Fedalovic Wars

[atttomole]

Pete’s record speaks for itself. He couldn’t finish every season during his peak as world number one if he wasn’t a tough sumbitch. He also won 14 slams, which not only was the record, but was dominantly so compared to any players since Borg.

We shouldn’t think that tennis during the Big 3 era was the usual old business but magnified by improbably huge records. Tennis was different before this modern era. Reaching all 4 slam finals was exceptionally out of reach except obviously to Rod Laver, and Agassi - who was very fortunate - and I think Jim Courier. Lendl. Not too many players. I think Edberg too. It was incredibly difficult to achieve even this, when you count up the greats who didn’t get there. Now, Murray has reached all 4 finals and it’s not considered unusual.

The Big 3 have 4 Channel slams between them, something so difficult to achieve we have to go back to Borg. Winning both is so difficult that Lendl skipped his best slam - the FO - a couple of times in the eighties to be ready for Wimbledon.

Great players all have their priorities to achieve that they think will make solid their I reputations. Pete had achieved all this by the time he retired. I’ll say it again, I get the feeling Pete would have loved to play in the Big 3 era, given the so many better opportunities they’ve had…

I also think that Pete would have loved to measure himself against Roger, Rafa and Novak. What do you mean by the many better opportunities that the big 3 had?

 

[Kieran]

I also think that Pete would have loved to measure himself against Roger, Rafa and Novak. What do you mean by the many better opportunities that the big 3 had?

Well, mainly the field is far more compliant than it was when Pete played. I remember makeweights like Rusedski would show up at slams blowing his insignificant trumpet and saying he’s there to win. Well, guess what? He actually was difficult to dissuade. There’s many examples of players stubbornly sticking it to the man, whereas we’ve had 20 years of fields which have been comparatively disgraceful in terms of their hunger and defiance.

Also, the changes in technology and surfaces made it easier for players to stay at the baseline everywhere and succeed. So the extension of this was that you could succeed across all surfaces, and all slams. This created opportunities that were unavailable to previous generations…

 

[Jelenafan]

When Federer retired even the most hardcore Fedfans acknowledged he was “done”, so i don’t get alot of regret vibes. Surgery did not resolve his health issues. There was no “what if” other then replaying prior matches in fans’ heads. Federer left it all on the court.

Borg & Peter not exactly the same.

Borg never intended to retire permanently, rather take a few months off. The politics of the ITF changed matters and Borg then lost interest. So there are regrets there IMO.

Of course Pete had the storybook ending winning the USO over Agassi, but his Wimbledon run that same year ended with that Bastle loss & Pete has said *if* he prepped one last time for Wimbledon he wondered how he would do. Grass was his best surface and playing a limited schedule the next year to focus on Wimbledon was certainly possible and doable.

Having said that, when you’re mentally spent, that’s it. Barty retired young because she had nothing left, with your motivation and drive gone it IS the end.
********

ElDude Im actually surprised you dont see that the issue with the Big3 is that what you lament won’t be resolved until *all* 3 are no longer active in the game.

I accept that while Federer played many of his fans were super uber & rabidly anti-Nadal. Shrug, that’s fandom. In fact for awhile Fedfans dominated this forum which made live-streaming watching Nadal matches almost untenable with their bashing .

When Nadal & Djokovic retire it goes away.

But to say Nadalfans make this forum unbearable, ok your comfort zone and POV. Do what’s best for you and your sanity. I concede most of the hardcore Fed fans stepped away from here, while you continue to talk tennis even with your fave gone

 

[atttomole]

Well, mainly the field is far more compliant than it was when Pete played. I remember makeweights like Rusedski would show up at slams blowing his insignificant trumpet and saying he’s there to win. Well, guess what? He actually was difficult to dissuade. There’s many examples of players stubbornly sticking it to the man, whereas we’ve had 20 years of fields which have been comparatively disgraceful in terms of their hunger and defiance.

Also, the changes in technology and surfaces made it easier for players to stay at the baseline everywhere and succeed. So the extension of this was that you could succeed across all surfaces, and all slams. This created opportunities that were unavailable to previous generations…

I know this has been beaten to death. Are you saying that Pete Sampras was going through tougher draws when he was collecting his slams?

In addition, you have said that Federer played in a very weak era, but at the same time you talk about how tough Nadal’s draws were, even though you know that Nadal and Federer were dominating pretty much in the same period. Make sure you avoid the discrepancies my friend!!

