A page and forum to discuss all things Roger Federer.
80 Comments on Roger Federer
Incidentally, regarding what Federer or McEnroe, or any other great past or present says about GOAT: that’s their (presumably informed) opinion, nothing more.
Federer, obviously, has good reason to disclaim being GOAT. Nobody except Muhammad Ali has ever called himself the Greatest. Why would you?
More generally, of all the logical fallacies committed on this forum, the argument from authority may be the most common.
In a nutshell, no interesting claim of fact (e.g. Federer is the GOAT) is made true or false by someone’s say so, including the say so of even the most eminent authority.
It’s easy to see this in clear cases. For instance, suppose that Boris Becker claimed that Diego Schwartzmann has the best serve of anyone in the top 100. Would that make it true? Obviously not. It’s one piece of evidence -in this case a pretty dubious piece when considered against other evidence- but in any case it’s nothing more than that. Same with McEnroe’s long-ago claim that Nadal is the best volleyer in the top 100.
Top 100 singles players, but how often does Nadal actually hit volleys in singles? Does he hit them with his usual grip ?He does play well in doubles .
As someone else said, in sinlges ,the volley is only an integral part of the overall gameplan, these days.
Maybe what McEnroe is really saying is that todays players are pretty crap volleyers compared to him .
Yeah, that’s probably Mac’s point as much as anything. Even limiting ourselves to current players, it’s a bit pointless to compare Nadal as a volleyer to someone like M Zverev. The volley plays a totally different role in their respective singles’ games. A similar point holds for a Nadal-Fed volley comparison, though not as strongly.
Regarding the grip, I’m not sure how much Rafa changes grip to hit his volley, if at all. That may be why he almost never hits a drive volley (at least in singles) like Fed does.
Well, I don’t know about Rafa’s “average” volley attempt per match but in his 3 set USO final v Anderson he went 16 for 16 at net. And did an S&V to claim match point!
Indicators of Weak Eras:
Old men at No 1 (Agassi, Federer)
Former greats winning slams after 2+ years slump (Sampras, Agassi, Federer)
Random players making slam finals (Johanson, Anderson)
Yeah, except it isn’t. Lost almost all interest in tennis after Sampras won his last until 2006. And even then, that was because I was a big Sampras fan but tennis had gotten boring on the men’s side already.
Similarly, only fedfans would enjoy tennis atm (which fortunately for the business of tennis) is the majority.
I have currently lost interest in tennis. No idea how long it will last, but the AO just killed it for me. I think the last straw was Cilic’s claim that he had not been told the roof would be closed for the final?!?! WTF? For me, tennis is about fair competition. Or should be. It’s not like I wanted Cilic to win, preferred Fed, honestly. But…that blatant favoritism. Yuck! Very, very distasteful. And Fed gets all the Laver night matches, plus ONE cool day afternoon match (see, look how fair we are!) while that poor Korean kid blisters the skin off his feet playing in the heat.
The first slam final I didn’t watch that I can recall.
It’s a business Ramara and they are giving the majority what they want.
That’s why for me, as much as his game can never be replaced, I look forward to his retirement so tennis can start over and be more of a sport and less of a business at least in terms of perceive fairness.
The 20 slams is tainted for me as good as it is but full credit to Federer for his unparalleled longevity.
Tennis is dull again without Rafa, Nole and Murray being in form if you are a tennis fan more than a Federer fan.
Ramara, if you haven’t already, you may want to read this, which I posted above. It should disabuse you of the notion that Cilic was disadvantaged in any way regarding the closing of the roof for the AO final.
In your revisionist mind maybe. (Prerequisite for a defensive fedfan).
Sampras came along after Agassi
So? Agassi was more interesting, he reinvented himself , won on more surfaces,and lasted longer.
And, what could it possibly have to do with defending Federer. I was an Agassi fan long before Feds dominance
Al, there are tennis fans, and then there are fanboys. And anyone who says (picture whiny voice):
“I’m bored of tennis because X isn’t playing” is just a fanboy and was never a proper tennis fan to begin with.
