Why tennis superstar Roger Federer is NOT the GOAT

Bartelby

Bionic Poster
There was no 'big four' during Fed's prime because he cut of the heads of all the flowers. No one can do that today.
 
the big four is a myth for me.

2003-2007 federer`s era

2008-2010 nadal`s era

2011 nole`s super year

2012 THE ONLY REAL BIG 4 PERIOD

2013-BEGINNING OF 2014 , NADAL`S TIME
 

drm025

Hall of Fame
This weak era argument is really funny. Should we then take into account Nadal's cupcake draws, because he has got very kind draws in his HC slams. USO 10,13 and now AO 13. He escaped a Djokovic defeat in RG 11 too. Didn't face anyone of note in Wim 10 too. RG 10 was a bit of a joke too but atleast he faced Soderling in the final. Let's cancel his 5 slams and bump him down to 8 slams.

Oy vey, then we'd have to go look at which slams we want to take away from Federer, too.

All of the slams count, if people are saying some don't, I apologize.

The weak era argument is about the competition at the top, at least for me it is. It's about who you're meeting at the business end of the slams. I don't really care about the rest of the draw.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Not many people are addressing my point number 2:

Can you remember any all time great across any sport struggling against their biggest rival to that extent... Federer has simply been dominated. Borg, Nadal, Sampras etc. have never been dominated to such an extent by a major rival.
People say 'match up issues'- but this itself is an admission of a weakness- surely the GOAT would be so good that finding a player who could cut him apart would be impossible? And secondly, isn't part of being a great having the ability to overcome such challenges. Nadal struggled against Djokovic in 2011, but after that leads the H2H; and overall leads the H2H 22-17.
 
Well he had Federer (who as I said I consider as one of the top few greats) to beat on clay, and now in recent years he has done well against his major rival Djokovic.
Meanwhile Federer had relatively easy competition in his prime years on 3 of 4 Slams, and struggled against his main rival.

federer and nole have clay like worst surface....

so nadal had and has like main rival two fast courtt players on clay.

FEDERER HAD MUCH MORE COMPETITION IN HARD AND GRASS , THAN NADAL IN ALL HIS CAREER ON CLAY.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Oy vey, then we'd have to go look at which slams we want to take away from Federer, too.

All of the slams count, if people are saying some don't, I apologize.

The weak era argument is about the competition at the top, at least for me it is. It's about who you're meeting at the business end of the slams. I don't really care about the rest of the draw.

Yes, no one is talking about slams being 'taken away'- however I think one must recognise that when considering stats, it is also important to observe the circumstances.
 
Oy vey, then we'd have to go look at which slams we want to take away from Federer, too.

All of the slams count, if people are saying some don't, I apologize.

The weak era argument is about the competition at the top, at least for me it is. It's about who you're meeting at the business end of the slams. I don't really care about the rest of the draw.

sampras never had a real great competition like nadal or federer in the top

I mean agassi is not even close.
 

Raz11

Professional
Well he had Federer (who as I said I consider as one of the top few greats) to beat on clay, and now in recent years he has done well against his major rival Djokovic.
Meanwhile Federer had relatively easy competition in his prime years on 3 of 4 Slams, and struggled against his main rival.

Federer where his game is least effective on clay and Djokovic who only became a threat during the past 3 years and even clay wasn't his best surface. The fact that they are his best competition shows how relatively weak the clay competition has been compared to HC competition.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
federer and nole have clay like worst surface....

so nadal had and has like main rival two fast courtt players on clay.

FEDERER HAD MUCH MORE COMPETITION IN HARD AND GRASS , THAN NADAL IN ALL HIS CAREER ON CLAY.

Federer is one of the greatest players, and still very tough on clay despite it being his least favourite surface. Which would you face: Baghdatis on Hard or Federer on clay? Baghdatis on hard, even if Fed hates clay.
As for Djokovic, he has shown himself to be world class on clay, it's his second favourite surface and given what we say in 2013.. FO vs Nadal was closer than USO vs Nadal.
 

drm025

Hall of Fame
The only competetion Nadal had on clay was a weak-era clown Federer whose worst surface is clay and Nicholas Almagro, Nadal's favourite lapdog. :lol:

Yeah, weak-era clown is all your words.

