Federer Nadal - age comparison

First topic message reminder :

This not intended to be a re-visit of the tired old GOAT debate, nor a discussion of the merits of H2H, but to compare and contrast the two men's careers at the same age - i.e Rafa at 25 is 4yrs and 10 months younger than Federer at 30 so you can compare his record and position now with Fed's in 2007 (January 2007 if you are being precise) - and speculate on where they may end.

There's a good summary here http://www.tennis28.com/studies/Federer_Nadal.html, and also here on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federer%E2%80%93Nadal_rivalry

Comparing February 2007 Fed with February 2012 Nadal I'd suggest the following:

a. Rafa started everything younger than Fed - he raced ahead with slam wins but now its very tight with Fed and Rafa on 10 each (stopping the watch at AO 2007/2012) - unless Rafa wins 2 more this year he'll fall behind Fed's rate and I think he really needs to get ahead of Fed's rate at this age to stand a chance of over-taking him.

b. Rafa is more than a whole year's worth of weeks at No. 1 behind Fed

c. Rafa is miles ahead on Masters Series Wins and DC wins but well behind on TMC/WTF wins

d. They are neck-and-neck on overall tournament wins at 46 each including Fed's AO 2007

e. Rafa's w/l is superior to Fed's at the same age (although Fed's has improved by almost 2% since 2007).

f. Hindsight tells us that about 5 years ago Fed was at his absolute peak as a tennis player and the first cracks in his mastery were just about to appear with those two losses to Canas at IW and Miami. 2007 marked the end of years with 10+ tournament wins or 90% w/l ratios: having said that, in the five years since February 2007 Fed has been none too shabby managing another 6 slam wins.

g. In 2007 Fed had the beating of pretty much all his opponents with the exception of his main rival Nadal who was in command on clay but beatable elsewhere and did not dominate the H2H for another year. In 2012 Nadal has the beating of pretty much all his opponents (in slams at least) with the exception of his main rival who is currently more dominant over him than he ever has been over Federer.

h. They have a comparable 'mileage' in terms of matches played - Rafa has only played about 50 more matches than Fed at the same age, a difference of less than 10%.

Nadal has made fools of those predicting his career path often enough, but it's almost impossible to believe that he will be able to sustain similar sustained quality between now and 2017 as Fed has done in the 5 years since 2007. I'd go further, I suspect that 25 will prove to have been the 'turning point' age at which Federer's career trajectory will be shown to have caught up with the effect of Rafa's early gains. I am well aware that without Djoko on form Rafa could start cleaning up in the big tournaments pretty smartly - but my assessment of the Aus Open 2012 is that it was just as encouraging for Murray and Djoko, and probably more so, than it was for Nadal.

Therefore, on what I consider to be the three main indicators:

* Fed's overall slam total of 16 is looking safer from Nadal as each slam passes us by.

* Nadal has no prospect of beating Fed's tally of weeks or y/e at No. 1.

* I'd be very surprised if Nadal ends up with more overall tournament wins than Federer - he's got to win at least another 25 and his past rate of accumulating wins suggests that will be beyond him in the future, particularly if he is going to reduce his schedule. He has not won away from clay since October 2010.

hawkeye wrote: Predicting just one or two more slams for Nadal IMO is remakably pessimistic.

It wasnt a prediction, just saying that if ALL he wins is 1-2 more then he's going to be happy regardless.

laverfan wrote:

Tenez wrote:

laverfan wrote:Federer's economical game would benefit him even further as he gets older.

He may also be able to overhaul Lendl's 94 titles, he is on 71 now.

Connors's 149 titles may be a bit too far, even for Federer.

PS: Nice article, BarryStar.

What? 23more titles in the next 3 or 4 years? Never.

Why do you consider it impossible?

Regarding youngsters, there are many in ATP now, whose game will mature a bit.

Djokovic is on the doorstep of greatness with FO 2012. He may eclipse Fedal in terms of career achievements.

Socal... the h2h is just one dimension of the Fedal legend, not the only yardstick to beat Federer with.

