Towser83
G.O.A.T.
Out of interest, what does make one player the GOAT? Why do you say it is Laver? Just because of the grand slam?
Would nadal be the GOAT if he solves the Djokovic enigma?
- Thread starter dominikk1985
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Out of interest, what does make one player the GOAT? Why do you say it is Laver? Just because of the grand slam?
Towser83
G.O.A.T.
I don't really like Murray and much prefer Nadal to beat him, but it's silly to put down Murray's chances against Nadal on hardcourt. The HC H2H is 5-4 to Nadal, but in HC majors it's 2-1 to Murray, and the one Nadal won he had to come back from 2 sets to 1 down and that was when Murray was a novice.
The WTF match, really Murray deserved to win. I think he won the middle set with a double break and lost the other 2 only in tiebreaks. Not being biased, I think Nadal deserved to win against Dodig for the same reason.
Murray is more comfortable on hardcourt despite not being able to win a HC major. In a semi though he could be a problem, especially if Nadal's aura and confidence slips any more.
No, we can't agree on that. Only you and delusional Nadal ****s can agree on that amongst yourselves.
There was a popular argument among Nadal fans that it was Nadal's low serving percentage that cost him the match at Indian Wells (42%). So then he serves 60% at Miami and STILL lost (I'm not familiar with the excuses from that match). And then later at Wimbledon, he serves a whopping 78%--even higher than Djokovic--and still lost and delusional people like you continue to claim that he didn't play well.
There isn't a single statistic that you can point to that would give the overall impression that Nadal didn't play well in the Wimbledon final. All you can point to are intangibles. Your OPINION does not count as evidence.
Cesc Fabregas
Legend
Djokovic was there for the taking in the 4th set and Nadal messed it up. Nadal should have taken it to a 5th set atleast. Crap performance from Nadal.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
To be honest I thought the Wimbledon final between Djokovic and Nadal was their worst match of the year. The first set was very good from both, Nadal fell apart in the 2nd, Djokovic fell apart in the 3rd, the 4th was a bit better with some patchy play by both.
FedExpress 333
Professional
You know, I think it might be true. Nadal respects Fed a lot, and it might be tough.
But then again fed respected sampras a ton.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
It isnt just one thing. The Grand Slam is by far the biggest achievement in the sport though. It is the main reason Graf is rated as the GOAT over Navratilova despite her stabbing inflated numbers and despite not holding the record total at any of the individual slams or overall. Of course it can be overcome by other things. In Laver's case though he was banned from the slams for FIVE straight years right in the midst of his prime and still won 11 slams and the Grand Slam 7 year apart. If Federer or Sampras were banned from playing any slams from age 24 to 29 they would be lucky to have more than 6 slams. There is no valid argument against Laver being the GOAT except for lame ones like he didnt play slams on hard courts or that he supposably played in an easier era (in fact the late 60s was a far tougher field than Federer or ever faced).
The GOAT also cannot be owned by the 2nd best player of their era like Federer is by Nadal. It is pretty stupid to call someone GOAT when they arent even clearly the best player of their own era, and when they are 2-7 in slams vs their main rival of their own era. Laver, Sampras, Borg, Gonzales, would never be owned by their biggest rival this way. Neither would Graf, Court, Navratilova, or Serena.
SLD76
G.O.A.T.
Hmm, so a guy is goat if he has a better head to head against the GOAT, but has a worse record agaisnt the field overall?
And a guy is goat if the guy with a better record in the field is good enough to make finals against him on his best surface and the Goat's worst surface, but he is not good enough to consistently make finals agaisnt him on his weaker surfaces.
Ok then.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
Nobody has said Nadal is the GOAT so cut out your pointless BSing. What Nadal does is just help make it abundantly clear Federer isnt.
SLD76
G.O.A.T.
Cool story
And how is it pointless if its the truth?
'
Ill break it down another way. The Yankees from 1996 to 2001 were one of the most dominant dynasties in baseball history, winning 4 WS and making 5 WS in that time.
And yet, in that time frame, they had a losing record to the lowly Anaheim Angels. or the Los Angels of Anaheim as they are called now.
However, it didnt matter as Anaheim was a bad team and didnt make the playoffs....til 2002, where the Yankees faced them in the first round and lost. Anaheim went on to win the WS that year.
My point is its a bit foolish to put so much stock in head to head. The only result that matters is tournaments and titles won.Is it unfortunate for Federer he doesnt have a positive h2h with Nadal? Perhaps.
Its also unfortunate that Nadal wasnt good enough to meet Fed regularly in tournaments not on grass and clay.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
Cool story
And how is it pointless if its the truth?
