Is Roger Federer the Greatest Ever? Not in my opinion!!
Disclaimer:
A disclaimer is for defensive minded people and I'm not too proud to say I'm one.
This is merely a collection of my thoughts and understanding on the tennis I have religiously watched in the last 6 years. Calling it rubbish or finding it good, is clearly the readers’ call, I’m no expert to either be offended or to stand and question.
To Gopinath my Dear Brother, Avin, Rubesh, Harish, Ajit, Bhai, Sanjeev all of whom are ardent followers of Roger Federer - I have nothing against all of you and this really isn't an effort to raise your BP Levels.
To my own Rafa lovers - CPT, Sudhir, Reon, Dhivya, Gunal, Anna, Pramod, Ashwin, Subhash, Amar, Arun, Sumit, Vivian and many more - You guys might appreciate this.
To the neutrals like Naveen, Zendil - Life is so peaceful being you!
I’m not too sure on the amount of wrath that I will be inviting myself for, when I publish this blog. I have heard far too many people concluding that Roger Federer is the best player who has ever wielded a tennis racket and that's a statement I’II beg to differ!
My disagreement is - not because Roger isn’t talented enough, unquestionably he is - not because Roger doesn’t have some shots in his armour, he has an unbelievable array of strokes and can play at least two different strokes for each ball - Then why do I not agree that he is the greatest? The reason is, one man called Rafael Nadal.
Well!! I’m sure many readers would have decided that I being a massive fan of Rafa makes me argue against something so many commentators and the experts of the game agree to - Not really! I can write down a few facts which I think are supportive enough for my statement!
Because to be called the best in the World, you can’t go back to history and beat everyone who has played the game before you had actually picked up a racket. But what you could possibly do is, conquer all your contemporaries fair and square and even if you struggle against an odd opponent, you still find a way to come out and beat him.
To begin with a question - How many of you honestly think that Roger Federer has cracked the Rafael Nadal puzzle? If you have followed the matches between these two a little bit carefully and seriously, you could have observed that Rafa more often than not, uses the same technique to outwit the Fed-Express (not just in clay). Roger would be the first one to admit that. The big spinning and bouncing balls towards the Roger Federer backhand at a height very disconcerting to the Master, is one of those techniques that Nadal has repeatedly employed and with great success too. What has Federer done to counter that?
Out of 25 competitive matches these two remarkable champions have played against each other, the Swiss has won a mere 8 matches. The stat is even more skewed when you look at it from 2008 and beyond. 2 out of 11 matches is an incredibly favored recent record towards the Spaniard. One would argue that a majority of his wins have come in Clay - So? Even Clay is a surface and the world’s best player has to master that. The All-conquering Australian Cricket team of the early noughties never complained when they when to Srilanka or India and were served dry wickets that took turn from Day 1. Instead, they got on with the game, fought tooth and nail and they managed to win everywhere they played.
Now question me, why did they lose Ashes 2005? They compensated that defeat by winning it back 5-0 when they played in Australia - Didn’t they? Now that is Champion Stuff.
Back to Tennis - Nadal has beaten Federer in three different surfaces in Grand Slam tennis. On Clay obviously many times, on grass once in the epic Finals in 2008 in near darkness and once in Melbourne, courtesy of back-back five-setters in three days time, in 2009. To put things in perspective, its’ been very close to 4 years since Federer won a Grand Slam match against Nadal - 4 years and that’s when my little niece - who is in school now - was struggling to crawl.
Why do I emphasize that mastering your contemporaries is important? Because it becomes a fair stage for all, same types of equipments, similar training facilities, playing conditions etc. So if you are the best in your era, you have a fairly good chance to be the best ever. Sadly, Federer isn’t the best in his era, he is one among them (or at least two, you know who the other one is).
Roger Federer is a great player to watch, he is called an artist, a Musician in full flow, he is capable of finding improbable angles from unimaginable positions on the court, he can hit the line at will with remarkable precision, his serve is deadly, his 23 consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals record, 27 consecutive (and still counting) quarter-finals record, 16 Grand Slam titles are all impeccable and no one can question.
But to be called the Best ever, he still has some way to go. He has to establish his supremacy on Rafael Nadal, similar to what he did to the likes of Hewitt, Roddick, Davydenko, etc. Is there enough fuel left in the tank to get to that position of strength? Time will tell.