How does saying Federer dominated in a weaker era equate to him being some clown.

I don't know any clowns that have 17 Grand Slam championships.
 
Federer is one of the greatest players, and still very tough on clay despite it being his least favourite surface. Which would you face: Baghdatis on Hard or Federer on clay? Baghdatis on hard, even if Fed hates clay.
As for Djokovic, he has shown himself to be world class on clay, it's his second favourite surface and given what we say in 2013.. FO vs Nadal was closer than USO vs Nadal.

FEDERER IS NOT GREAT ON CLAY , PAST PEAK KUERTEN AND WITH INJURYS ROUTINED HIM IN 2004.....

federer played so many final because without nadal , not had real clay compeititon.
 

Bobby Jr

G.O.A.T.
So now Murray has Federer's number? I wouldn't say that. I think the point is Murray showed that he can be competitive and so had Nadal and Djokovic. None of the other top players could do that, and I cannot give all of the credit to Federer's play when the other members of the Big 4 were able to be competitive.
He doesn't? He's beaten Federer more often than not.

And you need to look at your facts again. Up until 2009 Federer was 7-2 on Djokovic. That is being owned. When you extend that out to the end of 2010 - now past Federer's prime - it was then 13-6. That is still being owned. Since then Djokovic is 9-3.

I know the further you look back the more time compresses into on lump-sum stats package and that's part of the point with the past 10 years. When you look at the whole package it looks different to when you separate out the period of dominance players had. When Federer was dominant Djokovic was another of the players he dominated. Murray was far better than Djokovic in that regards despite much, much later on being less accomplished than Djokovic.

Who would you rather be, the guy who had the winning record over Federer and few (none in Murray's case until very recently) majors? Or the guy with the losing record and a stack of majors?
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
As for the Murray stat:

Between the period 2004-2008 Murray ammased more wins against Federer than Roddick, Davydenko, Ljubicic, Haas, Gonzalez, Ferrero, Baghdatis, Hewitt, Youzhny, Agassi, Philippoussis, Safin did put together.
This list consists of every single Grand Slam finalist Federer faced until 2008 apart from Nadal and Djokovic, as well as many others.

This I think is an alarming and revealing stat, and I'm surprised people haven't picked up on this. It's not meant to say Murray is better than Roger, but it is a daming exposure of Federer's contemporaries- even if one or two of them managed to get less than Murray that would show something- but ALL of them combined (13 players in total which include all GS final opponents apart form Nadal and Djokovic), is shocking.
 

SublimeTennis

Professional
I would start this article off by saying that I have a huge amount of respect for Roger Federer, and despite not being a fan of his I do like watching him play tennis.
I would also add that I think he is right up there in the pantheon of greats, but I do not think he is right the at the top of the list despite having the best stats, for the following reasons:

1/ Lack of Competition at his Prime
I believe the lack of world class competition at his prime (away from clay) was due to the shortage of ATG players playing at a sustained high level in his age group (ie +/- 3 years).
This statistic, researched by ATP.com, in my eyes reveals a lot:


The above stat is not me making a case for or against Murray (I recognise that Federer still wins majority of Slam matches against him), but it showcases how poor Federer's contemporaries were. How could all those players combined only get 3 wins in all competitions against Federer between 2004-2008, while Murray got 4?

Now we go to 2007, and see the top 3: Federer, Nadal, Djokovic.
This is when Federer is 26/27 years old- so players around his age should be around prime level. But wait... at spot 2 and 3 we have 2 youngsters; Nadal and Djokovic despite bring pre-prime are higher in the rankings than players Federer's age, who should be at prime level. Does that not say a lot?

None of Federer's potential rivals his age were able to maintain a sustained challenge to Federer:

Where did Safin disappear after AO 2005? Why did Hewitt decline to the extent that he exited the top 10 after 2005, and has never managed to come back in the top 10. Why did Nalbandian stall in slams so much- after 2003 he never even reached a slam final. Why did he underperform so much?
The only player who was Federer's age who regularly played him in Grand Slam finals was Andy Roddick. With all respect to Roddick, he had a great serve, but his groundstrokes and baseline play was abysmal. Only in 2009 when Stefanki improved Roddick from the baseline did he come close to challenging Federer and impress me as an all round player- watch him in his prime getting absolutely torn to shreds by a young Murray in Wimbledon 2006.