Interesting post Laverfan, no way is fed going to reach connors or Lendl in tournament victories. He is still about 20 tournament wins away from lendl, I would be surprised if Fed got more than 10 or 12 more tourneys. And I agree Laverfan, the h2h is not the only yardstick. I think Novak can get a very nice piece of tennis history at RG, something that neither Fed or Nadal or Sampras have achieved and that is winning 4 straight slams. While not having the mystique of a natural calendar slam, it is basically the same thing. Holding all 4 titles in 52 week period. I personally, don't hold the idea that just total slams alone distinguishes someone as goat. Why was that before Sampras surpassed Emerson nobody, and i mean nobody considered Emerson the greatest of all time. Slams haven't always been the truest measure of greatness in the tennis world. Look at Gonzalez and others who made their marks in the pros. Plus the australian open till the late to mid 80s was not that prestigious. If Novak, can by some crazy longshot get a calendar slam this year, I think it puts him right into the top group of goat candidates with laver, fed, sampras. But of course that is a tough, tough ask. The older guys I am sure like Tilden and Gonzalez did great work but it is just too hard to compare them to today's guys, even Laver sort of falls into that category.

Socal... I did not want to digress from BarryStar's excellent article too much. (Perhaps we should discuss the Djokovic one on another thread).

Fedal prevented, to some extent, each other from getting some stellar records.

If Djokovic holds all four slams, CYGS or not, it would be a fantastic achievement. The pursuit of records at the risk to personal health, as Nadal points out, is the epitome of sport at this elite and professional level.

Laverfan, no way I do a thread like that till after RG. I have already said too much. In sports there are such things as jinxes.

Yes, Nadal checked Fed, and Fed at times checked Nadal. But that is always the nature of world class sports. It is not odd that both guys had a rival to challenge and beat them on the biggest stages. It would be unusual if someone wasn't there to take a little shine out of your apple. Nadal I think will be hardpressed to get to 16, but I still don't see the total grandslam count as the whole picture as you have pointed out.

hawkeye wrote:Tenez

So Federer was capable of great things at just 19. Are you saying he was precocious just like Nadal?

With such talent he coudl do many things on the day. To win a slam he needed to mature and get organised.

bogbrush wrote:The h2h is only useful if you break it down to surfaces, then you see two players who are very competitive except when they play on clay (many times) and indoor (rarely).

Yes very one sided outdoor hard H2H

Tenez wrote:

hawkeye wrote:Tenez

So Federer was capable of great things at just 19. Are you saying he was precocious just like Nadal?

With such talent he coudl do many things on the day. To win a slam he needed to mature and get organised.

So the difference between Federer and Nadal at a young age was that Nadal was more mature and more organised?

lydian wrote:As I say Tenez...one may argue.
Yes Fed has had some success on fasters courts, but lets not ignore nearly all his success is when the courts are much slower.

Sure but in all those years you have never been able to name a player whose faster surface would have benefitted more than Federer. Federer's only rival was Nadal and on faster surfaces it's clear Nadal would not have been able to bother Federer as much. Finally, I am pretty convinced that Wimbledon 2003 was pretty fast cause they learnt the lesson from Wimbledon 2002. I suspect that they slowed it down again afterwards to allow Nadal to get furtther.

hawkeye wrote:

Tenez wrote:

hawkeye wrote:Tenez

So Federer was capable of great things at just 19. Are you saying he was precocious just like Nadal?

With such talent he coudl do many things on the day. To win a slam he needed to mature and get organised.

So the difference between Federer and Nadal at a young age was that Nadal was more mature and more organised?

Hawkeye, different skills require different development, mature cycles. Nadal was physically mature at 19. Federer was not and his game was much more complexe and needed fine tuning.

Federer had many options in his game. He needed to simplify his game and pick the right weapon at the right time. For Nadal it was much simpler: Hit as hard as possible cross court 90% of the time and retireve as many balls.

If you say you are a fa of both I would expect you to at least realise they are very different players.

Beep beep excuses alert

Miami 2004 was a fast surface, no? Dubai 2006?
Maybe the evil noodull had contaminated federer's pre match Swiss chocolate bite

Tenez wrote:

Federer to me is great to watch if he wins. I have difficulty to re-watch his matches where he loses against a stubborn crosscourt FH landing on his BH.

Does it give you nightmares?

Tenez wrote:

lydian wrote:As I say Tenez...one may argue.
Yes Fed has had some success on fasters courts, but lets not ignore nearly all his success is when the courts are much slower.