 

[atttomole]

When Federer retired even the most hardcore Fedfans acknowledged he was “done”, so i don’t get alot of regret vibes. Surgery did not resolve his health issues. There was no “what if” other then replaying prior matches in fans’ heads. Federer left it all on the court.

Borg & Peter not exactly the same.

Borg never intended to retire permanently, rather take a few months off. The politics of the ITF changed matters and Borg then lost interest. So there are regrets there IMO.

Of course Pete had the storybook ending winning the USO over Agassi, but his Wimbledon run that same year ended with that Bastle loss & Pete has said *if* he prepped one last time for Wimbledon he wondered how he would do. Grass was his best surface and playing a limited schedule the next year to focus on Wimbledon was certainly possible and doable.

Having said that, when you’re mentally spent, that’s it. Barty retired young because she had nothing left, with your motivation and drive gone it IS the end.
********

ElDude Im actually surprised you dont see that the issue with the Big3 is that what you lament won’t be resolved until *all* 3 are no longer active in the game.

I accept that while Federer played many of his fans were super uber & rabidly anti-Nadal. Shrug, that’s fandom. In fact for awhile Fedfans dominated this forum which made live-streaming watching Nadal matches almost untenable with their bashing .

When Nadal & Djokovic retire it goes away.

But to say Nadalfans make this forum unbearable, ok your comfort zone and POV. Do what’s best for you and your sanity. I concede most of the hardcore Fed fans stepped away from here, while you continue to talk tennis even with your fave gone

You are right. We used to bash Nadal, and Nadal fans were gleefully stoic about it, because Nadal was wiping the floor with Federer.

 

[Jelenafan]

You are right. We used to bash Nadal, and Nadal fans were gleefully stoic about it, because Nadal was wiping the floor with Federer.

I concede fans are *unbalanced*, that’s the definition of “fandom”. ; )

 

[Kieran]

I know this has been beaten to death. Are you saying that Pete Sampras was going through tougher draws when he was collecting his slams?

In addition, you have said that Federer played in a very weak era, but at the same time you talk about how tough Nadal’s draws were, even though you know that Nadal and Federer were dominating pretty much in the same period. Make sure you avoid the discrepancies my friend!!

Which discrepancies? I said only on the page before this one that the Big 3’s records are inflated - including Rafa’s 14. I believe I’m the only Rafa fan on this forum who moaned years ago that he was getting his FO titles too easy, and that his numbers there reflected very badly on the field. I’ve been saying for years that I can’t wait for the post-3 world.

Yes, tennis was more competitive in the 90’s and 80’s. Players faced vastly different styles of play on surfaces that played extremely different to each other..

 

[atttomole]

Which discrepancies? I said only on the page before this one that the Big 3’s records are inflated - including Rafa’s 14. I believe I’m the only Rafa fan on this forum who moaned years ago that he was getting his FO titles too easy, and that his numbers there reflected very badly on the field. I’ve been saying for years that I can’t wait for the post-3 world.

Yes, tennis was more competitive in the 90’s and 80’s. Players faced vastly different styles of play on surfaces that played extremely different to each other..

As a Fed fan, I can tell you that Federer would have been fine in 90’s on different surfaces. When you say different styles in the 90’s, are suggesting that now the styles are the same for clay, hards and grass?

 

[El Dude]

We agree here. But you know what? I’ve been saying for a few years now that I’m ready for the next big stage in tennis. The Big 3 are bloated. Their records are ridiculous, including Rafa’s 14. In another sport there’d be calls for the FBI to look at it. It’s time for something new and I don’t mind that…

I know you're Irish so think that baseball is just bloated rounders (or worse yet, some sort of blasphemous cousin to cricket), but what you say here reminds me of baseball during the 90s-00s: due to various factors, perhaps especially steroids, offensive numbers were bloated, which has skewed baseball records in general. In fact, baseball is a good example--with such a long history of statistical record keeping--of how numbers oscillate over time.

For example, Carl Yastrzemski won the AL batting title in 1968 by hitting .301. That's the lowest league-leading batting average in baseball history. There's one season in the 20s or 30s in which the league average was around .301. Or to take a random high offense year, in 1998 there were 47 players who hit as high or higher as Yaz did in '68. Meaning, the balance between hitting and pitching oscillates over the years, so you can't compare, say, a .300 BA or 30 home runs in the mid-60s with the mid-90s. This is why stat-nerds have come up with stats that account for such contextual differences.

