Era Discussions For All Time Periods

First topic message reminder :

I noticed that two topics went wildly off topic and developed into a golden era/weak era debate. Now I see era debates now as pretty pointless as both parties will never budge from their stand and also they are so difficult to judge. Whereas some see golden eras as ones with the very best players in the top four mopping up the slam wins others argue that slam wins evenly distributed around to players outside the top players displays strength in depth. Also when do eras start and finish - another very difficult thing to judge.

One player that is a constant n both debates are Roger Federer. Some feel his early slam wins came in a weak era and dried up towards the end of the golden era which he is also deemed to be a part of which surely means Federer should be used as a yardstick. If we look at Roger Federer (and I believe his fans feel his peak years were 2003 to 2007) and see how he fared against players prominent in the early 2000's in this time compared to players prominent in the late 2000's (only taking matches played during Fed's peak years) then we see interesting stats.

Head-to-heads:-

Federer V Safin (Federer 5-1)

Federer V Roddick (Federer 12-1)

Federer V Hewitt (Federer 11-1)

Now for players from the late 2000's playing Federer in his peak whilst some of these listed were at pre-peak:-

Federer V Nadal (Nadal 8-6)

Federer V Djokovic (Federer 5-1)

Federer V Murray (Level at 1-1)

Make from those stats what you will but era debates perhaps on here would be better restricted to just one thread?

socal1976 wrote:As to Laverfan, now do you see how good an objective analyst I am, my forecast is virtually dead center on hewitt with what the IBM reliability zone on the ATP website says laverfan. I will allow you to to call me the reliability zone from now on laverfan.

How about a Powerball pointer?

Come on laverfan you got to admit for all the schtick I get for my hewitt commentary my analysis was sport on he is top 20-25 guy on the hardcourts in the open era right where I had him. Other than that IMBL is correct fed didn't have a great deal of opposition on the faster stuff in 2004-07 I think that is obvious by objective measures. Go ahead say it Laverfan, socal is the reliability zone!

socal1976 wrote:Come on laverfan you got to admit for all the schtick I get for my hewitt commentary my analysis was sport on he is top 20-25 guy on the hardcourts in the open era right where I had him. Other than that IMBL is correct fed didn't have a great deal of opposition on the faster stuff in 2004-07 I think that is obvious by objective measures. Go ahead say it Laverfan, socal is the reliability zone!

The index may change in the future for the current players. I wonder how it will change in the future.

Remember, ATP information is public.

No Laverfan, I'm afraid we haven't reached common ground on this topic, as much as you try to argue.
And btw what was the answer to your question?

Without a riddle or a link please, unless 606v2 is not worthy enough for you to write a simple clear answer.

Sorry Socal but you're just making that up about Nalbandian to sound effective.
From the ATP Tour's very own site it says...

"David Pablo Nalbandian...Began playing tennis at age five...Comes from Cordoba, second-largest city in Argentina...Father, Norberto, is deceased; mother, Alda, is a housewife; brothers, Javier and Dario, who is a tennis coach...His Armenian grandfather built a cement court in his backyard, where David learned to play against his two older brothers.".
That would be cement, not clay.

Are you going to also tell me Safin and Hewitt learnt their tennis on the fabled clay courts of Russia and Australia too??!!

IC, who cares about that 1 match...plus the irony is that Nadal beat Federer in HIS own back yard and has been doing so since 2008. The point is that no-one has ever dominated a surface such as Nadal on clay...it's no wonder Federer couldn't get near him in slams to quote IMBLs 0%. On HC it was different, role reversal until the new generation, inc Nadal, fully matured on HC. And as I explained there were a paucity of players who could excel on the new slower HCs and slower grass...except Federer a man with undoubted talent, but also a man who had the good fortune of being raised on slow then fast courts...the perfect grounding for the transitional period.

Good point Lydian

One I've been making a long time.

