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OT - Tennis - Why Federer is the best (long)
Posted By: Stick
Date: Friday, 10 June 2011, at 8:29 a.m.
Some discussion the last few weeks had me confused as to how anyone wouldn't place Roger in the their top 2 players of all time. Aside from the issue with Nadal which we'll try to address in this post later, I think maybe people don't understand all the stats at hand. Here's my effort to clear up some things that may not be common knowledge.
The Grand Slam in tennis is winning all 4 majors, the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open in the same year. Since the possibility of winning the Grand Slam has existed only two players have done it. (for this discussion I am directing it at men's singles only) Those two players were Don Budge in '38 and Rod Laver in '62 and '69. Also highly coveted and still pretty rare is a career Grand Slam in which the player would win all four of these events at any point in their career. Only 7 men have accomplished this feat including the two mentioned above then there's Fred Perry, Roy Emerson, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal.
****Note**** Some people think that Budge or Laver especially to be able to win them in the same year must have been pretty pimp. You have to remember at the time these players were playing 3 out of the 4 slams were on the same surface (grass). This is a huge factor when trying to compare across the ages. Only three players have done it on three different surfaces and that would be Andre, Roger, and Rafa.
Tennis history is basically divided into two parts, before the Open Era or pre 1968 and after the Open Era or 1968 and after. Starting in 1968 the Grand Slam tourneys allowed pros to compete with amateurs. This gave a huge boost to players trying to make a living at the sport.
Records that Roger Federer holds by himself (no ties) since the Open Era began
- Most Grand Slam titles with 16. Next in line is Sampras of course with 14 and then it dwindles on down.
- He has appeared in the most Grand Slam finals, 23 of them.
- He appeared in 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals from '05-07.
- He appeared in 23 consecutive semifinals of a Grand Slam event from '04-10.
- He appeared in 28 consecutive Slam quarterfinals from '04-11.
- Two consecutive years winning 3 or more Slam titles, '06-07.
- Three years winning 3 or more Slam titles, '04, '06-07.
- Four consecutive years winning 2 or more Slam titles, '04-07.
- Five years winning 2 or more Slam titles, '04-07, '09.
- Most hard court Slam titles with 9
- First 7 finals of Slams won from '03-06.
- Most Slam sets won in a row at 36, '06-07.
- Most consecutive service points won at a Slam, 35, US Open '07
- Most aces in a Slam final, 50! Wimbledon '09
- Most consecutive seedings at #1, '04-'08, 18 straight times he was seeded as #1
- Winning streaks of 25+ matches (2), of 20+ matches (3), and of 15+ matches (5)
- Most weeks at No. 1, 237 consecutive weeks on top of the tennis world
- 26 consecutive match victories versus a top 10 player
- 56 consecutive hard court victories
- 65 consecutive grass court victories
- 24 straight tournament finals won
- Over 94% of tournament finals reached in 1 season
- 2 season match winning % of over 95%
- 3 season match winning % of over 94%
- 4 season match winning % of over 92%
- 29 consecutive Masters 1000 match victories
- 3 consecutive calendar years as wire to wire No. 1 ranking
- 6 winning streaks of 20+ matches
- Federer is the only player to defend successfully all three Grand Slams next year one time in his career (2007)
- He is the only person to face 12 different opponents and defeat 11 of them in Slam finals.
There are more and even a lot more records that he has all to himself that I'm not going to list. Here are some of the important ones he shares with one or more players.
- Career Grand Slam (Laver, Agassi, Nadal)
- 8 consecutive years winning at least 1 Slam title (Borg, Sampras)
- 7 consecutive years winning 20 or more matches at the Slam events (Lendl)
- Runner up finishes at all 4 Slams (Lendl)
- Won a Slam without dropping a set! (Rosewall)
- 2 winning streaks of at least 35 matches (Borg)
Again there is a seemingly infinite list of bs I could list but that's the creme of the drop.
Now it's quote time, what others have said about Roger over the years.
Andre Agassi: "Pete Sampras was great, no question, but there was a place to get to with Pete. It could be on your terms. There's no such place with Roger. I think he's the best I've played against"
Rod Laver: "I would be honored just to be compared with Roger. Roger could become the greatest tennis player of all time" (2005)
Bjorn Borg: "For me Roger is the greatest player ever who played the tennis game. It’s always good to see him play and win and we are going to see so much more of Federer in the future, he is going to win more grand slam tournaments." (2009)
Pete Sampras: "What he’s done over the past five years has never, ever been done—and probably will never, ever happen again. Regardless if he won there or not, he goes down as the greatest ever. This just confirms it. Now that he has won in Paris, I think it just more solidifies his place in history as the greatest player that played the game, in my opinion. I’m a huge Laver fan, and he had a few years in there where he didn’t have an opportunity to win majors. But you can’t compare the eras. And in this era, the competition is much more fierce than Rod’s."
