Is this a strong or a weak era? Confusing

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Given that one of Federer/ Nadal/ Djokovic have to lose before the finals and two have to lose before the tournament ends, it is a strong era. Those are 3 potential all time greats playing together. They could end up with more than 40 grand slams between them.

However, given that the top 4 have made it to the semis in 3 of the 4 slams (with Federer narrowly missing out at Wimbledon), it is a weak era.

Which is it? Or is it neither?

2003-2007 was a weak era for tennis.

Simple_Analyst wrote:2003-2007 was a weak era for tennis.

Hurrah! No weak era debate is complete without this line.

JuliusHMarx wrote:CC, the era with Borg, Connors and Mac as a trio lasted about 2 years tops - mid 79 to mid 81 and I'm not convinced Connors was at his best during that time.

Fed hit 28 in Aug 2009 - slams are extremely hard to come by after that age. Fed won the AO 2010, but by the FO 2010 he was 28 years and 10 months. After that age winning 1 more slam is unusual, winning more than 1 more is extremely unusual - only Connors and Agassi in the last 35 years.

Socal, you're actually disagreeing with CC, whose 'strongest era' was late 70s, early 80s.

Well if we want to be pedantic then call my favourite era as something like 1977 to 1985. A time with Borg and Connors and later to be joined by McEnroe and Lendl when Borg retired. That is not to say I don't thoroughly enjoy the current era. What these two eras had was very competitive rivalries such as Connors V McEnroe and today Federer V Nadal and Nadal V Djokovic.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

Simple_Analyst wrote:2003-2007 was a weak era for tennis.

Hurrah! No weak era debate is complete without this line.

He's the copy and paste machine, some sort of unbiased educator.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:

JuliusHMarx wrote:

Simple_Analyst wrote:2003-2007 was a weak era for tennis.

Hurrah! No weak era debate is complete without this line.

He's the copy and paste machine, some sort of unbiased educator.

That puts Nadal on 7 slams then - but it's Sampras that's the man here.

Simple_Analyst wrote:2003-2007 was a weak era for tennis.

Hey S_A don't forget 2009! So it's actually 2003-2007 and 2009 that was a weak era. Thinking of it, maybe AO 2010 should be included as well.

prostaff85 wrote:

Simple_Analyst wrote:2003-2007 was a weak era for tennis.

Hey S_A don't forget 2009! So it's actually 2003-2007 and 2009 that was a weak era. Thinking of it, maybe AO 2010 should be included as well.

I guess Nadal only holds 3 RG titles then. Good work again unbiased educator!

legendkillar wrote:The thing is for me in the Slams, Blake, Davy, Nalby, Ljuby, Grosjean, Martin, Mercir are all players that could've easily enjoyed Slam success had there not been much better players in the field.

Ok, I completely disagree. Blake never even reached a grandslam semi in his life, ljuby exactly one semi. Everyone is enamored with mecir for some reason. The guy won a total of 7 or 8 tournaments and was completely weaponless. Martin was good player no world beater. The best of the bunch is Davy. None of these players are grandslam champion type level unless you consider Johansson or Korda as typical grandslam level. These guys would have been enormously lucky to win a slam ever in any generation. They are all players of note, top notch proffesionals but not guys of the very top level.

Nalbandian was indeed a far stronger player than Djokovic, it's just unfortunate than Nalbandian threw away the 2003 USO when he was a far greater player than his opponent.

Nalbandian for me should be on 5 or 6 slams by now atleast.

Nalbandian is way overrated by everyone. A very good talent, but talent without results means nothing its subjective. its like a guy with a 140 iq who works at starbucks. Nalbandian never put in the hard yards to be a champion, so no matter how pretty of a backhand or how good touch he had it really makes no difference. Tennis is a game they keep score. It isn't rhythmic gymnastics and Tenez isn't the judge.

socal1976 wrote:Nalbandian is way overrated by everyone.

So the minority (you) is right and the majority (everyone else) is wrong.

He did what Rafa and Nole couldn't do in beating Roger from 2 sets deficit, lack of slam success means very little to the tennis lover, you are just a glory hunter.

JM, sorry the vast majority of tennis fans will tell you that both Nadal and Djoko are a lightyear or two a head of Nalbandian. The only people who pump up Nalbandian in order to make the weak era that existed in the early part of Roger's career seem better than it really was.

socal1976 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:The thing is for me in the Slams, Blake, Davy, Nalby, Ljuby, Grosjean, Martin, Mercir are all players that could've easily enjoyed Slam success had there not been much better players in the field.

