Cheers for Federer

Fully agreed. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving player - both personality-wise and in terms of his on-court technique and style.

A truly great player, sportsman and general ambassador. I think he'll now relax and go on and achieve a couple more.

Fender (Strat)

I'm glad for him, as it has been looking a bit like the Nadal show recently. I do think that they will become the greatest rivals of all time in tennis.

Federer beat Nadal in the Madrid Open 2009 final on clay prior to the French Open.

If Wimbledon is anything like last year it will be amazing to watch.

And it appears to be so that Nadal's knees are troubling him so much that he won't be able to play Wimbledon.
On the telly yesterday Federer was telling this win "freed" him of the pressure of not winning RG. He'll be very relaxed upcomming grass tournaments.So the 15th grand slam won't be far away. Another record in his sleeve.

Congrats to a true champ.

quote:

Originally posted by musfed:
And it appears to be so that Nadal's knees are troubling him so much that he won't be able to play Wimbledon.
On the telly yesterday Federer was telling this win "freed" him of the pressure of not winning RG. He'll be very relaxed upcomming grass tournaments.So the 15th grand slam won't be far away. Another record in his sleeve.

I agree - Federer's win at the French will give him added confidence after struggling in that department for the past year or so and I expect that he will be very hard to stop at Wimbledon.

Frankly, I think that Nadal's career (other than on clay maybe) reached its zenith earlier this year and he will not be quite such a dominating presence in the game from this point onwards. His extremely physical style of play will begin to have an increasing toll on his body and I expect to see an growing number of niggling injuries that will take the edge from his performances in the future.

Above all else Federer is beatiful to watch

Congrats to Fed & all that but wouldn't it have meant even more if he'd beaten Nadal along the way or in the final itself? After all, Nadal got his Wimbledon title the hardest way possible by beating Fed on his favourite surface.

I'm a big fan of Fed's style but love Nadal's fight. Just hope his injuries don't bring an early end to his career.

Well Federer would probably say that it wasn't his fault that Nadal was beaten before getting to the final, and that in any event, he beat the man who beat him (Nadal).

Nadal is certainly mentally strong, but I don't think Federer should be underestimated in that department either. Sometimes athletes who have a high level of technical versatility and/or an attractive playing style (like Federer) are assumed to be not mentally tough but this is not necessarily the case IMV (Muhammad Ali springs to mind here, albeit from a very different sport). With the standard of men's tennis where it is today, it is impossible to have such a sustained winning record in Grand Slams over 5-6 years without extraordinary mental resilience and focus.

quote:

Above all else Federer is beatiful to watch

I rather look at Sorana Cirstea.

quote:

Originally posted by musfed:

quote:

Above all else Federer is beatiful to watch

I rather look at Sorana Cirstea.

She might only be ranked 317th in the world at he moment but Simona Halep is going to be a big star one day.

Some might say two big.



But not me.

quote:

Originally posted by jazzfan:
With the standard of men's tennis where it is today, it is impossible to have such a sustained winning record in Grand Slams over 5-6 years without extraordinary mental resilience and focus.

I agree with your first point about Federer's mental toughness and resolve. Let's not forget that in many of the Grand Slam events Federer had a shot at Nadal, only to lose because of missed break point opportunities, often many.

Personally , I think mens tennis is rather boring. Yes, it's true that there are bigger, stronger athletes and certainly today's rackets have made a big difference. However, it is essentially a bashing game, with little interest or excitement. Net play is almost non-existant as is serve and volley. Anyone can blast a winner from the baseline, even on red clay.

Very few of today's players will make the hall of fame. While the game was different I think the competition was much stiffer years ago. Look at Laver. To me the best ever and he consistently won on all sufaces. Would have won more slams if not banned from 1963-68. But more importantly he played against the top players time and again, many of whom are among the best of all time: Emerson, Rosewall, Newcombe,etc... and had to repeatedly beat these guys.

Same during the Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl era.

In both these eras each would have won more majors had there not been so many really good players at the time.