Billy Jean King: "His win today at the French Open, tying Pete Sampras’s record for major titles and the completion of a career grand slam firmly places him in a special place as the greatest player of all time. He has earned his place and he has proven he belongs. Roger is a champion for the ages." (2009)
Andre Agassi: "Roger Federer will undoubtedly become the greatest tennis player to have graced the sport if he wins the French Open. It ends the discussion of where he fits in the history of the game. If it wasn't for (four-times champion Rafael) Nadal, he probably would have won a handful of these things" (pre the French Open finals in 2009)
Fabrice Santoro who played against 20 of the 24 players to ever hold the #1 ranking: "In my opinion he's the best player ever. When you play tennis, playing Federer is kind of a dream because you can see he does everything you would love to do on the court."
John McEnroe: "He's the most gifted player that I've ever seen in my life. I've seen a lot of people play. I've seen the (Rod) Lavers, I played against some of the great players—the Samprases, Beckers, Connors', Borgs, you name it. This guy could be the greatest of all time. That, to me, says it all."
More McEnroe: "Roger is just the greatest player of all time. He is the most beautiful player I’ve ever seen and I don’t ever get tired of watching him. Rod Laver is my idol, Pete Sampras is the greatest grass court player ever, but Roger is just the greatest player of all."
Rafael Nadal: "Federer is the best player in history, no other player has ever had such quality."
Ivan Ljubicic: "I really consider myself top 5 player in the world, which it doesn't mean that I am close to Roger."
Rod Laver: "The best way to beat him would be to hit him over the head with a racquet. Roger could win the Grand Slam if he keeps playing the way he is and, if he does that, it will equate to the two Grand Slams that I won because standards are much higher these days."
Andre Agassi: "There's probably not a department in his game that couldn't be considered the best in that department. You watch him play Hewitt and everybody marvels at Hewitt's speed, as well as myself. And you start to realize, `Is it possible Federer even moves better?' Then you watch him play Andy [Roddick], and you go, `Andy has a big forehand. Is it possible Federer's forehand is the best in the game?' You watch him at the net, you watch him serve-volley somebody that doesn't return so well and you put him up there with the best in every department. You see him play from the ground against those that play from the ground for a living, and argue he does it better than anybody. "
Jimmy Connors: "[In the modern game], you're either a clay court specialist, a grass court specialist or a hard court specialist ... or you're Roger Federer."
Mats Wilander (winner of 7 Slams): "I'd like to be in his shoes for one day to know what it feels like to play that way."
On to the last crutch that the naysayers of Federer's greatest cling to, his rivalry with Nadal. You can't take anything away from Nadal, he is certainly a great player and coming of age as we speak. I personally don't like his game but he has the results and has worked hard to move from being a clay court specialist to being able to compete and win on all surfaces. The fact that Nadal exists in Federer's time in my opinion does not hurt his greatness. Nadal has dominated their match up, I believe he's 17-8 now. 14 of these matches were on clay and of those 14 Nadal has won 12 of them.
For those of you who are not tennis players but follow tennis clay is a completely different game than hard court or grass. Even though hard court and grass are also completely different from one and other they are much more similar than the freak show that clay is. A player that succeeds on hard courts shouldn't have much of a problem converting to grass or vice versa but playing on clay is a different beast. That's why the phrase 'clay court specialist' is so common. A lot of Europeans (in general) grow up on real clay and have a big advantage over those who try to make the transition. If you remove the head to head clay matches we would of course be left with a 5-6 record favoring Federer. Yes, Federer is European and no newbie when it came to clay but he was not Rafa from Spain who lived on it. Federer played mainly indoor hard court until he was pro.
In 2005 when Federer was busy spanking the tennis world Rafa ended up with enough points that had the year been 2000, 2001, 2002, or 2003 he would have been ranked #1 but he wasn't because Federer dominated the tour. Also between 2005-2010 these two giants finished in the top two spots in the rankings. It is only recently that Federer has slacked clear down to #3. I believe in tennis even at the very highest of levels it is possible for someone's style to give another player, even the greatest of greats, more problems than another. That style is Rafa style. He's a lefty, which argue all you want, is a built in advantage. Nadal is just a bad match up for Roger like Roger is for .. well, the rest of the world. Maybe if Nadal could dominate the rest of the tour in the upcoming years the way Roger did I'd give him more props.
One last note is what a great champion Roger is off the court. He has done so much for tennis by being Roger that I won't bother trying to sum it up. You might check out the book Roger Federer Quest for Perfection for a decent read. It's not a great book but certainly a good book if you like tennis. I would recommend Agassi's autobiography before it and Pete Sampras' A Champion's Mind as great reads. All typed out, had more to say but that'll do until I get people to reply to.
To me it's not even a question of who the greatest tennis player of all time is. It's like asking who is the best basketball player of all time? It's MJ and it's not even a discussion.
Stick
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