Mr. Andy Murray have won just 1 maters after joining with Mr. Lendl ( Two years)

[brokenshoelace]

Tennis was a lot different in the nineties to now. Transference between clay and other surfaces, and from other surfaces to clay, was rarer and more difficult.

Fed came into his best as an all-round player after 2003 but we shouldn't underestimate the smacking he took from Kuerten in 2004. Kuerten was a master on clay and he was past his best, bogey hip and all, but he still manhandled Roger easily in the second round. Sure, Roger improved, and became better on the surface, about the same time clay ceased to be a good hunting ground for clay court specialists.

Except one...

I'm curious. Which clay specialists stopped doing well on clay? Because pretty much all the Spanish clay specialists kept doing well, and the south american guys did well too.

When? There's only one guy wins everything. And guys like Sod have a better record in Paris the last few seasons than any other spaniards or Sth Americans...

Ferrer's been doing pretty well. Del Potro did fine. What's the criteria? To win the title? Well, a clay court specialist has been winning it.

My question to you is this: Which clay court specialists stopped doing well on clay?

 

[Front242]

Potato Starch for one. He's only playing challengers now :/

Seriously though...Ferrero was still playing well on clay till he retired, including a win at Rome over Nadal (yeah blisters, ok, whatever).
Robredo had his best RG in years.
Monaco was doing well until a year or two ago.
Ferrer obviously has most of his titles on clay.

 

[Kieran]

Clay court specialists as a group. They're dead, apart from one noticeable exception. Del Potro is South American - he's not a clay court expert...

 

[Front242]

Clay court specialists as a group. They're dead, apart from one noticeable exception. Del Potro is South American - he's not a clay court expert...

True, his best results have been on hardcourt but you'd hardly call Nadal a clay court specialist anymore either so in that respect we can include Del Potro, Federer, Djokovic, Gasquet, Berdych, Soderling and others as those who have done well on clay. Even Murray made the RG semi. Undoubtedly yeah it's an era where guys are more accomplished on all surfaces rather than just being good at one and again Nadal is the one who stands out the most here by changing that mould. But having said that, many players who are very good on clay still produce their best results there and there only and are rarely a threat elsewhere.

Even Hewitt posted some good wins on clay back in the day.

 

[Kieran]

True, his best results have been on hardcourt but you'd hardly call Nadal a clay court specialist anymore either so in that respect we can include Del Potro, Federer, Gasquet, Berdych, Soderling and others as those who have done well on clay. Even Murray made the RG semi. Undoubtedly yeah it's an era where guys are more accomplished on all surfaces rather than just being good at one and again Nadal is the one who stands out the most here by changing that mould. But having said that, many players who are very good on clay still produce their best results there and there only and are rarely a threat elsewhere.

Even Hewitt posted some good wins on clay back in the day.

That's true, but players can achieve more across all surfaces now than at any time since maybe the old amateur days, or early pro days. Only Borg bucked that trend in the seventies - even reaching the US Open final 3 times on hards - but mainly in the 80's and 90's, the twain rarely met, to the extent that some prominent clay courters skipped Wimbledon to continue on clay, and some grass-courters skipped large parts of the clay season.

Nowadays, a great pile-driver hard court game can hit through the court on clay, neutralising any surface tension and gaining relative success there...

 

[Front242]

Nowadays, a great pile-driver hard court game can hit through the court on clay, neutralising any surface tension and gaining relative success there...

Yup, and I love it. Makes up somewhat for slowing the grass to a crawl

 

[Kieran]

Nowadays, a great pile-driver hard court game can hit through the court on clay, neutralising any surface tension and gaining relative success there...

Yup, and I love it. Makes up somewhat for slowing the grass to a crawl

Well, kind of going back on topic, back in the 80's during one of the interminable clay court struggles between Mr Lendl and Mr Wilander, the match was so longwinded and dull that just before the umpire called for new balls, a wag in the crowd shouted: "New players, please!" :lolz:

 

[Front242]

Nowadays, a great pile-driver hard court game can hit through the court on clay, neutralising any surface tension and gaining relative success there...

