[Jonathan Northrop] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

[El Dude]

More Rafa goodness.

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

excellent read.

 

[El Dude]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

That was quick!

I'll post part 2 tomorrow - its about Rafa's chances at being considered the GOAT.

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

this goat business works well with the press, the media, and fans.

it gives them a way to dramatize the whole thing and sell their story to the masses.

it is impossible to compare different eras but it is clear that the greatest players of today are the greatest players ever.

the only objective method is to compare these great players relative/respective to their own eras.



all those all time greats of the distant past would not stand a chance against the likes of nadal, roger, nole, and andy murray today.


topping emerson`s record of 12 slams did not really make Sampras the greatest of all time. he would not win a single slam today. he also could not win the French open. at the very least you have to win all 4 slams. and twice for that matter if we are to have a little bit of fun with this GOAT thing.

the sport is far more brutal now than at anytime in the past.

 

[El Dude]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

it is impossible to compare different eras but it is clear that the greatest players of today are the greatest players ever.

Do you realize that the two parts of the above sentence (separated by the "but" which I put in bold) are somewhat contradictory?

If it is impossible to compare different eras, how is it "clear" that today's greats are the best ever?

I'm not saying that I disagree with you, btw, just that you're contradicting yourself.

the only objective method is to compare these great players relative/respective to their own eras.

I agree.

all those all time greats of the distant past would not stand a chance against the likes of nadal, roger, nole, and andy murray today.

This isn't fair, in my opinion, because it assumes that a Laver would play the same game today that he played in the 1960s. Laver would have developed a style relevant to today, and would have adjusted accordingly.

That said, I do think certain types of players - especially in terms of physique - would play better or worse today. Borg would have been just as great, imo, but someone like Ken Rosewall might have had a harder time - I could have seen him being the Aga of the men's circuit. This is not to contradict myself and say that 2013 Rosewall would be the same as 1963 Rosewall, but that just based upon his physique and mentality, he might not have translated as well as someone like Borg.

 

[brokenshoelace]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

^^ Agreed.

How can someone, with a straight face, say that Pete Sampras, for example, would get routinely destroyed by today's players. Sorry, but Wawrinka just beat Andy Murray. That's not a knock against Murray, mind you, but is Wawrinka more suited to excel in today's era than an athlete/player/talent like Pete Sampras?

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

I have to agree with you general el dude. they do seem a bit contradictory.

but we try to reconcile it by saying that he never could win the French open.

also the further away we get from the distant past the easier it becomes to see and realize that the game is simply different today.


it the evolution of the sport and its natural selection and its better technology and the like.


better sports medicine and advances in sports sports nutrition and on and on.



at any rate we will carry on with the discussion.


if we are to assume that Sampras would have adapted to the modern game, are you saying that he would be just as good today as he was relative to his own field?


and what about borg? how would he really fare today?

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

^^ Agreed.

How can someone, with a straight face, say that Pete Sampras, for example, would get routinely destroyed by today's players. Sorry, but Wawrinka just beat Andy Murray. That's not a knock against Murray, mind you, but is Wawrinka more suited to excel in today's era than an athlete/player/talent like Pete Sampras?

they all talked about Sampras until roger came along.

do you honestly believe that Sampras would have been able to win 7 Wimbledon titles today with the likes of nadal, roger, nole, and andy around?


also doesn't that belittle roger`s achievements. roger did everything better than Sampras did. he even held serve nearly 90% of the time just like Sampras did.

and he had a hell of a lot more ground game than Sampras ever did. roger bagged RG crown and made 4 other RG finals.

Sampras would have no place to hide today.


these modern athletes simply do everything better.


the only safe way to compare players from different eras is to see how dominant they were relative to the field in front of them.

and even then we have to take the state of the actual competition they faced. and we have to see if they were able to dominate across all surfaces.

it turns out that Sampras was not able to dominate across all surfaces. his backhand would be a massive liability today.

I don't think he would win a single slam today even if he was to adapt to newer technologies.

now he is not that far removed from the modern era but the game is vastly different and significantly different today.

roger would have gotten in his way at Wimbledon. nadal would own him completely on clay.

andy and nole would own him on the hard courts. roger has 9 slams on the hard courts so he would pretty much own him everywhere.

 

[El Dude]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

I'm reading some still holding the assumption that players from older generations wouldn't have adjusted to the times if they played today. To me this is simply illogical. If Pete Sampras were 15 years younger and in his prime today, he would have developed in a different context and been a different player.

There's an element of nature vs nurture in this discussion. How much is natural talent (nature) and how much is environmental (nurture)?

We can simplify things a bit in this cross-generational speculation by assuming as default that any player would have had comparable training, environment, etc. But its important to point out that if a Pancho Gonzales played today, he'd have the same environmental context that everyone else has - the same equipment, training regimes, etc - but with the same talent that made him the greatest player of the 1950s.

