Comparing Federer to history...

It's been discussed in the Herald, on TV etc.. but the collective biggie nous might have a better take on it imo.

Is Fed the all-time best singles player?

I thought about it in terms of talent, head-to-head stats, wins etc... Because when comparing numbers isn't easy or fair to compare people from different eras (especially when before the Open Era when only amateurs could play in the Grand Slams) it's hard to use straight wins numbers.

Some top players claim Pancho Gonzales is the most talented player ever to have competed (from the mouths of Sampras, Laver himself etc), pipping the great Bill Tilden who is also god-like in tennis talent comparisons.

Anyway.. Federer is surely the best modern era (post 60s) player, despite Rod Laver having won the calendar Grand Slam twice. Why? I don't think Slam numbers are the be-all of comparisons to be honest.

Laver, for a start, played against a pretty weak field especially in his 2nd one plus, probably most importantly, he played all of his on grass and clay. Mastering two surfaces is considerably easier than all surfaces - as Nadal has shown. He did clay but it's taken him much longer to rule other surfaces. His hard-court game is still very average wins-wise.

Only since the Aussie Open changed to Melbourne and rubberised courts from the grass at Kooyong in 1988-ish have all four slams been on significantly different surfaces - which requires a much, much higher level of ability to win at. Other than Agassi, Federer is the only person to have won on all four surfaces. And Federer alone is the only person to win year-round on all four surfaces - which even Agassi or Sampras didn't do year to year. Only Lendl, Connors and McEnroe really come close in that regards - having won on grass, hard, clay and carpet (indoors) consistently.

(I said singles above – as McEnroe would surely have a close claim to he modern era’s overall most talented player badge with his amazing doubles skills)

Anyway, only Laver, Agassi & Federer have completed a career Grand Slam in the open era.

Some comparisons/stats:

Consecutive Grand Slam Final appearances
1. Federer - 10
2. Federer - 6
3=. Laver - 4
3=. Agassi - 4
NB: Federer is in the list twice

Players who have held the number one ranking for every week of a year
- Connors, Lendl, Sampras, Lleyton Hewitt, Federer

Players who were the year-end World No. 1 for at least three consecutive years
- Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Sampras, Federer

Consecutive Weeks as number one ranked player (male or female)
1. Federer (237)
2. Steffi Graff (186)
3. Connors (160)
4. Lendl (157)
5. Sampras (102)

Consecutive wins against top ten players
1. Federer - 26
2. Federer - 17 (he’s second in this list too!)
3. Lendl – 11
8=th. Nadal – 9

Players who have won three Grand Slam tournaments in a year (the mini-slam)
Federer (three times, 2004, 2006, 2007)
Matts Wilander (198
Jimmy Connors (1974)
Roy Emerson (1964)
Ashley Cooper (195

This typically happens about once a decade, until Federer - who did it three times in 4 years

Consecutive Grand Slam Semi-final appearances (only when played)
1. Federer - 21
2=. Lendl / Laver - 10

Players who have won the same Grand Slam 6 times or more.
Sampras (7 Wimbledon)
Borg (6 French Open)
Federer (6 Wimbledon)

Most consecutive singles tournaments won in a row
1=. Ivan Lendl / John McEnroe - 8
3=. Roger Federer / Guillermo Vilas / Björn Borg - 7

Most finals won in succession:
1. Roger Federer - 24
2. Rafael Nadal - 14
3. Björn Borg – 12


Additional feats

- In all time (pre open era included) Federer is the only player to have reached the final of all four Grand Slam tournaments at least four times each.

- Federer is the only male player in tennis history to win at least two Grand Slam titles for four consecutive years (2004-2007). Sampras is the only other man to win two Grand Slams in a calendar year four different times (1993-95, 1997), but not in consecutive years like Federer.

Less important but still interesting...
- Nobody has ever beaten both Federer and Nadal in the same Grand Slam tournament.

- Federer and Nadal are the only players to defeat each other in a Grand Slam final.

- In grand slam tournaments Federer has now won 117 consecutive matches against players ranked outside the top 5.