A tennis fan will gladly go and watch 250 or even challenger tournaments at close range, because the level of tennis is so incredible for anyone who actually plays the game and understands how difficult it is to play it well.
Fanboys moan about how boring tennis is because their boy isn’t doing as well as they think he should be.
The last time tennis was boring was when Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaeger were trading moonballs in the late ’70s.
Careful Joey or Ricky will warn you about being put into moderation again. Not to mention the endless strawman arguments.
Jeff Sackmann’s analysis still upsetting you huh?
And Boris’ comment about Roger not good enough to beat Mac or Borg really shouldn’t upset you so. It’s just his opinion. Albeit he played pro tennis. But still.
Didn’t Fed use the volley against Nadal on clay quite successfully ?
It was attacking tennis finishing at the net,not much s&v.
Still,says something about his volleying skills.
But,it’s a bit unfair to compare with the older guys.In those days the volley was a more effective shot in its own right.Now,passing shots are much better.
Which s&v players ? Edberg,McEnroe etc or Mahut,Llodra ?
The former are great , they won major titles by s&ving, the latter might be ‘great’ volleyers but are in the wrong era. Just as Fed is, but IMO has untapped potential as a volleyer , the others have pretty much reached their limit.
Crux of the argument is that passing shots are much better these days , so the old school volleyers would have a much harder time .
One of the best arguments left to Mr Nadal’s supporters is that Mr Federer padded his statistics in the weak era of 2003-07, before Mr Djokovic and Mr Murray reached their primes, and when a young Mr Nadal was primarily a threat on clay courts. The Swiss maestro enjoyed years swatting away lesser lights, whereas Mr Nadal has spent much of his career doing battle with Mr Djokovic and Mr Murray.
At majors, the Spaniard has faced the other three members of the Big Four 13% of the time, and won a remarkable 74% of those meetings. In contrast, Mr Federer has played his Big Four peers in just 9% of his grand-slam matches, and won only 42% of them.
The average grand-slam title run requires beating a set of opponents that the typical champion would defeat 23% of the time. Only eight of Mr Federer’s 19 major titles have come against competition more difficult than that. But 13 of Mr Nadal’s 16 championships have required him to confront harder-than-average obstacles.
Since people are re-posting, I’ll do the same (you can see the whole critique of Sackman’s article starting on p. 23 of this forum, above):
“Whatever else the [above Economist] article shows, it doesn’t show what its title suggests. In fact, it says nothing whatsoever to rebut the claim that Nadal’s claim to overall greatness rests primarily on his unparalleled dominance on clay.
Even if the author’s use of elo shows that Nadal has faced more difficult slam opposition, on average, it doesn’t even attempt to factor out the relative difficulty of his non-clay slam titles. And no amount of difficulty-adjusting is going to come close to equalizing the three fold difference between 18 non-clay slams (Roger) and 6 (Rafa).”
Only thing to add, 3 months later, is that Federer’s advantage over Nadal in non-clay slams now stands at 19-6, more than 3 times as many. He also leads in WTF titles, 6 (Fed) to 0 (Nadal).
Nadal is the clay GOAT by a very wide margin, which is very impressive. Off clay, he’s very good but not in the top 5, based on his actual results, which is the only objective way to make these kinds of assessment. According to the comprehensive list below, he is equal 5th on HC, 14th on grass.
Federer, meanwhile, is #1 overall, #1 on HC, and #1 on grass, all by a wide margin. On clay, he is 6th best of all time, not far behind Lendl and DJokovic:
““Whatever else the article shows, it doesn’t show what its title suggests. In fact, it says nothing whatsoever to rebut the claim that Nadal’s claim to overall greatness rests primarily on his unparalleled dominance on clay.””
Of course he should play RG depending on Rafa’s health and form.
Same logic he used to enter Davis Cup at the last minute after Nole and Rafa pulled out.
