29/30 of the last majors have been won by Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic.
Who won the other one?
Is it Del Potro?
Yes, Del Potro won the US Open a few years back. He played en fuego the entire tournament and didn’t let up in the final.
Several years ago, Safin took the Aussie Open. But I’m showing my age.
Checked it and I was right. I was surprised by the stat though. I hadn’t realized how dominant these three have been over the last few years.
Yes, and I hope Del Potro gets back to that level. I hope Murray wins one, too. He really impressed me today both with his character and with his play. In this match and the Tsonga match he served better and played smarter, more authoritative, better tennis. He could win in New York or any major next year if he keeps doing this. Grass still isn’t the best surface for his game, but he could win there, too. In a lot of ways today’s final was similar to Federer’s win over Roddick in 2009. Murray and Roddick both played exceptionally well, and the matches they played would have been more than good enough to beat most guys on most days. Federer was just too good both times and he deserved to win. I’m very happy for him. I thought he might manage to win another major, but I thought he was just going to have to live with the knowledge he was one week short of Sampras’ record. Turns out he’ll break that one, too. He has a very small lead over Djokovic, so how long he stays on top depends on what happens at Wimbledon 2012 Mark II and at the tournaments after that this summer.
I disagree. Roddick played better than Federer in that final, he was broken only once; in the last game when he was absolutely exhausted, it was a 30 game set. Roddick was unlucky to lose. As for Murray he twice was up 15-40 in the second set, he had his chances and did not take them. He played well Murray, but no where near what he needed to play to beat Fed,like Nadal in 2008 did. Federer always raises his game when you are dominating him, the trick is not to let that intimidate you and continue to play well, Nadal in 2008 saw Fed come back from 2 sets down,yet he was still good enough to beat him. In 2 of the games that Murray was broken in, in the second and third set he had been up 30-0 and 40-0 before losing that and it turned out the set. You do not do that against Federer and expect to win.
Frankly, I do not think Murray as being anyway near the top three, he is a very good player and undoutedly he would have won (3 and counting) several titles had there been no Federer but then Cedric Pioline would have won 2 Grand Slams if Sampras had not been around and no one thinks of him as unlucky.
I think you are harsh to say he is nowhere near. He is a step down from those top three for sure but he is also a bigger step up from anyone else out there. He has competed with those top three more comprehensively than pretty much anyone else out there.
Pioline, though a decent player, has a record that is far inferior to Murray and I don’t think bears comparison.
Your Mark II comment baffled me for a minute till I remembered the Olympics. I didn’t know it counted for the rankings. But yeah that’s going to be a lot of fun, probably the greatest ever Olympic tennis contest on the men’s side given the setting and the field.
Anyway you have to admire the way Federer has hung in there in the last four years since that Wimbledon 2008 final which marked the end of his era of domination. He has had to go through some brutal defeats at the hands of Nadal and Djokovic and he still has yet to beat either one in a slam final since then. But he has hung in there magnificently, making the best of every opportunity and picking up four slams. In its own way it’s as impressive as his period of domination in 2004-2007.
Murrays last six Grand Slams
Aus 2011,lost to Djoker, Final, straight sets.
French Open 2011, lost to Nadal, Semi Final, straight sets
Wimbledon 2011, lost to Nadal, Semi Final, four sets, last 2 which Nadal won easily
US Open 2011, lost to Nadal, semis,4 sets
Australian Open 2012, lost to Djoker semis, 5 sets.
French Open 2012: lost to Ferrer, quarters, 4 sets
Wimbledon 2012: lost to Federer, Final 4 sets
Now I will admit, in 6 slams, getting to 3 semis and 2 finals is the hallmark of an excellent player, which he undoubtedly is. But, note that in all of the above he has been defeated by the top three and with the exception of this years Australian Open (where he played out of his skin and still lost) easily defeated. Moreover, his two final appearances, he has had the good luck of not playing any of the top three earlier.
In his other 2 final appearances, he did beat Nadal on the way, but in the 2010 Australian, Nadal was injured (and retired) and in 2008 US Open, which is his only clean win against any of the top guys in a grand slam last eight or better.
