Federberg
The GOAT
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2013
- Messages
- 15,639
- Reactions
- 5,729
- Points
- 113
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