I think the same is true for the Big Three. You can't really say "Borg never won more than two Slams in any year, so isn't in the same league as the Big Three, who have all won three Slams in a year at least once." Some might look at their Slam count and compare it to McEnroe's 7 or Borg's 11 and say, "See? The big three are three times better than Mac was, and twice as good as Borg." That is, of course, absurd.

The Big Three's Slams and big title counts are bloated for a variety of reasons. Some of that is due to their incredible talent. All three, in my view, are as good as any who have ever played - maybe a hair better. But I think you could make an argument that Borg and Mac, at least, and Laver too, were just as dominant at their best (not to mention Gonzales, Tilden, and even the criminally underrated Lendl and, of course, Sampras). And of course even with this, I'm speaking of "dominance" as relative to the field they played in. But the tennis of Laver's era was different than that of Borg and McEnroe, which was different from the Big Three - not just the style of play, but the weight and value of different tournaments, and what statistics meant in any given year. Even year to year there are differences, but the changes become more evident over longer periods of time.

You mention the 90s as being more competitive than the early 00s. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, as I think at least from about the mid-90s to the rise of Fedal, you have one of the lowest talent eras in the ATP era. Even in the early 90s, you not only had a rising Sampras and Agassi, but Courier's brief peak, a still prime Edberg and Becker, and the last vestiges of Lendl. That all collapsed by 1996 few years, with only Sampras and Agassi, and the last gasp of Becker, holding the appellation of "prime all-time great." I suppose the more equalized field of the late 90s made it very competitive - as once Sampras started slipping, any big tournament was up for grabs.

To me what sets the Big Three era apart than others is their incredible longevity. Yes, the peak talent of each was as good as anyone (if not slightly better), but it is the length of their shared reign. I mean, we're talking 2004 to now, when one of the three was the best player on tour. Or look at Slam-winning spans of 6+ Slam winners, in order of chronological birth year:

Rosewall: 1953-72 (20 years)
Emerson: 1961-67 (7 years)
Laver: 1960-69 (10 years)
Newcombe: 1967-75 (9 years)
Connors: 1974-83 (10 years)
Borg: 1974-81 (8 years)
McEnroe: 1979-84 (6 years)
Lendl: 1984-90 (7 years)
Wilander: 1982-88 (7 years)
Edberg: 1985-92 (8 years)
Becker: 1985-96 (12 years)
Agassi: 1992-2003 (12 years)
Sampras: 1990-2002 (13 years)
Roger: 2003-18 (16 years)
Rafa: 2005-22 (18 years)
Novak: 2008-23 (16 years)

It is interesting to note that Becker, Agassi, and Sampras actually had longer Slam-winning spans than any of the guys before them, going back to the incredible Ken Rosewall. But between Borg and Edberg, it really dipped.

The only blip in Big Three hegemony since 2004 was 2016, when Andy edged out Novak - but it could still be argued that Novak was still the best player on tour, but Andy just won the #1 through that crazy run in the second half and Novak choking.

Alcaraz may finally be ending it this year. I think that both Novak and Nadal were still better than him last year, rankings be damned. But this year, Alcaraz might get the edge over Novak. So maybe we can finally say the Big Three hegemony is broken.

 

[El Dude]

ElDude Im actually surprised you dont see that the issue with the Big3 is that what you lament won’t be resolved until *all* 3 are no longer active in the game.

I accept that while Federer played many of his fans were super uber & rabidly anti-Nadal. Shrug, that’s fandom. In fact for awhile Fedfans dominated this forum which made live-streaming watching Nadal matches almost untenable with their bashing .

When Nadal & Djokovic retire it goes away.

But to say Nadalfans make this forum unbearable, ok your comfort zone and POV. Do what’s best for you and your sanity. I concede most of the hardcore Fed fans stepped away from here, while you continue to talk tennis even with your fave gone

No, I get it - and you're probably right that it won't end until they're all retired. But even then, there will still be debates, but maybe that's when Britbox can bring back a "legacy forum."

I don't remember Fedfans "dominating," but it was more balanced for awhile. But I could be misremembering, or maybe it was before I joined the community, which I think was back around 2011 or '12. My sense is that Novak fans have always been less represented, perhaps because, well, he's never been nearly as popular as the other two. But it is still striking how lopsided it has been in recent years - and that's my main complaint. It is very unbalanced and often feels like a Rafa Fan site more than a Tennis Fan site. I don't know what the actual numbers are, but it seems something like 80% of posts are made by Rafa fans, 20% by Novak, Roger, or non-aligned folks. You'd think the Novak people would be a bit more loud, especially given that he's maybe the last man standing.

