The Truth about Nadal - Version 2

Its funny how only since Nadal the one trick pony is in tennis the Olympics and Clay court tennis become the "gold standard" of the sport.... So how many sports have the spai***** ruined now 3? Cycling, footbal and tennis, and the Argentines bringing up the rear....
 

ScottleeSV

Hall of Fame
Sampras didn't 'dominate' his main rival IMO. If we're talking about Agassi then it was 20-14 wasn't it? Take the 'one' off the front to make 20-4 and then we might be talking about domination.

That said; if you're going to have tiers then Sampras should really be in the top one. 14 slams says it all.
 
These are very interesting predictions Nathaniel. I agree that Nadal will be the most successful of the top 4 going forward, even more than Djokovic but well just have to watch the matches of course. I kid you not that while I watched the 2007 Wimbledon final I thought man, this clay court great may very well overtake Federer in many respects. I fully expected him to take the 2008 W final as an example. Nadal winning this Wimbledon would really give him some firm footing as he continues his climb back to #1 and possibly more non clay majors. This tourney looms so large for each of the top four in different ways. I think that each of them has a real shot, but it's not going to be easy for any of them. I really think that Nadal is one of those very special players that will go down as one of the greatest ever and in the very top tier. Undisputed greatest ever? That may very well never happen whether its Nadal or anyone else. I'm hoping for decent weather and even if the roof is closed I think Nadal will be so tough to take down. I think he may benefit from the way he transitioned after the FO by mixing in some rest with practice at the AELTC itself.
 

HRB

Hall of Fame
They're two giants of the game, one amazing on hardcourt and grass, the other ridiculously good on clay and they are both good enough to win on their worst surfaces.

In the past 10 years, we've had the luxury of watching 2 of the greatest players of all time. Let's stop comparing them all the time and just enjoy what they have given us: spectacular tennis!

Wasn't going to even bother reading this tired thread...then I read your post...THANK GOD SOME SANITY!!!!
 

jg153040

G.O.A.T.
I don't understand how Sampras's accomplishments cannot be Tier 1. Regardless of what any one person says.

All of the greats have done something that the others haven't done, so to pick and choose what you think is superior only leads to a false conclusion.

I hear many people say, "Well, Pete didn't win the French, but then again, Pete dominated his main rival and was number 1 for six consecutive years. How can these things be weighted, except subjectively?

Goat is not about 100%, it's about the probability. Those debates remind me about creation vs evolution debate.

Evolution theory is like Fed is goat theory. Creationists disagree. It's ok, evolution has holes and flaws. But it is the best we have. If you remove it, what are you going to replace it with?

Right now goat means most majors, winning all the majors and weeks nr.1. That is what every pro dreams about achieving the most from the start and they all strive for this goal.

If you remove Fed, who are you going to replace him with? Picking any other candidate makes even less sense. So if we pick the guy with best stats, the chances are greater that it might be true.

Of course it's not 100% true. Almost nothing is. Evolution theory also has minority of experts, who disagree.

Goat thing is exactly like carbon dating. We watch in a laboratory the decay of carbon for a few weeks. And we extrapolate from this number to conclude how much old are fossils. Of course we make a lot of assumptions. But it is the best we have. Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean we can use even less perfect systems. They are even less likely to be accurate.

The same is with Fed, we observed him in a small sets of conditions and he won 17, the most. So we extrapolate this to other eras. Of course we make a lot of assumptions, like with carbon dating.

But still it is more likely to be accurate than to use even worse assumptions.

So, goat theory is just a theory based on facts and logical reasoning. It's not based entirely on personal opinion.

It is a decent theory, the best we have. Of course you can go with: we can't know anything, nothing is 100% approach, there is no goat.

If that is the case, I can say Sampras is not greater than Roddick, since everything is subjective and nothing can be 100% proven.

Think about it. :)
 

sunny_cali

Semi-Pro
Goat is not about 100%, it's about the probability. Those debates remind me about creation vs evolution debate.

Evolution theory is like Fed is goat theory. Creationists disagree. It's ok, evolution has holes and flaws. But it is the best we have. If you remove it, what are you going to replace it with?

Not interested in the rest, but at the risk of digressing what are the holes and flaws ?
 

sunny_cali

Semi-Pro
Why do you want to know? I really don't want to get into this debate here.