Same logic he used to become the only player to default a WTF final admitting he wouldn’t have a chance against Novak then playing DC final a few days later.
Same logic he used last year to skip clay season admitting that Rafa was going to tear it up on clay.
Same logic he used to enter Rotterdam at the last minute.
Fed is entering IW, Miami, Halle, wimby, US, Basel, Shanghai and WTF may be some more but the above are 90 pc surety unless injury.
This is informed in advance and ask Rafa to prepare well himself to take on Fed, later don’t claim he entered in the last minute. Maybe Rafa can squeeze himself wherever Fed is not playing to have some chance.
Poor guy. Federer keeps winning to leave him grumpy week after week. Hey, but at least you can rest assured knowing that Nadal wins every match he’s not injured in. #asteriskeveryloss
😂, Closet, what closet? I am a Christian.
White, I am not white.
I am just laughing because
recent events have left you with a sore bottom 😂😋🤣.
Just what I said Stanley. You, Joey and BIG al can’t stop thinking about my sore bottom.
Sounds pretty kinky. Until you realize why, you’re in the closet. Maybe when you come out, you will see how white you are.
Pain in the bottom , what goes around comes around😂😋🤣
Just came across this. written just before the 2018 AO, it’s a quite detailed analysis of what has enabled Federer to forge “the greatest comeback by the greatest male player in tennis…”
The larger racquet merits a fair bit of discussion toward the end, in the section titled “Taming Nadal.”
i prefer the more quantitative ELO analysis by Jeff Sackmann that successfully disputes the notion that Federer ever was GOAT over some subjective fedfan written piece.
Sackmann has written very positive articles on Nadal, Federer and Djokovic.
For those who want to see how “weak” the tennis was in the “weak-era,” check out highlights from this incredible 2004 QF USO match between Federer and Agassi, played in gale-force winds.
ELO, Jeff Sackmann and Jeff Lynn. Hmmmm.. and it makes me wonder.
Nice choice… very apropos. If yer referring to me, that’s totally fair LOL, I was just as bad on TX with sleezer, Ben Pronoun, and the guy who writes most of the articles there in the first person whatever his name is. Fedfans here are nowhere near as obnoxious.
Oh hello darling Alison, so good to be back. I must go on FB to explain — you and Andi Mira deserve a proper explanation. This is not the place for it but I try to get on FB soon, okay?
Welcome back, RC! Since I recall that we share similar taste in music, and since we’ve been on the theme of the greatest lately, here’s one of my candidates for greatest live rock act ever! (This is the last song from a concert that aired on the BBC in 1972).
One thing I don’t understand is why they have his listed as having played 18 tournaments (one more than Nadal). By my count, he’s played 14 tournaments in the last 12 months, including Rotterdam.
Not a cricket fan myself, but Bradman’s career test batting average is 99.94. The next highest is 63.75.
Translating that to baseball, Ty Cobb (who played about the same time frame as Bradman) has the highest career batting average at .366. Now imagine a Bradman-like figure in baseball who has a career batting average of .566. Almost inconceivable.
Alternatively, if you think cricket (like baseball and other sports) must have been much less competitive for a great sportsman in the 1920s-40s, imagine that the highest career batting average in the modern era (currently Tony Gwnnn at .338) was just .235.
That’s how much better Bradman is than everyone else at batting in cricket.
Incidentally, regarding what Federer or McEnroe, or any other great past or present says about GOAT: that’s their (presumably informed) opinion, nothing more.
Federer, obviously, has good reason to disclaim being GOAT. Nobody except Muhammad Ali has ever called himself the Greatest. Why would you?
More generally, of all the logical fallacies committed on this forum, the argument from authority may be the most common.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
In a nutshell, no interesting claim of fact (e.g. Federer is the GOAT) is made true or false by someone’s say so, including the say so of even the most eminent authority.