Ok, I completely disagree. Blake never even reached a grandslam semi in his life, ljuby exactly one semi. Everyone is enamored with mecir for some reason. The guy won a total of 7 or 8 tournaments and was completely weaponless. Martin was good player no world beater. The best of the bunch is Davy. None of these players are grandslam champion type level unless you consider Johansson or Korda as typical grandslam level. These guys would have been enormously lucky to win a slam ever in any generation. They are all players of note, top notch proffesionals but not guys of the very top level.

So who aside from the Slam winners would've defeated the above in their respective era's? Do provide a list.

I don't know what are strong or weak era's, but at least nowadays the types of Thomas Johansson and Gaston Gaudio don't win slams anymore. And you can't be number one before at least winning a couple of slams.

legendkillar wrote:

socal1976 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:The thing is for me in the Slams, Blake, Davy, Nalby, Ljuby, Grosjean, Martin, Mercir are all players that could've easily enjoyed Slam success had there not been much better players in the field.

Ok, I completely disagree. Blake never even reached a grandslam semi in his life, ljuby exactly one semi. Everyone is enamored with mecir for some reason. The guy won a total of 7 or 8 tournaments and was completely weaponless. Martin was good player no world beater. The best of the bunch is Davy. None of these players are grandslam champion type level unless you consider Johansson or Korda as typical grandslam level. These guys would have been enormously lucky to win a slam ever in any generation. They are all players of note, top notch proffesionals but not guys of the very top level.

So who aside from the Slam winners would've defeated the above in their respective era's? Do provide a list.

Murray would beat all of those guys 7 out of 10 on any surface.

Did i read Blake, Ljubicic, Davy etc were stopped from winning a slam?
Thanks to the tennis gods they were actually. The quality of postings on here getting worse by the day. Seems people are just saying things to make themselves feel better. 2003-2007 weak era, no way around it.

socal1976 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:

socal1976 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:The thing is for me in the Slams, Blake, Davy, Nalby, Ljuby, Grosjean, Martin, Mercir are all players that could've easily enjoyed Slam success had there not been much better players in the field.

Ok, I completely disagree. Blake never even reached a grandslam semi in his life, ljuby exactly one semi. Everyone is enamored with mecir for some reason. The guy won a total of 7 or 8 tournaments and was completely weaponless. Martin was good player no world beater. The best of the bunch is Davy. None of these players are grandslam champion type level unless you consider Johansson or Korda as typical grandslam level. These guys would have been enormously lucky to win a slam ever in any generation. They are all players of note, top notch proffesionals but not guys of the very top level.

So who aside from the Slam winners would've defeated the above in their respective era's? Do provide a list.

Murray would beat all of those guys 7 out of 10 on any surface.

Questionable

The posting that an era with Johansson and Ivanisevic winning a Slam is considered great

Chydremion wrote:And you can't be number one before at least winning a couple of slams.

Not like Lendl in the 80s or Rios in the 90s, then. Oops, they were strong eras. No wonder it's confusing.

Wow, this thread has been a lot of fun.

I'm still waiting for Socal to answey why this is a strong era if Djoker has had only one bad opponent (Federer) in the last 5 slams who could stop him and Nadal had only one (Djokovic) in the last 4 slams. Do tell me any other time when the favourite and the second favourite in a slam had just one real challenger each. Let us exclude Rafa on clay because he is a legend on that surface. We're talking of a time when Djoker who is clearly not a legend yet is cleaning up all the slams because no one can stop him. And even Rafa, who isn't all that great on hard courts in having a stroll if he doesn't have to face Djoker. Where are the threats to these guys? Even the great Sampras in his prime at Wimbledon had credible threats in Ivanisevic, Krajicek, Agassi, Philippousis and Rafter to name a few! (Add in Tim Henman if you wish). I'm not saying they beat him, because they didn't, but any one of those could have beaten him.

Chydremion wrote:I don't know what are strong or weak era's, but at least nowadays the types of Thomas Johansson and Gaston Gaudio don't win slams anymore. And you can't be number one before at least winning a couple of slams.

Murray was no 2. with no slams and no sets in a slam final.

Poor old socal, his arguments remind me of a goldfish; he states one principle, then has it undermined, then returns to subjective statements like "Murray would beat xxxxx", then returns to his first point.....

and this goes on for months.

Julius utterly destroyed the argument at the start of this thread through the humerous exercise of showing how completely subjective his opinions are. The thread should really have ended there amidst a round of applause, but here we are with at least another 15-20 pages of the same nonsense to go.

Enjoy.

Any era where the top 2 players compete in 3 straight GS finals is vehemently cupcakesque.

Mardy Fish in the top 8.

Top 2 reached 7 of the 9 regular MS finals, yeah very competetive!