I disagree with your assertion that the theory of evolution has as many holes as the "theory" that Fed is GOAT. I was therefore interested in what these "holes" were. Actually the latter is less of a theory and more of a religion/cult.
 

jg153040

G.O.A.T.
I disagree with your assertion that the theory of evolution has as many holes as the "theory" that Fed is GOAT. I was therefore interested in what these "holes" were. Actually the latter is less of a theory and more of a religion/cult.

I didn't say they have the same amount of holes. I was just using an analogy to illustrate a point. And this is all relative. Hard to define what a hole even is or how big it is. Compared to what?

Depends on how you define religion. Everything has certain amounts of faith in it.

It's a thin line. With evolution we have facts. But they are insufficient. All we know is that we are here and we can observe small changes. We can't observe if small changes lead to big ones. Maybe it has limits and it's only a variation.

If humans grow 50 years a bit on average, that doesn't prove that in 500 years we will be taller. It could be just a variation.

But it's hard to debate this topic with anybody because, people have a lot of bias in these things.

You already made an assumption Evolution is a fact but basing Federer the greatest on the fact that he has 17 majors, a religion.

We need to be really careful with those type of debates. Because most people have and emotional bias and are invested. And we need to really define terms, like what religion means. What bigger means or faster, smaller, better.

So it's tough to debate it, because it's very hard to be objective in those matters.
 
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Nathaniel_Near

Guest
2 Slams on, are people more willing to consider and accept that the truth about Nadal is that he could go down as not just the greatest in his sport but one of the great sportsmen in history?
 

sunny_cali

Semi-Pro
2 Slams on, are people more willing to consider and accept that the truth about Nadal is that he could go down as not just the greatest in his sport but one of the great sportsmen in history?

This isn't easy to admit -- but yes, Nadal is likely to be the greatest of his generation, which is basically after Y2K. I have a tough time accepting that there is a GOAT.
 

sunny_cali

Semi-Pro
Depends on how you define religion. Everything has certain amounts of faith in it.

It's a thin line. With evolution we have facts. But they are insufficient. All we know is that we are here and we can observe small changes. We can't observe if small changes lead to big ones. Maybe it has limits and it's only a variation.

If humans grow 50 years a bit on average, that doesn't prove that in 500 years we will be taller. It could be just a variation.

But it's hard to debate this topic with anybody because, people have a lot of bias in these things.

You already made an assumption Evolution is a fact but basing Federer the greatest on the fact that he has 17 majors, a religion.
.

If everything has a thin line and all facts no matter how conclusive are "insufficient" then all we have is meaningless debates and no progress.

Evolution is as close to a fact as human beings can get. The DNA evidence or the fossil record are compelling enough evidence. It appears the evidence you are looking for is to visually observe a crocodile morph into a duck -- unless you "see" gravity how can it exist -- maybe all heavenly bodies cluster together for the heck of it -- maybe 500 years from now they won't.

Fed has numbers -- he is currently the best player of his generation. You could argue that he is better than Sampras, but it isn't crystal clear, and it's not clear to me at all if he was better than Borg. Beyond that there are too many variables, and things are tenuous. To assert that he is GOAT is a reflection of the same biases you alluded to in your post.

According to you all science has "assumptions" -- so i am assuming that assumptions can't be all bad :)

If Rafa wins 2 more non-Clay Slams he would replace Fed as the best player of his generation (in my eyes). I'd expect the rest of the cultists to take umbrage, but you couldn't expect anything else from them right ?
 
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monfed

Guest
2 Slams on, are people more willing to consider and accept that the truth about Nadal is that he could go down as not just the greatest in his sport but one of the great sportsmen in history?

Can't tell with you if you're sarcastic or not.
 
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Nathaniel_Near

Guest
Posted on 06-14-2013, 04:43 PM

Sort of, but Magic and Larry are no Federer, with all due respect.


I don't see the problem in making some outlandish statements. One might look like a muppet or a visionary and it really doesn't matter -- people care way too much about that stuff and don't want to be the one to look foolish and will only continue to rely on hindsight to take a dump on others ;) . Everybody often judges things in hindsight which is the easy thing to do. Let's try to make some calls ahead of time.

Here are some more.

Nadal has 50% chance to be considered greater than Fed before retirement (this thead already basically covers this)

Murray's window is closing fast and his body will break down over the next couple of years and he won't win more than 3 Majors.

Federer has won his last Major.

Djokovic will never win Roland Garros.

Djokovic will NEVER win Roland Garros, except for in 2015.
 
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