So to conclude point number 1, this gives Roger Federer a huge advantage. He has no 'great' contemporaries who can launch a sustained challenge, and the world class opposition he has to worry about are much younger players; this gives him a window off opportunity to accumulate sensational statistics relatively easily between 2004 and 2007 (exception being Nadal on clay- he was great on clay even when he was very young).


2/ Roger Federer struggled against his greatest rival
Federer's head to head against his greatest rival Nadal is not even close, and since Nadal won their first match on the hard court of Miami in 2004 (yes hard court... not clay), Federer has never led Nadal in the H2H. Nadal leads currently 23-10, and 9-2 in slams. Even if you take away Nadal's favourite surface, clay, he STILL leads the H2H.
Can you remember any all time great across any sport struggling against their biggest rival to that extent... Federer has simply been dominated. Borg, Nadal, Sampras etc. have never been dominated to such an extent by a major rival.
People say 'match up issues'- but this itself is an admission of a weakness- surely the GOAT would be so good that finding a player who could cut him apart would be impossible? And secondly, isn't part of being a great having the ability to overcome such challenges. Nadal struggled against Djokovic in 2011, but after that leads the H2H; and overall leads the H2H 22-17.


Thus, given both these reasons, is it really not understandable that people say Roger Federer despite being an all time great, is not the GOAT?

I don't know why we all can't agree on the obvious.

Over the last decade, with super slow courts, obviously it gives Nadal a huge advantage over Federer. It would be like Sampras being limited to only playing on slow clay.

So I would say the number one player over the last decade is Nadal. But he's not a better player than Federer. If they played at any other time Federer would own Nadal, so would Sampras and many others.

Nadal is a supreme talent, but his game is based on wearing out his opponents on slow courts.

Don't say "Oh what about Wimbledon, what about". If you know what you are talking about you know Wimbledon is as slow as the French Open used to be in the 90's.

So as much as I hate to admit it, Nadal is the best over the last decade, Federer GOAT, that is HE WOULD BE MORE SUCCESSFUL OVER THE BEST PLAYERS THROUGHOUT HISTORY ON TRADITIONAL COURTS.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Who would you rather be, the guy who had the winning record over Federer and few (none in Murray's case until very recently) majors? Or the guy with the losing record and a stack of majors?
I said specifically in the article, this is not meant to me be saying Murray is better than Federer.
 

drm025

Hall of Fame
the big four is a myth for me.

2003-2007 federer`s era

2008-2010 nadal`s era

2011 nole`s super year

2012 THE ONLY REAL BIG 4 PERIOD

2013-BEGINNING OF 2014 , NADAL`S TIME

What about the fact that they were ranked as the top 4 for 5 straight years from 2008-2012. Does that not say anything? How about the fact that during that time they won 19 out of 20 slams? 38 of 45 Masters? 4 of 5 WTFs? Give me another foursome like this.
 

Bobby Jr

G.O.A.T.
FEDERER IS NOT GREAT ON CLAY , PAST PEAK KUERTEN AND WITH INJURYS ROUTINED HIM IN 2004.....

federer played so many final because without nadal , not had real clay compeititon.
But that was pre-peak Federer*. :p

Hey... if people want to argue Nadal wasn't in his prime even after he'd won three French Opens then Federer surely wasn't when he'd only won two majors.
 

drm025

Hall of Fame
I don't know why we all can't agree on the obvious.

Over the last decade, with super slow courts, obviously it gives Nadal a huge advantage over Federer. It would be like Sampras being limited to only playing on slow clay.

So I would say the number one player over the last decade is Nadal. But he's not a better player than Federer. If they played at any other time Federer would own Nadal, so would Sampras and many others.

Nadal is a supreme talent, but his game is based on wearing out his opponents on slow courts.

Don't say "Oh what about Wimbledon, what about". If you know what you are talking about you know Wimbledon is as slow as the French Open used to be in the 90's.

