Arena Federer/Nadal/Djokovic Era - Now 1/3rd Over

One question-- how can you be the greatest of all time when you have a decisively poor record against a similarly great player in your own time?

 

yeah, i think that's the main argument for nadal. the problem with it is that they're not really "similarly great". at least not yet. 17 majors to 12 is a pretty big gap and I don't think you can even really make an argument that nadal is greater than sampras at this point. but as i said, one more wimbeldon, one more hard court major, and one or two more frenches and nadal is right there, even if fed wins another major.

 

What % of their meetings came on clay? Nadal is the greatest clay court player ever so he will obviously be dominant there. If you look at their overall records (i.e. not head-to-head) Nadal just doesn't compare to Federer.

 

Right, but Nadal beat him at Wimbledon for a title and at the Australian for one as well. If Federer hadn't collapsed against Djokovic in 2011, we'd have a title result from the US Open as well.

It's just a major asterisk on Federer's record in my view.

 

roper's point is actually a valid one though. nadal is 13-2 against federer on clay and 7-8 against him on other surfaces.

 

Nadal is only 50/50 in finals at two of the slams and 2 for 5 at another. With the exception of the French, when Federer makes it to the final of a slam, he pretty much wins. IMO, part of being the greatest is being great consistently. Federer has done that. Nadal has only done it at the French. Sure he's beaten Federer at other finals but maybe he only gets there when he's got his best stuff. If he had scraped into the finals of those two a few more years, Federer likely would have beaten him.

 

i think the counter argument to that is that federer is four and a half years older than nadal so their primes didn't exactly coincide. fed won 12 of his 17 majors from 2003-2007. in 2007 nadal turned 21. in any case i don't think we can really have this argument until they're both actually finished.

 

I agree that it age difference comes into it. But that works both ways. That's why I think overall record is a better indication. Federer is dominant in that regard, and overwhelming so. True, their careers aren't over, but I don't see Nadal overtaking him there.

 

eh, i wouldn't call it overwhelming. nadal at least has an edge in career winning percentage, though his injuries have limited his total matches. fed has 76 titles, nadal 57. that's only a difference of 19 titles and keep in mind that nadal has 7 titles this year, fed zero. so it is trending the other way. in fact in the next few years i expect nadal could start to make up a lot of ground if he can stay healthy. that's a really big if though.

 

I focusing more an the slams and Federer's consistent successes over 4-5 years. Look at how many times he won 2 or 3 in a year compared to the number of times Nadal managed it (he only won more than 1 in a year twice). As for win %, in terms of the slams, Federer's is better in 3 of the 4 with Nadal being completely dominant in the French. Also, Federer is further along in his decline so his winning % will have fallen further from what it was at his prime than Nadal's has.

 

i don't think federer had really had a noticeable decline until maybe right now. we'll see how the rest of the season plays out.

my main point in bringing up the age difference was that federer didn't have to deal with a nadal in his prime when he went on that great run. nadal has had to deal with a federer at the top of his game, and now a risen djokovic and murray throughout his own prime.

i mean yeah those 4-5 years were special. but look at who he was beating (philippoussis, safin, roddick, hewitt, baghdatis, fernando gonzalez, an old agassi). he took full advantage of a lull in the level of the game. he did beat a young nadal in those two wimbeldon finals ('06 and '07) but i would argue that that was before nadal found his top form.

 

The reason why Federer/Nadal and Djokovic are racking up slams is the lack of young talent. Where is the young generation? There are no guys in the 19-23 range who are challenging for grand slams, hell there aren't even any of them in the top 20. Each generation has had a new one to deal with as they aged, Sampras and Agassi had Safin/Federer/Hewitt/Roddick, then Federer had Nadal/Djokovic/Murray. All of those guys were slam threats at a young age. It looks like the new generation are a lost cause. There may be a skip and wait until the next one with the guys who are 16-7 now like Christian Garin, Stefan Kozlov and others.

 

You forget about Australian up and coming superstar Bernard Tomic!


...lol

 

You can only beat who's put in front of you so I can't fault Federer too much for that. And Nadal may have been younger than Federer but he had already won 2 French Opens when he faced Federer at Wimbledon. He was hardly a slouch. Federer also has winning records against Djokovic and Murray (although I'm not sure when the wins and losses were exactly so age difference could come into play in the same way that you mentioned for Nadal).

I just think that Federer's consistent greatness gives him an overwhelming edge. Which isn't to say that if they played each other in their primes that Federer would have an overwhelming edge in the match. It could go either way (unless it's the French ).

