Who has the best forehand-backhand combination in history?

Who has the best forehand-backhand combination in history?

  • Connors

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Borg

    Votes: 2 1.9%
  • Lendl

    Votes: 2 1.9%
  • Agassi

    Votes: 24 23.1%
  • Federer

    Votes: 9 8.7%
  • Nadal

    Votes: 13 12.5%
  • Djokovic

    Votes: 39 37.5%
  • Wawrinka

    Votes: 4 3.8%
  • Sinner

    Votes: 10 9.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 1.0%

  • Total voters
    104
Once again, Agassi won all four slams when the surfaces were completely different and played completely different. Normally, to compete on all four slams you would need to tailor your game. Agassi said no to that and his game held up. these are facts I submit to you
LOL once again you are completely WRONG as expected because claiming that the surfaces were "different" DOES NOT and CAN NEVER refute the mathematical objective FACT that Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner won FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS titles on CLAY and EIGHT other NON-CLAY grand slam titles with just his baseline game along with a DOUBLE CAREER GRAND SLAM that andre agassi could NEVER EVER do. Andre agassi mathematically and objectively has ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE against Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner from the baseline and anyone who thinks otherwise is completely DELUDED and WRONG.
 
LOL once again you are completely WRONG as expected because claiming that the surfaces were "different" DOES NOT and CAN NEVER refute the mathematical objective FACT that Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner won FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS titles on CLAY and EIGHT other NON-CLAY grand slam titles with just his baseline game along with a DOUBLE CAREER GRAND SLAM that andre agassi could NEVER EVER do. Andre agassi mathematically and objectively has ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE against Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner from the baseline and anyone who thinks otherwise is completely DELUDED and WRONG.

show me your formula to prove Nadal is the GOAT baseliner.
 
I am chill because the FACTS prove that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner with novak djokovic coming in as a close second.
Fun fact: facts are facts whether you write them with all caps, or whether you write them like a normal person.

See how I managed to write the word “fact(s)” multiple times without capitalizing it? I believe that’s what people mean by “chill”.


Also, it’s pretty hard to separate baselining into movement and strokes.

Nadal in my book has the GOAT movement or close to it. That means he could be the GOAT baesliner without having the GOAT strokes.
 
show me your formula to prove Nadal is the GOAT baseliner.
LOL, I have already mathematically and objectively demonstrated that you are completely WRONG and that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner and andre agassi is NOWHERE close. ALL of the mathematical statistics point toward rafael nadal as the GOAT baseliner. First off once again, rafael nadal won FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES on clay which is the surface MOST DEPENDENT on baseline capability whereas andre agassi won only one LOL! Rafael nadal also obtained a DOUBLE CAREER GRAND SLAM with just his baseline game which andre agassi NEVER EVER did. Rafael nadal also has a DOMINANT head-to-head against andre agassi and also completed OWNED andre agassi even at wimbledon with just his baseline game. ALL OF THE FACTS prove that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner with novak djokovic coming in as a close second.
 
Whoever the best baseline player is, you cannot effectively separate movement and groundstrokes.

Depending on the surface, Safin, Nadal, Borg, or Federer. It's definitely not the popular answers Agassi or Djokovic. If anyone says Sinner they need to be banned from life.
 
show me your mathematical formula
LOL, I have already mathematically and objectively demonstrated that you are completely WRONG and that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner and andre agassi is NOWHERE close. ALL of the mathematical statistics point toward rafael nadal as the GOAT baseliner. First off once again, rafael nadal won FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES on clay which is the surface MOST DEPENDENT on baseline capability whereas andre agassi won only one LOL! Rafael nadal also obtained a DOUBLE CAREER GRAND SLAM with just his baseline game which andre agassi NEVER EVER did. Rafael nadal also has a DOMINANT head-to-head against andre agassi and also completed OWNED andre agassi even at wimbledon with just his baseline game. ALL OF THE FACTS prove that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner with novak djokovic coming in as a close second.
 
Fun fact: facts are facts whether you write them with all caps, or whether you write them like a normal person.

See how I managed to write the word “fact(s)” multiple times without capitalizing it? I believe that’s what people mean by “chill”.


Also, it’s pretty hard to separate baselining into movement and strokes.

