One of the often discussed/argued sports topics of discussion revolve around which player is the greatest to ever play a particular sport. First off, I want to remove one group of participants from the discussion. There are those who state there is no point in discussing the greatest player of all time. You can't ever compare players across eras, and we'll never have a definitive answer on who is best. That's 100% correct, but who cares? Part of the beauty of sports is not the sporting events themselves, but the discussion surrounding them. We'll never know how Babe Ruth would hit against Randy Johnson. We'll never know how Wilt Chamberlain would fare in today's hyper athletic NBA. Part of the fun is speculating, taking relevant facts and tidbits into consideration, and making an assertion that others can support or refute. No, we'll never know the actual truth, but it's fun to discuss it, so that's just what I am going to do.
With Roger Federer's reign of supreme dominance in the mid 2000s, the talk of tennis greatest of all time appeared it was going to be an easier and easier argument to make. Roger was less man and more machine in those days, easily dismissing the players he faced in nearly every match, making many look foolish in the process. "The Maestro", as he was called for his beautiful precision game and graceful movement on court, is largely responsible for the elevation of the sport; his reign of supremacy forced oncoming players to elevate their levels of play, and yet Federer always seemed to have a switch he could flip to take his game to a level no one else possessed. Or no one until a man named Rafael Nadal came around, at least. Rafa was the first of a number of supremely talented and driven young guns ready to burst onto the scene, followed shortly thereafter by Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. These three men have significantly muddied the waters in the greatest of all time discussion, not necessarily staking a claim for themselves yet, quite so early in their careers, but due to their results against Federer. Nadal is the obvious one, as he has by and large owned Federer due to a game that is Roger's kryptonite, a stubbornness by Federer to change his style of play early on in the rivalry when Nadal's game was far less developed and well rounded than it is today, and a preponderance of matches on clay, where it is very difficult to argue against Rafa for being the greatest of all time on that surface.
So let's take a step back from these four men and talk about the argument of the GOAT as a whole. What makes someone the greatest? Is it purely in the numbers? If so, which numbers? Total titles? Major titles? Wins overall? Is it measured by dominance over the field? Weeks at number one in the world? Does one have to excel on all surfaces? Is it better to have a short term level of supreme success or a long term level of great success? These are all questions that people have varying opinions on, which inevitably lead to differences in opinion on who is the greatest of all time. What also muddies the water is crossing of eras, as is the case in all sports. Tennis went from a game that was played with wooden racquets entirely on grass courts to one with graphite racquets, all sorts of new string technology, and a myriad of court surfaces including multiple types of clay, multiple types of hard, grass, and previously even carpet, and surfaces are found both indoors and outdoors. The game is also more globalized than ever, with players coming out of more and more countries than ever before. The game evolved from on where the goal was to try and move forward towards the net more often than not to one where players rarely stray from the baseline due to the evolution of racquet technology. Tennis is perhaps one of the harder sports to compare across eras because of the technology changes, surface changes, and the fact that it is an individual sport with one on one matches and ever fluctuating levels of competition.
So who are the names that regularly find their way into the discussion? Well, there are more than I am going to list, but the main culprits that seem to come up repeatedly are Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal is creeping in on the discussion as well.
Laver has won two calendar year Grand Slams, an unmatched feat. He is considered by many, not all, to be the best player of his time. What makes evaluating this hard is he played both before and after the Open Era and at a time when tennis was mixed between amateur and professional ranks, complicating matters on participation in tournaments. Tournaments had fewer matches and not nearly the same level of competition back then, and in my personal opinion, I don't see how he makes the cut due to these facts.
Bjorn Borg was as relentless as of a competitor as they came. His superior athleticism and grit won him a total of 11 Grand Slam events, all at the French Open and Wimbledon. Borg retired young at the age of 26 due to burnout (more mental than physical, although he lived a fast lifestyle), and he often didn't make the trip down to Australia for the Australian Open (as was common in his time). Borg is statistically the most dominant Grand Slam player in terms of winning percentage, and had he played a longer career and more events, he certainly would have had several more titles to his name. He was a baseline player in a time when there were not really baseline players, and this alone makes him a very compelling argument that he was a revolutionary talent and very well could be the greatest to ever play. How much does he get knocked for not having a lengthy career to continue to amass titles, though?
Pete Sampras, before Roger Federer came along, was the leader in Grand Slam titles, and probably the single most dominant force Wimbledon has ever seen. His weeks spent ranked number one and his overall number of Grand Slam titles cemented him as the greatest in the eyes of many. Sampras really had no rivals that were largely successful against him, either. He's got probably the greatest second serve of all time, and he probably could have continued his success had he abandoned his 85 sq. inch racquet when the rest of the tour went to 90-100 sq. inch racquets (many players never elect to make a big transition in racquets like this due to the difficulty). The argument against him is that he was not a great player on clay, and he never had good success at the French Open. To be lacking in one area of the game when there are other well rounded players at similar levels of greatness diminish his standing a bit. Additionally, with Federer stealing away a number of his records, including Grand Slam titles, and Nadal poised to tie and then overtake the Grand Slam mark himself, his biggest arguing point is gone.
