Fedalovic Wars

[mrzz]

On the faster grass though, the rally wouldn’t often go longer than 2 shots when Pete served. He had impeccable ability to lay up the volley from the serve. He was remarkably economic with the volley, when it came to placement. He tended to be quite patient when it came to getting a break of serve, conserving energy and knowing when to spit.

But you know, he also wasn’t as bad in a rally as people think. Pete was a stubborn brute when he got hold of a match. His backhand isn’t celebrated as much as it should be. His forehand was a consistent stick of dynamite. His leaping smash taught salmon how to leap…

All true, but with faster grass Federer's forehand would be simply unstoppable

 

[Kieran]

All true, but with faster grass Federer's forehand would be simply unstoppable

He’d have less time to make that shot, but it would certainly make a great match…

 

[mrzz]

He’d have less time to make that shot, but it would certainly make a great match…

Yes, he would. Actually, thinking about it, we can rationalize all we want, but the safe bet is that those matches would play out quite different than what we expect. There are simply too many unknowns.

 

[El Dude]

I think peak Federer (04-07) was better than Pete overall, but peak Sampras (93-97) was better than post-peak Federer (08-19). The main difference was Roger's movement and return game early on. Pete has the edge on serve, but Roger isn't far behind. But his early return game would frustrate Pete - as we saw in 01, as @attomole said. Sure, it was a declined Pete vs. a green Roger, but I think the basic principle would have held in their peak versions.

At most for Pete, they would have been even on grass, but Roger would have had the edge everywhere else. IMO.

 

[Kieran]

I think peak Federer (04-07) was better than Pete overall, but peak Sampras (93-97) was better than post-peak Federer (08-19). The main difference was Roger's movement and return game early on. Pete has the edge on serve, but Roger isn't far behind. But his early return game would frustrate Pete - as we saw in 01, as @attomole said. Sure, it was a declined Pete vs. a green Roger, but I think the basic principle would have held in their peak versions.

At most for Pete, they would have been even on grass, but Roger would have had the edge everywhere else. IMO.

I’m not even going there, other than to say if Roger and Novak existed in the nineties, their name would be “Agassi”, especially on grass. I’ll give them the dirt and the fourth slam..

 

[mrzz]

I think peak Federer (04-07) was better than Pete overall,

Peak Federer was better than absolutely everyone

 

[Kieran]

Peak Federer was better than absolutely everyone

Peak Federer wasn’t even beating Rafa in those years. Imagine if Rafa was better on hard and grass instead of clay. Let me introduce you to Pete Sampras…

 

[mrzz]

Peak Federer wasn’t even beating Rafa in those years. Imagine if Rafa was better on hard and grass instead of clay. Let me introduce you to Pete Sampras…

He was beating everyone, and was miles above Nadal outside clay in those years. Miles above, and the results tell that. Nadal got lucky to have two random hard court wins against him (the first completely irrelevant), for whatever reason, and people will talk about that forever.

 

[Kieran]

He was beating everyone, and was miles above Nadal outside clay in those years. Miles above, and the results tell that. Nadal got lucky to have two random hard court wins against him (the first completely irrelevant), for whatever reason, and people will talk about that forever.

Everyone wasn’t too impressive by my book, but what I’m saying is, imagine if Rafa was so great on hard and grass instead of on clay, Roger wouldn’t have such massive figures.

I’ve said it elsewhere here, the fields since the early millennium have been the most compliant I’ve ever seen. That includes against Rafa…

 

[PhiEaglesfan712]

I think the one surface Pete would have the advantage against Federer is carpet. As good as Pete was on grass, he was just as good (maybe even better) on carpet. The surface went away as Pete's career went on, so we never really saw Federer on carpet.

 

[Moxie]

He was beating everyone, and was miles above Nadal outside clay in those years. Miles above, and the results tell that. Nadal got lucky to have two random hard court wins against him (the first completely irrelevant), for whatever reason, and people will talk about that forever.

Nadal has 5 HC wins over Roger, including the final of the Australian Open, 2 at MS1000s, one at YEC, and one Dubai final, so I'm not sure how those are "random," and I'm not sure why you think you get to say that the first was completely "irrelevant." Fed fans like to pretend that nothing after 2006 or so really counts. That's just BS.

