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Who is the greatest Tennis player of all time?


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Who is the greatest Tennis player of all time?  

  1. 1.

    • Federer
      19
    • Laver
      1
    • Sampras
      3
    • Nadal
      5
    • Borg
      1
    • Rosewall
      0
    • None of these.
      0
    • Someone else.
      1


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Forget about these numbers 8 or 4. Following post shows whom Nadal has beaten to win his grand slams and whom Federer has beaten. http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=2598530&postcount=9 Puts things very much in perspective.
why forget how many #1s they've beaten ? The #1 club is a pretty exclusive club, there are only 23-24 of them since 1969. Just to underscore the point, this is the number of people who've ever, at any point, achieved #1, not just year end #1.
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No point debating Muloghonto. He is a mad guy. Zero understanding of the game' date= just as the case with cricket.
Wouldn't say zero but factually incorrect and a massively biased fanboy. You can't argue with such people. How would you argue with someone who compares a fluke one time French open winner (Michael Chang) to an all time great with 13 grand slams on all surfaces and a career golden slam and three times year end world #1 playing alongside two other greats? I have learned my lessons, the hard way.
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Wouldn't say zero but factually incorrect and a massively biased fanboy. You can't argue with such people. How would you argue with someone who compares a fluke one time French open winner (Michael Chang) to an all time great with 13 grand slams on all surfaces and a career golden slam and three times year end world #1 playing alongside two other greats? I have learned my lessons' date=' the hard way.[/quote'] its clear you've never played tennis seriously to appreciate styles of play or differences in surfaces , ball size translate in a meaningful way. So you can't see how chang and Nadal are extremely similar player in style, Nadal is a leftie Chang with 15% more power. It'd b nice if such trashtalk came from someone who could actually hit a forehand. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2
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Forget about these numbers 8 or 4. Following post shows whom Nadal has beaten to win his grand slams and whom Federer has beaten. Puts things very much in perspective.
Not at all. Nadal has been around since the early 00s. Since the French Open in 2005 which was Nadal's first slam win, Federer has won 13 slams. If we include that French Open win in 2005, it is 13-13. I'm not sure why Federer should have points taken off because Nadal failed to reach the finals stages. Doesn't sound like solid reasoning at all. The argument is superficial at best. Using this line of reasoning is as flawed as those who argue that Nadal has 13 slams only because he has played in an era of slower courts and all that. You can argue either way and not be wrong on Federer vs Nadal; that is a different issue entirely.
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Not at all. Nadal has been around since the early 00s. Since the French Open in 2005 which was Nadal's first slam win, Federer has won 13 slams. If we include that French Open win in 2005, it is 13-13. I'm not sure why Federer should have points taken off because Nadal failed to reach the finals stages. Doesn't sound like solid reasoning at all. The argument is superficial at best. Using this line of reasoning is as flawed as those who argue that Nadal has 13 slams only because he has played in an era of slower courts and all that. You can argue either way and not be wrong on Federer vs Nadal; that is a different issue entirely.
How is it faulty reasoning o suggest that Nadal has benefited a lot from the slower surfaces and the slower game ? You do know that the tennis ball itself was changed few years ago, it became bigger but of same mass, meaning it moves through the air slower ( basic physics, yo!). It is a fact that Wimbledon started slowing down from 2002 onwards and it didnt become this slow till 2006 or so. There are players who've said as much. It is also a fact that the Australian Open & US open has also slowed down, indoor carpet has been virtually abolished and Grass court tournaments have been trimmed down significantly. Nadal's worst surface is grass & indoor hard court, which are the fastest on offer today. So how can you say that Nadal, who is the greatest claycourter ever, isnt benefiting from the slowdown of the surfaces ?
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Not at all. Nadal has been around since the early 00s. Since the French Open in 2005 which was Nadal's first slam win, Federer has won 13 slams. If we include that French Open win in 2005, it is 13-13. I'm not sure why Federer should have points taken off because Nadal failed to reach the finals stages. Doesn't sound like solid reasoning at all. The argument is superficial at best. Using this line of reasoning is as flawed as those who argue that Nadal has 13 slams only because he has played in an era of slower courts and all that. You can argue either way and not be wrong on Federer vs Nadal; that is a different issue entirely.
Every court becomes slow after Nadal wins on it. I am waiting for the haters to declare Cincinnati as a slow court. :cantstop: First (till 2007) he won't win anything outside clay, then he won't win on hard court, then he won't US open. He has been silencing them for the last 10 years. :haha: But the fact is Wimbledon was slowed down in 2001. US open in 2003. They haven't changed anything since then. It is well documented. They resurface the courts every single year using the same formula. This is how it looks in the off season 66105_10151587714443732_1315356367_n.jpg There is no conspiracy going on to slow it down gradually every year. Players started complaining about slow Wimbledon courts as early as 2004-05. Check this out a 2005 news http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/4121364.stm In 2002 two baseliners played the final for the first time in decades. Federer changed his game as early as 2003, from serve and volley to baseline play and got immediate success. Federer won ALL not just 13 of his slams on slow courts playing from the baseline. The style of play is different from Nadal or Novak but Federer still is a baseliner albeit a more attacking one. Australian Open has always been slow. Another fact: tennis balls were changed in 1995. From the official Wimbledon website. "There have been no changes to the specification of the ball since 1995, when there was a very minimal alteration in compression." http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/about_aeltc/201205091336575251545.html Also the general change of playing style has a lot to do with change of strings and general fitness of the players along with the slower courts. Slower courts are not the only reason for the death of serve and volley tennis. -------------------------------------- PS. Don't take Muloghonto seriously. He dismisses Nadal as modern day Micahel Chang along with declaring clay as an inferior surface. :cantstop: You can't argue with such logic. He is a biased militant Federer fan (known as Fedtards on the internet) with very little factual knowledge (whatever he says is personal opinion not backed up by facts) who won't even listen to any other opinion and of course facts. Word of advice from personal experience stay away, don't waste your time, not worth it. :cantstop:
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Every court becomes slow after Nadal wins on it. I am waiting for the haters to declare Cincinnati as a slow court. :cantstop: First (till 2007) he won't win anything outside clay, then he won't win on hard court, then he won't US open. He has been silencing them for the last 10 years. :haha: But the fact is Wimbledon was slowed down in 2001. US open in 2003. They haven't changed anything since then. It is well documented. They resurface the courts every single year using the same formula. This is how it looks in the off season There is no conspiracy going on to slow it down gradually every year. Players started complaining about slow Wimbledon courts as early as 2004-05. Check this out a 2005 news http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/4121364.stm In 2002 two baseliners played the final for the first time in decades. Federer changed his game as early as 2003, from serve and volley to baseline play and got immediate success. Federer won ALL not just 13 of his slams on slow courts playing from the baseline. The style of play is different from Nadal or Novak but Federer still is a baseliner albeit a more attacking one. Australian Open has always been slow. Another fact: tennis balls were changed in 1995. From the official Wimbledon website. "There have been no changes to the specification of the ball since 1995, when there was a very minimal alteration in compression." http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/about_aeltc/201205091336575251545.html Also the general change of playing style has a lot to do with change of strings and general fitness of the players along with the slower courts. Slower courts are not the only reason for the death of serve and volley tennis. -------------------------------------- PS. Don't take Muloghonto seriously. He dismisses Nadal as modern day Micahel Chang along with declaring clay as an inferior surface. :cantstop: You can't argue with such logic. He is a biased militant Federer fan (known as Fedtards on the internet) with very little factual knowledge (whatever he says is personal opinion not backed up by facts) who won't even listen to any other opinion and of course facts. Word of advice from personal experience stay away, don't waste your time, not worth it. :cantstop:
You talk a whole bunch of shyte without ever having actually played the game well enough or studied it well enough. Read and weep: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/547256-how-the-humble-tennis-ball-has-hepled-change-the-game Balls used in wimbledon are 6% bigger and gives the reciever 10% more reaction time. http://www.tennis-x.com/xblog/2012-06-20/10022.php Read and weep some more. The grass does not affect the bounce or the speed. The new grass is more robust and hardier, meaning that the ground requires less watering, thus the soil remains firmer. Over time, drier soil invariably leads to more soil compaction, making it harder. This is why baseline people like Djokovic and Nadal are competetive at wimbledon, because the ball is bouncing much higher, making baseline play possible. Oh and the idiot who calls me a Fedtard is nothing more than a Fedhater Nadal worshipper, for there is a difference between Federer and the rest: Federer is an ALLCOURT player. meaning he can win with serve & volley (which he does often enough) and he can win from the baseline. The likes of Rafa, Djokovic hardly every come to the net after their first serve, they only come to the net to finish a point. Federer was exclusively serve & volley on his first serve in the early part of his career, till wimbledon slowed down and US Open also started using grade 3 balls, making him use his all-court skills more. And that is what Federer is: an allcourt player, for he stays at baseline after first serve as well as doing standard serve & volley after first serve every match for his entire freaking career. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why the game has been altered to favour the clay-courters. Clay court tournaments like FO have always attracted disproportionately bigger audiences because they have more rallies. This is the reason wimbledon was slowed down, US Open and Australian open were re-surfaced and carpet was completely phased out: nobody wants to watch 'ACE ACE service winner, weaksauce return for an easy put away; repeat' type of service games from both players. This is why we have clay courters being a factor in the hardcourt season, where as prior to 10-12 years ago, clay was almost a seperate game alltogether. And this is why Nadal, who is a baseline specialist, not an allcourt player, has benefitted disproportionately, so has Djokovic. Would Federer win less in the faster era ? Sure, he is not the greatest exponent of S&V ever seen but not by much because he is an allcourt player who can dominate from both baseline play and serve & Volley. Would Nadal win a lot less in the 80s/90s ? hell yes, he would win few and far between outside clay, just like when he started, because he would not have been able to cope with the far faster rate of the game on hard, carpet and grass as it was in the 80s and 90s.
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You talk a whole bunch of shyte without ever having actually played the game well enough or studied it well enough. Read and weep: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/547256-how-the-humble-tennis-ball-has-hepled-change-the-game Balls used in wimbledon are 6% bigger and gives the reciever 10% more reaction time. http://www.tennis-x.com/xblog/2012-06-20/10022.php Read and weep some more. The grass does not affect the bounce or the speed. The new grass is more robust and hardier, meaning that the ground requires less watering, thus the soil remains firmer. Over time, drier soil invariably leads to more soil compaction, making it harder. This is why baseline people like Djokovic and Nadal are competetive at wimbledon, because the ball is bouncing much higher, making baseline play possible. Oh and the idiot who calls me a Fedtard is nothing more than a Fedhater Nadal worshipper, for there is a difference between Federer and the rest: Federer is an ALLCOURT player. meaning he can win with serve & volley (which he does often enough) and he can win from the baseline. The likes of Rafa, Djokovic hardly every come to the net after their first serve, they only come to the net to finish a point. Federer was exclusively serve & volley on his first serve in the early part of his career, till wimbledon slowed down and US Open also started using grade 3 balls, making him use his all-court skills more. And that is what Federer is: an allcourt player, for he stays at baseline after first serve as well as doing standard serve & volley after first serve every match for his entire freaking career. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why the game has been altered to favour the clay-courters. Clay court tournaments like FO have always attracted disproportionately bigger audiences because they have more rallies. This is the reason wimbledon was slowed down, US Open and Australian open were re-surfaced and carpet was completely phased out: nobody wants to watch 'ACE ACE service winner, weaksauce return for an easy put away; repeat' type of service games from both players. This is why we have clay courters being a factor in the hardcourt season, where as prior to 10-12 years ago, clay was almost a seperate game alltogether. And this is why Nadal, who is a baseline specialist, not an allcourt player, has benefitted disproportionately, so has Djokovic. Would Federer win less in the faster era ? Sure, he is not the greatest exponent of S&V ever seen but not by much because he is an allcourt player who can dominate from both baseline play and serve & Volley. Would Nadal win a lot less in the 80s/90s ? hell yes, he would win few and far between outside clay, just like when he started, because he would not have been able to cope with the far faster rate of the game on hard, carpet and grass as it was in the 80s and 90s.
I have no time to read your BS. I have busted yet another factually incorrect notion of yours about ball change just like I have done number of others. Yeah you heard it right, there has been no ball change at Wimbledon since 1995. First educate yourself. I have given you the official Wimbledon link. http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/about_aeltc/201205091336575251545.html Your lack of knowledge and then the way you try to be an "I know all" expert is staggering.
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I have no time to read your BS. I have busted yet another factually incorrect notion of yours about ball change just like I have done number of others. Yeah you heard it right' date=' there has been[b'] no ball change at Wimbledon since 1995. First educate yourself. Your lack of knowledge and then the way you try to be an "I know all" expert is staggering.
You've busted nothing, I've proven with evidence that the ball changes were mandated by ATP since early 2000s, with 3 different sets of balls being made regulation. You call it BS because I've clinically refuted every single point you've made and you simply have not grown old enough yet to eat the humble pie. FYI the link you provided itself proves that the slowness of wimbledon happened over time, not just overnight due to a new grass, since it says that courts became slower due to soil compaction over time.
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You've busted nothing, I've proven with evidence that the ball changes were mandated by ATP since early 2000s, with 3 different sets of balls being made regulation.
Another moronic post from the so called expert. Get an education man. It's ITF not ATP that controls the grand slams and general playing conditions. You don't even have the understandings of the basic facts. They introduced bigger balls in the late 90s itself, way before the current players including Federer started winning, so it's irrelevant in the current context. That's how your "a few years" bullcrap was busted idiot.
FYI the link you provided itself proves that the slowness of wimbledon happened over time, not just overnight due to a new grass, since it says that courts became slower due to soil compaction over time.
Yeah the soils compaction suddenly started in the late 2000s in a tournament that's been going on for more than a century. They do extensive digging up every year. But you wouldn't know because you are an idiot with no aptitude to learn new things. article-2378800-1B001C60000005DC-186_634x476.jpgAnyways this is my last and final post to you. Don't quote me, if you do you won't get a reply. I don't have time for your idiocy again.
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Another moronic post from the so called expert. Get an education man. It's ITF not ATP that controls the grand slams and general playing conditions. You don't even have the understandings of the basic facts. They introduced bigger balls in the late 90s itself' date= way before the current players including Federer started winning, so it's irrelevant in the current context. That's how your "a few years" bullcrap was busted idiot.
False, check the ITF site, the different ball sizes came into play only after 2001 when they were piloted.
Yeah the soils compaction suddenly started in the late 2000s in a tournament that's been going on for more than a century. They do extensive digging up every year. But you wouldn't know because you are an idiot. Anyways this is my last and final post to you. Don't quote me, if you do you won't get a reply. I don't have time for your crap again.
They do not dig up wimbledon. They re-sow the surface, to negate the effects of soil compaction, they'd have to re-lay a few feet deep soil, not just the top where the grass gets replanted. They changed the grass in 2001, their website itself admits that the surface slowed down over the years due to soil compaction, as this new grass requires less watering, thus leading to a harder soil ( less water in the soil = harder soil!) and it took a few years for it to become noticable enough for players to complain about it, in 2005/2006 etc. Your picture is of re-laying the grass and evening out the surface, i do not see a single dig in the soil and they wouldnt do it anyways because it would get rid of the bounce and wimbledon would be back to 'ace ace ace, service winner, your turn' type of games that would see the likes of Djokovic, Nadal, Murray blown away by the likes of Cilic, Raonic, Federer, etc.
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Zep, mate I am not sure why you quoted me there, I believe you misunderstood my post or something. I'm not arguing that Nadal benefited from the slower courts or whatever, just that the competition argument against Federer is as silly as that argument. Muloghonto, I believe Nadal is good enough to have adapted to any surface in any area. How well or otherwise he would have done in some other era is pure conjecture; but by the rule of the thumb, you would expect a great player in one era to be able to hold his own in another era too. If anything, tennis -like virtually every other sport- has only evolved and players have been getting better and better (no doubt the modern methods, techniques, etc. help). I would be more wary of rating a yesteryear great higher than Nadal than vice-versa if push came to shove, not the other way around.

