

Muster supporters are happy to give plenty of reasons for why muster didn't accomplish as much as the biggest clay court stage of all, and cite his "dominance" in 1995-96, yet refuse to acknowledge that Fed would've had greater dominance in 2005-06 if not for Nadal.
 
fed_rulz said:
How so? Does winning 100 hard court challenger level tournaments accord a better hard court career than winning one USO or AO? I don't get this logic.
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How does that hypothetical scenario you paint, have any relevance?

fed_rulz said:
Muster supporters are happy to give plenty of reasons for why muster didn't accomplish as much as the biggest clay court stage of all, and cite his "dominance" in 1995-96, yet refuse to acknowledge that Fed would've had greater dominance in 2005-06 if not for Nadal.
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Another hypothetical, where Nadal is wiped out of history and Federer dominates. And why have you got Muster's dominance in quotation marks? Tell me another player who had a clay-court win-loss record resembling 111-5 in just 2 calendar years?

And there's nothing wrong with explaining the reasons as to why Muster's career went as it did. It was remarkable in itself that he was able to get back into the top 10 again after what happened on 1 April 1989.
 
Muster did dominate the claycourt swing from 1995 to Roland Garros 1996..
 
fed_rulz said:
How so? Does winning 100 hard court challenger level tournaments accord a better hard court career than winning one USO or AO? I don't get this logic.

Muster supporters are happy to give plenty of reasons for why muster didn't accomplish as much as the biggest clay court stage of all, and cite his "dominance" in 1995-96, yet refuse to acknowledge that Fed would've had greater dominance in 2005-06 if not for Nadal.
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And if my aunt had b*lls she would be my uncle.

We can't go on 'what ifs.' We can only go on what did happen and because of those 30 extra clay wins I would say Muster had the better clay court career.
 
cc0509 said:
And if my aunt had b*lls she would be my uncle.

We can't go on 'what ifs.' We can only go on what did happen and because of those 30 extra clay wins I would say Muster had the better clay court career.
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What happened was Federer performed much better than Muster in the biggest stages on clay. So quit hyping muster up - his 30 mickey mouse wins won't put him ahead of Federer. Are you going to argue that winning 250-level tournies count more than reaching 4 extra FO finals?
 
fed_rulz said:
What happened was Federer performed much better than Muster in the biggest stages on clay. So quit hyping muster up - his 30 mickey mouse wins won't put him ahead of Federer. Are you going to argue that winning 250-level tournies count more than reaching 4 extra FO finals?
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What happened is that Muster had a period of dominating tennis on clay. Federer never has.
 
Mustard said:
What happened is that Muster had a period of dominating tennis on clay. Federer never has.
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As such, his career probably is better, in that he's simply won way more. But is he the better player on clay(not better career, better player)? I think that's a lot harder to answer. Federer is a fantastic player on clay-court. He could have won more but it's no mean feat that Nadal has been able to shut out Federer and Djokovic largely on clay, but especially at RG.
 
Mustard said:
How does that hypothetical scenario you paint, have any relevance?



Another hypothetical, where Nadal is wiped out of history and Federer dominates. And why have you got Muster's dominance in quotation marks? Tell me another player who had a clay-court win-loss record resembling 111-5 in just 2 calendar years?

And there's nothing wrong with explaining the reasons as to why Muster's career went as it did. It was remarkable in itself that he was able to get back into the top 10 again after what happened on 1 April 1989.
Click to expand...

It has relevance because Muster's claim over Federer lies is based primarily on his significant gap in wins in lower-tier tournaments; he failed to surpass Federer in the biggest stage that matters, and lags by a significant margin as well. Performance in slams matters for career discussion, so IMO, Federer had the better clay court career

You find in convenient to mention how much difficulty Muster had to overcome after his misfortunes, yet why do you have a problem if someone mentions Federer's difficulties on clay due to Nadal's presence? I wanted to highlight this double-standard that seems to be prevalent in this thread.