He is not just a step behind them, he is well behind them and likely to remain so.
I think we are quibbling about what “well behind” might mean.
He has the game to beat all of them and has done in the past. Much more so than his contemporaries.
I have difficulty seeing another player out there with the raw ability to challenge the top three regularly whereas I think Murray could.
I see the current status as “rest of tour” ---->big gap<— “Andy Murray”—>smaller gap<— “top three”
And that smaller gap (particularly on hard courts) seems to be more a of mental block as one of talent (though that in itself is enough to nullify his chances if he can’t get over it). Plus he does get injured which is always a bit of a monkey on his back.
It’ll be interesting to see how he reacts to this defeat.
For his sake, I hope he does get better and win, But time is not on his side, he is 25 and he has at best two or three more years. Which is a pity, he is a phenomenal talent. But, really, the way he lost the second set which he should have won, really sums him up for me.
Fun fact, the last British man to reach the Wimbledon final, Bunny Austin also lost to a man considered the greatest of all time, Don Budge. Austin further, reached several Grand Slam finals and never won.
AK84, have you considered volunteering for The Samaritans? They could use an optimistic “glass half-full” chap such as yourself.
FWIW I think you are right. If he is ever to truly impose then it has to be now. Otherwise he’ll end up hoping for age and injury to diminish Federer and Nadal respectively and Novak to get run over by a bus.
As far as I can tell, the list (since 1980) of men’s grand slam champions over the age of 30 is (now) Roger Federer, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors. And that’s it. Ivan Lendl won his last 2 months before his 30th birthday, and Goran Ivanisevic also missed the cut by a couple months for his one and only championship.
Becker in 1996?
That’s all true, but I stand by my point. Both of them played very well and would have won most days. Federer was too good both days, particuarly in the big moments.
I’ve been saying that for a while. I’m not going to say he is on there level, but the last two matches convinced me that he can get there. I think if he continues to play like this in big matches, he’s likely to bag a major at some point. I didn’t feel that way about his performances in finals and other big matches in the last couple of years. He lost some of those semifinals and finals because he was happy to play solid defensive tennis and try to get them to make mistakes, and Federer and Djokovic and Nadal are not likely to make enough mistakes to lose a best-of-five match like that. He lost this one and could have won it, but it’s because Federer played too well, not because Murray didn’t go for it. It’s an important difference, I think.
Becker was about 28 1/2 when he won the '96 Australian Open. And if you think Federer had a long drought, Becker hadn’t won a major in almost five years at that point.
Ken Rosewall was 37 when he won the Australian Open in '72. He also won in '71 and '70…
I think the physicality of the game is such now that we are highly unlikely to see anything of that kind again. Watching the top guys chasing down impossible shots I find myself cringing as I imagine the stresses going through knees and ankles.
They do well to get to 30.
Rosewall won when the tournament was still played on grass. You’re not going to see 37-year-olds win anything with so many of the tournaments played on hardcourts.
It should be really great. I don’t know how the hell they’re going to fix the grass in three weeks, but they say they can do it - and Olympic Committees don’t lie, do they? 
The Olympics will count in the rankings. They’ll be worth a bit less than a masters series event, basically. The points will look like this:
Men’s singles:
Gold - 750 points
Silver - 450 points
Bronze - 340
4th place - 270
Quarterfinals - 135
Third round - 70
Second round - 35
First round - 5
The WTA has a different ranking system, but it’s a similar idea. The gold medalist will get 685 points and on down the line. It’d be nice if the ATP and WTA would adopt the same kind of ranking system, but I don’t know how practical that is.
Wow. Nadal just withdrew from the Olympics. He didn’t give a specific reason, but SI notes that he canceled a charity match (against Djokovic, I think) because of problems with a tendon in his left knee. That’s bothered him before. Nadal won the gold in 2008, and it goes without saying this has big implications for the field, and for Federer and Djokovic especially since they had to be the favorites going in.