'
Ill break it down another way. The Yankees from 1996 to 2001 were one of the most dominant dynasties in baseball history, winning 4 WS and making 5 WS in that time.
And yet, in that time frame, they had a losing record to the lowly Anaheim Angels. or the Los Angels of Anaheim as they are called now.
However, it didnt matter as Anaheim was a bad team and didnt make the playoffs....til 2002, where the Yankees faced them in the first round and lost. Anaheim went on to win the WS that year.
My point is its a bit foolish to put so much stock in head to head. The only result that matters is tournaments and titles won.Is it unfortunate for Federer he doesnt have a positive h2h with Nadal? Perhaps.
Its also unfortunate that Nadal wasnt good enough to meet Fed regularly in tournaments not on grass and clay.
It is pointless since nobody ever suggested Nadal is the GOAT. Reading logic is one of the many flaws of ****s though so not surprised something so simple needs to be explained more than once. Your need to go off into a fictional idea that has never been seriously discussed by any of us (Nadal as the current GOAT) is also evidence you feel the need to veer off the topic of Federer's failures to win the Grand Slam and failures vs Nadal and their impact on his legacy.
Nadal is not the GOAT standard, so what is your point. Arguing who is better between Federer and Nadal has no bearing on who the GOAT is. Neither even come close. It is like arguing who is better between Venus Williams and Justine Henin as determining the female GOAT.
Nadal has to add alot more to his already considerable accomplishments to even be a GOAT candidate. Federer is not the GOAT for many reasons. One of many being that he is owned by his biggest rival which none of Laver, Sampras, Gonzales, Tilden, or Borg ever were. They were far too good and too proud and too plain tough to have an embarassing 8-17 or 2-7 slam head to head vs the other great player of their own era. Someone as you mockingly while missing the point correctly point out is not even close to a GOAT candidate himself at this point, making the total ownage H2H all the more embarassing. Not to mention Federer cant even compare to a man who won the Grand Slam twice, 7 years apart, something Federer proved clearly unable to do even once. Not to mention a man who won 11 slams despite being banned from playing tennis from ages 24-29, something Federer would have never gotten close to in that scenario.
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SLD76
G.O.A.T.
Well I guess if Rafa can't do it then...may as well prop up Laver...or maybe Djoko in a year or two
Incidentally, Laver was great in his day, but the it really is apples and oranges as has been explained ad nauseum.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
Nadal has time on his side. He probably wont be the GOAT but he has a good chance of surpassing Federer in the future. Of course surpassing Federer is a long way from reaching GOAT status, so if/once he reaches that point he will still have a ways to go.
So is Federer the best player of the era or not? :-?
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NadalAgassi
Guest
He is the greatest of his own era for now (probably wont be in several years time) but when he steps on court with Nadal he is repeatedly 2nd best. Either way he is far from being the GOAT. When Serena, Federer, and Nadal are all retired Serena will be the main player from this generation in GOAT discussions. Nadal could be if he rebounds big in the coming years, but I wouldnt bet on it. Federer will be increasingly an afterthought and will be viewed as inferior to even Sampras again once he is no longer an active player. He is already losing steam from people (eg- McEnroe, Carillo, Shriver, Collins, Bodo) in the twilight of his career, and he isnt even retired yet.
The Federer supporters who are sure his slam record wil keep him in the forefront (if he even keeps that) even after he retires are in for a rude awakening. Do many people talk about Margaret Court these days. Yep I thought so.
The Federer supporters who are sure his slam record wil keep him in the forefront (if he even keeps that) even after he retires are in for a rude awakening. Do many people talk about Margaret Court these days. Yep I thought so.
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Towser83
G.O.A.T.
Yes and apparently his average first serve speed was higher than in the US Open final where he played incredible, served incredible and won.
Djokovic had a dip in form and probably decided to let go of the set and focus on the 4th. Nadal did fall apart a bit but that's because Djokovic beat him 4 times in a row before that. Look back at Wimbledon 2008, Federer had been beaten 3 times on the spin by rafa and humbled at the French. He now had to defend his Wimbledon title unde huge pressure. Admittedly he did a better job than Nadal at trying to make a comeback but they both choked in the end.
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Towser83
G.O.A.T.
The no hardcourt reason is not lame - Nadal gets all the praise for winning slams on 3 different surfaces last year, if Federer was playing on Hardcourt and Grass only, he'd have several calendar grand slams. One surface can be a deal breaker.
I'm interested though because in Laver's case he is the GOAT right? So why do you put Serena ahead of Court and Graf who both did the grand slam (steffi did the Golden slam) and won over 20 majors? You can make excuses like Graf was "stabbing assisted" but she'd already won the golden slam. Therefore she's better than Serena.