 

[mrzz]

Nadal has 5 HC wins over Roger, including the final of the Australian Open, 2 at MS1000s, one at YEC, and one Dubai final, so I'm not sure how those are "random," and I'm not sure why you think you get to say that the first was completely "irrelevant." Fed fans like to pretend that nothing after 2006 or so really counts. That's just BS.

It is not BS. To begin with, we were talking about 2004-2006. That is time period I specifically mentioned in my original post. You wanna change the the time span, fine. Look at the whole head to head in HC and grass then.

 

[Moxie]

Nadal has 5 HC wins over Roger, including the final of the Australian Open, 2 at MS1000s, one at YEC, and one Dubai final, so I'm not sure how those are "random," and I'm not sure why you think you get to say that the first was completely "irrelevant." Fed fans like to pretend that nothing after 2006 or so really counts. That's just BS.

Alright, 2004-2006 they played 9 times, of which Roger won 3 matches. I still don't see how you get to discount the wins by Rafa on hards. That's sliding the scale in your favor, for no reason I can think of.

 

[mrzz]

Everyone wasn’t too impressive by my book, but what I’m saying is, imagine if Rafa was so great on hard and grass instead of on clay, Roger wouldn’t have such massive figures.

I’ve said it elsewhere here, the fields since the early millennium have been the most compliant I’ve ever seen. That includes against Rafa…

I see your point, but... What you are asking me to imagine is to simply rebuild Nadal as a completely different player. You said it yourself, "instead of clay". Nadal was built for clay, and I don't mean it as a detriment, but as a compliment. Clay is my favorite surface. Being slower than the rest, it gives you time to think even during a point. The irregular nature of it give you strange bounces, all kinds of stuff that might disrupt your rhythm. Nadal's psyche is perfect to deal with all that. It is his most defining characteristic, more than his physicality, his forehand, his manias, you name it. Saying that is not the equivalent of "if my grandma had a moustache she would be my grandpa". It is much more radical than that.

 

[El Dude]

Roger's 2004-07 record is pretty astonishing:

Overall W-L: 315-24 (92.9%)
Hards: 199-13 (93.9%)
Grass: 42-0 (100%)
Clay: 63-10 (86.3%)
Carpet: 11-1 (91.7%)

His 24 losses were to:
8 Nadal
3 Nalbandian
2 Canas
1 Djokovic, Gonzales, Volandri, Murray, Gasquet, Safin, Berdych, Hrbaty, Kuerten, Costa, Henman

9 of the 24 losses came in 2007, so he lost only 15 matches in 2004-06, with a 94.3%. 2007 was also when he lost to some of the worst players on that list: Gonzalez, Volandri, twice to Canas. But in 2004-06, he lost only five matches to players who were never #1.

The weird thing about Roger's 2006 season wasn't the 4 losses to Rafa, but the loss to Andy Murray. Rafa was understandable: he was easily the 2nd best player on tour, and had Roger's number - especially on clay, and three of their matches were in clay finals. But Andy was 19 and unseeded at Cincinnati, ranked #31 at the time, and beat Roger in two sets. I guess that's the fun of best-of-threes, and Roger must have had an off day and/or struggled with Andy's defense. Probably overly cocky, too.

 

[mrzz]

Alright, 2004-2006 they played 9 times, of which Roger won 3 matches. I still don't see how you get to discount the wins by Rafa on hards. That's sliding the scale in your favor, for no reason I can think of.

On hards? They played 9 times, probably 11 on clay. My original point was very clear, in 2004-2006 Federer was miles above all the rest on any surface, only exception was Nadal on clay. He won 3364848 majors on hc and grass on that period, how many Nadal had won on the same period? I cannot believe I am even having this conversation....

 

[El Dude]

Here's an interesting stat, Fedalkovic related. One of the marked differences between Roger on one hand, and Rafa and Novak on the other, is how long it took Roger to become an elite player. Consider:

Event number of first title:
Roger 48th
Rafa 25th
Novak 24th

Event number of first big title:
Roger 76th
Rafa 39th
Novak 38th

Event number of first Slam title:
Roger 105th
Rafa 42nd
Novak 54th

This somewhat skews overall W-L comparisons, which are like so:

Career W-L (%)
Roger 1251-275 (82.0%)
Rafa 1080-228 (82.6%)
Novak 1124-222 (83.5%)

Now here's the stat. Let's say that a player's first "big event" is when they come something close to prime level - not necessarily peak level, but an elite level. By "big event" I'm including all big titles plus Slam finals. I figure that for a player to win a Masters or reach a Slam final, they're within a broad range of what we could call "prime" years.