Yup, and I love it. Makes up somewhat for slowing the grass to a crawl

Well, kind of going back on topic, back in the 80's during one of the interminable clay court struggles between Mr Lendl and Mr Wilander, the match was so longwinded and dull that just before the umpire called for new balls, a wag in the crowd shouted: "New players, please!" :lolz:

:clap

 

[huntingyou]

Can't read Emma's posts...the more words she uses, the less she says, the more she claims biased and emotional attachment on others, the deeper her lunacy runs.

The old Sampras, clay specialist and overall 90s tennis it's dead horse. Another myth that have been utterly debunked by yours truly. Poor Kieran it's still licking his wounds from those days.

The facts are, Sampras wasn't any good on clay, the 90s "specialists" were merely mediocre player that couldn't play any decent tennis outside their respective surface, Roger Federer is the THIRD greatest claycourter in the Open Era, Roger Federer would have OWN Roland Garros in the 90s and Nadal is the greatest claycourter the world has witnessed.

All the numbers backed what I said above which is sad because you only need a good pair of eyes to SEE what I just said above.

Soon enough, Pete will be in the rear mirror of Nadal's train......he is already the greater player but let's wait for Slam #14 to make it official. Poor Pete might see Novak as well eclipse his career if Murray can't keep up with him.

 

[Kieran]

Oh, why wait for Rafa to pass Pete on the slam count? On clay, you have Roger ahead of many players who have more French Opens than him.

Let's both agree on Rafa: he's the best we've seen. N'est pas?

 

[Garro]

My post was very simple. Federer fans always play the 'Nadal' card when it comes to RG and always maintain that it's because of Nadal Federer couldn't win more than 1 RG. I am showing time and place where Federer had the scope to win if not 2 but 1 where Nadal wasn't a threat. Far from it. And the reason why I picked 2003 and 2004 was because, those are Federer's peak years. In 2004, he was already the No. 1 player. So given that he won all the other Slams by then, he had no reason not to win RG as well. If he didn't then it essentially implies he too wasn't good enough to win RG. Neither was he a natural on clay if he needed to 'improve' or 'come into his term on clay'. Keep in mind, he turned pro in 1998 and he had 4 or 5 solid years behind him to 'improve' but in reality, it took him 11 years to win 1 RG.

So while some love to think Federer is this and that on clay, in reality, he had to improve and wait 11 years for his chance to win RG and perhaps it would have never come if Soderling were to not take out Nadal in the first place.

The answer again, is that Federer wasn't as good on clay in 2000-4 as he would be from 2005 onwards. By 2003 RG was not peak Fed, hadn't won a slam yet actually. 2004 Fed was but again, it wouldn't be til the next year that he would really start to improve on clay. Given that once Fed did reach his peak on clay, he went five years only losing to Nadal at RG, it's more accurate to say that his problem was more with a particular player than with clay as a whole.

And I never got the answer as to why this 'good' player on clay was never able to beat Nadal at least one time at RG given the amount of chances he had against Nadal. If Soderling can do it, then why not him? Heck, Soderling beat both Nadal and Federer back to back in 2009 and 2010 at RG.

Also, if Nadal was able to turn the table on grass against Federer after coming very close in 2007 and finally winning it in 2008 at Wimbledon, then why Federer wasn't able to do the same against Nadal at RG? What we see instead is a total turn of events. Federer gets manhandled by Nadal in the RG final in straight sets in 2008. So perhaps Nadal is the better player on grass than Federer will ever be on clay against Nadal. In terms of all that, I personally find Federer quite average on clay. And as I've mentioned before, only 10% of his total titles are clay and he won the same tournaments few times where the fields were very weak to begin with.

Leaving aside any talk of injuries, Rafa is not as strong in the first week of slams as in the second week. This is why he often struggles in the early rounds at RG (Isner, Brands, Mathieu). When he played Sod in the final of RG the year after, Rafa won easily in straight sets.
As for the Wimbledon comparison, this is pretty simple. Federer is not as good on grass as Nadal is on clay. Also since Rafa has the match up advantage in their H2H and is 5 years younger, Fed's window for beating Rafa at RG was much smaller. I can't see any justification from this for saying that Fed is "average on clay", the simple fact is that the only reason he hasn't won as much is because he's had to face the GOAT on clay in most of his clay finals.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Clay court specialists as a group. They're dead, apart from one noticeable exception. Del Potro is South American - he's not a clay court expert...