While I can sympathize with Muster's ordeal, it has no place in career discussions - the same way we cannot discuss how Nadal's presence impacted Federer's clay resume (to be clear - i'm not for awarding hypothetical career accomplishments for Federer due to Nadal's presence; however, I will use it to argue for Federer's caliber on clay).
 
My main issue with Muster is that he only reached 1 final at RG. Federer slaughters Muster's achievements at the most important clay event—finals are still a big deal.

Did the long format hurt Muster? If he didn't have that horrific accident, would have his dominance over 3 sets been extended to the 5-set format?
 
Mustard said:
What happened is that Muster had a period of dominating tennis on clay. Federer never has.
Click to expand...

career is the sum total of all accomplishments, not just one year of dominance. I would pick muster if the question was "who had a more dominating stretch of play on clay". But that isn't the topic of this thread. If a dominating stretch is all that matters, Federer would have the better career everywhere else except clay (all types of hard courts, indoors, you name it) - but that's not the case. You still have multiple factions claiming otherwise, despite Federer racking up the numbers.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
My main issue with Muster is that he only reached 1 final at RG. Federer slaughters Muster's achievements at the most important clay event—finals are still a big deal.

Did the long format hurt Muster? If he didn't have that horrific accident, would have his dominance over 3 sets been extended to the 5-set format?
Click to expand...

Muster actually preferred the 5 set format.
 
Mustard said:
Muster actually preferred the 5 set format.
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His results don't indicate that he prefers a wholly 5-set format to the shorter one. If he's said that, then his results are at odds with his opinion.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
His results don't indicate that he prefers a wholly 5-set format to the shorter one. If he's said that, then his results are at odds with his opinion.
Click to expand...

Muster was 18-9 in his career in matches that went into a fifth set. Of the 44 top-level career titles that Muster won, 15 of them were in best of 5 sets finals.
 
Mustard said:
Muster was 18-9 in his career in matches that went into a fifth set. Of the 44 top-level career titles that Muster won, 15 of them were in best of 5 sets finals.
Click to expand...

Mmm, that's stretching it a bit Mustard. He won 1 major and 8 Masters 1000s - the rest of his tournament wins could hardly be described as "top level".
 
Mustard said:
Muster was 18-9 in his career in matches that went into a fifth set. Of the 44 top-level career titles that Muster won, 15 of them were in best of 5 sets finals.
Click to expand...

Like, I said "wholly" 5-set formats, so that was covered. 18-9 in deciding sets doesn't mean much to me... the 5-set format is not just about a potential deciding set—Federer doesn't have a great record in deciding sets but has a wonderful record in the best-of-5 format. Look at Muster's results in the clay Masters and compare it to his RG runs.

The results are at odds with his opinion.

He might love the battle of 5 sets but that doesn't mean he's performed best in that format. For all of Muster's clay excellence, his record in the only wholly 5-set clay tournament on tour is... well... surprising—and I'm wondering why. I prefer chocolate to caramel but am better at making caramel.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
Like, I said "wholly" 5-set formats, so that was covered. 18-9 in deciding sets doesn't mean much to me... the 5-set format is not just about a potential deciding set. Look at his results in the clay Masters and compare it to his RG runs. The results are at odds with his opinion. He might love the battle of 5 sets but that doesn't mean he's performed best in that format. I prefer chocolate to caramel but am better at making caramel. For all of Muster's clay excellence, his record in the only wholly 5-set clay tournament on tour is... well... surprising—and I'm wondering why.
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Nobody denies that Muster should have won more than 1 French Open, but he faced some tough matchups. Gomez was more experienced in 1990, Courier was definitely favoured to beat him in 1992 and 1993, and serve and volleyers like Rafter were always tricky opponents for him.
 