It’s easy to see this in clear cases. For instance, suppose that Boris Becker claimed that Diego Schwartzmann has the best serve of anyone in the top 100. Would that make it true? Obviously not. It’s one piece of evidence -in this case a pretty dubious piece when considered against other evidence- but in any case it’s nothing more than that. Same with McEnroe’s long-ago claim that Nadal is the best volleyer in the top 100.
Top 100 singles players, but how often does Nadal actually hit volleys in singles? Does he hit them with his usual grip ?He does play well in doubles .
As someone else said, in sinlges ,the volley is only an integral part of the overall gameplan, these days.
Maybe what McEnroe is really saying is that todays players are pretty crap volleyers compared to him .
Yeah, that’s probably Mac’s point as much as anything. Even limiting ourselves to current players, it’s a bit pointless to compare Nadal as a volleyer to someone like M Zverev. The volley plays a totally different role in their respective singles’ games. A similar point holds for a Nadal-Fed volley comparison, though not as strongly.
Regarding the grip, I’m not sure how much Rafa changes grip to hit his volley, if at all. That may be why he almost never hits a drive volley (at least in singles) like Fed does.
Well, I don’t know about Rafa’s “average” volley attempt per match but in his 3 set USO final v Anderson he went 16 for 16 at net. And did an S&V to claim match point!
Good point Joe.
Such bother just because of one numerical ELO analysis by Jeff Sackmann that came to the “wrong” conclusion.
Simply delicious.
Indicators of Weak Eras:
Old men at No 1 (Agassi, Federer)
Former greats winning slams after 2+ years slump (Sampras, Agassi, Federer)
Random players making slam finals (Johanson, Anderson)
When this trifecta occurs, it might be a Weak Era
Just sayin.
But who cares .Every year is interesting in its own right.
Yeah, except it isn’t. Lost almost all interest in tennis after Sampras won his last until 2006. And even then, that was because I was a big Sampras fan but tennis had gotten boring on the men’s side already.
Similarly, only fedfans would enjoy tennis atm (which fortunately for the business of tennis) is the majority.
I have currently lost interest in tennis. No idea how long it will last, but the AO just killed it for me. I think the last straw was Cilic’s claim that he had not been told the roof would be closed for the final?!?! WTF? For me, tennis is about fair competition. Or should be. It’s not like I wanted Cilic to win, preferred Fed, honestly. But…that blatant favoritism. Yuck! Very, very distasteful. And Fed gets all the Laver night matches, plus ONE cool day afternoon match (see, look how fair we are!) while that poor Korean kid blisters the skin off his feet playing in the heat.
The first slam final I didn’t watch that I can recall.
It’s a business Ramara and they are giving the majority what they want.
That’s why for me, as much as his game can never be replaced, I look forward to his retirement so tennis can start over and be more of a sport and less of a business at least in terms of perceive fairness.
The 20 slams is tainted for me as good as it is but full credit to Federer for his unparalleled longevity.
Tennis is dull again without Rafa, Nole and Murray being in form if you are a tennis fan more than a Federer fan.
Ramara, if you haven’t already, you may want to read this, which I posted above. It should disabuse you of the notion that Cilic was disadvantaged in any way regarding the closing of the roof for the AO final.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/the-conspiracy-theories-around-roger-federer-s-australian-open-win-need-to-stop-now
To Hawkeye at 4.23pm:
Yeah, it was pretty boring during the Sampras era. People said Agassi might have saved tennis.
In your revisionist mind maybe. (Prerequisite for a defensive fedfan).
Sampras came along after Agassi
So? Agassi was more interesting, he reinvented himself , won on more surfaces,and lasted longer.
And, what could it possibly have to do with defending Federer. I was an Agassi fan long before Feds dominance
Al, there are tennis fans, and then there are fanboys. And anyone who says (picture whiny voice):
“I’m bored of tennis because X isn’t playing” is just a fanboy and was never a proper tennis fan to begin with.
A tennis fan will gladly go and watch 250 or even challenger tournaments at close range, because the level of tennis is so incredible for anyone who actually plays the game and understands how difficult it is to play it well.