Using your criteria for placing Laver over Federer, Court and Graf should figure above Serena. I appreciate the game has changed and Court would probably be blasted off court. But Laver was from Court's generation. He was older than she was. He'd probably get blasted off court today.
As far as Federer being dominated by Nadal, it's not even a proper match up due to them being 5 years apart in age. Go back to the end of 2007 where they had actually played 7 matches on clay, 5 on hard and 2 on grass - so a fairly even split between surfaces that favoured Nadal and ones that favoured Federer, and their H2H was 8-6 to Nadal. Which is a ONE match swing, so basically a missed match point at Rome 2006 let's say. That's how close it was. After that Nadal went on to win nearly every match, taking advantage of an aging and declining Federer. Though Nadal won many titles in Federer's era he did not become dominant until Federer's era was over, he didn't even make a HC major final until Federer had won 8 of his 9 HC major titles. So you can plainly see he didn't even play him at a HC major until Federer was practically washed up, barring the odd purple patch (winning AO 2010) That doesn't actually prove anything, except Federer and nadal probably had a 2 year window at most in which they were both somewhat near their best. That time is 2006/2007 where they played 11 times, Nadal leading 6-5.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
Serena is not the greatest ever in terms of achievements (yet) of course. In her case it wouldnt matter what numbers you referenced since as far as numbers she isnt the best ever anywhere. I concede that. However as far as peak level of ability she is the best ever IMO. This is a case where it isnt so much about numbers, but about the actual ability to play tennis. Simply put at her best she would beat all of Graf, Navratilova, Evert, or Court, probably destroy them. Some observers of the game have noted the same thing. Of course you can disagree but I am not going to change my opinion in this case, and I am not the only one who feels this way. This is obviously not true of Federer who would cant even beat Nadal most of the time (and only half the time on non clay surfaces if you want to go there), so would likely not fare well vs people like Sampras, Gonzales or Laver who outside of clay are much better than Nadal. As well unlike Serena vs past greats of her gender, Federer does not surpass those former greats in terms of speed, power, mental toughness, weaponary, or any tangible means.
As for Laver most feel hard courts with his all around game would have been his best surface. There are no indications hard courts would have been his weakest of the 3 major surfaces which is a rarity anyway, but in the cases of Borg and Nadal it is easy to understand with their game and hitting styles how that would be the case. Also there were hard court events back then, just not the slams, and Laver was as dominant in those as either grass or clay. Winning on grass and clay is much harder than winning on hard courts and grass btw. Great grass courters dont tend to be great clay courters. Even Federer who has won the 3 biggest clay events (French Open, Monte Carlo, Rome) only once in his career and is not a top 10 clay courter of the Open Era is evidence of this. Only Laver, Borg, and Rosewall are truly great clay and grass court players. Players that are great on both grass and hard courts are MUCH more common than players that are great on both grass and clay.
As for Laver most feel hard courts with his all around game would have been his best surface. There are no indications hard courts would have been his weakest of the 3 major surfaces which is a rarity anyway, but in the cases of Borg and Nadal it is easy to understand with their game and hitting styles how that would be the case. Also there were hard court events back then, just not the slams, and Laver was as dominant in those as either grass or clay. Winning on grass and clay is much harder than winning on hard courts and grass btw. Great grass courters dont tend to be great clay courters. Even Federer who has won the 3 biggest clay events (French Open, Monte Carlo, Rome) only once in his career and is not a top 10 clay courter of the Open Era is evidence of this. Only Laver, Borg, and Rosewall are truly great clay and grass court players. Players that are great on both grass and hard courts are MUCH more common than players that are great on both grass and clay.
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Towser83
G.O.A.T.
Yeah but if it is up to you to say Serena is just better and nevermind the records and facts, then anyone can say this about Federer or any other opponent.
Saying Federer can not even deal with Nadal and therefore couldn't deal with any of these other players is just wrong, firstly because there's matchup issues going on. Davydenko has a winning record over Nadal but is quite poor against Federer. Therefore it is possible to fail against one player but constantly beat another who is in fact much better than the guy you lose to. Also as I've already said, Federer's H2H is tllted heavily in favour of Nadal because he played him many times on clay, and then played him when Nadal was coming into his prime and Federer was done with his. Even laver had losing records to certain people like Jimmy Connors. Not a huge losing record but if he carried on playing it would have been.
Secondly are you seriously saying Federer and others in the modern game don't have more power than Laver did? Serena would probably beat Court easily because of her bigger power game, but the same change has happened in the men's game. Even MacEnroe in the late 80s was getting overpowered, players from the early 60s going toe to toe against today's power players?