That's because most top players excel on all surfaces now. "Clay court specialists" didn't stop doing well on clay you suggested, they just played well on other surfaces too. And specialists on other surfaces did well on clay. We've had this conversation before and I don't follow the logic. Soderling made the FO final two years in a row, yet somehow he's looked at as an outsider because he's not a clay court specialist. Maybe he's better on clay than the so called clay court specialists.

I don't care if Novak Djokovic is a clay court specialist. I care about how well he can play on clay. I'd reckon he's not far away on the dirt from Sergei Bruguera, for instance...

 

[Kieran]

I know we had this conversation before, but I'm not sure we're actually discussing the same thing. I'm talking about the homogenisation of styles, and the death of some particular skills, the change of the sport so that nowadays some players who have a generic style can succeed anywhere - not because they're so versatile, but because the game - surfaces, speeds, styles - isn't versatile.

This is the modern culture. This is how the game is taught, and for good reason. This is how to succeed. But this isn't how the game was always taught - and it isn't how players would have always succeeded. So when people say, oh Pete did it this but not that, but Roger or Rafa - or Nole or Murray - can do it across the board, I'm not sure they're getting how different the game was and how players were taught and sometimes, how they had to choose. The game was more specialist. Now it's more centralised, for want of a better term. This doesn't make it worse, but it doesn't make it better. An effect, however, is that if a guy is great in one place, he can more or less be great anywhere. And the effect of this is that less opportunity filters down, leaving the game top heavy.

Plus, it loses some of it's exoticness, if that's a word. A benefit is that rivalries at the top get played out more often.

Anyway, Novak might be better than Bruguera today, but that's because he plays today. I would doubt he'd be better than him in the nineties, which is when Sergei played and actually won the FO, twice...

 

[britbox]

Can you be a bit more specific with the question as I'm not sure what it is?

I was very clear in my post but I'll come to that later.

I didn't think the question was clear, which was why I asked what it was. You did say, "Let's concentrate on Federer"... which is fairly vague, so if it is a specific question you'd like answering, table it...

Was Federer good on clay (if that's it) - Yes. Five Roland Garros finals, one being the title and 10 other Clay court titles would say so - particularly in the era of the greatest clay court player in history (Nadal). Those are facts not generalisations.

As for why didn't Federer wasn't winning at Roland Garros before 2005, he was still evolving as a player. As has already been pointed out, he won a couple of Wimbledon's before winning the US Open also.

What do you mean by Sampras had a few good wins over 'decent clay court players'?

Exactly what I said and you later highlighted a few of them - thanks. In the great scheme of things he was an average player on clay. Sure, he had some good wins over decent players but you seem to be forgetting the losses also (to less than stellar opposition) and the lack of silverware.

I'll gladly take Sampras 1996 run to semi-final at RG over Federer's run in 2009 on any given day because even when he didn't win it, it has more value and meaning to it.

Good luck with that. Winning a major has far more meaning than any semi final run. Your name is on the trophy, you're in the history books and rightly or wrongly, the losers become a footnote in history. The losing semi-finalists aren't even on the map.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Anyway, Novak might be better than Bruguera today, but that's because he plays today. I would doubt he'd be better than him in the nineties, which is when Sergei played and actually won the FO, twice...

I wouldn't doubt that one bit, to be honest. There's no reason why Djokovic's game wouldn't translate well to clay in 90's...unless Jim Courrier is really that superior of a player.

 

[britbox]

Who are all these great clay court specialists that everyone speaks of?

Courier? He wasn't a clay court specialist. He was a guy from the Bollettieri set who's game was honed within a hard court environment.

Lendl, Wilander, Chang? None of them were clay court "specialists". All were good all round all-surface players.

Kafelnikov wasn't just a dirtballer either.

If you look at the last 30 years, we've got about 4 players you could argue to be a "specialist" winning Roland Garros - Bruguera, Muster, Costa and Gaudio. Calling Guga a clay court specialist is demeaning even though it was his best surface.

The greatest all-round players will generally (more often than not) win more than any surface specialist. They always have done. It's nothing new to the current era. Nadal started beating "Specialists" like Coria and Gaudio about 8 years ago and they haven't had a sniff since.