I still don't buy the conditions as the principle excuse. However lets say it is down to injury or to conditions whatever the justification is for their underperforming they underperformed. So I guess I will settle for you agreeing with my conclusion and disputting the cause. The fact remains as you concede in your argument Lydian these players as a group underperformed. Despite winning their biggest touraments after the slowing of conditions for both Hewitt and Roddick.

It's not so much 'conceding' as explaining perhaps why we saw what we did with a talented group of players in the mid-00s who seemed to fall away strangely in their peak years. It seems they had the rug pulled out from under them rather than underperformed. The result is under-realisation of ability for sure. However, Federer was bl**dy good, I'm not seeking to downplay his results...but...the question mark over excessive court slowing and its effects remain.

I love it I say they underperformed and instead you say it was the "under-realisation of ability for sure". Wait a minute you are agreeing that whatever the reason they didn't cut it. Come on lydian in all due respect when you don't want to admit something you can use defense department language. I am stealing this from George Carlin: in world war 1 it was shell shock , in WW2 it was battle fatigue, and now it is post traumatic stress syndrome. You should have worked for the foreign office, "under realisation of ability" that is beautiful legalese and diplomatic speak.

laverfan wrote:

socal1976 wrote:Come on laverfan you got to admit for all the schtick I get for my hewitt commentary my analysis was sport on he is top 20-25 guy on the hardcourts in the open era right where I had him. Other than that IMBL is correct fed didn't have a great deal of opposition on the faster stuff in 2004-07 I think that is obvious by objective measures. Go ahead say it Laverfan, socal is the reliability zone!

The index may change in the future for the current players. I wonder how it will change in the future.

Remember, ATP information is public.

believe it or not that was sight unseen, my own personal knowledge LF. As I said next time you want to check the reliability zone to test a theory ask me first, I am the reliability zone!

lydian wrote:

IC, who cares about that 1 match...

yea yea Lyd, Pete fans need excuse for the loss, what about Teen Hewitt, Roddick, Safin beating Pete, even thats not counted right

socal1976 wrote:Yes except one problem where have I stated any of these things about Nadal being the beneficiary or Djokovic being the beneficiary of weak eras, they haven't been to the extent Federer benefitted from the heroically charitable era of the early 2000s.

Thats the strongest era by your arguments

lets compare the champs playing in 2011 to 2001

2011 - 2001

Federer - Sampras
Nadal - Agassi
Djokovic - Hewitt
Murray - Safin
Del Potro - Roddick
0- Guga
0- Federer
0- Ferrero
0 - Gaudio
0 -Johanssen
Tsonga - Coria
Berdych - Nalbandian
Davydenko - Davydenko

0 indicates no player capable of comparison.

So 4 slam champs playing in the current year compared to 2001 where more slam players played, more players who made the finals played.

So Socal's theory are shattered to pieces now as 2000-2004 era are said to be the stronger than the current week era.

Note: Lets safely ignore the age factor as Socal usually do with respect to Fed's age



Socal now you remain Mum and don't wanna counter this post right?

IC, I'm talking about 2004-2007 here, not sure why you're quoting from 2001.

socal1976 wrote:The only other one that has an argument is hewitt, but frankly no none of those players in 2004-07 where particularly dominating unless I very post prime agassi and a very pre-prime Djokovic are taken out of the picture. On a hardcourt I would say none of them are the top 20 of players in the open era. I think hewitt probably gets into the top 20-25 of top hardcourt greats. But that is a marginal call. You are for the most part completely right, although an argument could be made that hewitt sneaks into the end of the list you are talking about namely top 25 hardcourt players of the open era.

Interesting analysis Socal.
Certainly I don't think a 35 year old Agassi or teengage Djokovic can be counted as a difficult test, and I also question your judgement on Hewitt.
I think you overrate him slightly- he could only reach 4 Grand Slam finals, and considering there are more than 30 guys who have won 5+ Grand Slams, I don't think he is top 25 quality. After 2005 he declined a lot, going out of the top 10.

It Must Be Love wrote:...and considering there are more than 30 guys who have won 5+ Grand Slams,

There aren't more than 30, there are 29. And considering that no slams were played on hard court before the late 1970s, over half of them never won a slam on HC.

