Roger Federer is not the GOAT

Dec 20, 2014
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View attachment 454127 Ridiculously tone-deaf tweet from Jamie Murray I saw this morning. Regardless of where you sit on the gender side of things in tennis and the ‘goat’ debate, it’s pretty daft to compare two great champions and where their CVs are at in 2017 when one has been out of the game over a year due to pregnancy.
Why is that "tone-deaf"?

It's merely emphasising how Federer has come back when he looked pretty cooked, using a piece of trivia as a data point. Are you offended by it?
 
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ok I am feeling very silly about this but the point is that time goes so quickly that it appears that he has done it all..
Yeah, he has done it all. But he also went four-and-a-half years without winning a major.

but the other point is that he made the semis or the quarters or even the lesser rounds.. time is fleeting and grabs you by the hand and tells you where to go and even if he never won majors he would have done a great deal to maintain his standing in the whole scenario..
Time is fleeting and grabs you by the hand and tells you where to go? Thanks for the pearls of wisdom, Richard Marx. You blew my mind.
 

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Yeah, he has done it all. But he also went four-and-a-half years without winning a major.

Time is fleeting and grabs you by the hand and tells you where to go? Thanks for the pearls of wisdom, Richard Marx. You blew my mind.
aw you sweet thing .. rabbits also multiply when they want to.. and crying is not always an option..
 

AlwaysHawks15

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Don't be silly.

He's winning because the game has changed and 36-year-olds now have all the advantages. It can't possibly be because players 10 years younger have failed to launch. The game has changed. That explains everything. Just ask Nadal, Murray and Djokovic about how much easier it gets to play 25 tournaments each year after you turn 30. The game has changed and players who are 30+ have all the advantages now. Right, The City Boyz and Belnakor and Demosthenes?

This could be the biopic for Dimitrov or Nishikori or Raonic:

MV5BMTg0OTc2MDQ3NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDUwMjEzMw@@._V1_UX182_CR0,0,182,268_AL_.jpg
Exactly right, i see it as fed taking advantage of this current era not being overly strong and the slight decline of both rafa and novak. You still have to be good enough to get the job done but he isnt at full throttle like he used to be. With alot of players its all mental with roger, has owned them for years and thats not going to change. The younger talent isnt ready to knock him off on a consistent basis or there not good enough.
 

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How many more seasons do people think he will play ?

I think it depends on a) staying injury free and b) how much he cares about breaking Jimmy Connors most ATP titles record.

Obviously injury could force him to retire but lets assume he stays free of any significant problem.

He still needs another 13 titles to surpass Connors, and that would mean playing into at least 2020, and likely into 2021. He'll turn 40 in 2021 so if that record is an important goal he'd probably have to prioritise more 250 and 500 events over at least the Masters 1000's in his final year or two. Who knows how long his current form and win rate can last, but surely he won't be a significant chance of winning slams and masters events at 39/40.

If he doesn't care about breaking Connors record, or if he continues to have this amazing run for another 2 years and does it by mid 2020 then I think he'll retire either at the 2020 Olympics or at his home event in Basel later that year.
 
So Davydenko is better than Nadal then?

He might be if he had a winning record and a few grand slams under his name ;)

Thanks for proving my point.

Federer is the GOAT, and you flip flop arguments to avoid it.

There's no flip flopping

He has 20 slams

There are multiple people with more slams than he currently has. He can't be the GOAT until he has the most slams out of everyone :)

GAME SET AND MATCH

XTREME
 
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Exactly right, i see it as fed taking advantage of this current era not being overly strong and the slight decline of both rafa and novak. You still have to be good enough to get the job done but he isnt at full throttle like he used to be. With alot of players its all mental with roger, has owned them for years and thats not going to change. The younger talent isnt ready to knock him off on a consistent basis or there not good enough.
Federer is maybe 75 percent of the player he was at his peak, right? Yet the likes of Dimitrov, Nishikori and whoever else is "the next big thing" still can't find the extra gear to knock him off when it matters. Maybe someone like Zverev figures it out this year. But until then ...

Federer winning is still good for men's tennis. He's a great and dignified champion and plays the game beautifully. But at what point does Federer winning three majors from the past five and getting back to #1 aged 36 start to become an indictment on the generation aged 28 and younger? Sure, it's a reminder of his greatness, but it also shows that the crop coming through haven't got their s**t together.

Clearly there isn't a young Novak Djokovic coming through the ranks. But there's not even a young Marat Safin or a young Lleyton Hewitt. Again, that may change in the next 12 months but based on the past 12 months, Federer is again the sport's dominant figure, aged 36. And that's not just about his greatness - that's about a shallow pool of players who are 10+ years younger.

Some folks insist "nah, the game has changed". But that's rubbish. The City Boyz
 

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There's no flip flopping

He has 20 slams

There are multiple people with more slams than he currently has. He can't be the GOAT until he has the most slams out of everyone :)

GAME SET AND MATCH

XTREME

In what is effectively a different sport, with different rules, and a playerbase that has exactly no overlap with the men's game. It's frankly silly to compare and it preposterous to suggest that Federer is not the GOAT because he hasn't won as many slams as someone who is competing in a competition that he isn't allowed to enter. If you want to base it on overall tennis ability then you'll need to construct some kind of argument that Serena would beat Federer, or better yet have a winning record over him in a hypothetical match up or series of matchups.

Federer is clearly the GOAT of men's tennis. It should be implicit that that is what we are talking about in a thread about whether Federer is the GOAT. You might as well deny he's the GOAT because he's not won as many Premierships as Sam Mitchell.
 

AlwaysHawks15

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Federer is maybe 75 percent of the player he was at his peak, right? Yet the likes of Dimitrov, Nishikori and whoever else is "the next big thing" still can't find the extra gear to knock him off when it matters. Maybe someone like Zverev figures it out this year. But until then ...

Federer winning is still good for men's tennis. He's a great and dignified champion and plays the game beautifully. But at what point does Federer winning three majors from the past five and getting back to #1 aged 36 start to become an indictment on the generation aged 28 and younger? Sure, it's a reminder of his greatness, but it also shows that the crop coming through haven't got their s**t together.

Clearly there isn't a young Novak Djokovic coming through the ranks. But there's not even a young Marat Safin or a young Lleyton Hewitt. Again, that may change in the next 12 months but based on the past 12 months, Federer is again the sport's dominant figure, aged 36. And that's not just about his greatness - that's about a shallow pool of players who are 10+ years younger.

Some folks insist "nah, the game has changed". But that's rubbish. The City Boyz
He wins wimbledon and the us open this year it will become an indictment. Theres setting records that will last forever because your an absolute freak or your setting records because no one else is even close to doing something about it despite the fact your in 2nd gear most of the time.
 

AlwaysHawks15

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Dimitrov for eg is smack bang in the middle of his peak, he shouldnt be getting shoved aside with ease if he is a genuine grand slam winner by fed like the other day. Thats the issue, players who are being talked about as contenders are nowhere near it while federer is around.
 
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He might be if he had a winning record and a few grand slams under his name ;)



There's no flip flopping

He has 20 slams

There are multiple people with more slams than he currently has. He can't be the GOAT until he has the most slams out of everyone :)

GAME SET AND MATCH

XTREME
You say he is not better than Djokovic or Nadal on the men's side of things despite having several more slams than both, and then you base the 'more slams' argument agienst him when being compared to Williams. That's flip flopping. Once again thanks for proving my point.

Federer the GOAT makes you salty.
 
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