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Zep' date=' mate I am not sure why you quoted me there, I believe you misunderstood my post or something. I'm not arguing that Nadal benefited from the slower courts or whatever, just that the competition argument against Federer is as silly as that argument.[/quote'] My post was in support of your post. Consider it as an addition to yours. You are opening a pandora's box. I have argued that same argument with him at length. It is futile. There are many reasonable Federer fans on this forum, he is not one of them. Friendly advice stay away. For him Nadal is just left handed Michael Chang with 15% more power (wonder how he calculated that!). There is no way you can argue with that. Follow the earlier discussions here http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=307790&page=2
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Zep, mate I am not sure why you quoted me there, I believe you misunderstood my post or something. I'm not arguing that Nadal benefited from the slower courts or whatever, just that the competition argument against Federer is as silly as that argument. Muloghonto, I believe Nadal is good enough to have adapted to any surface in any area. How well or otherwise he would have done in some other era is pure conjecture; but by the rule of the thumb, you would expect a great player in one era to be able to hold his own in another era too. If anything, tennis -like virtually every other sport- has only evolved and players have been getting better and better (no doubt the modern methods, techniques, etc. help). I would be more wary of rating a yesteryear great higher than Nadal than vice-versa if push came to shove, not the other way around.
I dont believe in the whole great in an era is great in any. Because it takes adaptation for granted when adaptation is a skill and not a given. I do agree that a lot of the former greats would struggle in todays era of 10 shots per rally. But a lot of players today, with the exception of federer, raonic, cilic and del potro would struggle in the earlier, faster era. Nadal would struggle the most. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2
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Interesting, Nadal is the youngest player since Boris Becker in 1984 to reach the third round of Wimbledon in 2003 at 17 years of age. Even Sampras and Federer weren't that good at that age. Child prodigy and true all court player. He was unlucky that he had to play an all time great grass court player in his first three Wimbledon finals while he was still improving his game, but still beat him in one and took him to a 5 sets in the other. Federer on the other hand had to wait for Nadal to be out of the tournament to win Roland Garros. In 2004, when Federer was at his peak and Nadal was not there, he was beaten comprehensively by another great clay court player Guga in straight sets. So for all the talk of his all court superiority Federer is 0-6 against great clay court players at RG and has never taken them to 5th set even. Against Guga the left handed excuse also doesn't apply. He beat Federer 6-4 6-4 6-4 at his so called "untouchable" peak. Would have loved to see Guga playing Rafa at RG, now that would have been a great contest.