Not to dampen what Federer has done, he's been in almost every final over the last 5 years-incredible. I do believe, and we'll never know, that if he played at a time when there was better overall competition how he would have fared. I suspect he'd have won alot, but not this much.

I would not disagree that men's tennis is less interesting these days as a result of the dominance of power tennis.

Unlike other sports such as baseball or cricket, the governing body has made no attempt to regulate the equipment used in the sport, especially the rackets and strings. As a result (as you have stated), the use of tactics like serve & volley has diminished to the point of virtual extinction and even volleying as a stroke is much less important in the game. Most players look very much the same stylistically, i.e. power oriented baseliners with heavy topspin in the Ivan Lendl mode (he was the prototype for the modern player in my view). In the 1970s and 1980s, with rivalries like Borg/McEnroe, Edberg/Lendl or even Sampras/Agassi (to a lesser extent, since they were power oriented players) you had a contrast of styles and tactics that made their matches very compelling for someone who was interested in the game from a tactical viewpoint.

However, I'm not sure that I would go along with the view that dominating the game as Federer has recently done is easier now than it was 20-30 years ago.

For a start, on clay, there are now hordes of players who are virtually specialists on that surface and who place very little emphasis on any other type of competition. Spain and the South American countries especially seem to have an embarrassment of these types of players.

In addition, as you have stated, there are a lot more naturally talented athletes in the sport these days (someone like McEnroe with his attitude to physical fitness would never have had the success he did) and winning 7 best of five set matches against such players over a 2 week period on clay or hard courts (which is what is involved in winning the French, Australian or US Opens) is IMO a much more physically demanding proposition than it used to be. The Australian Open was also not played by many of the top pros until the 1990s due to its remote location and its scheduling just after Christmas, which meant that it was not quite as competitive as it is today. For example, I believe that McEnroe didn't play there until halfway in his career and the same is true of many other potential contenders in the 1970s and 1980s.


Finally, it is worth reflecting that until the mid 1970s, three of the four grand slams (Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open) were played on grass, so winning these three basically required the same set of skills. These days, the US Open is on a fast hard court (concrete) and the Australian is played on a slower, higher bouncing surface (not concrete, but a type of rubber, I believe) which requires a different tactical approach to even the US Open, even though the two surfaces may appear similar to the casual observer.

quote:

Originally posted by jazzfan:
However, I'm not sure that I would go along with the view that dominating the game as Federer has recently done is easier now than it was 20-30 years ago.

For a start, on clay, there are now hordes of players who are virtually specialists on that surface and who place very little emphasis on any other type of competition. Spain and the South American countries especially seem to have an embarrassment of these types of players.

Most of the players actually play fewer tournaments now than before and can afford to do so since the money is so much higher. They really gear for the Grand Slam Tournaments. Look at Jimmy Connors has played almost double the number of matches in his career as Federer ( I know he's not done), and was winner/runner up 159 times vs. 81. The biggest stat is prize money $8 Million vs. $48 million

I also feel that the older players played more matches against the top players consistently than now. Nadal and Federer have played 20 times. Connors played Borg 23 times, McEnroe 34 times and Lendl 35 times. Lendl vs. McEnroe 36 matches.

There were Clay court specialists back then-- look at Borg, Vilas, JL Clerc, Harold Solomon and many others who lived for the summer tournaments. That's no different. The only thing different is that before Lendl many of them hit "loopy topspin" as opposed to power topspin. Borg and Lendl were only a few of the guys growing up on clay who could consistently win on hard courts. Big difference having a serve makes. Probably the only thing stopping Connors from being the best ever-- no serve.

Tactically, as you mention, IMO the only tactic appears to be hit the ball as hard as you can. Regardless of surface I've never seen so many balls hit right down the middle of the court. I'm still looking for any startegy from most of these players.

I think that the reason the top players played each other more often in the past is exactly because of the greater depth in the game today, and the fact that there is a greater risk of being upset before getting to the final (as happened to Nadal at this year's French Open or at last year's US Open vs. Andy Murray).