Nadal in my book has the GOAT movement or close to it. That means he could be the GOAT baesliner without having the GOAT strokes.
Movement is part of baselining capability and execution of forehands and backhands. Nobody sits on a wheelchair in order to execute forehands and backhands except in wheelchair tennis and we are not talking about wheelchair tennis. Even if you get in to position to hit a forehand and backhand on a tennis ball, you still NEED to have the correct stroke mechanics in order to EXECUTE properly since being fast means absolutely nothing in tennis unless you have the correct stroke mechanics. Simply saying andre agassi could have been a better baseliner than novak djokovic and rafael nadal means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because andre agassi COULD NOT hit forehands and backhands like rafael nadal and novak djokovic even if "slow" andre agassi was able to reach the ball which is exactly why Rafael Nadal the winner of FOURTEEEN ROLAND GARROS titles is the GOAT baseliner!
 
show me the mathematical stats
LOL once again, the mathematical stats that prove you COMPLETELY WRONG is 22>8 with the FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS titles of Rafael Nadal being mathematically greater than ALL OF THE GRAND SLAM TITLES of andre agassi COMBINED so just ACCEPT the TRUTH that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner!
 
The same exact thread was made like a week ago.

Agassi.
I have no idea why some of you guys are going for andre agassi when agassi himself was consistently thoroughly outclassed from the baseline by pete sampras THE SERVE-VOLLEYER whereas Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner has freaking FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES!
 
I have no idea why some of you guys are going for andre agassi when agassi himself was consistently thoroughly outclassed from the baseline by pete sampras THE SERVE-VOLLEYER whereas Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner has freaking FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES!

Nadal's backhand is not good enough to have the best forehand-backhand combination in history.

He has 14 RG titles but he doesn't have the best serve-return combo either.

Just like Djokovic has 24 slams but he doesn't have the best net game.

Or Federer doesn't have the best mentality, etc.
 
Nadal's backhand is not good enough to have the best forehand-backhand combination in history.

He has 14 RG titles but he doesn't have the best serve-return combo either.

Just like Djokovic has 24 slams but he doesn't have the best net game.

Or Federer doesn't have the best mentality, etc.
I completely disagree because rafael nadal's backhand is at least the second best backhand in history only second to the backhand of novak djokovic because you cannot win on such a baseline-dependent surface like Roland Garros so many times without a completely rock-solid backhand. Nadal doesn't necessarily need to have the best return ever to have the best baseline game ever because return is only one part of the entire baseline game and nadal definitely has the best return on clay regardless. Either way, there is no mathematical objective way that rafael nadal can win so many grand slam titles on such baseline-dependent surfaces without possessing the best baseline game himself. Novak djokovic would have pretty much lost every single close encounter with rafael nadal had novak djokovic not possessed a better serve than rafael nadal. In every single match between djokovic and nadal, the serve of djokovic always gives djokovic a crucial upper hand in many of the rallies with nadal and without djokovic having his level of serve, djokovic would not be able to consistently beat nadal because this is how strong the GOAT baseline game of rafael nadal is. roger federer's mentality is completely irrelevant to his grand slam count because federer's game requires more risk-taking in general due to a significantly greater baseline weakness compared to both novak djokovic and rafael nadal. Novak djokovic did not really need a net game at all to win any of his 24 grand slam titles but Rafael Nadal WITHOUT A DOUBT absolutely needed his GOAT baseline game in order to win once again FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES!
 
I've given you rational reasons why Agassi is in contention - he dominated the baseline being 5"8 with a weaker serve and weaker movement than Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. What do you not understand about this?


there is no correlation between baseline play and clay court success. Otherwise Wawrinka is just as good of a baseliner as Agassi. Lol.
Wow I didn’t know Agassi was almost as short as Diego Schwartzman
 
With movement factored in? It gets interesting. Borg, Nadal (yeah ik ik, groundstroke asymmetry but still), Djokovic, Agassi are all worthy choices.

Just pure fh + pure bh? Agassi.
 
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Nadal's return isn't good enough to be considered in this debate alone. I don't think people understand that you return serve from the baseline, and is included in baseline play.

The choices are either Djokovic, Agassi or Safin. There's no other option. They had no exploitable holes from the baseline, no matter what ball they were given they could deal with it. People gonna say Safin only has 2 slams but the guy didn't even want to be a tennis player lol.


