Dear Roger Federer Fans

If only Rog had stopped eatin pizza and hooked up with Doc Fuentes and his box of magic tricks, he could have been a great.

I'm no Fed cheerleader but there are still two stats that Novak wants to catch.
1 - The five Wimbledons in a row that Federer matched with Borg
2 - Federer's 8 Wimbledons

He can get both by winning next year.

How many Grand Slams would Nadal have won had the spineless umpires/referees simply imposed the statutory penalties for slow play.

Zero is my guess.

None of his titles are worth a carrot. He will go down as the G-COAT.

weird take given that he's won slams with the serve clock in place

Was introduced for the USO in 2018.

He's won 5 slams since.

Nadal was without doubt the biggest abuser time pre and post clock, often goes over it but allowances are always made, but it doesn't have any bearing really, the outcomes would all have been the same. Novak also bounces the ball a million times before serving, players take tactical bathroom breaks and MTO's, but in the long run what makes a slam winner is just being better than the rest, it's one sport where luck plays minimal part and where the umpire/ref as the least impact unless you let it.

I'm also no fedtard but it's really not as simple as pointing towards in-running slam counts, looking at who has most and declaring a winner, it's a complex formula with no solution, you can simply make a case for any of those 3, Nadal has won most slams, but Federer had injuries, Novak missed the Aussie open through no fault of his own, but Federer and Nadal missed other slams through injury, Nadal was linked to Fuentes, but Novak was linked to an egg chamber, Nadal's fatted up his record with mostly clay slams, but Novak and Federer have 2 hard slam a year etc.

Novak - most effective on all surfaces
Rafa - most competitive
Fed - most stylish

Something for everyone.

Federer was blessed with not having having injuries before 30 and after that he's had a few and obviously the big one now in his 40's.
What's gone against him (and benefitted the other two) the most is the slowing down of court speed, but then you can also argue that he benefitted from quicker courts earlier in his career.

my understanding about court speed is that the authorities slowed the ball down in the early 2000's because of the lack of rallies during wimbledon in the 90's which was obvious........they did this by putting less air in the balls........they did not do anything to the clay surfcace at the FO, the grass at wibledon or the hard court at the USO open but they also changed the surfface at the australian open from a slow hardcourt to a faster one and they did this offically........i forget the names of the old and new surfaces in australia........i stand corrected on all of this.........during the old surface in australia there was defo a pattern in that jim courier won the french and australian, as did kafelnikov.......and there were lots of clay courters while now winning in australia were defo better there than at the us open.
any adjustment to balls or surfaces would have made no difference to these three great players.......they would all still have won 20 plus slams.

fed was great when nadal was 19/20/21 and novak was 19/20/21/22 but when these boys became men, he was the third best of the three........thats the truth of the matter. nadal and novak have way more masters than him also.
feds best surface is grass and in 6 finals against these two, he only won 2.......ouch........2-1 v nadal and 0-3 v novak. he played rafa 6 times at the french and never won and in 4 matches at the aus open only won 1..novak however as we all know beat rafa twice in paris............i dont want to hear any of this nonsense about he was past his best when he played novak in the 3 wimbledon finals.........novaks victories were in 2014,2015,2019......fed beat r nadal in the 2017 australian open final, something he could not do in 2009........fed was just as good at any time from 2004 to 2018.....its just that in those latter years nadal and novak were not young pups anymore and he was not as good as them though its just by a tiny bit.

the only stat roger has over novak is 8 wimbledons v novaks 7.......well if not for covid, novak would have 8 now........no one is seriously going to tell the world novak would not have won the 2020 wimbldeon which was cancelled because of covid........novak will have 8 wimbledons this time next year.

we all have a bee in our bonnet about something and morons who list the greatest athletes/sports performers of all time as.....michael jordan, usain bolt, pele/maradonna/messi/ronaldo, don bradman, tiger woods/jack nicklaus, babe ruth, wayne gretski and ROGER FEDERER........really annoy me........they are usually some british journo who think there is only one tennis tournament per year.

and ROGER FEDERER........really annoy me...