- In 2004 Federer became the first player ever to win more than ten titles without losing in a single final.

- He is the only player ever to have won at least nine tournaments on each of grass, clay and hard-court surfaces.

- He is the only player to have ever won a tournament without losing serve. And he’s done it twice.



.... makes for an interesting debate. The deeper you drill the more he shines well above the likes of Laver imo.

He must be making some pretty sweet $. I definitely got into a wrong sport...

Is it right that after Laver turned pro he got beat a bunch of times by a couple of guys before he was able to bring himself up to the required level? That would kinda take the gloss off a calendar year grand slam if all the best aren't competiting ...could be considered to having one or two top players out injured one year though.

I reckon...

Can't call him the greatest player, due to different eras etc.

Most successful ever ... for sure based on those over whelming stats.

Wonder what difference it would make if Nadal wasn't so injury prone..

In his first one many of his contemporaries had turned pro so couldn't play. Later, when they allowed pros he got his second one - but many of the top pros had retired or moved on (some because they couldn't play in the tournaments which mattered).

He still had to win though, and four in a year is a mega effort which wasn't even nearly repeated until Connors won three slams in 1974 then Matts Wilander did the same in 1998. Federer has since done three in a year three times!

Neither Lendl or Sampras ever did it even once.. Edberg, Becker, Agassi etc could only dream of it.

Federer did comment recently that you can argue that the gloss is taken off if the top players are injured or whatever but I think part of playing is actually being able to play. Injuries happen and, in Nadal's case, his fatigue is his own doing. Trying to burn the candle too brightly?

I think you can in some way when you look at his versus his peers overall stats compared to others and his percentages (wins, finals etc).

As for Nadal. I don't think he's injury prone. And injury would be a twisted ankle or broken toe. He's just worn himself out through the style of play and intensity he tries to compete at.

They didn't used to allow injury time in tennis for fatigue but started a few years ago (too hard to police when someone is really injured or just shattered) and Nadal makes use of it all the time almost as a during-match physio.

Good post.

I think the most amazing thing about Federer is that, despite being the dominant force in tennis for so long now, people still desperately want him to win. Myself included.

Really good post RobW. Interesting to look at all the facts!



It is pretty impressive. I'm in the same boat and yet I could never stand Sampras and loved watching him lose.



I don't think it would make a huge difference. Nadal's game isn't as diverse as Fed's. It was only last year that he really stepped up on surfaces other than clay and you also have to wonder how much having mono effected Fed, both mentally and physically last season.

Im going to fumble my way through a largely information bereft post here, I dont know shit about tennis and tbh dont really like watching it (i like playing tho)

Few weeks ago ...I was waiting in my car for sum ho and some dude who is NZ's best ever tennis player came on Radio Sport to discuss this issue. Cant remember his name but its weird like "Alby Allan" or some shit

Anyway...he was saying that none of those players you mentioned Rob are the best players ever. In his opinion Its some dude from the 1940-1960 era who over 1o years beat EVERYONE on ALL surfaces over a decade before retired virtually undefeated

Think that might be Richard (Pancho) Gonzales. He He played mainly in the 50s and is folklore in tennis. However, he did play in a time when there weren't many people playing, people didn't travel much (as it took 4 months to get from the US to Europe ha ha) and pros didn't really exist.

In those days also, the winner of many tournaments didn't have to play the next time round and instead just went straight to the final, playing whoever won their way though (the challenge round system) - which make it much easier to repeat your wins if you were good.

Moreso, many players didn't travel outside of their country or were excluded from many tournaments because of nationality rules.

Put simply. It's impossible to really even compare players pre-late 50s to now because it was so different.

Just a quick example of why you can't really say the players from that era are the tops - despite the folklore... In an 18 month period over 1955-56 Gonzalez played Tony Traberts 101 times (winning 74 of them). There were so stuff-all guys playing a group of ten or so guys were playing each other every week in almost their own separately promoted (and invite only) tour of matches.