Nadal carved his throne on clay because the clay field was insanely weak. Like, even Robredo and Algamry (forgot his name lol) from 2005-2010 probably gets into a top 10 current clay courters list. Nadal does not escape the weak field accusations pointed at Federer either. How bad is the clay field when Federer, a guy who lost 4-4-4 to busted hip Kuerten at FO 2004, is Nadal's main rival on clay until Soderling went mad one day. Holy crap. What makes matters worse is I remember FO 2009 because some environmental issues made the FO speed up a little bit, so the FO wasn't even playing like a true clay court. Nadal would have won like 10 FO titles in a row playing a doper in 05 (which somehow he won at 19?????), Federer his chum for most of it and then has the injury excuse or the playing crap excuse when he loses. He lost in straights to Djokovic at FO 2015 and it's a pass because 'Nadal wasn't playing well'.

the field from 2005-2007 was so bad on clay, that Robredo was the 2nd most accomplished player on the dirt. holy crap. Robredo? That guy lost to Roddick on clay. haha
 
With movement factored in? It gets interesting. Borg, Nadal (yeah ik ik, groundstroke asymmetry but still), Djokovic, Agassi are all worthy choices.

Just pure fh + pure bh? Agassi.

Interesting. Combined fh+bh potency per match and per 100 over their career:

Nadal: 18.1/match, 10.9/100
Djoko: 16.5/match, 10.8/100
Agassi: 20.1/match, 15.1/100
Borg: 24.1/match, 12.6/100
Courier: 15.2/match, 12/100
Federer: 10.1/match, 8.2/100

A better serve and less clay tends to lower the match potency numbers a bit, because your point pools shifts and shrinks somewhat. Players like Agassi or Courier got fewer cheap serve points and had to win more in the rallies.
 
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Combined fh+bh potency per match and per 100 over their career:

Nadal: 18.1/match, 10.9/100
Djoko: 16.5/match, 10.8/100
Agassi: 20.1/match, 15.1/100
Borg: 24.1/match, 12.6/100
Courier: 15.2/match, 12/100
Federer: 10.1/match, 8.2/100

A better serve and less clay tends to lower the match potency numbers a bit, because your point pools shifts and shrinks somewhat. Players like Agassi or Courier got fewer cheap serve points and had to win more in the rallies.

Stop with this 'potency' thing please. We do not need compasses and rulers in todays game. We have not needed them for over 20 years as surfaces are tailored for baseline play, not serve and volley.


Any idiot here: Has Djokovic beaten Nadal consistently with serve and volley and/or rushing to the net?
Any idiot here: If your answer is no - then ding ding ding he won with baseline play.

If you don't win with serve and volley, or consistently beat an opponent by finishing at the net, then you are beating him from the baseline, on all surfaces. I watched the nadal v djokovic wimbledon 2011 and 2018 matches recently (bored lol). djokovic when it mattered most made less mistakes and made one clutch passing shot. he is just better from the baseline. nadal's 14 slams is at the FO is due to the fact the clay field was by far and away the weakest clay field ever seen. The Jurassic period saw a stronger clay field from 03 onwards. Even Verkerk made the FO final lmao.

I don't understand how Federer and Djokovic (and I rag on Federer a lot for not being as unbeatable as it seemed during 04-07) get rightfully accused of winning in a weak era, and Nadal somehow skates by on clay despite playing zero world class clay courters for pretty much his entire career excluding Djokovic past 2011. He had 6 years of playing crap. Nadal's biggest rival from 05-2010 on clay was Federer. Federer lost to Kuerten 4-4-4 in 2004. Actually, time to make a thread in the former pro player section.......

Djokovic for the win here, the guy didn't even lose a set against Nadal on hard courts from 2013 onwards. lmao
 
This is true on clay. It is absolutely not true I on faster surfaces.
Well clay is obviously a major surface in tennis, and no one has reached a higher level on a single surface than Rafael Nadal. It is clear that on the most baseline-centric surface of clay, rafael nadal is way better than anyone else in history which more than balances out any vulnerabilites that rafael nadal had on less baseline-centric surfaces like grass and indoor hard which all point toward the fact that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT baseliner with the best forehand/backhand combination ever.
 
Nadal 2010/2013 probably. backhand wasnt attackable either.

Nah Djokovic 2015-16. He held all grand slams at this point. Kinda needs to be him seeing as his game revolves around the baseline.