So my view is that talent is talent and will adjust to the context. Borg would have been a great player today. The main difference is competition. Sampras, for instance, would likely have won fewer Slams playing as Federer's peer, but so too would Roger have won fewer if he were ten years older playing alongside Sampras (one can dream!).

 

[brokenshoelace]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

I honestly think it's an insult to Cali that I ignore him while bothering to reply to you, Clay Death. So, in that spirit, I'll let you swim in your own ignorance and bow out, since you obviously know nothing about tennis pre-Nadal.

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

excellent thread.

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

did you know that Sampras started out with a 2 handed backhand and switched to a single hander?


which choice would he make today?

 

[Kieran]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

Sampras was a tennis god. If anyone denigrates Pete I think of them as being like the dolts who think Shakespeare or Mozart are "boring..."

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

so if he was a tennis god then what are nadal and roger?


he was a single trick pony at best who got massive mileage from his serve. and he did not have to deal with the some of greatest players ever lived.

 

[Kieran]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

so if he was a tennis god then what are nadal and roger?


he was a single trick pony at best who got massive mileage from his serve. and he did not have to deal with the some of greatest players ever lived.

In fairness, you didn't watch that video I sent you, did you? And actually, he did face some of the greatest who ever played the game. Bizarrely, their names are not all "Roger", "Rafa" and "Novak..."

 

[Front242]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

so if he was a tennis god then what are nadal and roger?


he was a single trick pony at best who got massive mileage from his serve. and he did not have to deal with the some of greatest players ever lived.

Prime Sampras would give all sorts of trouble to just about everyone on tour right now. None of the big servers, even Isner and Karlovic have anything on Sampras' serve. His 2nd serve in particular was just nuts and even in MSG against Fed it was still a huge weapon. And those were just mere exhibitions, though Sampras took them a bit more seriously. And his slam dunks....lets just say he was a bit handier in the air than Novak...

 

[brokenshoelace]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

-Huge serve.
-Huge forehand
-Serviceable backhand
-Great net play
-Great movement
-Terrific athleticism
-Great baseline game
-Wins on every surface but clay (hards of all kinds, grass, indoors), at a time where surfaces were less homogenized.


....One-trick pony?

Yeah, that's Clay Death logic for you.. What I dislike the most about this whole thing is that like always, CD just keeps repeating the same redundant nonsense, refuses to read anyone's arguments or tackle them, and just acts condescendingly thinking that if he repeats something enough times and assures us that he's never wrong, we'll believe him.

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

by that crazy sales pitch I guess roger doesn't count at all.

just go back to worshipping Sampras who could not bag the RG crown.

good job broken one.


it is getting really amusing now. I may have to grab some popcorn.


sampy the single dimensional pony is old news mate.

roger happen to come along to steal all his thunder.


nobody talks about Sampras anymore. roger became the big story. roger became the new gold standard of tennis.

and now we have nadal, nole, and murray. now they are the big news.



looks like the older we get the better Sampras used to be.

 

[El Dude]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

Here's one for you, Clay Death. I created a spreadsheet with match-ups between the 15 greatest players of the Open Era, not counting older players like Laver, Rosewall, Newcombe and Ashe - but starting with Connors, Vilas, and Borg.

Anyhow, of those 15 players, Sampras is one of five that has a winning record against the others. His .635 winning percentage (66-38) is third after Borg (.676) and Nadal (.659).

Now one could say, but who did Sampras play? Its important to remember that Sampras was only five years younger than Edberg (8-6) and four years younger than Becker (12-7), both of whom as you can see he had winning records against. Of those 15 players he played a full 9 of them. He had winning records against all except Lendl (3-5) and Federer (0-1). Against his closest contemporaries, he fared quite well - he had a big advantage over Andre Agassi (20-14) and thoroughly dominated Jim Courier (16-4).

Of the current Big Four, Sampras only played Roger Federer once and lost. He was 30 years old and in serious decline and Federer 20 and on the rise.

I personally see no reason to believe that if Sampras was in his prime right now, he wouldn't be up there in the elite with the rest. There wasn't a comparable Big Four in his peak years, but early on there were many great players active and still in or close to their prime--Lendl, Becker, Edberg, Courier--and Andre Agassi was always good throughout his career.

I'm not saying Pete Sampras was he GOAT, but he is certainly among the greatest. I do think that Roger Federer has an overall greater record and ranks higher than him, and that Nadal is on the verge of surpassing him, but even then he's still likely the third greatest player of the last 40 years and one of the six or seven greatest of the last century.

 

[ClayDeath]

RE: [Blog] Nadal the Great, Part 1: Rafa's Window of Opportunity

that is a great post general el dude.







ok I see what you are getting at now. I was busy doing something.