 

[Kieran]

As a Fed fan, I can tell you that Federer would have been fine in 90’s on different surfaces. When you say different styles in the 90’s, are suggesting that now the styles are the same for clay, hards and grass?

I don’t know if you watched tennis in the 80’s and 90’s but Wimbledon wasn’t played from the baseline then. There were baseline finals between Borg and Connors in the seventies, but that was in a period between the great serve-volley Aussies of the sixties-early seventies, and the rise of McEnroe, Becker, Cash, Edberg and other aggressors in the 80’s. Agassi won in ‘92 from the baseline, and Jim Courier made the final in ‘93, but otherwise Wimbledon was ruled by the abbreviated net game in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

If you can imagine it that every point was brief and players were attacking on anything and coming in. They had less time to choose the shot. At the net, they used their truncated volley stab as opposed to huge looping baseline swings. But on clay, it was an alien tour. Some players played only clay and not grass - vice versa.

Today, the styles are more generic. Players win everything from the back. The baseline game rules and were seldom see serve-volleyers do well at the highest level. Carlos has the ability to change this but even he tends more to the baseline. Roger certainly had the style to do well on grass in the ‘80s and ‘90s but largely Roger stayed back far more than Sampras would. The modern game is set up to benefit the defensive counterattacking baseline game more..

 

[Kieran]

I know you're Irish so think that baseball is just bloated rounders (or worse yet, some sort of blasphemous cousin to cricket),

It’s a girls version of cricket.

but what you say here reminds me of baseball during the 90s-00s: due to various factors, perhaps especially steroids, offensive numbers were bloated, which has skewed baseball records in general. In fact, baseball is a good example--with such a long history of statistical record keeping--of how numbers oscillate over time.

For example, Carl Yastrzemski won the AL batting title in 1968 by hitting .301. That's the lowest league-leading batting average in baseball history. There's one season in the 20s or 30s in which the league average was around .301. Or to take a random high offense year, in 1998 there were 47 players who hit as high or higher as Yaz did in '68. Meaning, the balance between hitting and pitching oscillates over the years, so you can't compare, say, a .300 BA or 30 home runs in the mid-60s with the mid-90s. This is why stat-nerds have come up with stats that account for such contextual differences.

I think the same is true for the Big Three. You can't really say "Borg never won more than two Slams in any year, so isn't in the same league as the Big Three, who have all won three Slams in a year at least once." Some might look at their Slam count and compare it to McEnroe's 7 or Borg's 11 and say, "See? The big three are three times better than Mac was, and twice as good as Borg." That is, of course, absurd.

The Big Three's Slams and big title counts are bloated for a variety of reasons. Some of that is due to their incredible talent. All three, in my view, are as good as any who have ever played - maybe a hair better. But I think you could make an argument that Borg and Mac, at least, and Laver too, were just as dominant at their best (not to mention Gonzales, Tilden, and even the criminally underrated Lendl and, of course, Sampras). And of course even with this, I'm speaking of "dominance" as relative to the field they played in. But the tennis of Laver's era was different than that of Borg and McEnroe, which was different from the Big Three - not just the style of play, but the weight and value of different tournaments, and what statistics meant in any given year. Even year to year there are differences, but the changes become more evident over longer periods of time.

That’s excellent, totally agree. There was a poster called Bombadil on the old tennis.com forum who wrote a legendary post about the amateur days, players like Pancho Gonzales and Lew Hoad, I wish I could read that post again. He sunk the goat debate below the waterline. I don’t think that forum exists in any form now, but I’d love to read that one again. You’d enjoy it. It was kind of like your post.

You mention the 90s as being more competitive than the early 00s. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, as I think at least from about the mid-90s to the rise of Fedal, you have one of the lowest talent eras in the ATP era. Even in the early 90s, you not only had a rising Sampras and Agassi, but Courier's brief peak, a still prime Edberg and Becker, and the last vestiges of Lendl. That all collapsed by 1996 few years, with only Sampras and Agassi, and the last gasp of Becker, holding the appellation of "prime all-time great." I suppose the more equalized field of the late 90s made it very competitive - as once Sampras started slipping, any big tournament was up for grabs.

Well Pete began to decline in 1998, he struggled to get his YE#1 and was so tired after it he skipped the Oz in January 1999. But you still had Rafter, Kafelnikov, Kuerten, Safin starting out, Hewitt too. Agassi escaped a doping ban and rose again. Korda didn’t escape a doping ban and beat Pete in the 1997 USO. It was competitive.