I see what you did, you narrowed down three years where Nadal outperformed Djokovic in slams.


How about 2006 - 2024 - probably Djokovic?
 
Look at the absolute destruction of the 1hbh



Can't be great without great forehand. The Blondie would be right at the bottom of the list.

Unfortunately the match isn't charted but likely the Blonde guy wouldn't even have 5 forehand winners in entire match. Maybe not even 3.
 
Power, as the slogan of a very popular advertisement a few decades ago said, is nothing without control. To represent the concept, the commercial chose Ronaldo, an iconic centre-forward for Barcelona and Inter, then at his peak, lethal precisely because of that unstoppable mix of unreal speed and total control of the body.

The ability to combine speed and precision makes the difference not only in football. It is also true in tennis. The current world number 1, Jannik Sinner, tells it with the same iconic evidence as Ronaldo.

The Italian is in fact the only player in the Top 20 in the ATP ranking who also appears among the top 15 for average speed of the forehand and backhand on the ATP circuit.

The processing is due to Tennis Viz, which is based on ATP Tour data collected by Tennis Data Innovations. The two companies publish some of their results on the X profile, formerly Twitter, Tennis Insights and are used for specific insights in a dedicated section of the ATP website.

If we add to this that Sinner, according to an elaboration that we have already written about by Tennis Viz itself, has the best forehand and backhand on the circuit in terms of average quality, it becomes clear how far he has managed to raise the mix of power and control.

The calculation of the average speed of each player's forehands and backhands, Tenniz Viz explains, takes into account top spin shots in this ranking. We could define it as the average of the fastest forehands and backhands of each player, a snapshot of the peaks of speed that they manage to reach but in a long interval of time.

The ranking shows that only six players reach average speeds above 130 kilometres per hour with their top-spin forehand: Hamad Medjedovic (135.8), Jiri Lehecka (133.7), Nicolas Jarry (133.6), Arthur Fils (132.9), Christopher Eubanks (132.9) and Denis Shapovalov (131.0).

All players who struggle more to establish the boundary between power and measure. A boundary that is technical but at the same time very mental. Because aggression, to quote Julio Velasco, coach of the generation of phenomena of Italian men's volleyball in the 1990s and gold medalist at the Paris Olympics with the women's national team, reduces insecurity and eliminates doubts. But it is also a way to try to mask those doubts. And it is there that the speed of thought more easily becomes haste with a consequent drop in precision, reduction in effectiveness and increase in errors.

From the Tennis Viz analysis it also emerges that the differences are even less marked when comparing the average top speeds on the backhand side. Here the ranking, as they would say in football, is much shorter. There are, however, six players with averages above 116 km/h: Ofner (118.9), Sinner (118.1), Juncheng Shang (116.7), Emil Ruusuvuori (116.5), Tomas Machac (116.5), Alexander Zverev (116.5).

It is therefore particularly significant, in light of these data, how Sinner managed to win the backhand-to-backhand duel in the Cincinnati semi-final against Zverev.



That match highlighted his ability to take away time through relaxation, the fluidity of the gesture, which allows him to hit with greater anticipation after the bounce and to make the ball travel lower above the net compared to the average player on the ATP circuit. Always with the body control that comes from skiing and the ambition that has always moved him: to hit to be the best.
 
Interesting to also see the baseline potency of the current crop:

Rublev 19.3/Match, 16.5/100
Sinner 19.1/Match, 13.3/100
Djoko 20.3/Match, 14.7/100
Alcaraz 14.5/Match, 12.9/100

Favours aggressive player and the defense isn’t taken much, if at all into account. Huge difference from the stats derived stats for Andrey, while it correlates with the other players quite well.

Tsitsi 9.9/Match, 8.9/100
Nadal 12/Match, 8.6/100
Ruud 11.4/Match, 9.6/100
Zverev 11.2/Match, 8.2/100
Meddy 10.5/Match, 6.8/100

Big servers might suffer from a slight depression of their numbers, have to think about that one more.
 