Fanboys moan about how boring tennis is because their boy isn’t doing as well as they think he should be.
The last time tennis was boring was when Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaeger were trading moonballs in the late ’70s.
Careful Joey or Ricky will warn you about being put into moderation again. Not to mention the endless strawman arguments.
Jeff Sackmann’s analysis still upsetting you huh?
And Boris’ comment about Roger not good enough to beat Mac or Borg really shouldn’t upset you so. It’s just his opinion. Albeit he played pro tennis. But still.
Didn’t Fed use the volley against Nadal on clay quite successfully ?
It was attacking tennis finishing at the net,not much s&v.
Still,says something about his volleying skills.
Big Al, still arguing? Like I said, he’s good or very good, just not great like those S&V players, no matter how one wants or wishes to put it.
Just thought it worth pointing out,no one mentioned it.It wasn’t meant to be a Nadal v Federer comparison.
But,it’s a bit unfair to compare with the older guys.In those days the volley was a more effective shot in its own right.Now,passing shots are much better.
Which s&v players ? Edberg,McEnroe etc or Mahut,Llodra ?
The former are great , they won major titles by s&ving, the latter might be ‘great’ volleyers but are in the wrong era. Just as Fed is, but IMO has untapped potential as a volleyer , the others have pretty much reached their limit.
Crux of the argument is that passing shots are much better these days , so the old school volleyers would have a much harder time .
Absolutely, Al. The new string tech and incredibly stiff racquets have made it possible to hit a passing shot from virtually anywhere on the court.
Coming to net on a regular basis has become a risky business.
And he got passed numerous times when doing so!
Very high risk play against Nadal on clay.The fact he won a few sets is testament to his skills.
Big Al, dunno. I’d have to look at their h2h on clay.
It really doesn’t get more objectively quantitative that this.
Sorry, Roger: Rafael Nadal is not just the king of clay
The Spaniard has overcome unusually strong opposition to rack up 16 grand-slam wins
https://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2017/09/draws-tennis
Outtakes:
One of the best arguments left to Mr Nadal’s supporters is that Mr Federer padded his statistics in the weak era of 2003-07, before Mr Djokovic and Mr Murray reached their primes, and when a young Mr Nadal was primarily a threat on clay courts. The Swiss maestro enjoyed years swatting away lesser lights, whereas Mr Nadal has spent much of his career doing battle with Mr Djokovic and Mr Murray.
At majors, the Spaniard has faced the other three members of the Big Four 13% of the time, and won a remarkable 74% of those meetings. In contrast, Mr Federer has played his Big Four peers in just 9% of his grand-slam matches, and won only 42% of them.
The average grand-slam title run requires beating a set of opponents that the typical champion would defeat 23% of the time. Only eight of Mr Federer’s 19 major titles have come against competition more difficult than that. But 13 of Mr Nadal’s 16 championships have required him to confront harder-than-average obstacles.
The devil is in the details (as opposed to overly simplistic cherry picked rationalizations based upon preformed conclusions.
AKA Joey Needles (il)logic.
But that is,as they say, the luck of the draw.You can only play who’s in front of you.
Since people are re-posting, I’ll do the same (you can see the whole critique of Sackman’s article starting on p. 23 of this forum, above):
“Whatever else the [above Economist] article shows, it doesn’t show what its title suggests. In fact, it says nothing whatsoever to rebut the claim that Nadal’s claim to overall greatness rests primarily on his unparalleled dominance on clay.
Even if the author’s use of elo shows that Nadal has faced more difficult slam opposition, on average, it doesn’t even attempt to factor out the relative difficulty of his non-clay slam titles. And no amount of difficulty-adjusting is going to come close to equalizing the three fold difference between 18 non-clay slams (Roger) and 6 (Rafa).”
Only thing to add, 3 months later, is that Federer’s advantage over Nadal in non-clay slams now stands at 19-6, more than 3 times as many. He also leads in WTF titles, 6 (Fed) to 0 (Nadal).