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There is another myth that's floating around that Federer serves lights out. While he is one of the best servers I have seen and he is much better than many faster servers, his real weapons are accuracy, placement and variety of serves and not speed. Speed wise his fastest serves are not very different from what Nadal's fastest serves are. Nadal in general goes for more accuracy and higher first serve percentage and achieves that compromising on the speed. His first serve percentage are typically in the mid 70s which is almost 10 higher than tour average of the top players. I have made that argument before here. But now I have concrete proof to back that up. These following links provide 20 fastest serves of each year of Wimbledon from 2003 to 2007 from the official Wimbledon website, again the so called Federer peak. Federer features only once in 2003 with the fastest serve of 128 mph. 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/20040306235306/http://championships.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/extrastats/speed_ms.html 2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20040813080045/http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/extrastats/speed_ms.html 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/20050821015931/http://championships.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/extrastats/speed_ms.html 2006: http://web.archive.org/web/20070518013217/http://championships.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/extrastats/speed_ms.html 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20071016125346/http://championships.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/extrastats/speed_ms.html There was another argument made that serve speeds decrease considerably with age. Take a look at 2011 serve speeds. Andy Roddick was serving as fast as he used to do in 2004. In fact serve is one thing that stays with you for a long time. I have seen Sampras serving bombs in exhos. Even now at 42 he can easily go over 130 mph. http://web.archive.org/web/20110702064335/http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/scores/extrastats/speed_ms.html Another BS theory debunked with real data and not opinion. :rofl:

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Although it seems that I argued against the court hardness theory it is actually true that the ball bounces higher now than it did in the 1990s at Wimbledon. That is a more significant change imo than slowness of grass. In fact I myself have argued about it with Yoda-esque last year. http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=2507727&postcount=151 http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=2507771&postcount=153 What I am against is the theory that it is a gradual change and started happening as soon as Nadal started doing well on grass and Federer somehow won his titles on fast grass. As I have shown above they resurface the court every year a few months before the tournament, so they can easily control the hardness of the surface. It is not an automatic process. They have made it harder than before but it's not an ongoing process. Federer himself has said in 2008 that the courts were playing pretty much the same as they did in 2001. Here is the transcript:

Q. Marat Safin, after his win a couple days ago, thanked the club for slowing down the courts. How have you seen the courts change here over the years, and how does the change affect your chances? ROGER FEDERER: Well, I don't think it's that much of a difference since I played Pete here in 2001 really. So, I mean, it's not that extreme, you know, to the point where I need to thank anybody, I think, you know. I think it's just also the way how players are playing today: more from the baseline, not as much serve and volley, chip and charge. That sort of gives you the feeling that it's slowed down, as well, you know. Because 95% of the guys play from the baseline today, whereas before it was maybe 50/50. That is a big change, I think, and that's happened in the last, let's say, 10, 15 years. http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=50521
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Very interesting statistics for people with an open mind to learn new things. For all the talk of slow courts the serve stats have been more or less unchanged in the last 20 years at slams. In fact the number of aces hit at Wimbledon have actually increased in the last 10 years than the decade before that. This was very surprising to me. image006.png

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