Only someone who has never played tennis would say that reaching a Slam final is unimportant. But you have said nuttier things
Reaching a Slam final is important for the people who never won a slam or those who are not ATGs, but when someone is in the GOAT conversation then reaching too many slam finals and losing them is a black mark. The real nutty thing is to not believe that Federer never reaching the final of French Open 2008 would not benefit him.... if you think Fed reaching wimbledon final of 2008 benefitted him then that too is nutty....
Yeah, they would. Especially his fans.
If he had less Slams but more weeks at #1, he'd be argued as the GOAT for pure consistency. That would be his case
Doesn't matter what his fans thing, the standard rules are that to be GOAT you need the most Slams, not even tie, you need a lead. If you have a lead then it doesn't matter even if you have a losing slams h2h to your rival (like Djokovic has vs Nadal), more slams means you are ahead. The weeks at 1 are not that much in the conversation.
I am no pro player but I think the wish for a player at first is to win 1 slam and to be rank 1, so once you achieve this the next goal is to win more slams and remain at 1 to end the year as 1, if you achieve this then you don't need track of how many weeks you were 1, such things only nerds do opening UTS or ATP websites, in real life people don't have time for all that. In the end Slams are the count that everyone keeps, that is the only which public speaks. I dont care what Nolefams think, I have my own views which I am sure are right. Post Sampras it was all about Slams and if we are comparing players of 70s, 80s vs today's then we need to see full body resume, but if we compare players of same era i.e modern times then it is all about Slams, plus when you compare lesser players who won 2 slams vs 3 slams then these stats like reached rank 1 become more significant than when comparing Big 3. When Nadal is compared Djokovic then everyone knows that Nadal having 50% weeks as Novak does not mean Novak has been 2X times consistent/dominant, such rubbish does not matter, what matters between them is Slams. When Federer is compared with them then Slams are what led to Federer's downfall too. He gets some sympathy for age difference because his peak did not clash with Novak's directly but Nadal gets no such benefit of doubt because he peaked earlier and declined early which is his mistake, Fed being born earlier was not his mistake... anyway, the point is clear..... Slams are everything in today's GOAT comparisons while comparisons across eras are more about Body of Work entirely for me,
