The Best Decade of All Time in Tennis

In no generation or decade in the Open Era have the top active players won 91% of all grand slams!

Never before. Not the Agassi, Sampras, Courier period nor the Connors, Borg and Mcenroe period

Not even the Wilander, Lendl, Edberg and Becker period.

Have taken a top player to mean anyone who has AT LEAST won 4 grand slams in the Open Era in their entire career!

Agassi, Courier and Sampras together won LESS THAN 60% of all grand slams.

Borg, Connors, Vilas and McEnroe were better and they CUMULATIVELY won 75% of all slams.

The immediate next group of Connors, McEnroe, Wilander won just 83% of their slams.

Even the highly competitive 80s era of Wilander, Lendl, Becker and Edberg together won just 82% of all slams.

But FEDERER, NADAL AND DJOKOVIC HAVE WON 32 OF THE LAST 35 SLAMS. 

Never before have the top tennis players DOMINATED a decade like this.

This is a phenomenal 91% win rate in all grand slams.

And the best part? the TIME PERIOD of this era is now 9 YEARS!!!  so its not like a brief 2-3 year bright period. Its freaking 9 YEARS!!!

(Click on the image to see full size).

Filed under: Sport, agassi, Becker, Bjorn Borg, Borg, Boris Becker, Courier, Djoker, Djokovic, Edberg, Federer, greatest tennis era of all time, greatest tennis player in history, Greatest Tennis Player of all time, Guillermo Vilas, ivan lendl, John Mcenroe, lendl, Mcenroe, Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Rafa, Rafa Nadal, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, sampras, trivalry, Vilas, Wilander

Why Nadal’s 5-2 head-to-head record against Federer is misleading!

A lot of arm-chair Nadal fanboys keep touting the stat that in Grand Slam Finals, Nadal has a 5-2 head to head record against Federer and hence Federer hasn’t “dominated” Rafa.

But these guys completely miss the point (which all tennis legends like Sampras, Agassi, Laver, Mcenroe and Becker accept):

Nadal didn’t even make ONE  U.S. Open final during Federer’s reign!!!

ZILCH. ZERO. Not ONE SINGLE final in the 5 YEARS Federer won.

Why should we bother about Federer losing to Nadal, if we don’t scrutinize Nadal losing to weak players in US and Aus Opens? In fact, Nadal lost to way lower ranked Soderling in 4th round of his FAVOURITE surface after winning 4 times.  Federer has lost ONLY in the finals of Wimbledon since his 1st win in 2003  and NEVER lost US Open after he first won it in 2004.

Nadal is extremely inconsistent in Hardcourt Slams. (Update: 27/Jan/2011,  Nadal has crashed out of Aus Open in Quarters! )

Considering Roger’s awesome hardcourt Slam record, the head to head would easily be in FEDERER’s favour  of at least 8-5 (4 US Open wins and 2 Aus Open wins in Federer’s prime).

By  refusing to acknowledge Nadal’s miserable hard court slam record, and refusing to see Federer’s total dominance in US Open, the head -to-head stat supporters are  PUNISHING Federer for his CONSISTENCY in reaching FINALS of ALL slams, and REWARDING Nadal for his failure in U.S.Open and Aus Open.

Absolutely ridiculous. Basically Nadal fanboys have been devastated by Federer’s French open win and the fact that he has been declared the Greatest Tennis Player of ALL Time by none other than Sampras, Agassi, Lendl, McEnroe etc etc.

The right way to check slam dominance, is to take up ALL THE SLAMS in which BOTH Nadal and Federer participated and check the winning percentage you find that Nadal is way inferior to Federer than Agassi was to Sampras (and not otherwise as Nadal fanboys love to believe).  When you add the 2 Wimbledons, 4 Aus Opens and 5 US Opens that Nadal and Federer haven’t met in, but Federer won 2 , 3  & 5 of those Slams respectively, you get the TRUE picture.

Over time, Federer will dominate sports history books, while Nadal may remain a footnote (unless he starts winning 10more slams…)

Also read: how-nadal-maintains-his-head-to-head-record-against-federer

To quote a fellow tennis enthusiast & blogger (see comments section below):  “…Roger leads (Rafa) 29-20 and 35-23, in the Same Tournament Entered and the Titles in Total Tournaments Available, respectively. On top of that Roger leads 12-6 in the Same 21 Grand Slams Played.”