Sure but in all those years you have never been able to name a player whose faster surface would have benefitted more than Federer. Federer's only rival was Nadal and on faster surfaces it's clear Nadal would not have been able to bother Federer as much. Finally, I am pretty convinced that Wimbledon 2003 was pretty fast cause they learnt the lesson from Wimbledon 2002. I suspect that they slowed it down again afterwards to allow Nadal to get furtther.

I think Roddick would have won the 09 wimby on a faster surfaces. The fact that Roger won all of his 16 slams on slowed down conditions, and that he is very fast and fit is the big elephant in the room that you guys never acknowledge. Maybe fed would have gotten one or two more slams, maybe he would have lost a slam here and there to a guy better in faster conditions. You carry this hypothetical way too far as usual. Roger won more slams on slowed conditions than anyone. In fact all of them on slowed down conditions, on faster conditions Henman and hewitt were handling on grass.

amritia3ee wrote:

bogbrush wrote:The h2h is only useful if you break it down to surfaces, then you see two players who are very competitive except when they play on clay (many times) and indoor (rarely).

Yes very one sided outdoor hard H2H

why do you always post a when you don't mean it in the slightest?

LuvSports! wrote:

amritia3ee wrote:

bogbrush wrote:The h2h is only useful if you break it down to surfaces, then you see two players who are very competitive except when they play on clay (many times) and indoor (rarely).

Yes very one sided outdoor hard H2H

why do you always post a when you don't mean it in the slightest?

Because he only turns up to wreck threads.

This has been really good, until he's shown up trying to bait people getting along fine beforehand.

Bait? I just posted a fact; it is a one sided H2H outdoor hard. Don't blame me if that upsets you.

A very nice thread, but back to the usual Fedal h2h discussion. Pretty limited discussion and normalcy has been restored.

Fedal should retire tomorrow, so there can be better Tennis discussions.

We should have a permanent Fedal thread, so all manners of abuse can be handed to posters willy-nilly.

Is it time to lock this thread?

amritia3ee wrote:Bait? I just posted a fact; it is a one sided H2H outdoor hard. Don't blame me if that upsets you.

Have you heard about the equivalence of a fact to a body part?

Everyone dies, which is also a fact, does that mean all discussions need to be about death?

Well don't blame me I didn't to bring up the h2h first.
Bogbrush tried to 'break it down' earlier, claiming that fed would be ahead if he wasn't so good on clay.

amritia3ee wrote:Bait? I just posted a fact; it is a one sided H2H outdoor hard. Don't blame me if that upsets you.

you didn't answer my question. Why do you put this emotion when federer loses when you aren't being genuine?

amritia3ee wrote:Well don't blame me I didn't to bring up the h2h first.
Bogbrush tried to 'break it down' earlier, claiming that fed would be ahead if he wasn't so good on clay.

No he didn't - you are misreading, or misunderstanding. What bogbrush said was that if you took away clay you had two players who had been very competitive over other surfaces, and the fact that Fed has been a very decent claycourter has actually made the h2h worse from his perspective than if he had been the 3rd or 4th best player at RG during the last few years.

That is a world away from saying that Fed would lead in the h2h if not for clay (we all know that Rafa has the upper hand over Bo5 now) it is, however, undeniable that if you took away the RG defeats to Rafa as well as the other finals on clay that the h2h would be closer.

The irritating things about your posts amritia is not your opinion, but your need to 'prove' that it is correct all the time. The thread is full of difference of opinions debated in the right spirit without descending into condescending posts and jeering little icons - until yours......again. It is very, very zzzzzzzzzzzzzz making. Oh well, there is that nice ignore button which will restore the thread in no time at all

time please wrote: Oh well, there is that nice ignore button which will restore the thread in no time at all

I am using it. It's pretty cool.

I know The idea used to sound like defeatism but when used very selectively as in above case, it is still possible to continue enjoying a good thread.

Fedal Debates. Class 101.
Case Study
A) Good morning.
B) Good morning.

A) It's a beautiful day.
b) It certainly is.

A) Look how green the grass is, it reminds me of Wimbledon and the grace of Federer.
B) Indeed and me too. The final overthrow of the great Federer to the young Nadal will live long in the memory.

A) Indeed, but of course that was when they changed the grass to green clay.
B) ...

You have 30 minutes to complete this case study. The dialogue should finish with the following lines:

A) You and whose army?
B) Your going home in an ambulance.

Morning Nore

I haven't got the concentration levels required to complete your case study, I'm afraid, but I eagerly await (most) others' efforts!

