Sampras at his prime vs. Federer at his prime (now) would have been very interesting, simply because Sampras was incredibly consistent and he was one of the few serve and volleyers in the game. Marat Safin beat Federer at the Aussie semifinal two years ago because he was able to keep Federer off his rhythm by pounding the ball and then coming to the net. His 8 foot wing span really helped because he was able to get those incredible passing shots that Federer can unleash on the more hapless players who try to go to the net (Roddick).
Of course, Nadal owns the clay courts but Federer is closing the gap. And Nadal is starting to wear down his body with his energy. Other than being completely dedicated to physical fitness and constantly trying to improve his weaknesses, Federer has two things that keep him on top: a) tennis smarts; and b) utmost confidence in himself. No matter how hard someone like Hewitt or Roddick or Blake trains, I don’t believe they’ll ever have the tennis smarts that Federer has. Federer can anticipate shots and defend the court better than anyone I’ve ever seen. He also has an indefatigable mentality. He never looks flustered, he never throws his racquet.
The only person that I think can give him a run for his money on hard courts is Andy Murray. But he needs to come into his own physically before he’ll be able to do it.
I thought Borg was a baseliner who showed no emotion. I’m sure he was great, but that doesn’t make him sound like more of an entertainer than Sampras was.
I would. (Obviously, as I did.) I watch a lot of tennis during the Slams. For the Australian, I watched at least two full matches each of Hingis, Sharapova, Serena, Nadal, Gonzalez and Federer, including at least one match each of Clijsters, Roddick, Andy Murray, James Blake and Marcos Baghdatis. I usually time-shifted the matches to speed through commercials, and saved them up for large block viewing. As it happens, I usually ended up watching a women’s match immediately followed by a men’s match. That included both finals, when I took great pains to avoid spoilers. (Not that it would have mattered much; both matches were clearly over after the first set.)
Serena Williams absolutely looks like she’s wearing concrete shoes and hitting a wiffle ball when compared to any of the men’s matches I saw. So does Sharapova. Most of the rest of the women look like they’re in slow motion compared to Sharapova and Williams. Hingis is the worst for this effect, though she has excellent court coverage for a woman.
There was a huge difference in speed between the Williams-Sharapova final and the Federer-Gonzalez final, and that’s as fast as the women get. The men’s final wasn’t even a particularly fast match; both the Nadal- and Murray- elimination matches were noticeably faster.
Any more. I did not see him in his early days, but apparently he was quite the racket-tossing hothead. At least, the announcers said so about a hundred times during the Australian.
On a side note, I see a ton of similarities in style between Martina Hingis and Roger Federer, both Swiss. Federer’s serve is much better, but the basic mindset seems to be the same.
Anyone else notice this? I’m wondering if it’s a coincidence or an actual philosophy in Swiss tennis. Are there any young and ranked Swiss players out there to watch for, I wonder?
Keep in mind Sampras wasn’t dominant his last few years (he only won one major a year at most his last seven or so years) so to think he would dominate now is just not possbile. But I would kill to see him play Federer at Wimbledon with both in their prime.
When he was a junior. Borg also had temper problems as a junior. It sounds as if they both solved their problem by forcing themselves to the other extreme.
I’m not so sure about the “GOAT” status for Federer, to be honest.
A prime determinant of GOAT status is the competition at the time you played. Where Sampras was continually competing against the oldsters (Mac, Connors)Courier, Agassi, (when he was on top of his sine-wave career), Safin, and others (at times, Kraijicek, Ivanesevic, Phillipoussis), I don’t see anyone outide of Nadal as serious competition (including Roddick, who needs a tleast two pieces to his game).
I will say that I hope I’m wrong in this. I absolutely hated the serve (and trust me, not a lot of volley) game of the 90’s. Stupid racquets geared up to provide 140mph serves? Dullsville for the watcher.
If Federer can bring back technical tennis, I’m all for it. I don’t think he’d be getting anywhere near this kind of record-setting traction if he were playing ten years ago.
