Not your typical GOAT talk

[lindseywagners]

I'm wondering when the media first started hyping Roger as the "Greatest of All-Time." I'm sure it's hard to know exactly when, but what year was it approx?

Here is a video from what I believe to be 2005 where Cliff Drysdale is talking about it (Fed would've had 5 majors at the time, assuming this was from before the U.S. Open that year): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8A1AxLqwwI

I know at the French in '06 McEnroe said he'd anoint him if he completed the Roger Slam, which he didn't.

I didn't follow tennis as closely back in the early days of his career, and so I'm trying to do some research. I look forward to your comments!

 

[Fiero425]

I'm wondering when the media first started hyping Roger as the "Greatest of All-Time." I'm sure it's hard to know exactly when, but what year was it approx?

Here is a video from what I believe to be 2005 where Cliff Drysdale is talking about it (Fed would've had 5 majors at the time, assuming this was from before the U.S. Open that year): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8A1AxLqwwI

I know at the French in '06 McEnroe said he'd anoint him if he completed the Roger Slam, which he didn't.

I didn't follow tennis as closely back in the early days of his career, and so I'm trying to do some research. I look forward to your comments!

It had to of started early with 3 separate years winning 3 majors! Before Fedalovic, winning 2 was an achievement, while 3 happened once a decade! Roger started making it routine with 3, Nole was able to grab 2 (w/ Nole Slam), and Rafa once! We've been truly spoiled; at least these past couple generations! I didn't think I'd live long enough to see this kind of excellence on the men's side! I figured the tours would be too strong with all the new technologies and nutrition, but it hasn't happened allowing Fedalovic to just about own the tour for over a decade! :angel: :dodgy: :clap

 

[Shivashish Sarkar]

I'm wondering when the media first started hyping Roger as the "Greatest of All-Time." I'm sure it's hard to know exactly when, but what year was it approx?

Here is a video from what I believe to be 2005 where Cliff Drysdale is talking about it (Fed would've had 5 majors at the time, assuming this was from before the U.S. Open that year): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8A1AxLqwwI

I know at the French in '06 McEnroe said he'd anoint him if he completed the Roger Slam, which he didn't.

I didn't follow tennis as closely back in the early days of his career, and so I'm trying to do some research. I look forward to your comments!

It had to of started early with 3 separate years winning 3 majors! Before Fedalovic, winning 2 was an achievement, while 3 happened once a decade! Roger started making it routine with 3, Nole was able to grab 2 (w/ Nole Slam), and Rafa once! We've been truly spoiled; at least these past couple generations! I didn't think I'd live long enough to see this kind of excellence on the men's side! I figured the tours would be too strong with all the new technologies and nutrition, but it hasn't happened allowing Fedalovic to just about own the tour for over a decade! :angel: :dodgy: :clap

Fedalovic is a gazillion times more talented than any youngster of today. I am really starting to think nothing could change for 3 or 4 more years. (With the exception of a probable retirement of Fed)

 

[shawnbm]

Well, I can tell you that I started getting back into tennis in 2005, specifically upon seeing better come back from two sets to love down to this young Spanish kid named Rafael Nadal. I can remember John McEnroe saying at that time that Roger could and up being the greatest of all time because of how he played the game. It was a lot of talk about him bringing back the classic tennis game and being and all core player who could succeed on all surfaces, which I interpreted to be a slight against Pete Sampras, Marcelo Rios and even Andre Agassi. It was the way he played the game and the kind of shots he was hitting, coupled with how he was a really destroying everyone on the tour. His dominance was quite alarming and it was felt he had no weakness. So, from my perspective it was after he won the three slams in The year 2004 after he had one Wimbledon in 2003. Even though he had four majors, the feeling was that he could become the best ever based upon how we played the game and his apparent lack of weakness. Surely by the end of 2006 he was clearly being anointed as perhaps the best ever if not definitely the best ever. I tend not to believe in such designations when one gets right down to it. There is no way of knowing how well any of the guys today would have done against Pancho or Rod Laver or Connors or Borg, if you could transport them back to that era with the aura they had it with the same equipment. There's just no way of telling .

 

[lob]

If I remember correctly, Jmac started saying something like that in 2003 itself. He hypes things in an asinine manner but I haven't seen his tennis judgment be much off mark. Even before 2003, as crazy as it may sound, he was tipped to be some kind of goat. His 2001 win over the aging Sampras is when people started paying attention to 'his beautiful technique'. The young Roger used to glide on court in pin point silence I heard. What started the talk was not his achievements but the playing style and aesthetic beauty of his game. So he was in the strange situation of being nominayed goat in some circles without winning a single slam.

Sent from my 6045O using Tapatalk

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Surely, Fed was first noticed with him win over Pete in 2001. But, I believe, based on my memory, that Fed was considered a person capable of being a GOAT only by the end of 2004, when he first won the USO. At that time, he only had four slams though.

The one distinct thing that I remember was that the rate at which he was accumulating slams (once he got the first one) was amazing and that is why people were projecting him as future GOAT even though his actual accumulation was less.

 

[shawnbm]

After he won the AO in 2006, the GOAT talk really took off now that I think about it. He had been to 7 major finals by that time and had won every single one! Nobody had ever started off winning so many major finals in a row in the Open Era! The talk was that if he reached the final, he won. His losses to Safin and Nadal in the semis in 2005 were felt to be one-offs at the time, and that was the case with the former, but not the latter. It was in 2005-2006 that Fed also went on that finals tear where he won some ridiculous number of finals in a row (26?) and that fed into the thought that he was the best ever. (Sorry for all the typos in post above--Siri failed and I failed to proof before hitting send button).

 

[lob]

Part of the story is that Federer's game was being compared to Sampras' very early in his career, including by Sampras himself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/in_depth/2001/wimbledon_2001/1418928.stm

By 2003, he was routinely referred to as 'genius' along with continued comparisons to Sampras.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/jul/06/wimbledon2003.tennis2

As Gamesetandmath pointed out, the goat talk may have started after he won USO 2004. The last person to win 3 majors in a calendar year was Wilander in 1988. I don't have references but by then Agassi might have been claiming that Roger was harder to beat than Sampras. In any event his praise was effusive as early as Indian Wells 2004.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/21/sports/sp-tenmen21

By Miami, Roger had turned around his record with Andre, Nalbandian ad Henman. Nadal was yet to come. Roger bagelled Hewitt in the USO final. Not sure when a bagel was served in a slam final before that. No one had an year like Roger's 2004 in decades. Also he won titles on all surfaces, not a common thing back then. He only lost to Guga at the FO and beat Coria on clay earlier. By the end of 2004 goat talk was inevitable. Rancor between the Sampras and the anti-Sampras contingents only fuelled the talk to the next level.

 

[Haelfix]

It was definitely sometime in mid 2004. His level of play had reached heights that were beginning to be frankly unseen before. At that point he still had a long way to go to catch Sampras, but judging by the absolute utter domination of some really great players, it wasn't a stretch to suspect that he'd get there rapidly. I mean it wasn't even the results perse, it was the way in which players were struggling to win simple points against him, and the fact that he seemed to be able to win playing multiple different styles of tennis on many different surfaces. During that 3 year prime, i've never seen levels of tennis that approach it, before or since.