So as much as I hate to admit it, Nadal is the best over the last decade, Federer GOAT, that is HE WOULD BE MORE SUCCESSFUL OVER THE BEST PLAYERS THROUGHOUT HISTORY ON TRADITIONAL COURTS.

All speculation, you can really only talk about what has actually happened.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Hey... if people want to argue Nadal wasn't in his prime even after he'd won three French Opens then Federer surely wasn't when he'd only won two majors.
For Nadal it is a strange case, as on clay courts he was already a beast... but on hard courts and grass he took time to adapt and adjust. This can be explained by his upbringing on clay.
That's why these 'why didn't Nadal win USO Open in 2005 then, if he could win the French' arguments simply don't cut it- it's illogical and missing the point.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Can anyone else think of an all time great who has been dominated by his major rival as Nadal has, in any sport?
 

tennisaddict

Bionic Poster
Can anyone else think of an all time great who has been dominated by his major rival as Nadal has, in any sport?

Can any other player with 13 majors lose 7 consecutive times to another player ?

Why 13 majors ? has anyone with even 3 majors lost 0-7 ?

And that too in their prime ? And including beating on their favorite surface ?
 

drm025

Hall of Fame
Can anyone else think of an all time great who has been dominated by his major rival as Nadal has, in any sport?

No, but I'm pretty sure Federer fans will not budge from their stance that Nadal only dominates him on clay and therefore does not dominate him overall.

23-10

9-2

6-2
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Can any other player with 13 majors lose 7 consecutive times to another player ?

Why 13 majors ? has anyone with even 3 majors lost 0-7 ?
No, but there is a difference.
After that 0-7 run (which by the way only stretched for around 10 months) Nadal turned it around, he has won the majority of encounters between the two after that. He also leads the overall H2H against Djokovic.

Meanwhile Federer never managed to turn it around against Nadal.

The fact people are resorting to pointing to the Nadal vs Djokovic rivalry, where Nadal leads the H2H overall and has come back from a one sided 10 month period- shows the paucity of greats there are that have really been dominated by their major rival as Roger Federer has.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
It's obvious that Federer isn't perfect but it doesn't mean he's not in the GOAT territory.
I did say in the article that Fed is right up there, in the pantheon of greats, but due to these 2 main reasons he is not the stand-alone GOAT.
 

SublimeTennis

Professional
I don't know why we all can't agree on the obvious.

Over the last decade, with super slow courts, obviously it gives Nadal a huge advantage over Federer. It would be like Sampras being limited to only playing on slow clay.

So I would say the number one player over the last decade is Nadal. But he's not a better player than Federer. If they played at any other time Federer would own Nadal, so would Sampras and many others.

Nadal is a supreme talent, but his game is based on wearing out his opponents on slow courts.

Don't say "Oh what about Wimbledon, what about". If you know what you are talking about you know Wimbledon is as slow as the French Open used to be in the 90's.

So as much as I hate to admit it, Nadal is the best over the last decade, Federer GOAT, that is HE WOULD BE MORE SUCCESSFUL OVER THE BEST PLAYERS THROUGHOUT HISTORY ON TRADITIONAL COURTS.

I wouldn't say it's speculation. Court speed is HUGE, and predictable. We know Sampras was poor on Clay.

Think of the gift Nadal got. Here's a baseliner, probably the best in history, turning pro at a time where the courts slow down to the fastest being as slow as the 90's French Open. Then you have Federer coming up training as a serve and volleyer at a time when courts slow down!

Fed had to completely change his game, a great testament to him by the way. I get so frustrated when I hear "Nadal has really transformed into faster courts", these "Faster courts" are still slow.

High level players understand the huge significance of court speed. I don't know your level, but go get some "heavy duty" tennis balls, and also get some Gamma fast balls, the ones that have next to no felt. Play two sets, one with the slow balls, one with the fast and see what difference it makes. If you are playing lower level you may not notice, if you are higher you'll see it's a huge difference.

Anyways, fun talking about it. Scary thing is Nadal could get the French again, very likely in fact, and other's if he's healthy, he might quickly get to 20 slams! Great player that Nadal, I don't like his style of play but that doesn't mean he's GREAT.
 

tennisaddict

Bionic Poster
No, but there is a difference.
After that 0-7 run (which by the way only stretched for around 10 months) Nadal turned it around, he has won the majority of encounters between the two after that. He also leads the overall H2H against Djokovic.