 

[Moxie]

Can you be a bit more specific with the question as I'm not sure what it is?

I was very clear in my post but I'll come to that later.

I didn't think the question was clear, which was why I asked what it was. You did say, "Let's concentrate on Federer"... which is fairly vague, so if it is a specific question you'd like answering, table it...

Was Federer good on clay (if that's it) - Yes. Five Roland Garros finals, one being the title and 10 other Clay court titles would say so - particularly in the era of the greatest clay court player in history (Nadal). Those are facts not generalisations.

As for why didn't Federer wasn't winning at Roland Garros before 2005, he was still evolving as a player. As has already been pointed out, he won a couple of Wimbledon's before winning the US Open also.

What do you mean by Sampras had a few good wins over 'decent clay court players'?

Exactly what I said and you later highlighted a few of them - thanks. In the great scheme of things he was an average player on clay. Sure, he had some good wins over decent players but you seem to be forgetting the losses also (to less than stellar opposition) and the lack of silverware.

I'll gladly take Sampras 1996 run to semi-final at RG over Federer's run in 2009 on any given day because even when he didn't win it, it has more value and meaning to it.

Good luck with that. Winning a major has far more meaning than any semi final run. Your name is on the trophy, you're in the history books and rightly or wrongly, the losers become a footnote in history. The losing semi-finalists aren't even on the map.

Good post, BB. When people start trying to convince us that a SF run is better than a win, it does feel they're reaching too far for a point. Anyway, I'm not sure why Emma is trying so hard demean Roger's clay chops. Going back to 2003-04 is asking too much of Federer's still-developing clay game.

Of course it was Nadal that prevented him from getting RG more than once in his peak years, as well as other clay titles. However, it should be remembered that, until 2011, Federer was the only player to have beaten Nadal in a final on clay, and he did it twice. He's also the only player besides Nadal to have won the French since 2004. He was the 2nd best player on clay courts from 2005-2010, and IMO shared the distinction with Djokovic in 2011.

The 2009 draw that Roger got through was no walk in the park. (You can see it here.) He beat Del Potro in 5, too, and 2009 was probably Del Potro's best year to date.

 

[tented]

The 2009 draw that Roger got through was no walk in the park. (You can see it here.) He beat Del Potro in 5, too, and 2009 was probably Del Potro's best year to date.

The Federer/JMDP semi was an amazing match, which has been largely forgotten due to the two historic events of that tournament.

(I looked for a YouTube video, but couldn't find one. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find tennis matches there. The ITF/ATP have cracked down, and are having them removed. It's a shame.)

 

[Iona16]

I think Andy will face huge pressure to retain Wimbledon. He didn't cover himself with glory at Flushing Meadows when trying to retain his title there, and I wouldn't be so confident that he can do as well on grass next season...

I doubt he will face the sort of pressure that he has faced in the past. I don't believe him failing to defend his title at the US Open had anything to do with pressure. He clearly wasn't fit enough to play the tournament. It's no surprise that he had surgery soon after. I doubt you thought he'd be Wimbledon champion this year. I'll be hoping Andy can prove the doubters wrong AGAIN next year.

 

[tented]

I think Andy will face huge pressure to retain Wimbledon. He didn't cover himself with glory at Flushing Meadows when trying to retain his title there, and I wouldn't be so confident that he can do as well on grass next season...

I doubt he will face the sort of pressure that he has faced in the past. I don't believe him failing to defend his title at the US Open had anything to do with pressure. He clearly wasn't fit enough to play the tournament. It's no surprise that he had surgery soon after. I doubt you gave him much of a chance last year at Wimbledon. I'll be hoping Andy can prove the doubters wrong AGAIN.

It may not be as much pressure as he's had in the past, now that he has won it, but there will still be a lot. It will be an interesting challenge for him, but between the Olympic Gold and last year's championship he has demonstrated he can win there, while beating big names along the way.

But first, there's Queen's Club, which will also be interesting. I'm anxious to see how he does there first. If he stumbles early, it could be a bad omen; if he defends, it will be a positive sign that he's already confident and playing well. The other question is whether or not he will go to RG next year, instead of skipping it, like he did this year, which gave him additional rest.