2014 Roland Garros

[who gives a]

Pins!

God that is magnificent, those legs what I would give to have them wrapped around me, god did I just say that for all to hear

 

[bungalow_bill]

9 FO's is incredible - what I wouldn't give to see a match between Nadal/Borg(in his prime) Borg won 6 but retired at 26 so could have won a few more. And if not for that pesky McEnroe could have won 7 Wimbledon's in a row.

Nadal is certainly one of the best ever & my favorite current male player but in terms of pure talent you have to give the best ever to either McEnroe or Federer.

 

[evdo1706]

Arguments about Fed having easier GS final opponents during his prime, ignore the fact that peak Federer in the current era would still be winning lots of slams. It's not his fault that his opposition in that time contained less 'Big 4' obstacles.

That is not the argument. The argument is that Nadal (and also Djokovic) has had to fact tougher competition to win his slams. This is not even debatable. These guys would beat everyone except the top 3-4 almost every time in slams. Nadal has to go through either Federer or Djokovic for 12 of his 14 slam wins. 5 of his losses (out of 6) are also against them. The only times he managed to avoid them were in 2010, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Federer had no challenger outside clay from 2004-07. It's not his fault but I am pretty sure that some of those insane numbers like 4 years continuous #1 without dropping a week or winning 11 out of 12 non clay slams in that period are also a result of such poor competition. He would have won a lot of them regardless of the competition but not all of them if he was playing alongside another great player. He however had to deal with young talents after that. Nadal and Djokovic might get a break there as there is no upcoming talent capable of threatening them yet. So they might get a free run for the next couple of years and share the next 8-10 slams as well.

Nadal has still had the fortune to play GS finals against Puerta, Soderling, Berdych, Ferrer & Wawrinka after all.

On all those occasions Nadal beat either Federer or Djokovic in semi except 2010 Roland Garros and Wimbledon. He has reached slam final 20 times and on 18 of those slams he had to play Federer or Djokovic either in the final or semi.

Djokovic on the other hand has only played 1/13 GS finals against non-Big 4 (Tsonga AO 08).

Even then he had to beat Federer in semi.

 

[evdo1706]

Nadal is certainly one of the best ever & my favorite current male player but in terms of pure talent you have to give the best ever to either McEnroe or Federer.

I think it is safe to say that Nadal was not born with a lot of tennis talent. But that makes his achievements even more incredible in my eyes. If you look at his game today and compare it with how he was 8-9 years ago you would see tremendous improvement on every part of his game so much so that there is no apparent weakness in his game now. He even volleys as good as anyone on tour now.

 

[bungalow_bill]

I think it is safe to say that Nadal was not born with a lot of tennis talent. But that makes his achievements even more incredible in my eyes. If you look at his game today and compare it with how he was 8-9 years ago you would see tremendous improvement on every part of his game so much so that there is no apparent weakness in his game now. He even volleys as good as anyone on tour now.

Do you see a comparison with Lendl? Lendl was never the most talented guy but trained hard,learned to S&V and won a ton of slams.

 

[evdo1706]

Do you see a comparison with Lendl? Lendl was never the most talented guy but trained hard,learned to S&V and won a ton of slams.

Unfortunately I was born towards the end of 1980s. So I did not follow Lendl's career, so not sure about his evolution.