On the contrary, I do believe Rafa would one-day stamp his authority as the best ever to have played - a few years from now! I'll be back writing about that achievement, then.
This is merely a collection of my thoughts and understanding on the tennis I have religiously watched in the last 6 years. Calling it rubbish or finding it good, is clearly the readers’ call, I’m no expert to either be offended or to stand and question.
To Gopinath my Dear Brother, Avin, Rubesh, Harish, Ajit, Bhai, Sanjeev all of whom are ardent followers of Roger Federer - I have nothing against all of you and this really isn't an effort to raise your BP Levels.
To my own Rafa lovers - CPT, Sudhir, Reon, Dhivya, Gunal, Anna, Pramod, Ashwin, Subhash, Amar, Arun, Sumit, Vivian and many more - You guys might appreciate this.
To the neutrals like Naveen, Zendil - Life is so peaceful being you!
I’m not too sure on the amount of wrath that I will be inviting myself for, when I publish this blog. I have heard far too many people concluding that Roger Federer is the best player who has ever wielded a tennis racket and that's a statement I’II beg to differ! My disagreement is - not because Roger isn’t talented enough, unquestionably he is - not because Roger doesn’t have some shots in his armour, he has an unbelievable array of strokes and can play at least two different strokes for each ball - Then why do I not agree that he is the greatest? The reason is, one man called Rafael Nadal.
Well!! I’m sure many readers would have decided that I being a massive fan of Rafa makes me argue against something so many commentators and the experts of the game agree to - Not really! I can write down a few facts which I think are supportive enough for my statement!
Because to be called the best in the World, you can’t go back to history and beat everyone who has played the game before you had actually picked up a racket. But what you could possibly do is, conquer all your contemporaries fair and square and even if you struggle against an odd opponent, you still find a way to come out and beat him.
To begin with a question - How many of you honestly think that Roger Federer has cracked the Rafael Nadal puzzle? If you have followed the matches between these two a little bit carefully and seriously, you could have observed that Rafa more often than not, uses the same technique to outwit the Fed-Express (not just in clay). Roger would be the first one to admit that. The big spinning and bouncing balls towards the Roger Federer backhand at a height very disconcerting to the Master, is one of those techniques that Nadal has repeatedly employed and with great success too. What has Federer done to counter that?
Out of 25 competitive matches these two remarkable champions have played against each other, the Swiss has won a mere 8 matches. The stat is even more skewed when you look at it from 2008 and beyond. 2 out of 11 matches is an incredibly favored recent record towards the Spaniard. One would argue that a majority of his wins have come in Clay - So? Even Clay is a surface and the world’s best player has to master that. The All-conquering Australian Cricket team of the early noughties never complained when they when to Srilanka or India and were served dry wickets that took turn from Day 1. Instead, they got on with the game, fought tooth and nail and they managed to win everywhere they played.
Now question me, why did they lose Ashes 2005? They compensated that defeat by winning it back 5-0 when they played in Australia - Didn’t they? Now that is Champion Stuff.
Back to Tennis - Nadal has beaten Federer in three different surfaces in Grand Slam tennis. On Clay obviously many times, on grass once in the epic Finals in 2008 in near darkness and once in Melbourne, courtesy of back-back five-setters in three days time, in 2009. To put things in perspective, its’ been very close to 4 years since Federer won a Grand Slam match against Nadal - 4 years and that’s when my little niece - who is in school now - was struggling to crawl.
Why do I emphasize that mastering your contemporaries is important? Because it becomes a fair stage for all, same types of equipments, similar training facilities, playing conditions etc. So if you are the best in your era, you have a fairly good chance to be the best ever. Sadly, Federer isn’t the best in his era, he is one among them (or at least two, you know who the other one is).
Roger Federer is a great player to watch, he is called an artist, a Musician in full flow, he is capable of finding improbable angles from unimaginable positions on the court, he can hit the line at will with remarkable precision, his serve is deadly, his 23 consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals record, 27 consecutive (and still counting) quarter-finals record, 16 Grand Slam titles are all impeccable and no one can question.
But to be called the Best ever, he still has some way to go. He has to establish his supremacy on Rafael Nadal, similar to what he did to the likes of Hewitt, Roddick, Davydenko, etc. Is there enough fuel left in the tank to get to that position of strength? Time will tell.
On the contrary, I do believe Rafa would one-day stamp his authority as the best ever to have played - a few years from now! I'll be back writing about that achievement, then.