But I'd like to focus solely on Jan 1st 2004 to Dec 31st 2007. I have no idea why, it's just seems right somehow. It's clear, for example, that Djoko was no test at all in September 2007, but improved beyond all measure in the off-season. By Jan 2008 he was, quite literally sportsfans, 7.8 times better than the previous summer. How else can we explain his 2008 AO victory against strong era giant Tsonga?

Oh 29, not 30. Apologies Julius, clearly that makes a massive difference.

And I'm talking abut Federer's four most successful years, which are 2004-2007.

ahhh i think it is more meticulous than pedantic 2bh.
You said over 30, not 30, which could mean up to 39, a whopping 10 off!

socal, there is a big different between the 2 terms. You're not reading into the subtlety, just railroading through. I used those words on purpose.

"Under performing on the day" means a guy DIDN'T execute.
"Under realisation of ability" is that the guy CAN'T execute.

My point is that transitional surface change led to a whole bunch of guys unable to fully flout their medium-fast hardcourt developed "A games"....because the medium-fast HCs weren't medium-fast anymore! The USO is a shadow if what it used to be, it's become another turgidly slow surface like AO and SW19. You heard Pat cash about these HC courts now, if you fell over you'd graze your hand such is the amount of speed slowing sand in the paint. You saw that when Djokovic merely rolled onto the ground at both events and cut his knees and elbows. That wouldn't have happened on the smooth courts of pre-2003.

Now I'm not saying Nalby et al couldn't play at all...they are world class players after all and adapt to a degree but the changes meant the difference between finals or going out at R4/QF or rarely SF stage. People shouldn't under-estimate how different speed courts screw your inherent timing, and at what height you're used to hitting the ball.

For Safin, I've reviewed him further. I'll grant having looked at his career more that he's an outlier to this discussion. He was brought up on HC til 13 BUT then went to train in Valencia on clay. He reached Hamburg clay finals twice, losing to Guga (in 5th set TB!) and Fed. Earlier in his career he won 2 clay titles so he was clearly an adept slow court player, more so than I realised...and maybe others too. On balance I think this is why he did better at slower AO (3 finals - 1 win) than USO. But after winning USO in 2000 he just couldn't perform there again. Injury was Safin's major issue I feel...he was a big guy to be playing clay-like tennis. But he could never master USO or Wimb, or even fast courts like Cincy. So I'm going to say Safin is an outlier...he did just underperform, and if anything his USO win as a slower court player is a puzzle. I think he just played out of his skin those 2 weeks like Kraijcek did at Wimb96 but couldn't replicate. Sampras beat him relatively easily the following year at SF. But he could/should have done better with his training background and ability.

So I'm being upfront about Safin. He did simply underperform...he was custom built for the transitional era but didn't perform...mental issues, physical issues, off court playboy, etc...his career suffered because of it. But my point I feel still remains for Hewitt, Roddick and Nalbandian. The slowing of the courts did affect them no doubt given they were brought up on cement courts.

Safin should have been to Federer what Agassi was to Sampras...but he just didn't come through. The rest I feel struggled to adapt. But I'm more than happy to be proved wrong on this.

And IMBL included over 15 players who never played, let alone won, a HC slam.

Is it better to state facts or state things which are not facts?

Is there a massive difference, I wonder, between Hewitt's 1 HC slam with 2 other finals and Rafa's 2 HC slams with 2 other finals?

Oh come on JHM, you should be well aware that the strong era (v.1) began on 31 January 2008 when Djokovic won the AO title for first time ; and then the strong era v.2 began later that same year when Nadal won his first Slam off clay (even though he had been winning lots of other Slams and Masters before then, ie in the weak era).

The dominant guy from the weak era continued winning Slams right up to 2012, even as a pensioner, but let's not worry about that.

And what on earth was invisible thinking when he created an era all of his own, from 2001 to 2011....??