Personally I think he's easily the best of the open era. An all court game with every shot in the book. Ridiculous consistency sometimes, as well as being the most fluid, easy mover to ever grace the court.

The stats don't lie and he's so far ahead in some of those important ones. He'll finish in the mid 20s at least for Grand Slam titles, and by the time he finishes his career there will be noone within a gun shot of his record, statistics and overall talent.

As for Nadal being injury prone? Hardly. As Rob said it's about his style of play. The reason Federer doesn't get injured is because his movement is so economical and , well... perfect most of the time. And I really think the only reason Federer lost Wimbledon last year and hasn't actually done the calendar slam is because of his back injury. Nadal was lucky that Federer had a sore back and lost his way down to number 2. I doubt Rafa will get the spot at the top back as long as the Fed keeps playing like he is.



gc.

He also has one very special attribute that only the truely elite have- he doesn't seem to be affected by perssure. In tennis this is huge.

And the crazy thing is, he played pretty average;y by his standards for most of Wimbledon, the final included - his serve aside. I don't think I've seen him miss so many forehands or lose so many close-quarters net points before.

And yet, on the the exact point he needs to, he just comes up with the goods... Four set points down in the tie breaker and plays four of the best points of his match...

He is a freak - as causeforconcern says - it's like the biggest points of a match generally don't affect him any more than any others.

that would be Onny Parun

not sure he was NZ's best ever as Chris Lewis went to final of Wimbledon and had more career success I think

for my money Fed is the best ever in any era to date

he simply has no peer - the final just played was brilliant and so glad that Andy acquitted himself so well against the legend

two class players and sportsmen imo

Man, Even Lewis couldn't really be considered the top.. even in the Open Era. I'd even rate Brian Farlie over Lewis to be honest - as someone who beat top players many times. Lewis never played particularly well except once every couple of years and the one magical Wimbledon. Altho Fairlie's top rank was 24 (Lewis' 19th) he beat John Newcombe and Arthur Ashe (not sure on the 2nd one) etc while they were at the top of their games. Parun was also in this league - more consistent overall than Farlie but didn't take down the top guys as often.

Federer did not play that well, so lets not get carried away with the wankfest and pretend that Federer is an unbeatable god. I'm not saying Nadal is or will be better, I just think they are two great rivals who are extremely well matched and hopefully will continue to play more and more fantastic matches against each other in the future.

I don't really want to compare players from different eras but I think one thing that people always seems to ignore about Laver is his record in the professional equivilant of grand slams prior ro the open era... He won all four of these in a single year once, and three on multiple occassions. People might say they're not real grand slams but I don't understand how they can say that on the one hand, and then claim his grand slam wins prior to turning pro were only against amateurs. It's seems like they change the criteria to suit there own arguments. Still Federer's record is outstanding, especially given his age and the fact he will no doubt win more.

I know he was fucking ancient and the way things worked were way different and the competition would have been greatly inferior... Not to mention the concept of grand slams didn't exist yet... But I would think the fact that Anthony Wilding won Wimbledon and a Davis Cup would put him first on account of actually winning two of the highest honours. Shouldn't compare between eras and all but if one guy has won a top title (three times - although challenger style defenses TBF) and no one else has...

I just think Nadal is overrated, and if Federer didn't have his back niggle, I doubt whether Nadal would have any Grand Slam titles off clay.

Anyway I never said Federer was unbeatable, I just said that if he continues to play in the fashion in which he is playing right now, there is no room for Nadal at #1. He's just not good enough. That's not to say Federer won't lose, it's just to say that he'll be back to being consistent enough to keep Nadal where he belongs.



gc.

I agree. As I said above he was feeding forehands into the net like no tomorrow.


Actually, in no other year of his career did Laver win 3 or even 2 grand slam tournaments.


Everyone was an amateur originally - so the best players were playing in them. When they changed it many of the top players who were pros simply went on basically exhibition tours which contracted them. When they were again allowed to compete in the slams many of the top players were well past it. That is why it's not a fair comparison to winning four in one year now. And this is without even considering the surface issue which they basically didn't have to deal with - something which requires players of the modern era to be much more broader skilled.