Every fan has his own reasons to this mighty 'puzzle' on who of the either is the greatest. Federer is a Great and leads Nadal by an appreciable margin (It's not big as it used to be anyways!)
ReplyDeleteSome of his records,
Federer has a lot of 'hard to beat' records.. consecutive semi final appearances in a GS (an underrated achievement and shows his consistency in the big arena). 237 consecutive weeks as No.1. (How do you beat that one?). Federer's best year in 2006 was 92-5 (How do you better that?) And what has Nadal have to show that he is better than Fed? 17-8? Pretty unfair I guess.
I admire Nadal and wish he was in a different era so that my support for him was whole hearted.
At the end of the day, every fan has his own rhyme and reason to put up his fav. player. I did mine. :-)
Right, I'm not blaming you :) after all a coin has two sides and we can look at only one mostly!
ReplyDelete(Singles) Tennis being an individual sport, it's easy to make a comparison when you look at the head-to-head record and that's why I posted that stat.
My point is simple: If I can consistently beat you fair and square, am I not better than you or at least be considered equivalent to you? 17-8 may look unfair to you being a Federer faithful, it doesn't look all that unfair to me (Being Rafa's obviously:))
Thanks for the comments anyway.
The H2H record is indeed misleading (well.. at least to me)
ReplyDeleteAs you said, majority of Nadal's wins are on clay (Fed's least favored surface compared to grass/hardcourts though I read somewhere that Fed grew up on Clay)
Nadal is the best ever on Clay. Period.
Let's put your cricketing logic here now.
Australia dominated the whole cricketing world except India in the period from '95 through the next decade and beat us once to get the best ever tag. (Final frontier et al blah..)
Why can't the same analogy be applied here.. Fed has most records in his name and beat Nadal in 2 of the 11 matches he played until 2011. If Nadal wasn't in this era, then Fed would have been Rod Laver to the power of 4!
Then again, this debate is useless. I guess its better this is talked about once their careers are done.
Probably the only blog of you that I did not like :)
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I dont agree that you should be the best player of your era to become the best player ever. If that is the case, there will be no best player ever. Everyone will have a losing record atleast with someone. The best player is the best player in all aspects across surfaces, across tournaments, across era(s) etc etc.
And you did not cover some points about Nadal. He was no doubt the best clay court player, right from the time he beat Federer in clay in Paris (2005). But he was, was, was a mere ordinary player in hard-courts till around 2008, which was during the best years of Roger. He managed to not come to the finals to meet Roger and kept his records intact. No doubt, he is one of the best learners in the game. The way, he has improved his NET game, service etc has made him a better alround player and he's in the finals of hard-courts too. By doing that, he is spoiling his record against Djokovic now. Does that mean, he's not doing good.
Reasons why I think that Federer is the best player of all time (Atleast for now, not saying Nadal that not inching closer to that)
- Consistency (27 QF on the trot, 23 SF on the trot, 10/11 finals, 237 consecutive weeks in No 1)
- Grand Slams (5+ slams in 2 different surfaces (Wimbledon & US), 4 Aus Open)
- The next major tournament in ATP is Year End Masters (5 Titles)
- Best player in the last decade in Wimbledon, US Open, Aus Open, Year end Masters and the second best on clay behind Nadal
Dont you think that he's the best?
@Legolas: That's why I picked up the "Noughties" when they actually defeated India as well :)And Spin and the SL pitches are not the Aussies' favorites, they still white-washed the Lankans in 2004.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/series/60759.html
@Gopi: I think Don Bradman was consistently above all his peers and ended up with an average of 99.94. Even in the Bodyline series he ended with the highest average - He is the best.
Footballing great Pele made a mark in every World Cup match he played - He is the best. Unfortunately he wasn't allowed to leave the country for club matches and therefore he wasn't able to prove his class in Barcelona, Real Madrid or Juventus.
How do you justify that Federer is better than Rod Laver, who won two Grand Slams and the only Man to do it in the Open Era? Did you anytime realize that Ivan Lendl reached the Master's Finals 8 consecutive years?
What about Nadal's 62 match winning streak on Clay, Most Masters Singles Titles, Winning the Monte Carlo Masters 7 times in succession etc? Don't they look good to you? He has won a Olympic Singles Gold, Won the Davis Cup for his country too.
This will go on and on! Tough to conclude!