I do find it quite funny how the Djoker Wambulance Martydrom Brigade fans are doing now what Fed fanatics used to do, which is try to shoehorn their guy in for best at everything except serve

Makes you wonder Nole Bots.. if the guy has the best FH + BH combo, the best RoS, the best overall return game, the best mental game, the best movement etc (even the better net game according to the best of the egg bots).,,. how is he only 2 slams ahead of a dude who is supposedly worse at all of those things :laughing: :rolleyes:
 
I do find it quite funny how the Djoker Wambulance Martydrom Brigade fans are doing now what Fed fanatics used to do, which is try to shoehorn their guy in for best at everything except serve

Makes you wonder Nole Bots.. if the guy has the best FH + BH combo, the best RoS, the best overall return game, the best mental game, the best movement etc (even the better net game according to the best of the egg bots).,,. how is he only 2 slams ahead of a dude who is supposedly worse at all of those things :laughing: :rolleyes:
It is wrong to generalise, Nadal's forehand is definitely better than Djokovic's on clay, but if you take into account the effectiveness of the fundamental on every type of surface then the comparison becomes more balanced.
In absolute terms for me Djokovic is better than Nadal on serve, on return, with the backhand, while in terms of movement they are equivalent, Nadal is more explosive while Djokovic is more flexible.

The fact that Djokovic prevails in most aspects compared to Nadal and yet as you say the two are only separated by two slams does not prove anything.
Since Djokovic became Djokovic, in 2011, the superiority over Nadal has been quite marked, in fact if until 2010 Nadal was clearly more precocious and led the comparison in the slams and in the h2h respectively 9-1 and 16-7, from 2011 onwards the situation became 23-13 and 24-13 in favor of the Serbian.
Ergo, since Djokovic became Djokovic the difference between the two is also more or less reflected in Djokovic's superiority in various aspects.
Nadal has been consistent like no other, as demonstrated by the fact that he managed to win slams 17 years apart between first and last, but not only that, he won at least one slam for 10 consecutive years, however he never had the peaks of performance that Djokovic had, simply peak vs peak was less strong.
So it can very well be that Djokovic prevails in most individual aspects.
 
Interesting to also see the baseline potency of the current crop:

Rublev 19.3/Match, 16.5/100
Sinner 19.1/Match, 13.3/100
Djoko 20.3/Match, 14.7/100
Alcaraz 14.5/Match, 12.9/100

Favours aggressive player and the defense isn’t taken much, if at all into account. Huge difference from the stats derived stats for Andrey, while it correlates with the other players quite well.

Tsitsi 9.9/Match, 8.9/100
Nadal 12/Match, 8.6/100
Ruud 11.4/Match, 9.6/100
Zverev 11.2/Match, 8.2/100
Meddy 10.5/Match, 6.8/100

Big servers might suffer from a slight depression of their numbers, have to think about that one more.
I asked this question before

What is more important potency or potency per 100 shots.

You are taking potency per 100 shots. Of course it's favoring aggressive players.
 
It is wrong to generalise, Nadal's forehand is definitely better than Djokovic's on clay, but if you take into account the effectiveness of the fundamental on every type of surface then the comparison becomes more balanced.
In absolute terms for me Djokovic is better than Nadal on serve, on return, with the backhand, while in terms of movement they are equivalent, Nadal is more explosive while Djokovic is more flexible.

The fact that Djokovic prevails in most aspects compared to Nadal and yet as you say the two are only separated by two slams does not prove anything.
Since Djokovic became Djokovic, in 2011, the superiority over Nadal has been quite marked, in fact if until 2010 Nadal was clearly more precocious and led the comparison in the slams and in the h2h respectively 9-1 and 16-7, from 2011 onwards the situation became 23-13 and 24-13 in favor of the Serbian.
Ergo, since Djokovic became Djokovic the difference between the two is also more or less reflected in Djokovic's superiority in various aspects.
Nadal has been consistent like no other, as demonstrated by the fact that he managed to win slams 17 years apart between first and last, but not only that, he won at least one slam for 10 consecutive years, however he never had the peaks of performance that Djokovic had, simply peak vs peak was less strong.
So it can very well be that Djokovic prevails in most individual aspects.
NO, Novak Djokovic the overall GOAT being better than Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner in more individual aspects of the game does not mean that novak djokovic is a better baseliner than nadal because it completely depends on how much quantitatively superior one is in every single aspect of the game and we must consider the ENTIRE careers of both novak djokovic and rafael nadal not just "after 2011". Novak djokovic has a slightly stronger backhand than rafael nadal but rafael nadal has a relatively even stronger forehand than novak djokovic which gives rafael nadal an overall edge over novak djokovic on average in pure baselining BUT novak djokovic has another advantage over rafael nadal in the first serve department which in totality neutralizes the slight baseline advantage that rafael nadal has over novak djokovic in terms of pure baselining. I believe you and many others are making a complete grave mistake in completely ignoring the fact that similar to roger federer though to a lesser extent, novak djokovic is dependent on the efficacy of his serve in order to beat rafael nadal. Even after 2011, novak djokovic has had many numerous close encounters with rafael nadal across all surfaces including grass, hard, and clay where without the efficacy of novak djokovic's serve, rafael nadal would have certainly defeated novak djokovic with rafael nadal's GOAT baselining. There is absolutely a mathematical objective reason why the head-to-head and grand slam count is so close between novak djokovic and rafael nadal since if novak djokovic was both better at serving and baselining compared to rafael nadal, rafael nadal certainly would never have reached 22 grand slams and would never have reached FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES which all could have only happened due to the fact that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT of baselining with the best pure forehand and backhand combination ever!
 