This is an awesome stat and once and for all makes the lousy “Roger didn’t dominate Rafa” argument completely untenable. Read the full analysis here which debunks the popular myth that Roger never dominated Rafa. A better and more statistically valid data set to measure GOAT and true Grand Slam head to head is the above mentioned  “Same 21 Grand Slams Played”.  Click here to read more:  There’s More to Nadal and Federer Than Head-To-Head Meetings

Update: May 30, 2010

To put all debates to rest, Nadal himself now admits Roger Federer is better with simple, cold logic in an interview. Read the article here : Roger’s still better, says Nadal

“If someone says I’m better than Roger, I think they know nothing about tennis,” Nadal said…

“You see his titles, you see my titles. There’s no comparison.
It’s difficult to compare Roger with me right now. He has 16 Grand Slams, I have six. Roger’s records might be impossible to beat.”

Despite Federer’s more tightly-packed trophy cabinet, Nadal has a 14-7 head-to-head record against his rival and has won six of their last seven encounters.

The 24-year-old Mallorca man, however, believes that is indicative of nothing more than the Spaniard’s famed ability on clay. “I am number two in the world for five years now,” he said.
“I think I am a good number two. Sure, I can beat him, number two can beat number one. I can beat him, but I beat him a lot of times on clay. I’ve played with him more times on clay than on the rest of the surfaces.”

Filed under: Sport, 21 Grand Slams Played, 5 U.S.Open wins in a row, Australian Open, Becker, Bjorn Borg, bleacher report, bleacherreport, bleacherreport.com, Federer, Federer better than Nadal, Federer is greatest if all time, Federer Nadal rivalry, federer stats, Federer–Nadal_rivalry, Grand Slam, Grass courts, hard court, Hardcourt slams, hardcourts, inconsistent Nadal, ivan lendl, John Mcenroe, lendl, misleading, Nadal, Nadal failure in US Open, Nadal Federer rivalry, nadal head to head, nadal stats, nadal US Open flop, Pete Sampras, rafa roger head to head, Rafael Nadal, Rod Laver, Roger Federer, roger rafa head to head, Same 21 Grand Slams Played, Same Tournament Entered, sampras, truth about statistics, U.S. Open

Will Nadal burn out at age 26 like Bjorn Borg?

I found interesting similarities in the Grand Slam runs between Sampras and Federer as well as Borg and Nadal in terms of their Age vs Slams won!

(Note that have taken 31 yrs as maximum age considering Sampras retired at that age for apples to apples comparison for the 14 slam win rate).

Some important pointers:

1. Pete Sampras had only 3 wins in his last 16 slams.

2. Roger Federer needs only ONE win in his next 15 slams to equal Sampras and just 2 to break the world record.

3.  Nadal has more than 35 slams to beat Sampras, and is close to beating Borg’s slam total by age 23

4. Borg had the highest rate of slams by age 23 and played only 3 slams a year. He never played a lot of Aussie opens (except early on in 1974 types ) as he kept losing US Opens . Borg didn’t feel Aussie Open was important unless he won the US Open.

Nadal seems to be slightly behind Borg’s run rate. And Federer’s win rate is next to Borg despite playing way longer schedules. Unbelievable.

Nadal too may burn out like Borg especially because his game is more Physical than Federer’s and the body takes punishment on hard courts. Nadal also won’t be able to maintain the speed and power beyond age 25-26…as the tennis schedules are too long now days. Federer’s game like Sampras suits long term play.

Grand Slam wins

But I feel even if Nadal wins 15 slams and Federer wins the French, they can still be called greatest only of the MODERN era as people forget Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall were banned for more than 44 Slams due to them turning PRO… Rosewall lost peak 11 years of his life. It was Laver and Rosewall’s efforts which led to the Open era in the first place and modern players from Borg to Nadal and Federer have to be thankful for them. Between them, Laver and Rosewall would have won 20+ slams if allowed to play as there was no one close to them. And it isn’t their problem that Hardcourts weren’t provided for Slams, as either would have won for SURE if there was that surface provided.  It is for this reason, that historians will ALWAYS place Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall as the Greatest Tennis Players of ALL TIME.  To beat them, the minimum no. of slam which Federer or Nadal must win are 20, else there is no comparison for the unfair way in which Laver/Rosewall were prevented for 44 Slams simply because they turned Pro.