Nadal is the clay GOAT by a very wide margin, which is very impressive. Off clay, he’s very good but not in the top 5, based on his actual results, which is the only objective way to make these kinds of assessment. According to the comprehensive list below, he is equal 5th on HC, 14th on grass.
Federer, meanwhile, is #1 overall, #1 on HC, and #1 on grass, all by a wide margin. On clay, he is 6th best of all time, not far behind Lendl and DJokovic:
http://www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com/goatList
No 1 in padded statistics thanks to the Weak Era.
No 1 in slams won when he didn’t face the big four.
No. 1 in cursing umpires and telling fans to shut up out of the Big Four.
No. 1 in winning slam finals with the roof closed.
No. 1 in defaulting WTF finals.
Oh the Joey Needles fallacies are constantly amusing though.
““Whatever else the article shows, it doesn’t show what its title suggests. In fact, it says nothing whatsoever to rebut the claim that Nadal’s claim to overall greatness rests primarily on his unparalleled dominance on clay.””
Hint: It doesn’t say otherwise.
An article which makes the case that Federer should play some of the clay season this year, including RG:
http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/17/history-maker-roger-federer-must-now-take-aim-rafael-nadal-clay-7318571/
Of course he should play RG depending on Rafa’s health and form.
Same logic he used to enter Davis Cup at the last minute after Nole and Rafa pulled out.
Same logic he used to become the only player to default a WTF final admitting he wouldn’t have a chance against Novak then playing DC final a few days later.
Same logic he used last year to skip clay season admitting that Rafa was going to tear it up on clay.
Same logic he used to enter Rotterdam at the last minute.
It’s what he does.
Fed is entering IW, Miami, Halle, wimby, US, Basel, Shanghai and WTF may be some more but the above are 90 pc surety unless injury.
This is informed in advance and ask Rafa to prepare well himself to take on Fed, later don’t claim he entered in the last minute. Maybe Rafa can squeeze himself wherever Fed is not playing to have some chance.
Not his MO.
That’s what Federer does.
#MakeHeyWhileTheBestAreAway
Poor guy. Federer keeps winning to leave him grumpy week after week. Hey, but at least you can rest assured knowing that Nadal wins every match he’s not injured in. #asteriskeveryloss
Have some sympathy for the poor guy.
Recent events have left him with a rather sore bottom.
Ohhh you’d like that wouldn’t you Joe Smith.
#JoeyNeedlesDirtyTalk
And careful with such talk Joey or Ricky could threaten to put you into moderation yet again.
#HowManyTimes!!!
https://tenngrand.com/roger-federer/comment-page-25/#comment-294592
Sore bottom, 😂🤣😂🤣😋☺😂.
Closet (white) Stanley.
😂, Closet, what closet? I am a Christian.
White, I am not white.
I am just laughing because
recent events have left you with a sore bottom 😂😋🤣.
Just what I said Stanley. You, Joey and BIG al can’t stop thinking about my sore bottom.
Sounds pretty kinky. Until you realize why, you’re in the closet. Maybe when you come out, you will see how white you are.
Pain in the bottom , what goes around comes around😂😋🤣
Just came across this. written just before the 2018 AO, it’s a quite detailed analysis of what has enabled Federer to forge “the greatest comeback by the greatest male player in tennis…”
The larger racquet merits a fair bit of discussion toward the end, in the section titled “Taming Nadal.”
https://www.eurosport.co.uk/tennis/australian-open/2018/the-renaissance-man-how-roger-federer-reclaimed-the-throne_sto6438312/story.shtml
i prefer the more quantitative ELO analysis by Jeff Sackmann that successfully disputes the notion that Federer ever was GOAT over some subjective fedfan written piece.
Sackmann has written very positive articles on Nadal, Federer and Djokovic.