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Nadal by A BIT. Not huge but someone who has a relatively bad serve vs Djoker and Fed, MUST have the best Baseline game in history. RG alone is all about groundstokes.

Actually, let me rethink, it's not even CLOSE.
hbk-shawn-michaels.gif
 
Nadal by A BIT. Not huge but someone who has a relatively bad serve vs Djoker and Fed, MUST have the best Baseline game in history. RG alone is all about groundstokes.

Actually, let me rethink, it's not even CLOSE.
LOL, that is exactly what I have been telling everyone who keep choosing Novak Djokovic as the GOAT of baselining or even more completely ridiculously absurdly choosing "short and slow" andre agassi out of all people LOL. You CANNOT EVER win FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES without the best baseline game EVER which means that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT of baselining!
 
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NO, Novak Djokovic the overall GOAT being better than Rafael Nadal the GOAT baseliner in more individual aspects of the game does not mean that novak djokovic is a better baseliner than nadal because it completely depends on how much quantitatively superior one is in every single aspect of the game and we must consider the ENTIRE careers of both novak djokovic and rafael nadal not just "after 2011". Novak djokovic has a slightly stronger backhand than rafael nadal but rafael nadal has a relatively even stronger forehand than novak djokovic which gives rafael nadal an overall edge over novak djokovic on average in pure baselining BUT novak djokovic has another advantage over rafael nadal in the first serve department which in totality neutralizes the slight baseline advantage that rafael nadal has over novak djokovic in terms of pure baselining. I believe you and many others are making a complete grave mistake in completely ignoring the fact that similar to roger federer though to a lesser extent, novak djokovic is dependent on the efficacy of his serve in order to beat rafael nadal. Even after 2011, novak djokovic has had many numerous close encounters with rafael nadal across all surfaces including grass, hard, and clay where without the efficacy of novak djokovic's serve, rafael nadal would have certainly defeated novak djokovic with rafael nadal's GOAT baselining. There is absolutely a mathematical objective reason why the head-to-head and grand slam count is so close between novak djokovic and rafael nadal since if novak djokovic was both better at serving and baselining compared to rafael nadal, rafael nadal certainly would never have reached 22 grand slams and would never have reached FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES which all could have only happened due to the fact that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT of baselining with the best pure forehand and backhand combination ever!
Clay is the surface where the baseline game is exaggerated, but this does not mean that being a better clay player automatically means being a better baseline player.
Current example, Ruud is a better clay player than Medvedev, ditto Tsitsipas, but both are not better baseline players than Medvedev.

On clay the surface is slower and simply allows players to have more time available to hit the ball, which is the predominant thing for a player like Nadal and his such a wide movement with the forehand.
But on faster surfaces where he has less time to hit his forehand is much more faulty and is not as solid as Djokovic's.
The analyses must be extended to all surfaces, giving greater prevalence to hard surfaces since they are the most practiced on the circuit.