That’s the major ‘if’ in the Sampras-Federer debate, to me. But there’s a major catch-22 involved: how many of the players out there would otherwise have won Slams if Federer wasn’t taking them all? Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, Nadal, maybe Ferrero or Davydenko…
Roddick is 24; Agassi had won one major and was just starting to get serious at that age. Roddick’s game is about as complete and Agassi was a headcase prior to that point. He’s better than Ivanesvic was, and I don’t think a pure baseliner like Courier (who faded very fast once Sampras and Agassi came on) would hold up against Federer at all. I don’t think there’s an Agassi in today’s crop, but I think the field is deeper.
I don’t personally think Roddick can hold Agassi’s jock as a player (prime-to-prime), but maybe he’s going to develop a backhand and consistent strokes. Agassi was a freak when it came to groundstrokes…pure physical freak.
Here’s the real question. If we could move Federer back in time to the Courier/Agassi/Sampras heyday, would he have such a gaudy record? I say no, categorically.
And, being the #1 Courier fan ever, I have to say that he didn’t fade fast once they came on. He won three slams while Agassi (admittedly, head-case Agassi) and Sampras were playing well. I think he woudl have held up pretty well against Federer, actually.
Federer does poorly when he’s faced with extreme pace. The problem is that no-one plays a power baseline game on hardcourt any longer. Nadal and the europeans play it on clay…not the same. Out of ten matches, I woudl say Federer would win about 6-7 off of Courier on any given Sunday. They’d be close, too.
Courier was a one-trick pony who faded quickly once people caught on to his game. He only one four GSs - and never won the US Open or Wimbledon. Once he lost to Bruguera in the French Open in 1993, he was never really the same (although he did make it to the finals of Wimbledon about two weeks later). After 1993, he didn’t win anything even remotely important, unless you can count Philadelphia and Beijing as major stops on the tour.
He was a real jerk as a player; it’s been nice to see him evolve into a thoughtful, very entertaining and capable tennis announcer. My tennis announcer’s dream team would be Carillo, McEnroe, and Courier.
Federer would eat Courier alive. Courier would be lucky to win 2 games out of 10. Remember - back when Courier was just coming on, very few people hit the ball as hard as he did (Agassi being one of the lone exceptions). Now, everybody does. Now, everybody has a rocket serve (Agassi’s serve got considerably harder and faster over the course of his career, party in response to Courier). Go out and watch a match in person, anyone inside the top 50 is absolutely smoking the ball - maybe only a handful of people were hitting like that in the late 80s/early 90s. When everyone’s hitting that hard, the awe factor is muted somewhat, but Federer is playing against some of the hardest hitters of all time, and he is neutralizing them easily.
Oh, and the Agassi of 1998 and on would beat Courier like a red-headed stepchild. (To be fair, the Agassi of 1998 and beyond would beat the *old Agassi * like a rented mule as well).
He wouldn’t have 10 Slams at 25, no. There’s nobody in the field as good as Sampras in his prime, or Agassi in his, and I think few people would deny that. But even if we presume Federer beats Sampras and Agassi seven times out of 10, he loses at least a couple of Slams right there. I think he’d be leading the field if they were all the same age.
Sampras came on as a great player in the second half of 1992. Courier won one Slam after that, and if you just look at a chart of his Slam performances you can see how steady the decline was.
Who is the contemporary player most like Courier, do you think? I’m tempted to say Nalbandian, who used to give Federer problems - but not any more. After that I’d say Gonzalez and Hewitt, and Federer has beaten Hewitt nine times in a row and has beaten Gonzalez all 10 times they’ve played.
If Federer struggles with pace, Roddick wouldn’t be 1-13 against him. And he wouldn’t own Blake and Agassi the way he does/did. One player does well against Federer: Nadal, who plays great defense on slow surfaces (and I think people are figuring out how to play against Nadal). Safin has the capability to give him trouble because he’s a physical freak, but Federer is 7-2 against Safin anyway.