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/tennis/920368/Roger-Federer-injury-Andreas-Seppi-Rotterdam-Open/amp Very interesting
For those who want to see how “weak” the tennis was in the “weak-era,” check out highlights from this incredible 2004 QF USO match between Federer and Agassi, played in gale-force winds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmiOBRVDWgE
ELO, isn’t that short for Electric Light Orchestra? 😉
Post meant for Hawkie. Sorry pun on Jeff Sackman ELO analysis 😀
Hey rc. Hope all is well,
ELO, Jeff Sackmann and Jeff Lynn. Hmmmm.. and it makes me wonder.
Nice choice… very apropos. If yer referring to me, that’s totally fair LOL, I was just as bad on TX with sleezer, Ben Pronoun, and the guy who writes most of the articles there in the first person whatever his name is. Fedfans here are nowhere near as obnoxious.
ELO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxELf7F5xlY
Funny,that’s exactly the song title I was just thinking of in association with Hawkeye.I guess I’m a bit late,though…
It’s never too late to show you care.
RC How the hell are you, its so good to see you ? 😉
Oh hello darling Alison, so good to be back. I must go on FB to explain — you and Andi Mira deserve a proper explanation. This is not the place for it but I try to get on FB soon, okay?
RC okay my friend, im just so happy to see you 🙂
Yeah everything fine my end RC, same old , same old lol 😉
The recent Roger Federer feats are just unbelievable; really. Another GS, back to #1…what a charmed life, hey?! LOL Ridonkulous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMRiQyndII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMRiQyndII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUjjUGgSjb8
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=federer+talent+volleyr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evK927QLbho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rkmdaORZPs
Yeah he deserves it no doubt about it, he aint my cup of tea, but credit where its due lol ….
Welcome back, RC! Since I recall that we share similar taste in music, and since we’ve been on the theme of the greatest lately, here’s one of my candidates for greatest live rock act ever! (This is the last song from a concert that aired on the BBC in 1972).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOPJXrUWII
Congrats, Roger!
http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/rankings/singles
One thing I don’t understand is why they have his listed as having played 18 tournaments (one more than Nadal). By my count, he’s played 14 tournaments in the last 12 months, including Rotterdam.
Check that: he’s played just 13 tournaments in 12 months, starting with Dubai 2017, through Rotterdam 2018.
He committed/was committed to play one more tournament than Nadal.
Nadal didn’t bail on tournaments he entered when he was healthy like Roger did.
Also, Roger is committed by ATP rules to play at least one clay Masters event.
That’s why he gets 0 points shown.
The sport is still governed by ATP/ITF rules. It’s still called Tennis – not called Rogerball. Yet.
What Happened Between Roger Federer No. 1 Ascents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgpAQFKZKMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkAHi4EWUwM
Welcome back RC
Fed the tennis GOAT, but is he the overall sports GOAT?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2018/02/20/tennis-podcastroger-federer-oldest-no-1-tennis-player-ever/
I don’t follow the sport, but just on statistics it’s hard to look past Don Bradman in cricket…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bradman
Fed the tennis GOAT is more than a enough.
Don’t like cricket, maybe it’s because I don’t watch it or understand it, it’s like baseball but baseball is more interesting.
India’s and Pakistan’s loves this sport.
Not a cricket fan myself, but Bradman’s career test batting average is 99.94. The next highest is 63.75.
Translating that to baseball, Ty Cobb (who played about the same time frame as Bradman) has the highest career batting average at .366. Now imagine a Bradman-like figure in baseball who has a career batting average of .566. Almost inconceivable.
Alternatively, if you think cricket (like baseball and other sports) must have been much less competitive for a great sportsman in the 1920s-40s, imagine that the highest career batting average in the modern era (currently Tony Gwnnn at .338) was just .235.
That’s how much better Bradman is than everyone else at batting in cricket.
First time I am hearing the name Don Bradman, read a little about him, not a bad player.
Joe Smith, Serena Williams has a better claim to tennis GOAT and therefore sports GOAT than Federer.