As for the primordial speech, I simply say that Djokovic peak against Nadal peak would have seen the Serb prevail in 3 out of 4 slams, and this cannot be justified only thanks to a more incisive serve.
I have taken the comparison into consideration since 2011 because Djokovic became the GOAT starting from that season.
23 of his 24 slams are enclosed in a time span of 13 years, while Nadal's 22 in a time span of 18 years.
This means that Nadal has been more consistent, and above all early , while Djokovic exploded much later, concentrating his successes in a shorter period of time, and yet in this shorter period of time he has won more than Nadal did from 2005 to 2022.
Since the aspects must be evaluated with the players at their peak, I find nothing anomalous in considering Djokovic superior to Nadal in most aspects, having had a higher peak.
 
I asked this question before

What is more important potency or potency per 100 shots.

You are taking potency per 100 shots. Of course it's favoring aggressive players.

I listed both because I‘m a strong believer in comparing data points and frankly I don’t know what is ‘best’. Potency/match seems fits the win% of matches of similar players better, while potency/100 could isolate ’pure’ baseline power better.

The gaps of Djokovic and Sinner are very similar, which reflects well on my old view on their similarity. A clearly higher value per match compared to Alcaraz might have to do with a greater serve/return impact.

The very high numbers for Rublev indicate for me that he is indeed on the best offensive baseliners we have seen in the last two decades. He lets himself down by his return-serve dynamic and defense but boots his potency by being far less often at the net. Medvedev, Sinner and Nadal are roughly 50% more often there, which decreases potency but wins you likely more matches!
 
Clay is the surface where the baseline game is exaggerated, but this does not mean that being a better clay player automatically means being a better baseline player.
Current example, Ruud is a better clay player than Medvedev, ditto Tsitsipas, but both are not better baseline players than Medvedev.

On clay the surface is slower and simply allows players to have more time available to hit the ball, which is the predominant thing for a player like Nadal and his such a wide movement with the forehand.
But on faster surfaces where he has less time to hit his forehand is much more faulty and is not as solid as Djokovic's.
The analyses must be extended to all surfaces, giving greater prevalence to hard surfaces since they are the most practiced on the circuit.

As for the primordial speech, I simply say that Djokovic peak against Nadal peak would have seen the Serb prevail in 3 out of 4 slams, and this cannot be justified only thanks to a more incisive serve.
I have taken the comparison into consideration since 2011 because Djokovic became the GOAT starting from that season.
23 of his 24 slams are enclosed in a time span of 13 years, while Nadal's 22 in a time span of 18 years.
This means that Nadal has been more consistent, and above all longer-lived, while Djokovic exploded much later, concentrating his successes in a shorter period of time, and yet in this shorter period of time he has won more than Nadal did from 2005 to 2022.
Since the aspects must be evaluated with the players at their peak, I find nothing anomalous in considering Djokovic superior to Nadal in most aspects, having had a higher peak.
Nadal is not even better on clay because his forehand backhand combination is best

It's because he can run around a lot of backhands and hit his forehand which is possibly best shot in history.

As per the original question, not close to Andre and Nole. These are centrally based players and win points from both ends.
 
I listed both because I‘m a strong believer in comparing data points and frankly I don’t know what is ‘best’. Potency/match seems fits the win% of matches of similar players better, while potency/100 could isolate ’pure’ baseline power better.

The gaps of Djokovic and Sinner are very similar, which reflects well on my old view on their similarity. A clearly higher value per match compared to Alcaraz might have to do with a greater serve/return impact.

The very high numbers for Rublev indicate for me that he is indeed on the best offensive baseliners we have seen in the last two decades. He lets himself down by his return-serve dynamic and defense but boots his potency by being far less often at the net. Medvedev, Sinner and Nadal are roughly 50% more often there, which decreases potency but wins you likely more matches!
Ok so you are going with /100 for pure stroke not pure baseline.

Pure baseline should include stroke plus defense which is why /match is more preferable to me. Otherwise someone like Sampras who rarely plays at baseline will have exaggerated numbers either way just less baseline hitting.

Potency is both winners (forced errors) and errors. So I don't see why a longer data set is worse than shorter. If anything it's even better to have more data points.

You have also mixed the career data with 52 week data if I am right. If so, that would be wrong. 52 week for current player vs career for guys in past like fed , it would definitely favor current guys. So I only choose career numbers for all even if it disadvantages sinner alcaraz today.
 
Nadal is not even better on clay because his forehand backhand combination is best

It's because he can run around a lot of backhands and hit his forehand which is possibly best shot in history.