Here's how they performed during those periods of time:

Roger (May 2002 - July 2019): 1098-186 (85.5%)
Rafa (April 2005 - May 2022): 989-177 (84.8%)
Novak (March 2007 - July 2024): 1045-183 (85.1%)

Meaning, Roger actually had a slightly better W-L record than both Rafa and Novak during their "prime" period between big events.

Note that I am not suggesting that this means that Roger was better than Rafa and Novak, but it does illustrate just how close they were...I mean, we're talking about a neglible 0.7% difference in their prime W%s
.
It is also interesting to note that, at least so far, their time periods are almost exactly the same: Roger and Rafa both were in prime years for a bit over 17 years; for Novak, it is also 17+ years, but he's not done yet.

 

[Moxie]

On hards? They played 9 times, probably 11 on clay. My original point was very clear, in 2004-2006 Federer was miles above all the rest on any surface, only exception was Nadal on clay. He won 3364848 majors on hc and grass on that period, how many Nadal had won on the same period? I cannot believe I am even having this conversation....

Now you're not respecting your own time frame. I went with 2004-06, as you asked. And, like it or not, Federer lost 2 HC matches to Nadal in that period, and they count. They also matter, precisely because Roger was so good and so hard to beat at that time. In 2006, Roger only lost 5 matches. Four of them were to Nadal (the other to Murray, in Cincy, btw.) Yes, 4 on clay, but one on HCs. That matters. And I'd like to know how you call that one "luck."

You ask how many HC/grass Majors Nadal won in that same period. I'll remind you that he was 17 at the beginning of 2004, and 20.5 at the end of 2006. At least he had won two Majors by that age. Roger was nearly 22 when he won his first.

The above is why you're "having this conversation," and don't just duck it with outrage. You've pretended that 2 wins on HC by Nadal don't count. They do.

 

[mrzz]

Now you're not respecting your own time frame. I went with 2004-06, as you asked. And, like it or not, Federer lost 2 HC matches to Nadal in that period, and they count. They also matter, precisely because Roger was so good and so hard to beat at that time. In 2006, Roger only lost 5 matches. Four of them were to Nadal (the other to Murray, in Cincy, btw.) Yes, 4 on clay, but one on HCs. That matters. And I'd like to know how you call that one "luck."

You ask how many HC/grass Majors Nadal won in that same period. I'll remind you that he was 17 at the beginning of 2004, and 20.5 at the end of 2006. At least he had won two Majors by that age. Roger was nearly 22 when he won his first.

The above is why you're "having this conversation," and don't just duck it with outrage. You've pretended that 2 wins on HC by Nadal don't count. They do.

You really didn't get it. Point is, on that period, Federer was unstoppable. As you put it, in 2006 he only lost one match outside clay. He had no match on hc and grass, period. If he had faced Nadal on hards or grass more on that period, he would have won the great majority of those matches. There is a reason those matches never materialized, and that has nothing to do with Federer.

Those matches "count" as they show Nadal was already a good hc player. Do they show that Nadal was the better hc player? No, they don't. That is the point from the beginning.

 

[Fiero425]

Now you're not respecting your own time frame. I went with 2004-06, as you asked. And, like it or not, Federer lost 2 HC matches to Nadal in that period, and they count. They also matter, precisely because Roger was so good and so hard to beat at that time. In 2006, Roger only lost 5 matches. Four of them were to Nadal (the other to Murray, in Cincy, btw.) Yes, 4 on clay, but one on HCs. That matters. And I'd like to know how you call that one "luck."

You ask how many HC/grass Majors Nadal won in that same period. I'll remind you that he was 17 at the beginning of 2004, and 20.5 at the end of 2006. At least he had won two Majors by that age. Roger was nearly 22 when he won his first.

The above is why you're "having this conversation," and don't just duck it with outrage. You've pretended that 2 wins on HC by Nadal don't count. They do.

As I've been saying, the Fedal rivalry's been a little overblown as Nadal owned Roger from very early on; even off the clay! Surprisingly Murray had early success against Roger as well! Djokovic took him in a couple early spots, but dominated him after 2012! He defeated "The Faux Goat" several times saving MP's in Majors! I'm still shaking my head over Novak being 3-0 in Wimbledon finals over Roger who's supposed to be the grass KING! IMO, the title should reside w/ Sampras even though one short Roger & tied w/ Djokovic!