To be so consistent for so long as Federer has, with little signs of slowing up has him on target to win 20+ slams. I'm not sure he'll do another French if guys like Verdasco mature as they might and Nadal can keep his clay season injury free but the faster hard courts and grass I'd say Federer still owns for a few years yet.

Got that slightly wrong...

The Wembley Championships, US Pro Championships, and the French Pro Championships were the three professional majors, but in 1967 the Wimbledon Pro was staged for the only time ever which he also won.

In 1964 he won the US and French Pros
In 1965 he won the Wembley Pro
In 1966 he won the US and Wembley Pros
In 1967 he the all three plus the Wimbledon Pro
In 1968 he won the French Pro prior to the beginning of the Open Era

So he won two of the three professional majors in 1964 and 1966 in additional to winning all 3 + the Wimbledon Pro in 1967. So in 1967 he won once indoors, once on grass, once on clay, and to be honest I have no idea what surface the US Pro was played on, and assume the indoor surface at Wembley was closer to a hard court than what we consider to be indoor these days.

US pro was grass in 67.



gc.

I think the one thing that Federer probably has more of than possibly any player ever (aside from Grand Slams obviously) is composure... As Rob said, his ability to win the important points is incredible. In the Wimbledon final going into the 5th he hadn't broken Roddick, and won both his sets via a tie break. Last yuear when he lost both his sets were won in tie breakers too so that would have weighed on the minds of lesser players. But Federer knew that serving first would give him a slight edge in the later games and that he just had to be patient and wait for his chance.

I think it's that composure that makes his grand slam record so good, he knows he can beat any player so doesn't let anything get to him. Roddick was the won whose serve everyone was talking about but Federer was one still smashing out the aces in the 5th set and basically didn't give Roddick a look in. Which is also credit to his conditioning as he basically wore Roddick down, when he did break him Roddick's ground strokes were gone. I think Roddick only hit one ground stroke in play during that final game, whereas Federer looked like he could have played for another hour.

Roddick, although playing some great shots, always was ungainly in comparison to Feds grace.
Those stats are amazing RobW.
I think we might see him relax and quite possibly lose his form now though as he will no doubt focus on his fatherhood for a while.

To add to this half a year later, I read an interesting take on the 'greatest ever' debate and why the claims that Nadal is a better player are still unfounded.

Federer, for sure, has a losing record against Nadal. BUT, it's a somewhat odd way to compare players because even though Nadal may beat Federer in the final of a tournament to get a win-loss gain... on many, many more occasions Nadal already lost to someone else earlier in a tournament so Federer loses the chance to play him - even when he wins the tournament. (maybe a better comparison would be how many tournament wins a piece when they both played)

On clay however Federer gets much further into tournaments than Nadal does comparatively on non-clay tournaments on average - so it's a no-brainer Federer will come up against Nadal more often on Nadal's favourite surface than the other way around.

Their career head to head is Nadal 13 - 7 which looks very dominant... almost a 2:1 ratio.

- On clay however is where Nadal picks up most of his wins over Fed - with a 9 - 2 record...

- On hard courts they are 3 - 3 (Federer has won 9 of the last 12 grand slams on hard court, Nadal only 1)

- On grass Federer is ahead 2 - 1 (Federer has won 6 of the last 7 slams on grass, Nadal only 1)

-------------------------

Every Grand Slam since Wimbledon 2004 has been won either by Federer or the person who beat him.

Federer's all-time record of 124 consecutive wins against players ranked outside of the top 5 in Grand Slam tournaments ended in the US Open when he as beaten by then #6 Del Potro. Nadal's winning streak by comparison is only 24 matches.

-------------------------

Now, back to comparing Federer to history the point should also be made that Laver, as legendary as he is, played in an era when 3 of the 4 slams were played on grass each year (the other being on clay). In the 70s the US Open changed to clay for a few years then to hard courts. The Aussie Open was on grass until 1988 when it moved to Melbourne on a rubberised hard court. Other than Federer only Agassi has won each of the slams on the 3 (or four, depending on how you look at it) modern surfaces.