Moving forward to the current era, Roger Federer is now considered by many to be the greatest ever. The reasons listed at the opening of the analysis only partially tell the story. When looking at the list of records and marks Federer holds, it's dumbfounding. If not the greatest of all time, he is certainly the most consistently great of all time. His marks of consecutive finals, semifinals, and quarterfinals in Grand Slam events demonstrate a remarkable run of simply not ever having a bad day. All great players have that bad day where they lose to someone they'd beat 19 times out of 20, but for years in the events that mattered most, Federer didn't. The semifinals mark in particular is one I simply cannot imagine falling. The knock on Federer is twofold: he dominated during a "weak" era of competition, and how can you be the greatest ever when your main rival owned you? First of all, the notion that he dominated a weak era is a bit unfair. The game is more global than ever before and is deeper than ever before, making it more likely to get knocked out in the earlier rounds, something Federer rarely ever did. I also don't think that gives players like Hewitt, Roddick, and Safin, among others, their due. When you look at some of the players Federer toppled en route to a Grand Slam title and compare to some of the people Sampras knocked off, there are many cases where Sampras probably had an easier path. Certainly, the accomplishments of Nadal and Djokovic winning their titles over the past few years are more impressive a task, as there is a glut of top end talent in the years around the turn of the decade.
As for Nadal's dominance of Federer, that one becomes harder and harder for me to dismiss. I initially stood by there not being any shame in the lopsided record against the greatest of all time on clay, and it's not Roger's fault Rafa couldn't advance to hard court finals earlier in his career when Fed would always be waiting for him. That only carries so much merit, though. What really stands out in my mind is that Federer was always perceived as a supreme mental player, and Nadal single handedly ruined that. Not only did Federer lose his edge, but it became a weakness. When you look at the leads he has blown, the break point opportunities missed, the inexplicable errors, and a stubborn determination to not change his game in order to try and prove no one could beat him from the baseline, it really is staggering to think how many more titles he could have. Had he pulled out that epic five setter in Rome, maybe the entire fabric of tennis is different. Maybe his confidence has that extra little boost he needed to not crumble under pressure. But that didn't happen, and when you compare Federer's record against Nadal, a lopsided record, Murray, a slight edge to Murray and one that figures to grow as Federer ages, and Djokovic, a slight edge to Federer with Djokovic in his prime and Federer in the twilight of his career, the head to head numbers really don't suggest Federer being as dominant as his overall numbers. Now, I want to say, this is extremely harsh nitpicking. Anyone who denies Federer's greatness is either bitter or delusional. Still, these results leave just enough doubt to make someone hesitant crowning him the all time greatest.
Finally, and the jury is still largely out on him, is Rafael Nadal. Nadal is no slouch with 13 Grand Slam titles, can claim to be the greatest of all time on clay, and also has multiple Slams on both grass and hard courts. Easily one of the fiercest competitors of all time, the question with him has never been the results, but the health. Having already missed significant time due to injury, the question is how many more titles does he realistically have in him with Djokovic being a top rival now, Murray coming into his own (or at least he was before his back surgery), and some of the next wave of young talent starting to figure things out and making their way towards and into the top 10. Suppose he cannot stay healthy, though, look at where he ends up even today! All the Grand Slams, the myriad of Masters Series titles, well more than Federer. His greatness started at a much younger age, and despite playing second fiddle to Federer for years, his stranglehold over their head to head careers gives him a little bit of a boost in his all time standing. Do his career accolades, when you dig deeper into the list, stack up against Federer's? Maybe not in all categories, but when you look at his winning percentages, his titles, and his all surface game that he never quite gets enough credit for, he's at least within shouting distance. As of right now, I don't think he quite gets the nod to be the greatest of all time. I do think, however, that he still has at least a couple of more Slams in him and some more fight in him yet; the man has never stopped finding ways to improve his game. He used to be a purely relentless defensive baseline player. No serve, no net game, just ridiculous range and a loopy topspin forehand. Now his serve is respectable, he is solid at net, can play a more offensive style game, and he's still as fit and relentless as ever. I think he is the type of player that can reinvent himself to suit his declining physical abilities to add some additional longevity to his career.
So, did I leave the picture hazy enough for everyone? I didn't even mention a lot of others who could be thrown in the mix, either. Now, I did say that part of the fun is going out and making a case for one person. I don't want to back off of that. My feeling is I really have to give it to Federer at this point, with the sense that Nadal will overtake him in the coming years, and that Borg probably would hold the spot had he continued his career. Feel free to make a case for someone else; I am all ears!
No comments:
Post a Comment