I mean you just can't do that - even though the thread title says "all time periods"

lags72 wrote:Oh come on JHM, you should be well aware that the strong era (v.1) began on 31 January 2008 when Djokovic won the AO title for first time ; and then the strong era v.2 began later that same year when Nadal won his first Slam off clay (even though he had been winning lots of other Slams and Masters before then, ie in the weak era).

The dominant guy from the weak era continued winning Slams right up to 2012, even as a pensioner, but let's not worry about that.

And what on earth was invisible thinking when he created an era all of his own, from 2001 to 2011....??

I mean you just can't do that - even though the thread title says "all time periods"

What a load of nonsense that is.
Can you stop doing this btw Lags? I've seen you do it before. You take someone else's position in the debate, change it, so as to actually distort my point.

Doesn't take a lot of effort, believe me IMBL.

I'm sure you'll agree lags that 2 Wimby's in the strong era is worth far more than 5 in the weak era and, er, 2 in the strong era. Hmmm, no, hang on...wasn't July 2009 a weak month?

lags72 wrote:Doesn't take a lot of effort, believe me IMBL.

NO, the whole point is you change my argument.
You did this in the sportsmanship award thread as well, I argued that your legacy on court plays a part in the voting.
You then changed my argument to me saying Federer was 'evil' then ridiculed it, which wasn't what I was saying at all.

IMBL you've got to allow a bit of creative license. Neither lags nor I are seriously trying to portray your position as such, or seriously attempting to distort it. I think anyone reading it would know that we're just taking the mick a bit.

It's just banter, that's all, on a thread which nearly all posters agree shouldn't be taken too seriously.

And before anyone tried to distort my position further with underhand tactics, let me make my point clear:
I am arguing that in the early part of Federer's career the opposition Federer faced was not as tough and challenging as he had to in the latter stage of his career, after the emergence of Djokovic, Murray, and maturing of Nadal on all surfaces.
Can I put a date on it? No, not really, tennis is progressive and everything builds up. So it's very difficult to put a fixed set date, as Julius and Lags suggest.

OK, and given that you're not a Fed fan, can I ask why it is so important for you to make that argument, as opposed to, say, analysing Lendl's early career, or Becker's?

I would have expected a Rafa fan to focus more on Rafa's career rather than Fed's. There must be some motivation for analysing Fed's career instead.

OK, if you want I can create a thread to analyse Nadal.
If he wins today, then expect a possible thread.

Ah, you see, now I would classify that as an evasive answer

What was the question?

Is Rafa the GOAT?

and again

OK, and given that you're not a Fed fan, can I ask why it is so important for you to make that argument, as opposed to, say, analysing Lendl's early career, or Becker's?

Wait now I'm confused, which question is it.

What's the capital of New Jersey?

a) Because I want to.
b) I've answered that question before
c) Trenton

It Must Be Love wrote:And before anyone tried to distort my position further with underhand tactics, let me make my point clear:
I am arguing that in the early part of Federer's career the opposition Federer faced was not as tough and challenging as he had to in the latter stage of his career, after the emergence of Djokovic, Murray, and maturing of Nadal on all surfaces.

And you can prove this using titles and matches and videos of players in 2003-2007? This is a pure subjective conjecture and has no scientific or mathematical basis.

You perhaps need to re-read the title of this thread, yet again. The agenda is pretty clear why a specific period has been chosen. It has been pointed out that this is a disingenuous method, but you persist.

Do I need to re-quote the title here?

You have another option to prove your hypothesis. Go back in a time machine, pick up a racquet and train like the athletes of that time using that equipment available at that specific time, play against these players on specific dates, and then using the same time machine, report on 606v2 your experiences. For the sake of objectivity, you may have to lend such a chronoton (or TARDIS) to fellow 606v2 posters. Game on?

It Must Be Love wrote:Can I put a date on it? No, not really, tennis is progressive and everything builds up. So it's very difficult to put a fixed set date, as Julius and Lags suggest.

Yet, you keep trying, correct? You have arbitrarily picked 2003-2007? Why? Start at 2005 when Nadal turned professional, or further, when Djokovic won in Metz. Why drag in Hewitt/Nalbandian/Safin and try to rewrite history? You should re-read HB's post as well.