Meanwhile Federer never managed to turn it around against Nadal.

The fact people are resorting to pointing to the Nadal vs Djokovic rivalry, where Nadal leads the H2H overall and has come back from a one sided 10 month period- shows the paucity of greats there are that have really been dominated by their major rival as Roger Federer has.

Tennis is played against the whole field and is not just between Federer, Nadal, Novak and Murray.

The fact remains Federer has 17 majors, 302 weeks and 6 WTF.

Everyone else has considerably less.

It does not matter if you have a h2h with Fed, but fail to win other decisive matches consistently.

At the end of the day, the results show Fed outperformed everyone.

And all this with a playing style that is entertaining for everyone and being a brand ambassador of the sport.

It is common to hear 'Nadal is ruining the sport'. That is Nadal for you.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
2 reasons against he's not vs the countless reasons that he is? Bias much
I mean I could come up with more than 2 if I wanted, but these are the strongest 2- and for me the relevant ones.
In terms of what is for him, well statistically he is the strongest, no doubt about that.

The debate is: are my two criticisms correct (were the players around his age he beat 2003-2007 in the latter stages of hard court and grass weaker than the 'Nadalovicurray' younger triad; and does Federer struggle against his main rival)?
And if I am correct in my two criticisms, are they a significant blow to Federer's call to GOAThood? Are there any other greats who have struggled against their main rival as Roger has? Federer won 12/17 of his slams between 2003 and 2007, and this was when his vast majority of time at number one was in this period too.
 

Manus Domini

Hall of Fame
As for the Murray stat:



This I think is an alarming and revealing stat, and I'm surprised people haven't picked up on this. It's not meant to say Murray is better than Roger, but it is a daming exposure of Federer's contemporaries- even if one or two of them managed to get less than Murray that would show something- but ALL of them combined (13 players in total which include all GS final opponents apart form Nadal and Djokovic), is shocking.

Or they were bad match-ups for Fed.
 

Raz11

Professional
No, but I'm pretty sure Federer fans will not budge from their stance that Nadal only dominates him on clay and therefore does not dominate him overall.

23-10

9-2

6-2

If Nadal dominated Federer off clay then is the following fair that

70% of their HC matches came during 2009 - 2014
During this time, Nadal won 3/3 HC slam titles and made 5/5 HC Slam finals
During this time, Federer won 1/9 HC Slam titles and made 3/11 HC slam finals.

All but one was played during the 1st half which comprises of slow HC tournaments and the only time they played on a medium court was when Nadal was arguably at the height of his HC game and Federer would go on to lose to Robredo in a couple of weeks at USO.

During the other 30% of HC matches,
They split the two matches at Miami where it is arguably the slowest HC and the match at Dubai was so close that it came down to a point or two.

How is all of this evidence that Nadal dominated Federer on HC.
 

Manus Domini

Hall of Fame
Perhaps none of them are all time greats?

And if they were, injuries plagued then, which is even better for Federer.

Well, I don't think we're claiming those people are all-time greats. But isn't it easier to become an all-time great if the competition's weak?
 

Manus Domini

Hall of Fame
He beat Federer on clay, and even though clay is Roger's least favourite surface, I would put him in the top 10 clay courters of all time (and even higher for grass and HC).

So, if Roger's one of the top 10 clay courters of all time, and it's his worst surface, that means he's far and away one of the best grass-court players or HC-players of all time, right?
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
Well, I don't think we're claiming those people are all-time greats. But isn't it easier to become an all-time great if the competition's weak?

I understand your point, but I did address this in the article.
Let me repost an extract from it:

Now we go to 2007, and see the top 3: Federer, Nadal, Djokovic.
This is when Federer is 26/27 years old- so players around his age should be around prime level. But wait... at spot 2 and 3 we have 2 youngsters; Nadal and Djokovic despite bring pre-prime are higher in the rankings than players Federer's age, who should be at prime level. Does that not say a lot?