Mustard said:
Nobody denies that Muster should have won more than 1 French Open, but he faced some tough matchups. Gomez was more experienced in 1990, Courier was definitely favoured to beat him in 1992 and 1993, and serve and volleyers like Rafter were always tricky opponents for him.
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He had a whole career to garner greater results at RG... a whole career. It can't just be explained away by having tough match-ups. It's a Grand Slam event, so the entirety of the top field will be present and he's going to have to bump into fantastic players and beat them to get the W, typically. Clay was less hard on his body but I wonder if the 5-set format was still a bit of a grind on clay that it wouldn't have been were it not for his accident. I appreciate he had his amazing run that you mentioned earlier with nary a break...

If you think the key answer is match-ups, then to me it suggests that his pure level on clay wasn't actually that great—good for the events without full fields, but not so good for RG. Nadal and Federer's level at RG are consistent with their success at the levels below. Federer has reached 5 RG finals.
 
Zoid said:
being 18-9 for 5 set matches isn't really a stat that stands out.
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Considerably better than Federer's, is it not?

Zoid said:
Its pretty much exactly the same ratio (a little worse actually) of his career win loss of 621-273 (probably 260 odd given his last hurrah a few years ago). All that says to me is that he won the same ratio of matches that went 5 as he did that went 4, 3 and 2.
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Muster's career win-loss record at the top-level is 626-274 (69.56%). The ATP haven't included every match, it seems.
 
Mustard said:
Considerably better than Federer's, is it not?



Muster's career win-loss record at the top-level is 626-274 (69.56%). The ATP haven't included every match, it seems.
Click to expand...

That only further proves my point. It was a poor metric to use in Muster's defence. Federer's achievements in the best-of-5 format are simply tremendous and he carried through his ability to win at the lower levels to the Slam level. Muster did not. Why? If it not the format but rather 'match-ups', then how good as a pure player was Muster really on clay?
 
Yeah, Mustard using the match-up excuse for Muster's lacklustre RG record is really a cop-out. Especially because I've read posts of his where he's argued with Federer fans and stated that the match-up with Nadal on clay is an excuse and that Roger should have tried something different to beat him. It can't be one rule for one player and another for his favourite.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
He had a whole career to garner greater results at RG... a whole career. It can't just be explained away by having tough match-ups. It's a Grand Slam event, so the entirety of the top field will be present and he's going to have to bump into fantastic players and beat them to get the W, typically. Clay was less hard on his body but I wonder if the 5-set format was still a bit of a grind on clay that it wouldn't have been were it not for his accident. I appreciate he had his amazing run that you mentioned earlier with nary a break...
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His opponents just played better tennis during the matches, it's that simple. By 1995, Muster had made his backhand much more of a weapon, and his fitness was better than ever by this point.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
That only further proves my point. It was a poor metric to use in Muster's defence. Federer's achievements in the best-of-5 format are simply tremendous and he carried through his ability to win at the lower levels to the Slam level. Muster did not. Why? If it not the format but rather 'match-ups', then how good as a pure player was Muster really on clay?
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Muster won the 1995 French Open in that format. He won 15 tournament finals in that format, including all of his 8 Super 9 titles.

Djokovic2011 said:
Yeah, Mustard using the match-up excuse for Muster's lacklustre RG record is really a cop-out. Especially because I've read posts of his where he's argued with Federer fans and stated that the match-up with Nadal on clay is an excuse and that Roger should have tried something different to beat him. It can't be one rule for one player and another for his favourite.
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I explained it. You've assumed that I'm making "excuses", whatever that means. You know I believe that a win is a win and a loss is a loss.
 
Djokovic2011 said:
Yeah, Mustard using the match-up excuse for Muster's lacklustre RG record is really a cop-out. Especially because I've read posts of his where he's argued with Federer fans and stated that the match-up with Nadal on clay is an excuse and that Roger should have tried something different to beat him. It can't be one rule for one player and another for his favourite.
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+1000. Not just muster; you'll find this appalling double-standard very prevalent when putting up Federer against any past great (especially Sampras).
 