To me what sets the Big Three era apart than others is their incredible longevity. Yes, the peak talent of each was as good as anyone (if not slightly better), but it is the length of their shared reign. I mean, we're talking 2004 to now, when one of the three was the best player on tour. Or look at Slam-winning spans of 6+ Slam winners, in order of chronological birth year:

Rosewall: 1953-72 (20 years)
Emerson: 1961-67 (7 years)
Laver: 1960-69 (10 years)
Newcombe: 1967-75 (9 years)
Connors: 1974-83 (10 years)
Borg: 1974-81 (8 years)
McEnroe: 1979-84 (6 years)
Lendl: 1984-90 (7 years)
Wilander: 1982-88 (7 years)
Edberg: 1985-92 (8 years)
Becker: 1985-96 (12 years)
Agassi: 1992-2003 (12 years)
Sampras: 1990-2002 (13 years)
Roger: 2003-18 (16 years)
Rafa: 2005-22 (18 years)
Novak: 2008-23 16 years)

It is interesting to note that Becker, Agassi, and Sampras actually had longer Slam-winning spans than any of the guys before them, going back to the incredible Ken Rosewall. But between Borg and Edberg, it really dipped.

The only blip in Big Three hegemony since 2004 was 2016, when Andy edged out Novak - but it could still be argued that Novak was still the best player on tour, but Andy just won the #1 through that crazy run in the second half and Novak choking.

Alcaraz may finally be ending it this year. I think that both Novak and Nadal were still better than him last year, rankings be damned. But this year, Alcaraz might get the edge over Novak. So maybe we can finally say the Big Three hegemony is broken.

Interesting stuff. I didn’t know Rosewall won a slam in the pro era, but I’m guessing he won the Australian? By the way, even if Carlos wins the USO, this year a member of the Big 3 will have won 2 slams, and made at least one other final, and last year members of the 3 won 3 slams.

I think next year their era might officially end, but only if nobody wins anything…

 

[El Dude]

It’s a girls version of cricket.

That’s excellent, totally agree. There was a poster called Bombadil on the old tennis.com forum who wrote a legendary post about the amateur days, players like Pancho Gonzales and Lew Hoad, I wish I could read that post again. He sunk the goat debate below the waterline. I don’t think that forum exists in any form now, but I’d love to read that one again. You’d enjoy it. It was kind of like your post.

Well Pete began to decline in 1998, he struggled to get his YE#1 and was so tired after it he skipped the Oz in January 1999. But you still had Rafter, Kafelnikov, Kuerten, Safin starting out, Hewitt too. Agassi escaped a doping ban and rose again. Korda didn’t escape a doping ban and beat Pete in the 1997 USO. It was competitive.

Interesting stuff. I didn’t know Rosewall won a slam in the pro era, but I’m guessing he won the Australian? By the way, even if Carlos wins the USO, this year a member of the Big 3 will have won 2 slams, and made at least one other final, and last year members of the 3 won 3 slams.

I think next year their era might officially end, but only if nobody wins anything…

Rosewall won FOUR in the pro/amateur era: 2 AOs, one FO, one USO -- in 1956, just before going pro. In that USO, he beat Dick Savitt, Vic Seixas, on route to winning over Lew Hoad in the final. Hoad was the 1st seed and trying to win the calendar Slam, but fell short to Rosewall's racket.

From what I can tell, Rosewall was never as dominant as the two titans on either end of his prime--Gonzales and Laver--but he was a consistent #2 behind them, and had a year or two where he was probably the best player on tour.

Anyhow, I've called the 98-03ish era the "Wild West" because it was very balanced, and thus very competitive because the talent was more diffuse. But it still lacked ATG talent in their prime, at least relative to other eras. Becker et al were gone, Sampras was struggling, and Agassi was old and very good, but never a GOAT level ATG. Hewitt's run at #1 was impressive, but enabled by this.

But this brings up a challenge with judging non-great players: tennis has historically and usually been dominated by a small cohort of elite players, with the rest of the field picking up the scraps. Occasionally you have a Vilas or Courier or Murray who isn't far behind and able to carve out a nice resume, but oftentimes there's a huge gap between the elite and everyone else. My point being, in hindsight, it is sometimes hard to differentiate the non-great players because of the situational nature of the tour. The greats find a a way to win, but the non-greats require opportunity even more.