As for Sampras we know he never did well at the French Open and the one time he played Federer he lost. True he was past his best, though Federer was nowhere near his. And after all a 41 year old Gonzalez beat a 31 year old Laver (according to you the GOAT) so why couldn't Sampras beat a 10 years his junior Federer?
By the way, you're actually giving credit to Federer for something he didn't do" he's never won Monte Carlo or Rome.
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DeShaun
Banned
Eight months is not exactly a flash in the pan. Nole's form is the new standard. Nobody before this season ever silenced Rafa like Nole has. Nole is The Sheriff until further notice. Not just a great player on a run of form--runs of form tend to expire before eight months--but raising the bar over everyone...Nole is the new standard.
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NadalAgassi
Guest
Federer would get overpowered by someone like a prime Sampras on all surfaces except for clay or rebound ace. Sampras has a bigger game, superior all court skills, and even more athletic ability than Federer, along with superior mental toughness. When you compare Serena to prime Graf or Seles for instance you dont reach the same conclusions.
Your head to head excuse for Federer and Nadal is baloney. First of all they played more non clay matches in Federer prime (2004-2007) than they did in Nadal (2008-2011). In fact 7 were in the Federer prime and only 4 in the Nadal prime, yet Federer still barely leads 6-5 and will most likely be 6-6 when they next play. Secondly if Federer is even equal in the head to head respect he should be able to own Nadal on some surface the way the way Nadal does Federer on clay. Yet he cant do that, and couldnt even do it vs teenage baby Nadal at his own peak, who he lost 2 of his first 3 non clay matches to. Unless you count indoors as a surface in which case yes Federer owns Nadal indoors, but now is owned by Nadal on outdoor hard courts too where he trails 4-1, and had Nadal not choked a big lead would have lost all 3 encounters to a 17-19 year old Nadal.
Lastly since you chose to go this route I will point that on grass at Wimbledon it is Federer who has been the one to fail to produce the matchups and his H2H with Nadal is in fact better than it would be because of it. A barely 20 year old Nadal with almost no experience on grass, and absolutely no previous credentials on the surface made the Wimbledon final to play peak Federer in 2006. A 21 year old Nadal who still had only the previous years Wimbledon as a quality showing on the surface, including poor showings at Queens in both 06 and 07, again made the final to play Federer in 2007, and despite losing badly outclassed Federer from the baseline all match and forced a career serving day for Federer to eke out the win. Yet a 28 and 29 year old Federer who was one of the favorites for Wimbledon fell in big upsets and thus failed to get to the final to lose to Nadal in 2010 and 2011, which would have put the head to head on grass as 3-2 in Nadals favor had Federer been able to hold up his end up the bargain.
As for hard courts 2 time hard court slam winner Nadal simply failed less during Federers peak years than 9 time hard court slam winner Federer had at the same age. Nadal failed to make his first hard court slam semi until 21, Federer failed to make his first hard court slam quarterfinal until 22. So lets not go there. Still funny how Federer was even often losing on hard courts to Nadal back when Nadal was a hard court mug losing (being killed) regularly by the likes of Youzhny, Gonzalez, Berdych and Blake in the hard court slams and other hard court events. Of course prime Federer outside of the head to head matchup is a far better hard court player than Nadal, especialy 17-19 year old Nadal, yet still at best can only break even when on court together. That should already put to rest any arguments about the embarassing degree of the head to head ownage, and how bad it reflects on Federer in comparision to other legends past.
The Laver vs Connors comparision is ridiculous considering Laver was in his mid 30s by the time he was playing Connors.
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RAFA2005RG
Banned
If Nadal beats Federer at the US Open, it will override anything Federer has done vs Nadal on hardcourts. Nadal will lead the hardcourt slam h2h 2-0. That will mean grass is the only surface Federer will have a h2h advantage on. And a good chance they will meet at the grasscourt Olympics next year.
SLD76
G.O.A.T.
............ but who will care?
It wont override Fed's 5 USO or the fact that he was won 3 majors at least 4 times each.
Seriously, you all place way too much on the H2H.
Not to mention that had Nadal beat fed at USO in say 2007/8, it would mean more.
Not so much 2011 when Fed is 30 and aging before our eyes.
SLD76
G.O.A.T.
So Federer should purposefully tank to avoid Nadal?
Lol, ******* logic is so stupid.
mandy01
G.O.A.T.
Exactly. At their best, Djoker is obviously the better player ergo, Nadal is actually the third best player of his era .
RAFA2005RG
Banned
Federer would never tank, he's a winner. He would rather face Nadal at RG final than lose a RG semi.
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