Sergi Bruguera: "Federer is Ten Times Better Than Sampras"

[slice bh compliment]

Good points, 35ft6.

...Look, if I say Pizza Hut it a million times better than Papa John's, I wouldn't recommend wasting time wondering how I managed to quantify it. It's just a figure of speech. .....To all the people hung up on the "10 times" part, I give you "infinitely." Fixate at will. :mrgreen:

Dude, you know what you just did?
You just blew my mind.


It is lunchtime. I do not feel like cooking. And I think I'm up for a little pizza.

 

[35ft6]

^ Pizza is like sex -- it's greasy, has cheese on it, and it comes in a box.

 

[Moose Malloy]

Once you reach the quarters or semis, the competition between now and then is very close. What makes the competition tougher TODAY IMO is that the competition is stiffer from the very first round onward. Every round is a potential danger zone. Not as true back then. Players today have to be on point every single round. No freebies.

I'm not sure why so many bring up this incorrect assumption. Maybe you didn't follow the game closely in the 90s. As someone who gambled on tennis quite a bit then (& now) the odds that top players would lose early in an event were much closer then compared to now(taking Fed out of the equation since almost every match he plays has the odds of Tyson-Douglas)

I'll do some research & start a new post. But from day 1 in 1990 there was great depth from 1-100. There were no freebies in any round, in any event. I don't even know where to start. The #1 & #2 seeds lost in the 1st round of the 1990 French Open. Andres Gomez won the '90 French. The #12 seed won the 1990 US Open. #1 Edberg lost in the 1st round of the 1990 US Open. There were so many unseeded players in the semis/finals of majors in the 90s. Guys like Wally Masur, David Wheaton, Henrik Dreekman, Magnus Larsson, Cedric Pioline, Jason Stoltenberg, Mark Woodforde, Todd Woodbridge, Jonas Bjorkman, Filip Dewulf, Patrick McEnroe, Wayne Ferreira, Alberto Berasategui, Alexander Volkov, Karel Novacek, Marc Rosset, Karol Kucera, Felix Mantilla, Jonas Svensson. 1999 French Open Final-Agassi(14) def Medvedev(100). 1996 Wimbledon Final- Krajicek(14) def Washington(19). 1997 French Open Final- #66 Kuerten beats #19 Bruguera. 1997 US Open-2 players outside the top 10(#14 Rafter & #20 Rusedski) played the final! Even if Fed weren't around, I can't imagine an all darkhouse final like that happening today, can you? And you do realize that top players are more protected today with the 32 seed format in slams?
Guys like Carretero & Woodruff won Masters Series events in the 90s.

There are many legit reasons to think Federer is a better player than Sampras. Tougher matches from round 1 on is not one of them. If he had it so easy, why did he struggle in so many early round matches? Heck, why did he lose to Yzaga, Korda, & Krajicek in majors if there wasn't great depth?

 

[slice bh compliment]

Re: Pizza.

^"Hmm. Honey, can we just cancel that Pizza order?
Too late?...Not cool huh? Okay."
[tapes a twenty to the doorknob and a note asking the delivery guy to just leave the pizza on the porch.]

 

[Galactus]

It carries NO weight at all and he is NO position to make such a statement:
1 - He played Sampras just 5 times and won 3 - all on clay.
2 - He played and beat Federer in one solitary match in 2000 - on clay

So what's your "position" based on?

It's based on the fact that I know more than Bruguera.

No seriously, I understand what you mean when he's saying '10 times better' as a throwaway comment, but Bruguera can't make such a claim as a pro. when he's faced Federer just once.
Agassi can make such a claim. Roddick can make that claim. So can Hewitt, Safin, Henman, etc.

But not 'clay-boy'.

 

[35ft6]

It's based on the fact that I know more than Bruguera.

No seriously, I understand what you mean when he's saying '10 times better' as a throwaway comment, but Bruguera can't make such a claim as a pro. when he's faced Federer just once.
Agassi can make such a claim. Roddick can make that claim. So can Hewitt, Safin, Henman, etc.

But not 'clay-boy'.

By that logic nobody on this board can say Sampras is better than anybody unless they played him. For that matter, we can't compare any two players unless we played both on multiple occasions. But, of course, that doesn't stop us, so by TW logic, Sergi is incredibly justified to make such an assessment IMO. Way more qualified than anybody here.:neutral:

 

[Galactus]

By that logic nobody on this board can say Sampras is better than anybody unless they played him. For that matter, we can't compare any two players unless we played both on multiple occasions. But, of course, that doesn't stop us, so by TW logic, Sergi is incredibly justified to make such an assessment IMO. Way more qualified than anybody here.:neutral:

I don't agree totally. By your logic, sports reporters and critics must also know nothing - their views would be redundant and essentially they'd be out-of-work if they didn't analyse sportsmen's achievements, advantages, disadvantages, characteristics, and put forth well thought-out claims and viewpoints.

Also by your logic, sportsmen know more than anyone about their respective sports than anyone else. Not neccessarily - an example being in that we have pros like Baghdatis using his racquets strung with specific strings at certain tensions, because, in Baggy's own words: 'my coach told me to'.

If we put a top 5 rated sportsman in a room with say, 3 pro sports journalists and a handful of 'knowledgable' forum posters on that specific sport and a debate ensued regarding 'What happened when X played Y and why', I think you'd find the result not as throwaway or casual as something like "oh I can wrap this up easy: X is 10 times better than Y cos I played them a couple of times each...and by that logoc alone, the debate is over"

 

[fastdunn]

This thing hinges on following issue:
Federer is probably better balanced between attacking and defense
game with more varieties of shots except volleys. Sampras has probably
better attacking game and just good enough return game to break
the other guys once in a while.

Everybody says Federer is better including probably most of tennis notables.
Only TV announcers who openly said Sampras is probably better is actually
Pam Shriver. I don't think McEnroe made any remark on who's better.

I don't think there are many people who think Sampras is better right now.
But I do.

Federer has the most balanced games and shots I've ever seen maybe
except net game(but it's ok for today's tennis).

HOWEVER, Sampras has the most ideal "importance-weighted" all court
game I've ever seen. According to textbook, your most important shot
is the serve and then forehand, and then rest of shots. Sampras had
perfect textbook tennis. And the most deadly efficiency to win a
match (no need to exert energy to break others or defend).

Therefore, my conclusion is that Sampras had much more potent
game. So Federer won't better Sampras. But it's all theoretical
speculations.....