Interesting reading...I hadn't paid any attention to this thread first time round...hard to say he's not the greatest really from all those stats.

Can you clarify a few things, RobW...calender slam = winning all 4 grand slams in the year, right?

And about pro's not being allowed in the slams until some time ago, so the slams were really for up and coming amatuers only? I never knew that, always thought they were the pinnicle of the tennis world, seems strange they weren't allowed in them

Since they allowed the pro's in, has anyone done the calendar slam? I saw you mentioned the mini-slam, 3 of the 4, but no mention of someone taking all 4 in one year.

Currently the 4 slams are 2 hard court, 1 grass, 1 clay, right?

Yes on the surfaces.

Steffi Graf is the only person I can think of who's done the Grand Slam in the Open Era, although there may be a guy I'm forgetting - Steffi Graf's was referred to as the Gold Slam at the time because she won Olympic Gold in the same year as well.

Sick! Well done that bird!

Calendar slam - all in one calendar year
Regular slam - holding all four at the same time (so, could be US Open 2010, then Aussie 2011, French 2011 and Wimb 2011)
Career slam - winning all four over the course of your career (Agassi did this for example - Lendl, Sampras, Wilander etc never managed this)


Ages ago - sometime before 1968-ish it was more like boxing or the Olympics where only amateurs could compete in some tournaments. You could play in other tournaments but once you accepted any prize money you deemed to have turned pro and thus excluded from some amateur-only events which, in those days, included the slams.

Also worth considering is some players didn't change over when others did - and some, by then, had given up - so Laver rarely had to face tons of top players. It was more like the same group of 3 or 4 guys who were in every final.


Yes, Rod Laver, in 1969. (But, as I mentioned further above - he did it when 3 of the 4 slams were on grass)

In the modern era it split - and used to even be referred to a 4 different surfaces - with the Aussie being considered rubberised and the US open hard-court. Since then they've got closer in characteristics. Now it's as you say, clay, grass and 2 hards.

The mini-slam is even hard to do - really hard! I mean, since Laver the mini-slam has been done by Matt Wilander in 1988 (what a legendary year for tennis that was ). Lendl never managed it, not did Sampras or Agassi (let alone Edberg, Becker, Courier etc)... but Federer did it three times (04, 06, 07) which is just phenomenal... especially considering there were people out there in 06 and 07 saying Nadal was the better player and would catch up..... Guess what? Federer is getting even further ahead of him. Fed has won 3 grand slams since Nadal last won one and was runner up in the only one he didn't win.

Ironically, in the late 90s many people touted Sampras as being the greatest of all time. But now that Federer has surpassed him (by miles and in little more than half the time) some of these same people now say Fed can't be considered the greatest until he wins all four in one year. It's almost a case of his success - him coming so close a couple of times - has made them expect more from him than they did of Sampras who never had any chance at all of winning the French Open.

(Even if you look at consecutive GS finals appearances -win or lose-Fed looks amazing - even compared to Laver. Fed did 10 in a row.. and then 6 another time. He is also on 8 again now and still going!!! The best Sampras could manage was 3. Laver only 4)

In short, Fed is a freak of nature. Not only in his talent but also in his physical attributes. The fact he has gone on so long basically injury free is astonishing.

Fed doing William Tell for Gillette
some question as to whether its real or not




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTl3U6aSd2w&feature=player_embedded

So fake.. This is one of those new era videos that somehow makes it into global viral/news despite it being trumped up and as fake as Tiger Woods' old bouncing the ball on the golf club advert.

In other news.. could Federer get worse preparation for the US Open starting next week? He gets a bye in the 1st round of this week's Cincinatti tournament, then a 2nd round match where the other guy retires out half way through, then his 3rd round match opponent (Kohlschreiber) pulls out with a shoulder injury... hey presto he's in the quarter-finals having played something like 40 points total ha ha. He wont be happy because good match play is what you need before a major.