But it's strong because the top guys are so brilliant that the others can't compete.

Same as it was weak in the mid noughties because the top guy was so brilliant the others couldn't compete..

I hope that's clear.

socal1976 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:

socal1976 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:The thing is for me in the Slams, Blake, Davy, Nalby, Ljuby, Grosjean, Martin, Mercir are all players that could've easily enjoyed Slam success had there not been much better players in the field.

Ok, I completely disagree. Blake never even reached a grandslam semi in his life, ljuby exactly one semi. Everyone is enamored with mecir for some reason. The guy won a total of 7 or 8 tournaments and was completely weaponless. Martin was good player no world beater. The best of the bunch is Davy. None of these players are grandslam champion type level unless you consider Johansson or Korda as typical grandslam level. These guys would have been enormously lucky to win a slam ever in any generation. They are all players of note, top notch proffesionals but not guys of the very top level.

So who aside from the Slam winners would've defeated the above in their respective era's? Do provide a list.

Murray would beat all of those guys 7 out of 10 on any surface.

Murray gets beaten by players ranked #143 and #118 in st. sets in the same year where he produces his best performance in slams?? If a player who reached ranks as high as #2 and after this he gets beaten by players out side top-100 in straigh sets and you make a claim that he would beat all those guys 7 out of 10 on any surface. Any surface?? Murray hasn't seen a clay final of an ATP 250( forget winning one) event and he wins on all surface. Keep that trash with you.

noleisthebest wrote:

Chydremion wrote:I don't know what are strong or weak era's, but at least nowadays the types of Thomas Johansson and Gaston Gaudio don't win slams anymore. And you can't be number one before at least winning a couple of slams.

But that actually doesn't prove much. Well it does prove that the physical side is so important nowadays that it doesn;t allow a talented player in form to cut through the draw. I see the tour as being asphyxiated by 3 players able to play a kind of tennis on uniform slow conds which is actually killing variety and talent with long and gruelling rallies. Their average shot is actually very average.

It's a bit like when Borg arrived and was able to outlast all the talented players like Nastase, Guerulatis, Pecci, and so on cause Borg SIMPLY had better legs and lungs (I loved Borg BTW) but his game was rather 1D. Only when McEnroe arrived with a small wooden racquet did we realise how much (talent) we had been missing (well not me cause I was a teenager then with a passion for the swede's game).

I am in no illusion that the stroy will happen again soon...and we are already seeing how 1D Nadal is when faced against another physical player. While at the time we could admire Borg's natural athletism, we are now a bit more cautious in giving Nadal and this new generation teh same admiration as we know a team is now required to achieve higher physical prowess.

So I am sorry, teh variety is not there for me to call this a particularly strong era. There is certainly a small group ahead physically at the top asphyxiating everybody else, including themselves.

The Top 4 is much much stronger now. 100%
If Fed had to face players like Baghdatis and Gonzalez (even at their peak) he would be winning Grand Slams now.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:
Nalbandian for me should be on 5 or 6 slams by now atleast.

What ?

Fat Dave, "5 or six slams", With that beer gut ?

Now that really would be the definition of a weak era.

Not really. The number 2 player hit barely 20 winners in a 5 set marathon finale!

CaledonianCraig wrote:

The question therefore is:- Why don't you expect Federer to win slams in the next couple of years being that he is the GOAT and you seem to be portaying this as a weak era? And like I said ask Fed who he'd sooner play at the next slam and I'd bet you he'd choose Safin and Roddick over Nadal and Djokovic any day of the week.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Not really. The number 2 player hit barely 20 winners in a 5 set marathon finale!

The stats say Novak hit 57 and Nadal hit 44 winners:-
http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/stats/day19/1701ms.html

First time for eveything.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:First time for eveything.

2009 vs verdasco aussie open
52 winners from rafa with 25 UE's

i guess there are maybe two times for everything??

LuvSports! wrote:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:First time for eveything.

2009 vs verdasco aussie open
52 winners from rafa with 25 UE's

i guess there are maybe two times for everything??

Still I am pretty sure Nadal's biggest share of points were from Verdy's UEs.

ye i was just saying that in response to jm's comment
i think he hit 95 winners and 76 UE's incredible match
4th set tiebreak was just incredible put nadal to the sword!

LuvSports! wrote:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:First time for eveything.

2009 vs verdasco aussie open
52 winners from rafa with 25 UE's

i guess there are maybe two times for everything??

Nadal hit more winners than Fed when he played him in Madrid 2011.

There is no strong or weak era.

viv.theraiden wrote:There is no strong or weak era.

Really??
So if the current top 10 all retired on the spot 2012 would be as high quality as 2011....