No question however that the amount of money in the sport has reached almost obscene proportions, and this is underlined when you consider that the prize money won in competition pales into insignificance compared to earnings from endorsements and exhibitions.

We'll see.

My guess is that not too many of today's current crop will make the hall of fame.

Does this mean there is more parity since the equipment is now a big equalizing factor having created a situation where everyone can bash the ball at high speeds and everyone essentially plays the same game so it's a matter of who's on that day or where there just more players of previous eras who were actually better than the average guy so they routinely got further into the draw and played the other top players more frequently?

Certainly today's average player is bigger and stronger than they guys from earlier days. The Australians training under Hopman was vicious, but emphasized endurance, quickness and footwork at a time when weight training wasn't in vogue.

Certainly previous eras were more fun and interesting to watch than today's crop with its attackers and counterpuchers.

I know that were not going to see matches with great serve and volley, passing shots. nor the rivalries, friendly or otherwise, as before.

quote:

Originally posted by gary1 (US):
Does this mean there is more parity since the equipment is now a big equalizing factor having created a situation where everyone can bash the ball at high speeds and everyone essentially plays the same game so it's a matter of who's on that day or where there just more players of previous eras who were actually better than the average guy so they routinely got further into the draw and played the other top players more frequently?

IMO both of these are true to an extent. The revolutions in racket, string and shoe technology have made it possible to hit spectacular shots from virtually anywhere on court with minimal attention to technique, and this has been a great leveller in the sport. Partly for this reason, any of the players in the top say, 30, (possibly except for Federer and one or two others) could be beaten by any other member of that group if he is not at his absolute best, and his opponent is having a good day. I don't think that was true to the same extent 20-30 years ago.

I too would love to see a return to the tactical versatility and authentic shot-making of yesteryear, but I fear those days have gone forever.

I'm sorry but this power tennis does nothing for me. I stopped watching when guys with skill like Chang sp? were just blasted away by 7 foot guys who could only serve at 200mph. Bring back proper sized wooden rackets and then see how good some of these guys are.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Bring back proper sized wooden rackets and then see how good some of these guys are.

Fed would be even further ahead if they did that.

quote:

Originally posted by rackkit:
Fed would be even further ahead if they did that.

I would agree with that - he appears to be less dependent on the modern racket/string technology than most (maybe all) of the other top players.

quote:

Originally posted by jazzfan:

quote:

Originally posted by rackkit:
Fed would be even further ahead if they did that.

I would agree with that - he appears to be less dependent on the modern racket/string technology than most (maybe all) of the other top players.

What about the others though?

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
What about the others though?

Of the other current top players, I feel Djokovic would probably be best able to handle a return to wooden rackets, and Murray might not fare too badly either. They don't have as well rounded a game as Federer (particularly when it comes to their volleying ability) but they've got a reasonable degree of versatility on their groundstrokes and serves IMO.

One player who I think would really suffer with a wood racket would be Nadal. He is very dependent on heavy topspin in his game and the Babolat equipment that he uses is optimized for that. He would also find it much more difficult to hit the amazing strokes that he presently does from apparently defensive positions with a standard 85 sq inch frame.

Andy Roddick too would be a totally different player in my opinion - he has very little variety in any part of his game and would be unable to serve as hard as he does without modern equipment. I suspect that he might not even be a top 50 player without the aid of modern equipment. Other players from the current top 10 who I expect would be significantly less effective in such a scenario would be Fernando Gonzalez, Juan Del Potro and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, for similar reasons.

Thanks for that jazzfan, unfortunately the damage has been done and I can't persuade myself to watch any more.

quote:

One player who I think would really suffer with a wood racket would be Nadal. He is very dependent on heavy topspin in his game

The modern powerful racquet ruining the game, is one of those myths circulated by people who don't play and/or understand the game. The wooden racquet gives little power and is ideal for heavy topspin style.