Watching ATP highlights right now and it;s just phenomenal how well this guy plays. I don't actually WANT him to win, but watching him do so is a lesson in perfection...

Definitely one of my favourite players, Nadal starting to take over a bit though and he's still so young.

I think the Crowd Goes Wild (or similar sport show) did a test of this. Got a decent tennis player and had him replicate the shot. Took him about two practice shots before he managed to successfully do it.

he must have been practising hitting exact points from serves for the past 20 years. what's so unconceivable of him hitting a bottle off someone's head from 20 feet?

Yeah.. he's been practising arcing a ball to land on a spot at ground level between 55-65 feet away - not flat at a can 20 feet away raised 6 feed off the ground.

Also - he's wearing a suit, does it cold (no practices), throws the ball basically into the lighting rig, has no points of reference like a net etc.. all distractions which would render doing that twice in a row beyond plausible. Especially when you consider what would happen if he was only a fraction wrong - there would instead be a video of a Federer breaking some guys nose, cheek or eye-socket.

It also looks a little suspicious in the first 15 or so seconds of the video when he's talking to the guy and holding the tennis ball. When he's fixing his shirt/pants etc the lighting there is quite dark yet the ball is practically glowing? Because it was added in with CGI later on.

More to the point.. the video was supposedly shot at Glilette/British Skin Foundation shoot. So, where is the advert then? Nowhere... It existed only to create this viral.

Woods vid a fake??

LOL

seems a bit lame for it to be fake compared to this one.

The Murray one is so obviously fake it's almost not worth commenting on... but I will. When he hits the ball into the drain pipe it comes out the bottom in about 3 seconds... way too quick for the ball to have travelled along that pipe - and that's even assuming it didn't bounce around at all when it first landed in the top part or when it got to the bottom of the downpipe.

The ball he hits which sounds like it breaks a window wasn't hit hard enough to break a window.

The ball rebounding in the alley-way... when they enter the rubbish bin they deflect downwards abruptly exactly the same each time... which they wouldn't do in reality, not at that pace after bouncing off the wall a few times... Not to mention the points on the left hand wall where the 2nd and 3rd balls strike are metres different - meaning the final rebound basically couldn't be in the same spot (the bin).

On the roof.. The 2nd ball he serves into the can on the wall stops and on the wall... mmm.. unlikely with an empty can (they sound empty and seem to fly off pretty quickly when struck). Not to mention on the 3rd and 4th can shots a ball appears in his hand from nowhere (he didn't have 4 in his pocket)..

Head's ads are about as bad as their racquets.

My point was why would Gillette bother to do a fake ad of a very conceivible shot when an ad like this exists?

Fair call... but there's a big difference between conceivable and plausible. Federer's is not the later imo (or that of many knowledgeable people who've commented on it)

After a pretty poor year since winning the Australian Open Federer kept his best till last - this morning beating Nadal in the end of year championships. Amazingly he's now won 66 tournaments in his career - passing Sampras' career haul a few months ago and today getting one closer to McEnroe who is on 77 (Connors is on something like 109 so no chance of reaching that record).

This week Federer beat the number 7, 4, 3 and 1 players in a row.
- In today's match he lost only 13 points on his own serve in the entire match!!
- In the entire tournament he lost only 1 single point when serving wide on the deuce side of the court! Now that must be some sort of historic record!!!!

Nadal had an unbelievable year but Federer - even sleep-walking through 3/4 of the season - still managed to achieve a few good things.

He is the first person to win at least one of each type of ATP tournament in a single season - winning 1 slam, 1 the end of year championship, a masters 1000 tournament, a 500 tournament and a 250 tournament. Kudos! (surprised he even bothers to play the 250 level tournaments anymore)

Actually - 5 matches were played in the last week... Federer beat the numbers 7, 5, 4, 3 and 1 in the world. Nice effort - never been done before ever to beat 5 top 10 players in the year ending championship.

yeh he has surprised by coming back into such form... I had started to think he was on the downhill slide.