None of Federer's potential rivals his age were able to maintain a sustained challenge to Federer:

Where did Safin disappear after AO 2005? Why did Hewitt decline to the extent that he exited the top 10 after 2005, and has never managed to come back in the top 10. Why did Nalbandian stall in slams so much- after 2003 he never even reached a slam final. Why did he underperform so much?
The only player who was Federer's age who regularly played him in Grand Slam finals was Andy Roddick. With all respect to Roddick, he had a great serve, but his groundstrokes and baseline play was abysmal. Only in 2009 when Stefanki improved Roddick from the baseline did he come close to challenging Federer and impress me as an all round player- watch him in his prime getting absolutely torn to shreds by a young Murray in Wimbledon 2006.
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
So far I have seen many replies supposedly against my viewpoint, but unfortunately few actually attacking or addressing the substance of the article, and more simply showing outrage at some misconceptions.

Let me clarify, I am not saying any of the below:
1/ Murray is better than Federer due to that stat.
2/ Federer's isn't an all time great
3/ Federer isn't statistically the best
 

Manus Domini

Hall of Fame
3/ Federer isn't statistically the best

Yeah, you're claiming he's the best because he reigned in a weak era, which didn't show its weakness until Rafa et alia started showing up to the party.

Despite there not existing such thing as a "weak era".
 

Amritia

Hall of Fame
So the era starting ~2007 was weaker than before, and that's why Djokovic and Rafa became "greats"? I'll take it :lol:

I don't think the fact Djokovic and Nadal were 2&3 in 2007 is why they are greats, and nor did I say so.
Infact I would say quite differently, the fact Djokovic in particular was ranked number 3 despite being young and not close to his prime; that as I said raises questions about players Federer's age who were 26-27. Nadal is a slightly strange scenario, as he was mainly a beast on clay and took time until he was older to adjust to moving well on HC and grass- but I would also say the fact no one Federer's age could even get close to his number 2 spot from late 2005 is alarming.
 

Magnetite

Professional
Why do you think Nadal, Djokovic and Murray are so good?

It's from having to figure out a way to beat Federer on every surface (sans Nadal on clay).

They could hone their game against a guy that had already elevated himself past the rest of the competition. They had Federer as a milestone.

I think people forget how everything played out once Federer hit the scene. They forget how Nadal, pretty much faced Fed primarily on clay, and how hard Nadal had to work on his game to start beating Federer on any other surface.

Fed had a huge target on his back for 5 years. Everyone was gunning for him. That's gotta take it's toll and he's still close to the top.

Who knocked Djokovic 2.0 off the top spot? It was Fed. Nadal was getting owned at the time.

It's definitely debatable, I just want people to think about what was actually happening, instead of pulling out stats and not putting them into any context.
 

Raz11

Professional
I don't think the fact Djokovic and Nadal were 2&3 in 2007 is why they are greats, and nor did I say so.
Infact I would say quite differently, the fact Djokovic in particular was ranked number 3 despite being young and not close to his prime; that as I said raises questions about players Federer's age who were 26-27. Nadal is a slightly strange scenario, as he was mainly a beast on clay and took time until he was older to adjust to moving well on HC and grass- but I would also say the fact no one Federer's age could even get close to his number 2 spot from late 2005 is alarming.

Majority of the all time greats had already declined by the time they were 26. It was only recently that players have been getting older. Federer was one of the exception of his generation because he matured later than his peers.
 

RF20Lennon

Legend
Still don't agree, if he loses to Djokovic in a slam then Djokovic denied him the slam. Not any potential next opponent. There is no looking ahead, ask the players themselves. They will tell you the best way is to go match by match. Your last opponent is the one that denied you the slam.

Also, I'd say coming back from 2 sets down and match point down would be a pretty big thorn.

Federer made a terrible mistake of worrying about the next match with Nadal than concentrating with Djokovic. Shows you if he thinks Djokovic is a thorn. But each to his own I guess. But looking at the big picture the only big thorn Federer has had in his career, the only bad part in his resume is Nadal.
 

Manus Domini

Hall of Fame
Majority of the all time greats had already declined by the time they were 26. It was only recently that players have been getting older. Federer was one of the exception of his generation because he matured later than his peers.

^This. How old was Borg when he retired again? 26/27?
 
Top