Even if the foe button is pretty cool, others will respond to the trouble maker and drag a good thread down to useless bickering. That's why I was in favour of a feature available to the author of the thread to block comments from posters at will like we had in old 606.

It should not be used very often or at all but frankly I don;t see the point of having amri constantly spoiling threads. He has done it so many times and nothing is done about it. At least on this thread, it's not as bad as some others.

https://www.606v2.com/t18165-who-will-retire-first-federer-or-nadal

similar thought from a different angle.

socal1976 wrote:

Tenez wrote:

lydian wrote:As I say Tenez...one may argue.
Yes Fed has had some success on fasters courts, but lets not ignore nearly all his success is when the courts are much slower.

Sure but in all those years you have never been able to name a player whose faster surface would have benefitted more than Federer. Federer's only rival was Nadal and on faster surfaces it's clear Nadal would not have been able to bother Federer as much. Finally, I am pretty convinced that Wimbledon 2003 was pretty fast cause they learnt the lesson from Wimbledon 2002. I suspect that they slowed it down again afterwards to allow Nadal to get furtther.

I think Roddick would have won the 09 wimby on a faster surfaces. The fact that Roger won all of his 16 slams on slowed down conditions, and that he is very fast and fit is the big elephant in the room that you guys never acknowledge. Maybe fed would have gotten one or two more slams, maybe he would have lost a slam here and there to a guy better in faster conditions. You carry this hypothetical way too far as usual. Roger won more slams on slowed conditions than anyone. In fact all of them on slowed down conditions, on faster conditions Henman and hewitt were handling on grass.

Federer started winning slams in 2003 and conditions on most playing surfaces ( i.e bar clay) were fast or medium fast. You say he won all his 16 slams on slow surfaces. I have seen the courts of wimbledon and US open and AO for years and I can see a clear difference in the court pace. I think what you are trying to imply that Federer benefited from slowing conditions and hence won all his slams. What are you trying to imply that on slow surfaces he won his 16 slams playing the outlasting iron-man match like Djo and Nadal plays? Did you ever see him play like that? This is expected from a weak era theorist, ignorance is his bliss.

Fed started winning slams in 2003 and I can clearly see the courts were much faster back then. Until the last 3-4 years a lot of courts played faster. Its only due to the rise of 3m behind-the-baseline-outlasting-the-opponent defenders and fans who like to join any "bandwagon" as media portrays them as the greatest ever, that almost all surfaces have been slowed down, bar only a handful.

Federer can win on slow surface but his game is built for past surfaces. He can win tournaments on slow surfaces because he is so talented to adapt to any playing surface. He started playing from the days of S&V and moved on with baselines. On fast conditions he can crush every single opponent, his indoor hard records speaks for it. The uniform nature of the playing surfaces have produced the most predictable slams. Players can play the same game on any surface and still go ahead in the tournament. The variety in skill which was once needed to win on different surfaces is gone. There are no "surface specialists" any more who were once capable of playing remarkably well on a particular surface. . In all my tennis watching life, I've never been able to predict the semifinalist with as much accuracy as I can do in recent years. Now bring out your weak-era theory here.

But Socal doesn't want to see that. That's why I did not respond to his post. I don;t think he realises that beating Sampras on fast grass at 19 is a proof that his game is actually best suited for fast conds. He doesn;t see either that even at 30 Fed is almost unbeatable indoors where surfaces are a bit faster and where the slow high bouncing rallies don;t pay off. He doesn;t want to see that fast conds seriously undermines the main weapon of those top physical players we currently have which is their stamina and retrieving skills.

No, all those details are bad pieces of information for the current great era supporters.

Tenez. Interesting to speak of the Pete-Rog match. Watching a few highlights of that again (I was actually there as I rarely fail to tell people) the thing that struck me most was the way both players were automatically coming in behind their serves and getting constantly passed by vicious ground strokes.
OK, may be the highlights don't so much show the aces and the unreturned serves, but possibly the centre court was already beginning to slow down.
Great to see Rog doing so much volleying. Neither player seemed too worried about being passed. Terrific match.

sirfredperry wrote:Tenez. Interesting to speak of the Pete-Rog match. Watching a few highlights of that again (I was actually there as I rarely fail to tell people) the thing that struck me most was the way both players were automatically coming in behind their serves and getting constantly passed by vicious ground strokes.
OK, may be the highlights don't so much show the aces and the unreturned serves, but possibly the centre court was already beginning to slow down.
Great to see Rog doing so much volleying. Neither player seemed too worried about being passed. Terrific match.