As per the original question, not close to Andre and Nole. These are centrally based players and win points from both ends.
Are we really sure that on clay Nadal's serve-return combination is inferior to Djokovic's, ergo, are we really sure that Nadal against Djokovic based his superiority on clay exclusively on his baseline game?

For me absolutely not.
 
Are we really sure that on clay Nadal's serve-return combination is inferior to Djokovic's, ergo, are we really sure that Nadal against Djokovic based his superiority on clay exclusively on his baseline game?

For me absolutely not.
We are sure. The stats bear that very well.
 
Clay is the surface where the baseline game is exaggerated, but this does not mean that being a better clay player automatically means being a better baseline player.
Current example, Ruud is a better clay player than Medvedev, ditto Tsitsipas, but both are not better baseline players than Medvedev.

On clay the surface is slower and simply allows players to have more time available to hit the ball, which is the predominant thing for a player like Nadal and his such a wide movement with the forehand.
But on faster surfaces where he has less time to hit his forehand is much more faulty and is not as solid as Djokovic's.
The analyses must be extended to all surfaces, giving greater prevalence to hard surfaces since they are the most practiced on the circuit.

As for the primordial speech, I simply say that Djokovic peak against Nadal peak would have seen the Serb prevail in 3 out of 4 slams, and this cannot be justified only thanks to a more incisive serve.
I have taken the comparison into consideration since 2011 because Djokovic became the GOAT starting from that season.
23 of his 24 slams are enclosed in a time span of 13 years, while Nadal's 22 in a time span of 18 years.
This means that Nadal has been more consistent, and above all longer-lived, while Djokovic exploded much later, concentrating his successes in a shorter period of time, and yet in this shorter period of time he has won more than Nadal did from 2005 to 2022.
Since the aspects must be evaluated with the players at their peak, I find nothing anomalous in considering Djokovic superior to Nadal in most aspects, having had a higher peak.
Again NO, I did not state at all that novak djokovic is not superior in more aspects of the game than rafael nadal because novak djokovic is better than rafael nadal at both the first serve and the backhand whereas rafael nadal is better than novak djokovic primarily with the forehand. I instead stated that it completely depends on HOW MUCH one is quantitiatively superior in each aspect of the game since although novak djokovic is slightly better than rafael nadal on the backhand side, rafael nadal in turn is relatively even better than novak djokovic on the forehand side which completely neutralizes novak djokovic's advantage on the backhand side over rafael nadal making rafael nadal the GOAT baseliner. Your comparison of Ruud and Tsitsipas with Medvedev is a complete false analogy because both Ruud and Tsitsipas are not slam winners so their true overall baseline level could be lower than Medvedev's despite Medvedev being not as good of a baseliner on clay compared to both Ruud and Tsitsipas. A better comparison with Medvedev would be with Thomas Muster who won a Roland Garros title similar to the one US open title won by Medvedev meaning that the players are roughly around the same overall level and thus, it is very clear that Thomas Muster had a relatively stronger baseline game than Medvedev because he had nowhere near the same level of serve as Medvedev which allowed Thomas Muster to win his Roland Garros title whereas Medvedev being much more serve-dependent than Thomas Muster could not do as well at Roland Garros and needed the faster court of the US open in order to win Medvedev's lone US open title. Again, simply stating that clay is "slower" than all the other surfaces further proves that baselining ability is MOST IMPORTANT on clay compared to other surfaces which are more serve-dependent which further explains why rafael nadal as the GOAT baseliner clearly struggled more as the surface got faster because the serve became more and more important over pure baselining. Again, "peak" is completely subjective and completely irrelevant because the true "peak" is an entire tennis player's career not just one match, one month, one year, or one decade. Stating that novak djokovic would perform better than rafael nadal at more serve-dependent slams further proves that rafael nadal is the GOAT baseliner LOL. Novak djokovic is not at all decisively better than rafael nadal at 3 of the 4 slams as you completely fasley claim since djokovic is better at wimbledon and australian open but rafael nadal is WAY better at roland garros and exactly on par with novak djokovic at the US Open which is the most baseline-centric hard court grand slam surface. Again, it is absolutely no coincidence at all that BOTH the head-to-heads AND the grand slam title count are very close between rafael nadal and novak djokovic with FOURTEEN ROLAND GARROS TITLES won by rafael nadal which all was only possible because of the FACT that Rafael Nadal is the GOAT of baselining!
 
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