Murray v. Wawrinka - As it stands

Federberg

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Stan has defeated the #1 in each of his 3 major wins, and also the #2 players in the world in his first two major wins.

2014 AO Stan d. #2Novak , Stan d. #1 Nadal
2015 RG Stan d. #2Federer, Stan d. #1 Djokovic
2016 USO Stan d. #6 Nishikori, Stan d. #1 Djokovic

That is most impressive. I don't know if it has ever been done before.
Too bad Nishikori ruined Stan's chance at a 3-peat of wins over the top 2.

For comparison's sake, Murray d. #2 Djokovic at USO2012, #1 Djokovic at W2013 , #6 Raonic at W2016. and had no wins against anyone else higher ranked than #6 during those runs (2012 #6 Berdych, 2013 #20 Youzhny, 2016 #10 Berdych).
Nowhere near as impressive as Stan, but Andy could only play the hand dealt to him.

Stan is undefeated in his last 11 finals since the start of 2014 including 3 major finals against the world's top ranked players.
Everything before Magnus Norman is mostly irrelevant.
It was merely a warm up for what was to come once the Norman key unlocked the Stanimal game.
In my estimation, Stan went up at least 3 levels with Norman.

Murray was certainly relevant before hiring Lendl with all of his non-major titles and good performances in majors, but he didn't win a major without Lendl.
In my estimation Lendl raised Murray about one level.

Coach Norman > Coach Lendl ;)

Respectfully,
masterclass

It would actually be interesting to compare the titles won since Stan's ascension with Murray's titles. Has Murray won more than 11 titles since the beginning of 2014? Probably. Obviously taking their careers as a whole Andy is way ahead, but has Stan become his equal since 2014? In terms of slams he's ahead right? Murray won the US Open in 2012 and Wimbledon in 2013, so Stan is up 3 to 1 in the slam count from the beginning of 2014. Of course that doesn't mean that Stan is the better player, but you could argue that since the beginning of 2014 he's been the second best player
 

DarthFed

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^ By the true measure of greatness Stan has been the 2nd best player in the world in the 2014-2016 period regardless of whether the rankings show it. Sure he might stink week to week but far and away he has the 2nd best results in slams. It is Djokovic with 6 slams, Stan with 3, Murray, Nadal, and Cilic with 1.

Career wise he is worse than Murray though and he is the shining example of how rankings sometimes can be meaningless.
 
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Moxie

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Saying Rafa has done better at Cincy (other from the one time he won I don't think he ever went deep there) and the US Open is definitely a stretch. There top level on those surfaces, though I would still give Novak an edge, is certainly similar but regarding the average level Novak is clearly better. And I think Novak has beaten Rafa at any event of Masters 1000 level and higher apart from Shanghai where they haven't met yet while there are some tournaments where Rafa always lost to Novak.

The reason Novak is not that great at Cincy and the US Open is that a fast, rather high bouncing surface hurts his defensive game so there are more players who can hit through him without playing out of their mind and doesn't help him enough on the offensive side to compensate for that. Also conditions regularly being hot, humid or windy isn't in his favour. Paris Bercy and London on the contrary are medium speed with a rather low bounce which basically is the perfect combination for Novak and the true bounce of indoor HCs usually helps him in doing even more damage on the return than outdoors. His dominance on the indoor and slow to medium paced outdoor HCs since 2011 is actually not even that far away from Rafa's on clay during his prime.

Their H2H reflecting somewhat unfairly on Rafa because of his faster decline is also something I would object to. As they are of a similar age it's not Novak's fault that Rafa's level significantly went down since 2014 the same way it's not Rafa's fault that Novak took until 2011 to really come into his own. Also the H2H is still rather clay heavy. They played 22 matches on clay and 24 matches on hard despite having at best 4 chances to play each other on clay per season but usually around 10 on hard. That shows Novak was much more often there to meet Rafa in his favourite tournaments than the other way around, so that's something that enabled Rafa to stay in the lead until this year in the first place.

Further I don't think it's debatable that Rafa was the better player until 2011 but since then apart from the clay court season in 2012 and the spring and summer in 2013 Novak always has been comfortably ahead. Another matter is that until after Roland Garros this year Rafa definitely was the greater player but now there are reasonable cases for both as it depends on if you rate 2 additional majors and an Olympic Gold higher than 5 titles at the WTF, a few more masters, more weeks at No. 1 and year end No. 1s, more deep runs at the Slams and the achievement of winning 4 slams in a row.
You make a very good argument. It's nice to have you here, BH_DTL. Welcome! Regarding Cincy and the USO, I was replying to Twisted, who is very much a results guy, so my point to him was that Nadal has won it. As to the USO, in a conversation of h2h, both have won 2, but Rafa got both of his by beating Djokovic in the final. In that context, it's not such a stretch.
 

Backhand_DTL

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You make a very good argument. It's nice to have you here, BH_DTL. Welcome! Regarding Cincy and the USO, I was replying to Twisted, who is very much a results guy, so my point to him was that Nadal has won it. As to the USO, in a conversation of h2h, both have won 2, but Rafa got both of his by beating Djokovic in the final. In that context, it's not such a stretch.
Rafa having and Novak not having a title at Cincy really looks like on anomaly on both accounts comparing their overall results there and apart from the H2H of 2:1 which is certainly not enough to compensate for 4 less finals Rafa has nothing on Novak at the US Open. As I said with both at their best it would probably be a tossup between them on this kind of surface but playing at an average level Novak manages to make SFs and Finals routinely while Rafa has a tough time getting past the quarter finals.

So claiming Rafa is better would be almost like calling Stan a better player than Rafa at the Australian Open because both have one win there but Stan got his by beating Rafa in the final.
 
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