Mustard said:
Muster won the 1995 French Open in that format. He won 15 tournament finals in that format, including all of his 8 Super 9 titles.



I explained it. You've assumed that I'm making "excuses", whatever that means. You know I believe that a win is a win and a loss is a loss.
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Were the 5-set matches only the finals of these events? In other words, were they primarily 3-set format events. You aren't really actually countering the main point I'm bringing up, which is that Muster's results at RG are at odds with his supposed preference. You explain it through match-up issues, which I think is somewhat disingenuous. He had a whole career to achieve more consistency and further greatness at RG, and you're telling us that "match-ups" stopped him. It looks like he underachieved at the Clay major in comparison to his results on clay in general. If it's a match-up issue then either he was unlucky, or had problems against several kinds of players and in many match-ups, which would suggest that his clay game is not so impenetrable and that, at the very highest level, he could not be relied upon to even have a deep runs at RG. Hit and miss stuff (mainly miss).
 
fed_rulz said:
relevance? now you're clutching at straws, it would seem...
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The relevance is that this is a thread comparing Muster to Federer. I'm explaining that Muster preferred the best of 5 set format, and that he had some great success in the format. I've also explained why he lost his matches at the French Open to players like Gomez, Courier and Rafter. The funny thing is that when I explain them, I'm accused of making excuses. I'm baffled as to what that even means. Too many people retain this bizarre belief that a win is somehow tarnished unless the losing opponent says that they are 100% fit and refuse to explain why they lost. It's all nonsense. A win is a win.
 
Results are results. "Explaining" them away as match-up problems demonstrates to me that the actual tennis level that Muster and Federer brought to clay are similar or that Federer's is slightly better. He's far less achieved on the surface because he didn't focus his efforts to it like Muster did, though his results are far more impressive at the top tier clay event that brings in the full field—Roland Garros.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
Were the 5-set matches only the finals of these events?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's mostly correct. Muster did reach the final of 1989 Miami when it was all best of 5 sets matches, but his winning matches at tournaments he won with best of 5 sets finals were best of 3 sets in earlier rounds.

Nathaniel_Near said:
In other words, were they primarily 3-set format events. You aren't really actually countering the main point I'm bringing up, which is that Muster's results at RG are at odds with his supposed preference. You explain it through match-up issues, which I think is somewhat disingenuous.
Click to expand...

So what do you put it down to?

Nathaniel_Near said:
He had a whole career to achieve more consistency and further greatness at RG, and you're telling us that "match-ups" stopped him.
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Before 1995, Muster was only a very good clay-courter. He was not an all-time great on the surface at that time. It was 1995 and 1996 that made him an all-time great on clay.

Try to look at it in context of post-1989 accident, his fitness programme that began in 1991 which aimed at eventually raising his basic fitness endurance to a level above all other players. In 1995, his backhand was a bigger weapon too. It took time for this to all come together. In fact, he was getting frustrated in 1994 that his results weren't better and even considered retirement.

Nathaniel_Near said:
It looks like he underachieved at the Clay major in comparison to his results on clay in general. If it's a match-up issue then either he was unlucky, or had problems against several kinds of players and in many match-ups, which would suggest that his clay game is not so impenetrable and that, at the very highest level, he could not be relied upon to even have a deep runs at RG. Hit and miss stuff (mainly miss).
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Muster did get criticised in 1992-1994 for winning a lot of small clay tournaments, but hardly any big ones. In 1995-1996, he answered those critics.
 
"So what do you put it down to?"

Well I think you explained a lot of it in the rest of the post. He wasn't ready for the very highest level in Slams until the mid '90s, so his window of peak clay play was actually quite short. He won many titles on clay by dedicating an awful lot of his efforts there, which he was largely forced to do as a result of his accident. I already gave a suggestion for what other factors there might be by stating that perhaps his accident made it hard for him to grind through seven best-of-5 set matches, and if that has nothing to do with it, then that Muster just wasn't actually that good on clay other than during a brief 2-year or so window—it isn't about the match-ups then but rather Muster's own period of maturation: ergo, his match-up problems wouldn't have existed during his peak period because he was a more complete and better player on clay.