 

[Moxie]

No, I get it - and you're probably right that it won't end until they're all retired. But even then, there will still be debates, but maybe that's when Britbox can bring back a "legacy forum."

Oh, there will still be debates, and I don't see why we won't have them here. The archives are still here. It would be nice if the Fedfans would come back, when all is said and done, to argue the legacies.

I don't remember Fedfans "dominating," but it was more balanced for awhile. But I could be misremembering, or maybe it was before I joined the community, which I think was back around 2011 or '12.

I think you're misremembering, but you did join relatively late, in terms of Fed fans dominating, I guess, but not SO much. For the brief recap, we came from the forums on Tennis.com. When tennis.com closed the forums, we took as many people as we could and created our own site. I think there was one before
Tennis Frontier, whose name I don't even remember, and I was part of forming it. Obviously, from 2004 and earlier, it was all Federer and the Sampras Wars. It was a quite a while before Nadal even had a fan base. Then, still heavily dominated by Fed fans. Even if you joined in 2011-12, I'm surprised you think there wasn't a heavy Federer fan-base around. There is a reason the Fedal Wars thread is so many pages. Also around that time, there was a splinter forum, Discuss Tennis, which was started by Britbox, which, not by design, but because of his friends, was heavily Fed fans. Then we merged the two back together. But because Roger was older, and longer around, and still leading in the Majors race, of course his fans were still around and vocal. Just logic tells you that.

My sense is that Novak fans have always been less represented, perhaps because, well, he's never been nearly as popular as the other two. But it is still striking how lopsided it has been in recent years - and that's my main complaint. It is very unbalanced and often feels like a Rafa Fan site more than a Tennis Fan site. I don't know what the actual numbers are, but it seems something like 80% of posts are made by Rafa fans, 20% by Novak, Roger, or non-aligned folks. You'd think the Novak people would be a bit more loud, especially given that he's maybe the last man standing.

Definitely there were fewer Novak fans, as he came late to an already seated banquet, but there used to be quite a few, and committed ones (including at least one who moderated.) When Novak went on that walkabout in 2016/17, a lot of them dropped out and never came back. That is not the fault of Tennis Frontier. And you know who some of the stalwart Federer fans are who have disappeared. What's left? Nadal fans, and a few committed others, or now new others. And you, if you want to still hold up the standard and the conversation. But the fact that there are a lot of Nadal fans still on speaks to Nadal fans, not TF. I know you know that K doesn't give a rat's ass about Rafa. Maybe we're just like Rafa...we just don't give up. Even when he's not playing, we're still here. You know who runs this site. Participation is open, so I guess it self-selects.

Nehmeth is back, which is good, because he also knows his tennis and is interested in various players, beyond Djokovic. A few others who may or may not be Djokovic fans drop in to defend him on occasion, complaining about his treatment around here. But when asked to stick around to defend it themselves, then just go away again. So I say to you what I say to them: if you want a more even forum, you have to be here, and contribute. You think Novak is getting a raw deal around here? It's up to you to defend him, not those of us who aren't fans. I was here when it took sharp elbows to be a Nadal fan. If you feel underrepresented, sharpen those elbows. (I actually know you do have pretty sharp ones.) But don't complain about underrepresentation. We all are the ones who make this forum what it is. You know that, because you've contributed a lot. But don't shrink back into the bushes, if you want the conversation to be more diversified.

 

[nehmeth]

El Dude, your contributions wherever you post are welcomed, I’m sure. I appreciate your writing and your insight. Some of the things you ‘geek-out’ about, I’ve never even considered. You‘ve made me rethink a number of things over the years.

My leave of absence from TF was during the last year of my father’s life and the purchase of my first dog and my quickly increasing involvement with the breed. I returned because, finally after many rounds of potential “next-gens” that fizzled, I saw an influx of players that I really liked and saw potential - Alcaraz, Sinner, Musetti, Fokina and half a dozen or more others. I enjoy reading and engaging in discussion. I’m discovering players all the time like the mighty mite Baez who just won W.S.

This has been a pretty Nadal centric destination, and the consistent commentary and tone toward Djokovic is understandable, Most of the rhetoric is from the same crew, so it’s easy to avoid. When they discuss other players, engaging in dialogue is fun and there is much in common. The interesting thing is how a number of Rafa fans have made Carlos Alcaraz their guy. There are many Djokovic fans that also see the young man’s talent and personality - and he may be their next player too. It’s just that, for now, Novak remains a viable competitor at the highest echelons of the sport. In another year or two, we may all be on the same side!