After JHM's first post in this thread, everyone else should have simply said 'chapeau' and realised that arguing about this pointless.

The problem is it seems that most people are more interested into debating the weak/strong era thing than actually watches tennis itself.

Sorry but there are big flaws in people's arguments in labelling the current era as weak or anything like it.

The majority of tennis fans around the world have Federer tagged as GOAT. Well that being the case why were the majority of his slams from 2003 to 2008 with them slowing to a stop since 2010. After all, as the GOAT in a 'weak era' he'd mop up. And no this has nothing to do with physicality or court conditions as he beat Djokovic once in slams last year and had match points against him in another. That just would not have happened if this magical, mysterious physicality been in power. That being the case then how can this era be so weak that even the GOAT can't win a slam. I say take your pick in that either Federer can be scrubbed as GOAT for being unable to win in such a weak era or the era is strong, much stronger than that in which he had his success.

Well maybe they think Ljubicic, the world number 3 in 2006, is better than the current world number 3.

Or he's well past his best Craig.

You did notice he's past 30 now, didnt you?

amritia3ee wrote:Well maybe they think Ljubicic, the world number 3 in 2006, is better than the current world number 3.

Well his great success and only Masters event win did come in 2010. Not good enough to win in his prime, but he can take one in the "Golden Era".

Yeah, makes sense

CaledonianCraig wrote:Sorry but there are big flaws in people's arguments in labelling the current era as weak or anything like it.

Who's doing that? Anyone?

bogbrush wrote:

amritia3ee wrote:Well maybe they think Ljubicic, the world number 3 in 2006, is better than the current world number 3.

Well his great success and only Masters event win did come in 2010. Not good enough to win in his prime, but he can take one in the "Golden Era".

Yeah, makes sense

That was a one-off.
He was number 3 in 2006.

bogbrush wrote:Or he's well past his best Craig.

You did notice he's past 30 now, didnt you?

Sorry but that doesn't quite wash. I would fully agree if he had fallen right off the scale ie slam defeats in early rounds and other titles drying up but that isn't the case. Towards the end of last year we had a number of Fed fans voting on a poll on here that he was playing better tennis than he was a few years ago and he won a string of titles and like I said he managed to beat that terrifying physical specimen that is Novak Djokovic in a slam and had match points against him in another. Now since a certain Fed fan is adamant physicality and court conditions are the reason Fed can't compete (nothing to do with the current crop of players being fantastic players) then how is this so if he does still compete with perhaps the most physical player in the world?

CaledonianCraig wrote:

bogbrush wrote:Or he's well past his best Craig.

You did notice he's past 30 now, didnt you?

Sorry but that doesn't quite wash. I would fully agree if he had fallen right off the scale ie slam defeats in early rounds and other titles drying up but that isn't the case. Towards the end of last year we had a number of Fed fans voting on a poll on here that he was playing better tennis than he was a few years ago and he won a string of titles and like I said he managed to beat that terrifying physical specimen that is Novak Djokovic in a slam and had match points against him in another. Now since a certain Fed fan is adamant physicality and court conditions are the reason Fed can't compete (nothing to do with the current crop of players being fantastic players) then how is this so if he does still compete with perhaps the most physical player in the world?

CC - did you see my post on how difficult is is for ANY player to win a slam past the age of 28? Sampras insists he kept getting better with age, yet dropped way down the rankings.
It's almost impossible to keep up with players who are younger, fitter, hungrier and with so many less miles on the clock. Also the game changes and as players get older they struggle to adapt to the new way the game is played. That's just the natural evolution of the game.

No but Nadal won his first match against Fed. And even Murray in 2006 beat Fed. These 2 victories itself probably equal all the victories of Baghdatis, Ljubicic, Roddick Blake put together all throughout their careers.

barrystar wrote:

socal1976 wrote:

barrystar wrote:

socal1976 wrote:I think the best era is also from mid 80s till 90s, have to agree with barrystar. Mac, Connors, Lendl and then the rise of wilander, edberg, becker and later Sampras, Agassi, and Courier.

Aye - and the likes of Noah, Leconte, Mecir, Cash, Chang, and Curren were swirling around to take down a top player who lost concentration.

Nothing much to disagree there, I have always maintined that early to mid 80s to early to mid 90s was the golden age. But this current era I would rank higher than mid 90s to mid 2000s.

Stich wasn't a mug either.

There were clearly offensive players like Rafter and Ivanisevic, that played like another kind of tennis in a comparison with the present. I really liked the Wimbly final between Rafter and Agassi, that was a classy match! But today tennis is nearly twice faster then in the 90´, it is not comparable at all.