Summary:

It wasn't match-ups, Muster just wasn't quite good enough. When you're good enough, match-ups don't become an issue. Federer only ever really had one "match-up" issue on clay and it's to a player who is on his level anyway. That spanking that Kuerten gave Federer in 2004 though... again, a three-time champion (and greater on clay than Muster) despite never dominating a stretch like Muster did.
 
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Nathaniel_Near said:
"So what do you put it down to?"

Well I think you explained a lot of it in the rest of the post. He wasn't ready for the very highest level in Slams until the mid '90s, so his window of peak clay play was actually quite short. He won many titles on clay by dedicating an awful lot of his efforts there, which he was largely forced to do as a result of his accident.
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That's true.

Nathaniel_Near said:
I already gave a suggestion for what other factors there might be by stating that perhaps his accident made it hard for him to grind through seven best-of-5 set matches, and if that has nothing to do with it, then that Muster just wasn't actually that good on clay other than during a brief 2-year or so window—it isn't about the match-ups then but rather Muster's own period of maturation: ergo, his match-up problems wouldn't have existed during his peak period because he was a more complete and better player on clay.
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Winning 22 titles on clay by the end of 1994 is still very good. A lot of players never win that many titles in their whole careers. Muster did overcome his matchup problems best during his 1995-1996 peak, although even in 1998 he managed to beat Sampras at Indian Wells.

Edberg is regularly cited as Muster's nightmare matchup, with Edberg having a 10-0 lead in their head-to-head. This doesn't really tell the fact that Muster pushed Edberg hard in 3-4 of their matches, particularly their matches at 1994 Monte Carlo, 1996 Queen's Club, and 1996 Vienna. The 1996 Vienna match was superb stuff from both nearly all the way through.

In regards to Muster's career and how it panned out, a lot of it goes back to 1 April 1989. What happened changed the whole way his career panned out. It's impossible to know exactly how it would have gone if the accident had never happened, but his career would have been very different.
 
Nathaniel_Near said:
Results are results. "Explaining" them away as match-up problems demonstrates to me that the actual tennis level that Muster and Federer brought to clay are similar or that Federer's is slightly better. He's far less achieved on the surface because he didn't focus his efforts to it like Muster did, though his results are far more impressive at the top tier clay event that brings in the full field—Roland Garros.
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I have to say that I am shocked that about twice as many people voted for Fed.

Maybe I am not focusing on "career", but even so it seems to me that the aura of Fed is dominating too much here.

On one hand we have the Fed record on clay against the person I truly think is the "clay GOAT". I hate GOAT discussions, but Nadal has been an anomaly. Perhaps long ago there were players who dominated on grass as Nadal now does, and I won't rule out the idea that Borg could have equaled Nadal if being a master of clay could have had the same bragging rights then, but that is not what the tennis world was then.

It is true that Fed has played second fiddle to Nadal, and it is true that without Nadal he would have several FOs. But in the 90s there were so many talents on clay, and Muster had to face lesser players than Nadal, but so many more of them.

I would say that the careers of Muster and Fed, on clay, are very close, but Fed never had the magic years (on clay) that Muster had in 95 and 96.

Muster's peak was amazing. I have to give the nod to Muster for that reason.

I agree with Russel.
 
Forgive me for jumping in here, but I just noticed that we have gotten into the subject of match ups. I find this very ironic, all things considered. Very ironic. So Muster has/had a few or more "bad match ups" on clay, yet Federer who has played the ultimate bad match up and would almost certainly have more than 1 RG in any other era, is not being given the courtesy of this "excuse."

Very ironic. Or is it just me? :)
 
For somebody who focussed his career only on clay and yet to reach only 1 RG final tells all you need to know.

LOL at being compared with someone who reached the final day 5 times.
 
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