 

[El Dude]

Oh, there will still be debates, and I don't see why we won't have them here. The archives are still here. It would be nice if the Fedfans would come back, when all is said and done, to argue the legacies.

I think you're misremembering, but you did join relatively late, in terms of Fed fans dominating, I guess, but not SO much. For the brief recap, we came from the forums on Tennis.com. When tennis.com closed the forums, we took as many people as we could and created our own site. I think there was one before
Tennis Frontier, whose name I don't even remember, and I was part of forming it. Obviously, from 2004 and earlier, it was all Federer and the Sampras Wars. It was a quite a while before Nadal even had a fan base. Then, still heavily dominated by Fed fans. Even if you joined in 2011-12, I'm surprised you think there wasn't a heavy Federer fan-base around. There is a reason the Fedal Wars thread is so many pages. Also around that time, there was a splinter forum, Discuss Tennis, which was started by Britbox, which, not by design, but because of his friends, was heavily Fed fans. Then we merged the two back together. But because Roger was older, and longer around, and still leading in the Majors race, of course his fans were still around and vocal. Just logic tells you that.

Thanks for that - filled in a bit of the gaps. I started reading this "lineage" of forums I think just before the Tennis.com forum closed, then ended up at Discuss Tennis. Not sure why. Wasn't one of the phases something with "digital" in the title? Digital Tennis or some such?

Definitely there were fewer Novak fans, as he came late to an already seated banquet, but there used to be quite a few, and committed ones (including at least one who moderated.) When Novak went on that walkabout in 2016/17, a lot of them dropped out and never came back. That is not the fault of Tennis Frontier. And you know who some of the stalwart Federer fans are who have disappeared. What's left? Nadal fans, and a few committed others, or now new others. And you, if you want to still hold up the standard and the conversation. But the fact that there are a lot of Nadal fans still on speaks to Nadal fans, not TF. I know you know that K doesn't give a rat's ass about Rafa. Maybe we're just like Rafa...we just don't give up. Even when he's not playing, we're still here. You know who runs this site. Participation is open, so I guess it self-selects.

Nehmeth is back, which is good, because he also knows his tennis and is interested in various players, beyond Djokovic. A few others who may or may not be Djokovic fans drop in to defend him on occasion, complaining about his treatment around here. But when asked to stick around to defend it themselves, then just go away again. So I say to you what I say to them: if you want a more even forum, you have to be here, and contribute. You think Novak is getting a raw deal around here? It's up to you to defend him, not those of us who aren't fans. I was here when it took sharp elbows to be a Nadal fan. If you feel underrepresented, sharpen those elbows. (I actually know you do have pretty sharp ones.) But don't complain about underrepresentation. We all are the ones who make this forum what it is. You know that, because you've contributed a lot. But don't shrink back into the bushes, if you want the conversation to be more diversified.

I hear what you are saying and in a way this illustrates where I diverge a bit from this sort of tennis discourse (or debate, really). I think I tend to take issue with it because I like to come from a more "tennis historical" perspective. In the above, you talk about what are essentially warring factions trying to gain supremacy over the others, or at least defend the (perceived) "attacks" of other tribes. I'm just not interested in that. I'm more interested in "meta-analysis" and I become frustrated when it inevitably gets co-oped by the Fedalkovic Wars. In fact, this is very similar to politics and the "culture wars." I'm not saying that this makes me better than anyone else, or that "Fedalkovic warring" is inherently bad, just that it is a game that I usually don't like to play, at least not from the position of partisanship or "defending my guy against all attackers."

And I have defended Novak on multiple occasions. Not necessarily Novak the dude, but Novak the player. But it isn't about "defending Novak," it is about defending (what I see as) truth.

 

[Moxie]

Thanks for that - filled in a bit of the gaps. I started reading this "lineage" of forums I think just before the Tennis.com forum closed, then ended up at Discuss Tennis. Not sure why. Wasn't one of the phases something with "digital" in the title? Digital Tennis or some such?

Yes, I think Digital Tennis or something similar to that name was the first one we put together "freelance" after Tennis.com. That's the name I can't remember, but surely there have been 3 groups from the tennis.com one, with the core folks involved. If you were on Discuss Tennis (which is still the name of our group on the tennis draw challenge, because it couldn't be changed,) then that was a pretty Federer-fan heavy group, at least initially. Pretty diverse, overall.