One coudl be passed but that was teh gamble the SVer thought was worth taking. Sampras was being passed even in previous years by much less skilled players than Federer. He has had a few 4 setters and even 5 setters on grass by lower ranked players but he still had accumulated 7 Wimbies. 2001 was the year Pat rafter could SV past Agassi. So it must have been pretty fast too.

But the most important factor was that the return of serve had to be executed close to the baseline....not 3 meters behind like it is nowadays cause with natural strings you woudl lose as a returner way too much power to bother the volleyer. SO teh return skills were essentially reflex skills and timing.

As I said, if you have Goran and Rafter in the final, you know the conds are fast!

It's in 2001 that they talked about increasing the balls size, but it was effectively implemented in 2002. As I said many times, I feel the damp squibb that was Wimbledon 2002 probably made the organisers to reconsider those large balls for 2003. That's my theory but have no proof for that...except that 2003 saw again the resurgence of SVers with Karlo blasting of court the defending champion, Rudz, The Scud, Roddick and Federer reaching the last stages of Wimbledon. You did not see those guys going far at the FO for instance.
There is hardly better proof to gauge a surface's pace than by observing which type of game gets to win.

Tenez wrote:Even if the foe button is pretty cool, others will respond to the trouble maker and drag a good thread down to useless bickering.

It can be ignored, if necessary.

Tenez wrote:That's why I was in favour of a feature available to the author of the thread to block comments from posters at will like we had in old 606.

The subjective use of such a button is why it does not get implemented, and perhaps never will.

PS: If the posters could use such a button judiciously, per Nore Staat's 'case study', we should never have to descende to such a level anyway.

Tenez wrote:It should not be used very often or at all but frankly I don;t see the point of having amri constantly spoiling threads. He has done it so many times and nothing is done about it. At least on this thread, it's not as bad as some others.

He has a right to his opinion. He has the right to express it. Just waiting for the usual suspects to finish vacations, then JHM and I have our work cut out.

Nadal was afraid to get obliterated in US or AO finals in the 06/07/08 era, i can confidently say Nadal has only win the US and AO due to other players picking up injuries in 06/07/08 campaigns. He's not a great talent but he is a great thinker at making players go for too many big shots.

Tenez. Wimbledon 2002 saw a huge number of top players go out early. Rog lost in the first round, Agassi and Pete lost early etc etc .
Alas, Henman was in Hewitt's half of the draw. If not, Tim would surely have at least reached the final. People talk about his disappointment in 01 but when he saw who got to the latter stages in 02 he must have agonised.

laverfan wrote:

Tenez wrote:It should not be used very often or at all but frankly I don;t see the point of having amri constantly spoiling threads. He has done it so many times and nothing is done about it. At least on this thread, it's not as bad as some others.

He has a right to his opinion. He has the right to express it. Just waiting for the usual suspects to finish vacations, then JHM and I have our work cut out.

I am not sure he has an opinion. But he seems to have an agenda and that is to constantly drag discussions down. Out of teh many posters here, he is in my view the sole poster with that goal. And he can be pretty successful at it. Hasn't he been chased from MTL?

sirfredperry wrote:Tenez. Wimbledon 2002 saw a huge number of top players go out early. Rog lost in the first round, Agassi and Pete lost early etc etc .
Alas, Henman was in Hewitt's half of the draw. If not, Tim would surely have at least reached the final. People talk about his disappointment in 01 but when he saw who got to the latter stages in 02 he must have agonised.

I guess top players lost early in 2002 because their serve had become useless by the slow balls. If you read interviews of 2001...not a single player compains about teh speed of teh courts at Wimbledon. In 2002, all SVers complain about it. Sampras going out in the first round is the irrefutable proof....let's not forget that the still decent pace of USO a couple of months later will allow Spampras serve to do some damage still.

Amri just does it to take the focus off Nadal by making himself look like a fool, it's an effective tool to use against the shallow minded, amri is not here to troll like Analyst.

sirfredperry wrote:Tenez. Wimbledon 2002 saw a huge number of top players go out early. Rog lost in the first round, Agassi and Pete lost early etc etc .
Alas, Henman was in Hewitt's half of the draw. If not, Tim would surely have at least reached the final. People talk about his disappointment in 01 but when he saw who got to the latter stages in 02 he must have agonised.

