Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Federer still has a one handed backhand by the way and has smashed Nadal in recent years. His only loss in the last 5-6 years to Nadal was at the French Open. He beat Nadal at Wimbledon and the Aussie Open and absolutely smashed him on hard courts.

Also even when Federer was at his peak, Nadal lost loads of times to Federer when they were not on clay. Federer was winning 3 slams a year from 2006 and 2007 smashed Nadal in the Wimbledon Finals 2 years in a row with the same backhand. He was waiting for Nadal at 5 US Open Finals in a row from 2004-2008 but Nadal was too busy getting smashed by everyone. Fed even got to final in 2009 but Nadal got beaten by Del Potro in the semi final

Federer also won Wimbledon on the fast grass in 2003, Djokovic and Nadal would’ve never done well on the fast grass of the 90s. Sampras would’ve annihilated them on the fast grass as if they were Bruguera or Muster. Both were equally defensive players that couldn’t handle the big servers on fast courts and ran back to the clay at every opportunity playing like Concita Martinez and Aranxa Sanchez Vicario

Didn’t Wawrinka also have a one handed backhand and beat Nadal in the Australian Open Final and Djokovic in the French and US Open final?

Didn’t Tsitsipas beat Nadal recently in the Aussie Open and last year it was Thiem. All one handed backhands.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Every time Nadal loses, he’s injured. He always has that excuse every time he loses.

I’m not saying Nadal doesn’t do well against one handed backhands, he also does well against 2 handed backhands too. But the point is he has lost big matches to players with one handed backhands (apart from on clay). So the point that he treats one handed backhands like child’s play is not true

Nadal has declined, there’s no doubt about that and Federer has been declining for years. I saw decline in Federer as early as 2007, but he had some golden patches after that in 2009, 2012 and 2017.

Also, Federer is terrible on converting break points for a guy that has . Let’s not forget the 2007 French Open Final vs Nadal where he he had around 3 times the amount of break points than Nadal and only converted once. The 2015 US Open Final vs Djokovic, the Wimbledon Final 2019 Final vs Djokovic. He even had a poor conversion rate in matches against Murray and the 2001 Wimbledon match against Sampras which he ended up winning.

Someone like Sampras on the fast grass courts and faster balls of the 90s who was amazing at converting break points would have wiped the floor with Nadal and Djokovic. People say Sampras was limited, I don’t think people saw him play. He had a great serve, probably the GOAT 2nd Serve, amazing volleys and one of the best forehands. His backhand was very useful too. On a skiddy surface where standing miles behind the baseline was suicide, I see no way that Nadal or Djokovic could beat him there. This is coming from someone who despised Sampras in the 90s but I had to respect him as a player.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Nadal is a cheat and Djoker got cheated at the US open by a nadal fan line judge

Dan Evans beats Novak first win vs a top 6 players or something

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

federer has been in decline since like 2006 but he was so good that he kept winning with a more efficient game. Federer in 2004-2005 was the greatest play in history, IMHO. But he couldn't beat Nadal on clay and would've struggled with prime djokovic.. interesting time that kindof killed tennis.. Hopefully new greats will emerge soon to make it interesting again

Federer 2004 era was like Greece winning the.Euros and Porto winning the CL. There was just no one good about at the time. You wouldn't compare Greece or Porto with the Barcelona/Spain teams that followed.

say what? 2004,05 had other strong players like agassi, roddick, agassi, hewitt, nalbandian, nadal.. then he won US Open and Wimbledon 12 years later. He'll probably lose out to Nadull aka borg 2.0 and Djoker aka Lendl 2.0 in terms of total majors won, but his game was the best ever since he could do anything - serve+volley, baseline, serve, trick shots, tie-breakers, etc. His demolishing of hewitt in the US open was insane and players like Safin Nalbandian and Nadull played the best games of their entire careers to beat him in finals at his best

Djokovic will break all the records as he started taking over after Federer and even Nadal declined.

He dominated the Nishikori and Dmitrov era.

Courts are slower and balls are fluffier allowing a women’s type of game with base liners, 2 handed backhands and lots of breaks of serve. I consider Tennis from 2010 onwards a different sport. It’s now geared for the types of people that loved watching Sanchez Vicario and Concita Martinez.

Djokovic surely the GOAT now.

comment by Chelsea_badger (U22493)
posted 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Djokovic surely the GOAT now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
He has to win it first 😊

Novak will eventually have the most slams and has an argument to be the GOAT, but the slow conditions that started to take over in 2005 have helped him.

The players younger than Novak are absolutely terrible. This new generation is still slightly better but are mentally weak, but Nishikori, Dmitrov, Monfils, Gasquet. These were basically Novak’s rivals.

There was also Murray who was good on his day, but pretty weak in Grand Slam finals and even he got injured. Then there was Del Porto who also got injured.

Fed and Nadal had to decline for Novak to take over. Admittedly 2011, Novak was a monster. One of the best calendar years ever I feel, but after that it was just about mopping up the mediocrity.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

When you look at the next gen they are nothing special. Nadal was winning slams in his teens and early 20s for example. These guys don’t have the talent or the mentality.

--------

A lot of it has to do with just how good Nadal and Djokovic are. Djokovic over the last 10 years on grass and hard courts has been the most well rounded player in history. And Nadal has been comfortably the best clay court player ever.

Federer is fortunate that he is 6 years older than Djokovic. He got to play for 6 years beating the likes of an Old Agassi and second tier players like Roddick and Nalbandian, and hoovering up slam titles.

Stick 25-35 year old Djokovic and Nadal in any tennis era, and everybody would struggle to win a slam against them.

Djokovic was losing regularly to a declining Federer from 2007-2012 on slow courts which benefit Djokovic and Nadal.

Nadal also lost regularly everywhere to Federer apart from his favourite surface of clay. Take out clay and he has 7 slams and also he has had the easiest draws ever. Check how often Federer and Djokovic randomly got each other is the semis from around 2008 to 2013. It was beyond pathetic.

Courts basically slowed down a lot in the mid 2000s and that is the reason why Nadal and Djokovic have had so much success.

They slowed down Wimbledon, US Open, got rid of carpets from indoor events and had fluffier balls. It’s so funny because Nadal fans for years thought it would help him struggle past Federer’s record and now as he is about to do it, he’s close to being taken over himself. be careful what you wish for.

Stick Nadal and Djokovic standing miles behind the baseline in Wimbledon on the fast grass of the 90s with normal balls than men should use, not fluffy ones and you would’ve seen Sampras annihilate them like he used to batter Michael Chang.

Or they would never even face Sampras as they would go out in the early rounds like Muster and Bruguera.

I remember in 2005, Nadal who was world number 4 and fresh from his French Open win got battered by Giles Muller. But not to worry, by 2006 the grass got even slower and the balls got even fluffier.

Get them using wooden rackets and serving underarm as well.