See above. Players with pace and no variety don’t do well against Federer- not that anybody really does.
And that’s what sets him apart. He tries something and if it doesn’t work, he adapts. Even if a player is lucky enough to get a set on him, you can see the hamster in his brain trying to figure out another way. Compare this to, say, Gonzo, who tried a drop shot against Federer how many times in the Aussie Final?
(The other player who played with ice in his veins, Bjorn Borg, used to also throw racquets to in his junior tennis days. But, as the legend goes, after an embarrassing display at one of the tournaments, his father took his racquet away from him and forbade him to play until he got his emotions in check. And that’s the last time Borg threw his racquet.)
Speaking as a woman, I found Borg much more entertaining than Sampras because he had that rock star look and great body. He was also a great foil for John McEnroe because they had such opposing styles of play. McEnroe was the explosive, bratty, loud American serve and volleyer while Borg was an introspective, quiet, icy Swedish baseliner. When they played each other, it was magic.
And that’s why I don’t enjoy watching Federer, as admittedly talented as he is. 1) He’s not handsome (I’m sooo shallow); and 2) He doesn’t have a rival. If he did, it would be awesome to watch them duke it out.
Why is Roger the best ever? For the last three years or so, one player (Nadal) on one surface (clay) can beat him. Every other player in the world, on every other surface has no chance. And this is 2006, with the best atheletes in history, and the best equipment in history. Borg wasn’t facing 130 mph serves I don’ think. Unless he is playing Nadal at the French, he is guaranteed to win, pretty much. And I think Roger will blast Nadal at the French this year, to really prove his greatness.
Agreed, Roger has no rival, true, but that is a testament to greatness- there isn’t anyone who can compete with him. Roddick could be a rival, if he wasn’t 1-13 against him.
I watched Roger Federer beat Andy Roddick in his semi-final at the Australian Open and it was simply the best performance that I have ever seen anyone ever produce in any competitive endeavour. He was slightly less dominant in the final but once he got going in the second set the match was over.
If you know anything about tennis watch him play and his superiority is laughable. You can see what he is doing during a point, and presumably so can his opponent, but it makes no difference. Watch him push his opponent to one side of the court and then when you think he will hit the backhand winner crosscourt into the corner…bang - he effortlessly produces it. He is the only player since McEnroe that makes me laugh out loud at shots he makes.
I would loved to have seen Federer play Connors in his prime. Connors might have given him a very good match.
As to the OP’s oringinal contention I think we can all agree that Sampras isn’t coming back to do anything that would affect Federer.
If Federer were to win all four grand slams in one year then it would be one of the greatest every achivements in sports.
Oddly enough, Connors had a very good chance to win all 4 back in 1974 but was banned from the French open in a year that he won the other three slams. He was on fire that year. Mind you, he never actually won the French but appeared in 2 semi finals which I believe is better then what Sampras ever did in the French.
OK, not to hijack (but I will! [ol]
[li]I still stick my by contention that one of his flaws (and yes, he has flaws…not many, but they’re there) is performance against pace. I don’t have cites for any of this…just opinions. There are no Agassis or Couriers out there now. I think Muster would have given him problems, Wilander, definitely Lendl, and probably Connors.[/li][li]I do believe he woudl have taken McEnroe’s lunch, eaten it, and then beaten him senseless with the Snoopy lunchbox. McEnroe was always overrated, IMHO.[/li][li]Courier also varied pace (didn’t JUST slam the groundies), and his inside out forehandgave everyone problems. True, his backhand was mediocre, but most are nowadays (excepting Federer, possibly others)[/li][/ol]
And Marley23…I don’t consider Roddick much of a baseliner (was it you who mentioned him as an exception to my “pace” issue?). Roddick is a serving machine with some decent forehards. Backhand is weak, volleying is at a 5.5 level, and his maturity…laughable.
[ol]