I hear what you are saying and in a way this illustrates where I diverge a bit from this sort of tennis discourse (or debate, really). I think I tend to take issue with it because I like to come from a more "tennis historical" perspective. In the above, you talk about what are essentially warring factions trying to gain supremacy over the others, or at least defend the (perceived) "attacks" of other tribes. I'm just not interested in that. I'm more interested in "meta-analysis" and I become frustrated when it inevitably gets co-oped by the Fedalkovic Wars. In fact, this is very similar to politics and the "culture wars." I'm not saying that this makes me better than anyone else, or that "Fedalkovic warring" is inherently bad, just that it is a game that I usually don't like to play, at least not from the position of partisanship or "defending my guy against all attackers."

I understand what your main interest is, and respect it and welcome it. I have an interest in many things tennis besides warring. However, not everyone comes looking for the same things. I think our group, in its various iterations, has always prided itself on being a pretty civilized community. When I say you have to sharpen your elbows, I just mean make the space for the conversations that you want to have. Plenty here are interested in your kinds of discussions, and for sure your posts. You just have to make them.

And I have defended Novak on multiple occasions. Not necessarily Novak the dude, but Novak the player. But it isn't about "defending Novak," it is about defending (what I see as) truth.

That's fair, but most of the issues with Novak do come down to opinion questions, and there isn't exactly one "truth."

 

[Moxie]

The interesting thing is how a number of Rafa fans have made Carlos Alcaraz their guy. There are many Djokovic fans that also see the young man’s talent and personality - and he may be their next player too. It’s just that, for now, Novak remains a viable competitor at the highest echelons of the sport. In another year or two, we may all be on the same side!

We used to be on the same side.

As we've both noted, there are a lot of Rafa fans currently on this site. I think that's why it feels like there are a lot of Rafa fans embracing Charly. Realistically, he's winning a lot of fans out there, in general. The kid has the hot-hand, and he has charisma. But we already have a few trending Rune, and Sinner as faves. We'll see how it shakes out, but it will be funny, after the Fedalovic wars are at least in the books, who ends up reshuffled as bedfellows.

 

[atttomole]

I don’t know if you watched tennis in the 80’s and 90’s but Wimbledon wasn’t played from the baseline then. There were baseline finals between Borg and Connors in the seventies, but that was in a period between the great serve-volley Aussies of the sixties-early seventies, and the rise of McEnroe, Becker, Cash, Edberg and other aggressors in the 80’s. Agassi won in ‘92 from the baseline, and Jim Courier made the final in ‘93, but otherwise Wimbledon was ruled by the abbreviated net game in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

If you can imagine it that every point was brief and players were attacking on anything and coming in. They had less time to choose the shot. At the net, they used their truncated volley stab as opposed to huge looping baseline swings. But on clay, it was an alien tour. Some players played only clay and not grass - vice versa.

Today, the styles are more generic. Players win everything from the back. The baseline game rules and were seldom see serve-volleyers do well at the highest level. Carlos has the ability to change this but even he tends more to the baseline. Roger certainly had the style to do well on grass in the ‘80s and ‘90s but largely Roger stayed back far more than Sampras would. The modern game is set up to benefit the defensive counterattacking baseline game more..

Basically we agree. Roger could also play serve and volley. In addition, Roger was willing and able to grind at RG.

 

[El Dude]

Yes, I think Digital Tennis or something similar to that name was the first one we put together "freelance" after Tennis.com. That's the name I can't remember, but surely there have been 3 groups from the tennis.com one, with the core folks involved. If you were on Discuss Tennis (which is still the name of our group on the tennis draw challenge, because it couldn't be changed,) then that was a pretty Federer-fan heavy group, at least initially. Pretty diverse, overall.

I understand what your main interest is, and respect it and welcome it. I have an interest in many things tennis besides warring. However, not everyone comes looking for the same things. I think our group, in its various iterations, has always prided itself on being a pretty civilized community. When I say you have to sharpen your elbows, I just mean make the space for the conversations that you want to have. Plenty here are interested in your kinds of discussions, and for sure your posts. You just have to make them.

That's fair, but most of the issues with Novak do come down to opinion questions, and there isn't exactly one "truth."

By "truth" I mean trying to weigh as many factors with as little bias creeping in, to come to reasonable conclusions. Of course there are always reasonable variations of opinion, but there are also unreasonable ones. And really, it is a spectrum: from nearly irrefutable ("Rod Laver was vastly better than Roy Emerson") to absurdly unreasonable ("David Nalbandian's peak level was higher than anyone else because, you know, two or three matches and sporadic moments of brilliance").