If Tennis is progressive, yet you want to pick it apart in discrete chunks, why? Does the midnight of 31 Dec every year have magical properties when the modern calendar increments the year by one (as JHM has already alluded to)?

Let us go back to your Smoking/Lungs example. Do you get cancer when you take your first puff, the second, the sixth, the eleventh, the seventeenth?

WHAT is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

I picked up Federer's most successful four years when I was analysing Federer... as they were his finest four years in terms of success.

btw Laverfan you still didn't explain what your answer was, so far you've said 'd none of the above' and posted a cryptic link.
Is there anything wrong with you actually explaining you answer rather than providing clues in riddle like links.

9.5 metres a second.

LuvSports! wrote:WHAT is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Good idea, LS! Should we have a quiz? Many of us would enjoy it quite a bit.

laverfan wrote:

LuvSports! wrote:WHAT is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Good idea, LS! Should we have a quiz? Many of us would enjoy it quite a bit.

So you didn't answer my question but responded to a suggestion of a non relevant to a quiz.

It Must Be Love wrote:I picked up Federer's most successful four years when I was analysing Federer... as they were his finest four years in terms of success.

The agenda is clear now. Carry on, IMBL.

It Must Be Love wrote:btw Laverfan you still didn't explain what your answer was, so far you've said 'd none of the above' and posted a cryptic link.
Is there anything wrong with you actually explaining you answer rather than providing clues in riddle like links.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader. If you have the ability to theorise and dissect eras, that link is just a set of numbers and easily decipherable. You showed the fantastic insight and ability to come up with 88-0%, this is very similar to that.

PS: Apart from 2000-current, what other arbitrary time period have you analysed so far? Why not share that and write a series, like your TW series?

laverfan wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:I picked up Federer's most successful four years when I was analysing Federer... as they were his finest four years in terms of success.

The agenda is clear now. Carry on, IMBL.

When was it not clear?
It doesn't mean I'm wrong.
I gave an example earlier of me having an agenda to try and show that smoking cigarettes is bad for health, and I selected some stats to show my case. Does that make me wrong?

laverfan wrote:
I will leave it as an exercise for the reader.

Any reason why you can't just say it, rather than posting a link as some sort of clue?

I find it slightly amusing when people ellude to Federer's 'peak years' outside those years he still managed 5 of his 17 which is nearly 30% of his Slam haul.

I like to think his best tennis expanded beyond 2007 just a little bit

Laverfan, I think you should have respect to answer questions rather than providing a riddle.
If the stat is wrong, then of course you can say so. But it's not as I checked with the ATP website.

So I don't see why you don't answer.
If you're going to say it's because I 'selected the stat' then that's a frankly pathetic response as all stats are selected.
I'm gonna watch PMQs next week, and when Miliband says that under the current government borrowing has actually increased I'll watch out for when Cameron responds:
'Oh, you say that borrowing has increased, and although it is a correct stat, what really concerns me is that you've selected it. I mean it's ridiculous in this day and age people having the audacity to research and present stats which are just picked to make my Conservative party looked bad, you should be ashamed of yourself Mr. Ed Mili.
Oh and by the way, I will explain myself, but in a riddle form so that no one apart from me understand. Hope that's OK with you, Dave.'

legendkillarV2 wrote:I find it slightly amusing when people ellude to Federer's 'peak years' outside those years he still managed 5 of his 17 which is nearly 30% of his Slam haul.

I like to think his best tennis expanded beyond 2007 just a little bit

Yes that's a good point, I acknowldge that Federer has had success throughout his career.
However I'm talking about his 4 most successful years, where he accumulated the majority of his Grand Slams and was number 1 for 208 weeks.

It Must Be Love wrote:9.5 metres a second.

you need to get out more..... or at least realise this reference is from one of the greatest comedy films ever!

LuvSports! wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:9.5 metres a second.

you need to get out more..... or at least realise this reference is from one of the greatest comedy films ever!

9.52 correct to 3 significant figures.

yeah and a sense of humour...