 

i've already said that i consider federer the greatest. i just think that nadal could catch him. again he's basically four years behind fed. unfortunately i think his knee will likely keep him from it and he will likely go down as the greatest clay court player ever, and the second or third greatest player of all-time.

on the other hand, if no young players do step up, who's to say how many majors djokovic will end up with?

 

It was supposed to be Tomic and Dimitrov (and some said Harrison lol). They still could of course but its more delayed.

and you are right Tom, Murray and Djokovic will probably be the beneficiaries of the younger generation not stepping up.

 

I think Federer's most outstanding record is the number of consecutive semis/quarters he reached. That's basically 0 bad matches at the majors for years and years, across all surfaces and all opponents. That record is basically untouchable and why I think he'll go down as the greatest for a long time to come yet (though Nadal could get him in raw numbers).

 

Sampras would be an extremely difficult player for Nadal-- like the players who give him the hardest time in general, only a lot better. He also probably wouldn't be as vulnerable to what kills Federer over and over again with Nadal. I remember when Nadal first came along, and it was great that there was finally someone who could beat Federer, and then consistently. Then Nadal broadened his game and he became a truly great player by any reasonable measure.

McEnroe would be a major challenge for anyone on grass, and I tell you, they would all be vulnerable to his ability to play at the net. All of them would be well behind McEnroe there. He was just an extremely intelligent player in general, and it's unfortunate that he shined so brightly and then burned out fast. He was done after his best year, 1984. I don't think any great player was so thoroughly crushed in a major the way Jimmy Connors was at Wimbledon until Federer met defeat at the 2008 French Open. Those were more than defeats-- it was total domination by McEnroe and Nadal.

 

I look at the over-all success of players across all the different surfaces. Doing that, I just can't see how you can't come up with Fed as the greatest. You can make an argument for Fed as the greatest on all surfaces, except for clay (and even then he is definitely in the top 5 at least). You can't say the same about Nadal or any other player. The closest one with consistent success that I can think of off the top of my head is Agassi. (The only two players to win on 5 different surfaces - including Rebound Ace at the Australian.) Maybe Lendl in there too.

When you consider the fact that there are 23 ATP clay court tournaments vs 6 ATP grass court tournaments, I would expect that the greatest clay court player of all time would have a better record. On indoor hard courts, Fed leads Nadal 4-0. (Nadal himself said he can't beat Fed there and has pretty much been trounced by him every time.) I think there are like 3 of those. At the year end championships, Fed has won 6 and been in 8 finals while Nadal has only been runner up once (to Fed).

The cross over really comes on the hard courts and over the last ten years many of them have been slowed way down, especially the Australian, Indian Wells and Miami - away from Fed's strength - and these are the ones they met in. Rafa tends not to make it to finals of the top level, faster hard courts like US open, Cincinnati, and Montreal.

I like Nadal. I think he is one of the greatest sportsmen of the game - probably even more so than Fed - but as an all around player I don't see him living up to it. He doesn't have the consistency of results across all surfaces like Fed does and I can't see anyway possible that he will take the record number of weeks at #1 away from Fed.

 

Good points. Lendl never won Wimbledon.

 

if fed is a top 5 all-time player on clay (and i agree that he is), then it makes nadal's 13-2 record against him on that surface and beating him the french open final all 5 times he faced him there that much more impressive. i think if nadal wins one more wimbledon you could make an argument for him as a top 5 all-time player on grass (behind sampras, fed, borg and mcenroe). and when he was really hitting his prime he was well on his way to becoming a dominant player on hard courts as well, from 2008-2010 i would argue that he was without a doubt the best player on all surfaces. unfortunately hard courts are obviously the hardest on his bad knees and he's unlikely to ever be considered one of the greats on that surface now.

 

but he sure did have some consistently good results there. I think 5 or 6 semifinal or final appearances.

Tom - If his body was able to hold up then maybe he would, but as it stands he's not even in the top 10 for number of titles on hard courts. Nor is he in the top 10 for number of grass court titles. (Then again, Fed isn't in the top 10 for clay court titles and I still think there's wiggle room for him to be considered top 5) At the very least, I would throw in Edberg, Becker & Laver ahead of Nadal on grass courts even if he does win another Wimbledon.

 

I agree with that, I thought Tom mentioned him. Others to consider are Rosewall and Newcomb. I could even make a case for Roddick ahead of Nadal. (not sure if they ever met on grass). It might be a stretch to even include Rafa in the top 10.