We can tell

Theres only one thing Fed has now and thats most Wimbledons, even that can be matched next year

Theres nothing for the stat boys to hang onto

Although I will say one thing about Fed is his style at his peak was great, his silky movement around the court was a pleasure to watch

any long time reader of this forum knows that I'm no Federer fan, mostly because he's made excuses for his biggest loses in his career, such as saying he was the better player when Delpo beat him in 09, or the reason he lost Wimbledon 08 was because he was mentally scared from French Open a few weeks earlier and the beatdown he took in that final etc, but as Benjamin Disraeli once pondered, there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics, paraphrasing. Djokovic himself said way back in 2013 that Federer had started to slow down and his sliding ranking was reflecting that, he started to skip French opens in 2016 because he knew his body after the injuries he started to pick up were too much for his him, he was still able to reach finals later on because the quality never goes away and missing clay seasons helped (esp for SW19), but he never reached peak Fededer pre 2013, yet he still managed to gain Championship points at Wimbledon against Novak when he was 38. He's 5 years older than Novak, was better against Novak when Fed was peak age, Novak was better than him when he was at peak age in general, there are so many ways you can swing it.

Simply put, there's not much between them in terms of quality is there, everybody just has their favourite and they stick to it. The only real way you could determine who was the best player is if they were all the same age, never missed a slam between them, injuries, deportations and defaults were not in the equation. It's not comparing these 3 with Sampras where there is a distinct gap because Pete was pretty abject on clay whereas the big 3 were/are great on all 3 surfaces, regardless of which one is best on each.

when at his peak, fed could still not get the better of nadal. he lost umpteen french finals, and the 2008 wimbledon and 2009 aus open final. if nadal had 14 wimbledons and 2 french and fed had 8 french and 2 wimbledons, nadal would be hailed as the greatest. there is a total bias towards wimbledon despite it being played on a surface which is a non entity. there was nothing to stop fed winning 14 wimbledons.....he reached 12 finals and won 8. rafa was never taken beyond 4 sets in 14 french finals. djokovic and feds records at masters clay events indicate they are great clay players. no one in the history of any sport will ever be better than rafa nadal on a tennis clay court.......add 6 hardcourt majors - the equal of agassi and more than lendl - and it illustrate his true greatness. there is nothing to stop fed or djokovic winning 10 indian wells/miami/cincinatti/canada masters events like rafa has won monte carlo and rome...........
its tight between fed and nadal for me, cause fed is better than nadal on two surfaces.
fed v djokovic = no contest. novak is greater.

When Federer was at his peak, he could get the better of Nadal, just not at the French Open, he beat him in the Hamburg final on clay in 07 in straights with a second set bagel and beat in the Madrid final in straights 2 years later as well, also beat him 4 times at the world tour finals between 06-11. Nadal has never won the World tour finals, the biggest tournament outside of the 4 slams and never won any of the 8 indoor Paris masters. Also beat him 2 back to back Wimbledons. It is true however Nadal dominated the clay masters in a way in which the other two didn't quite, but not far off, Novak won 6 Miami's and 6 Indian Wells which is basically a mini slam and the hardest of the masters events. Federer won 7 Cincinnati's.

But as said before, these are all just statistics that are easy to swallow which do not tell the fully story and far from it, we've had injuries, missed slams, long lay offs, cancelled Wimbledon, disqualifications, off court personal problems (Novak) etc etc. Their abilities and quality is incredibly similar even if their playing styles are remarkably different.

"Novak has more slams, more masters, better h2h, better h2h in slams and 4-1 in slam finals"............just want to add to my opening statement that novak has now equalled rogers's record of 6 atp final wins.........novak is statistically better than fed in every tennis stat that matters..........

Novak is undoubtedly the GOAT. Roger was naturally the best player of all time and had the artistry with it, which is why some miscalculate him as the GOAT. Add in Rafa and really it was a blessed era to have witnessed.

Djockovic is the Goat hes good on every surface and has beat nadal at RG , plus nadal has alot of french opens to make up the slams, only thing that could potentially make a case for nadal is how many slams has he lost because hes got injured late on , quite a few id imagine he could potentially be 2 or 3 clear at this stage but again how many french opens. Although if if i had to pick a player to win a set to save my life id pick rafa

rafa would have to win another aus open and wimbledon to challange novak as the goat.........then rafa would be the only player to have won all slams at least 3 times........i expect novak to win the aus open and wimbledon next year. its impossible to predict what rafa will do. at lease carlos has arrived to potentially become a multiple slam winner........the rest are looking like a disaster. never thought i'd say that tsitsipas may well end his career on zero slams and medvedev may only end up with one.

Cant see nadal getting close to another slam bar RG and even at that i dont no about that, hes not winning aus open with novak back anyhow

people have been saying for years that rafa wont win another USO or AUS open and up he pops.........as for wimbledon he has reached the semis the last 3 years he has played.......outside of novak theres not a lot of contenders

by winning the 2023 atp finals, novak beats another roger federer record.

more slams, more masters and now more atp tour finals

He still wants that eighth Wimbledon though or else the King beloved by Home Counties tennis fans will rule forever in their hearts and opinions.