I rather agree - 2002 was a very odd year slamwise. We've already looked at how the big names collapsed in the 2002 US Open.

This was what happened at Wimbledon:

1 Lleyton Hewitt (Champion)
2 Marat Safin (Second Round)
3 Andre Agassi (Second Round)
4 Tim Henman (Semifinals)
5 Yevgeny Kafelnikov (Third Round)
6 Pete Sampras (Second Round)
7 Roger Federer (First Round)
8 Thomas Johansson (First Round)
9 Juan Carlos Ferrero (Second Round)
10 Guillermo Cañas (Second Round)
11 Andy Roddick (Third Round)
12 Jiří Novák (Second Round)
13 Younes El Aynaoui (First Round)
14 Thomas Enqvist (Second Round)
15 Andrei Pavel (Third Round)
16 Nicolas Escudé (Third Round)

However, for me Henman never stood a ghost of a chance of beating Hewitt at Wimbledon or anywhere else until injury started to take its toll on Hewitt - their H2H tells the story, including 4-0 on grass to Hewitt.(http://www.atpworldtour.com/Players/Head-To-Head.aspx?pId=H336&oId=H432). Nor do I think he'd have beaten Rafter in the 2001 Wimbledon Final either.

The one slam that perhaps should be seen as Henman's greatest regret was his failure to make more of the collapse of the draw at the Aus Open in 2002 where he lost to the unseeded Bjorkman in R16 when the draw had fallen wide open leaving Henman as the top seed standing (even to the extent of Safin and Haas both being on the other side of the draw) and the relative journeyman Johansson took advantage whilst everyone else got vertigo. Look at this for, in my view, Henman's truest slam horror story and lost opportunity:

1 Lleyton Hewitt (First round)
2 Gustavo Kuerten (First round)
3 Andre Agassi (Did not play)
4 Yevgeny Kafelnikov (Second round)
5 Sébastien Grosjean (Second round)
6 Tim Henman (Fourth round)
7 Tommy Haas (Semifinalist)
8 Pete Sampras (Fourth round)
9 Marat Safin (Finalist)
10 Goran Ivanišević (Second round)
11 Roger Federer (Fourth round)
12 Guillermo Cañas (Third round)
13 Andy Roddick (Second round)
14 Àlex Corretja (First round)
16 Arnaud Clément (Second round)
17 Thomas Johansson (Champion)

Tenez wrote:I am not sure he has an opinion. But he seems to have an agenda and that is to constantly drag discussions down. Out of teh many posters here, he is in my view the sole poster with that goal. And he can be pretty successful at it. Hasn't he been chased from MTL?

His success depends directly on who responds to such a 'provocation'. The history of a poster on another forum should not be used against them. There is a certain level of anonymity on such forums.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Amri just does it to take the focus off Nadal by making himself look like a fool, it's an effective tool to use against the shallow minded, amri is not here to troll like Analyst.

Spot On, JM.

Let us go back to the good discussion and just leave this where it is.

There's nothing wrong in being shallow minded if you can't swim.

Now what's all this business with effective tools

B'star. Absolutely fascinating stats from those two 2002 GS. Wonder if there's been a year when the top players did so badly at TWO slams ? Bit of a contrast now, when even those seeded five or six seem to have little or no chance of grabbing a GS title.
But then 02 was a bit of a funny year all round. It was as if the sport was pausing between two eras. Certainly some guys who would not normally have got a GS managed to win some in this period.

sirfredperry wrote:B'star. Absolutely fascinating stats from those two 2002 GS. Wonder if there's been a year when the top players did so badly at TWO slams ? Bit of a contrast now, when even those seeded five or six seem to have little or no chance of grabbing a GS title.
But then 02 was a bit of a funny year all round. It was as if the sport was pausing between two eras. Certainly some guys who would not normally have got a GS managed to win some in this period.

Three slams Sir Fred - don't forget the US Open 2002 either.

sirfredperry wrote:B'star. Absolutely fascinating stats from those two 2002 GS. Wonder if there's been a year when the top players did so badly at TWO slams ? Bit of a contrast now, when even those seeded five or six seem to have little or no chance of grabbing a GS title.
But then 02 was a bit of a funny year all round. It was as if the sport was pausing between two eras. Certainly some guys who would not normally have got a GS managed to win some in this period.