For a detailed perspective, please also read the following article:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/119898-the-hall-of-goats

Filed under: Sport, Australian Open, Bjorn Borg, Borg, borg nadal, Federer, federer greatest all time, federer vs nadal, French Open, Grand Slam, Greatest Tennis Player of all time, Ken Rosewall, knee injury, laver, laver vs federer, Nadal, nadal burn out, nadal burnout, nadal fitness, nadal knee injury, nadal vs federer, Rafa Nadal, Rafael Nadal, Rod Laver, rod laver vs federer, Roger Federer, rosewall, sampras, sampras federer, sampras federer borg nadal, sampras federer laver borg, Tennis, tennis player, U.S. Open, Wimbledon

Greatest Wimbledon Final in History

The Federer-Nadal final yesterday was so epic in scale, quality, tension & drama that it made the Becker-Edberg finals of 1988-90, the Borg-McEnroe final of 1980 and any Sampras-Agassi final look terribly “average”. These 2 guys are playing at a level, unseen in tennis history… The only sporting equivalent I can think of is Zinedine Zidane’s unbelievable level of play & ball control in the France-Brazil quarterfinal in the 2006 Worldcup and Zidane again in the 1998 World cup final against Brazil.

Yes, there is no comparison in Tennis…yet. Maybe the next U.S.Open, where Federer is again favorite (since the hard court is way faster than grass) will hopefully see a similar final.

Though Nadal won, to be fair to Roger, with the light so poor the last 4 games of the 5th set was simply a matter of luck…They should’ve stopped play. Similarly, it would have been unfair to Nadal too if he had lost the match instead of Roger. The light was terrible and not fit for professional play.

What does the future now hold for ROGER FEDERER? For starters, the grass is so slow nowadays, that baseliners will continue to dominate Wimbledon like the French Open. But Rafa Nadal, who dominates on clay, is still weaker on grass, and weakest on hardcourts. The slower the court the more dominating Nadal is. In contrast, Federer’s game becomes better & better as the courts turn faster.  This means, the only way he can beat Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slams, is by going for the US and Australian Opens. Because Nadal will continue to win grass & clay, next 2-3 years.

But then again, Federer can surprise everyone by bouncing back to win not just the US and Australian this year, but next Wimbeldon as well… Nadal will end up with 7-8 French opens, and maybe 3-4 Wimbledons… but to me Roger Federer IS the greatest tennis player of all time. Remember, he is the ONLY player to win 3 GRAND SLAMS in the same year, THRICE.

Filed under: Sport, agassi, Australian Open, Becker, Borg, Edberg, Federer, Federer Nadal, French Open, Mcenroe, Nadal, Nadal Federer, Rafa Nadal, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, sampras, U.S.Open, Wimbledon, Zidane

Never mind the French Open…

ROGER FEDERER is most definitely the GREATEST tennis player in the history of the game.

He lost one match…big deal. 3 French Open Finals in a row and 4 French Open Semi-Finals in a row is enough testament to his Clay Court ability. Nadal is the greatest Clay Court Specialist… so its only fitting that Rafa won the French 4 in a row. Think about this: it takes a NADAL to beat Federer on clay..Federer is that good (regardless of the 3 set drubbing).

But FEDERER has won the AUSTRALIAN, WIMBLEDON and U.S.OPEN title in the SAME calender year..THREE TIMES!!! Not Laver, Not Borg, not Sampras, not McEnroe, Not Becker, Not Edberg, Not Emerson, Not Lendl, Not Wilander Nor Agassi…no one has ever come close to this feat. One is good, Two is superb, but Three is just GREAT.

NOW add the 3 French Open Finals in a row to the 4 US Open titles in a row and 5 Wimblesons in a row, and you can understand why Roger Federer is simply, the Greatest tennis player in the history of the game.

 

 

Filed under: Heroes, Sport, Australian Open, clay, court, Federer, French Open, grass, hard, Nadal, Rafa, Rafa Nadal, Roger, Roger Federer, Tennis, U.S. Open, Wimbledon