Yes, Sir fred it was certainly an in between and transitional period in tennis. Pete and Andre were both older than Roger currently is and they were along with Hewitt the leading lights of this era. Simply put not a strong period of tennis competition. A lot of fraility in the upper echelon. Guga was basically just a clay court wonder. Pete was the favorite at wimby, Andre could win any tournament. Hewitt was a tough out, Yevegeny lacked any consistency. And safin still looked like he wasn't that committed to his talent or the game. Lets remember that Pete and Andre both in their early 30s at this point.

socal1976 wrote:

sirfredperry wrote:B'star. Absolutely fascinating stats from those two 2002 GS. Wonder if there's been a year when the top players did so badly at TWO slams ? Bit of a contrast now, when even those seeded five or six seem to have little or no chance of grabbing a GS title.
But then 02 was a bit of a funny year all round. It was as if the sport was pausing between two eras. Certainly some guys who would not normally have got a GS managed to win some in this period.

Yes, Sir fred it was certainly an in between and transitional period in tennis. Pete and Andre were both older than Roger currently is and they were along with Hewitt the leading lights of this era. Simply put not a strong period of tennis competition. A lot of fraility in the upper echelon. Guga was basically just a clay court wonder. Pete was the favorite at wimby, Andre could win any tournament. Hewitt was a tough out, Yevegeny lacked any consistency. And safin still looked like he wasn't that committed to his talent or the game. Lets remember that Pete and Andre both in their early 30s at this point.

At the time Sampras was 30 in wimby 2002 feds is 30 too.

Yes Sampras was 30 Agassi was 32. Pretty old to still be the dominant figures on tour along with hewitt and safin. Guga was unfortunate because he had the talent to be much more than just a clay court. It is just a shame about his horrific injury. Would have loved to see a clay court match between Guga and Rafa if Guga could have maintained his health.

Raider, you have an interesting post. The facts are as followed as you stated bigger balls started their introduction in 2002. Suprisingly in this same time period luxlon strings come along giving an edge to returners and baseliners. The courts from what evidence I have seen where slowed down also in the early 2000s. Basically, predating or nearly predating all of Roger's grandslams. Roger is a very fit and fast player. I have yet to see him get tired in a match, hell he won some wimbeldons where I could swear he didn't sweat all tournament.

I agree that Roger's game favors fast conditions. But maybe other attacking players like lets say Tsonga, Berdy, or Davy, or Nalbandian would also have been aided by the faster conditions as much or possibly more than Fed. That is the whole point, you guys live in a hypothetical world where Fed is allowed to play on precisely the exact conditions that he trained for and favored. Well sorry that isn't the history of tennis. A lot of guys careers were made or lost when graphite racquets replaced wood. Part of being a top pro is adjusting to new conditions, technology, and training. Fed did it well enough in the real world without having to pretend like he deserves a golden star for playing on slowed down conditions, which he doesn't.

socal1976 wrote:I have yet to see him get tired in a match, hell he won some wimbeldons where I could swear he didn't sweat all tournament.

Some very tired matches....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjTYpAkiCbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ-iMgH5Jc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bsn6ERbKy0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3TktrWPMls

i was about to say socal for me quite a few of his losses against nadal he looked tired.

laverfan wrote:

socal1976 wrote:I have yet to see him get tired in a match, hell he won some wimbeldons where I could swear he didn't sweat all tournament.

Some very tired matches....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjTYpAkiCbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ-iMgH5Jc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bsn6ERbKy0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3TktrWPMls

Interesting all the matches are in 2008. Was that on purpose Laverfan??

Fed also got tired in AO 2005, FO final 2006, 2007 but also USO 2009 v Delpo, AO09, USO10, USO11.

HarpoMars wrote:

laverfan wrote:

socal1976 wrote:I have yet to see him get tired in a match, hell he won some wimbeldons where I could swear he didn't sweat all tournament.

Some very tired matches....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjTYpAkiCbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ-iMgH5Jc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bsn6ERbKy0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3TktrWPMls

Interesting all the matches are in 2008. Was that on purpose Laverfan??

No it was not, but I do see that I am referring to the GF/Mono year. . This was not to collect excuses for his losses.

As Tenez says, I very clearly recall AO 2005 (Safin) being a very tired one too.