Time to crown Novak the GOAT?

[Vince Evert]

Let's see. 60 G.S. between the three champions since 2003 Wimbledon (won by Federer) on the one level is awesome but what does it say about the men's competition during those 17-18 years who lacked the progression and mental strength to challenge them consistently, especially when you compare it to the competition of bygone era's ?

 

[El Dude]

Let's see. 60 G.S. between the three champions since 2003 Wimbledon (won by Federer) on the one level is awesome but what does it say about the men's competition during those 17-18 years who lacked the progression and mental strength to challenge them consistently, especially when you compare it to the competition of bygone era's ?

I've come to the conclusion that there are a few factors involved with this crazy phenomena of dominance by the Holy Trinity.

1. They're all better than anyone else. Individually, these are the three best players we've ever seen. They are capable of levels of tennis that no one else is, except for short moments. Really, the only guy who has come close is Stan Wawrinka and maybe Andy Murray (Andy was more consistent than Stan, but I don't think was as good as Stan at his best). And Stan really only did it for a short time and even then, was inconsistent.

2. They all have incredible longevity. You have to go back to Laver to find a player as dominant over a long period of time. The all-time greats of the 70s-90s all had dominant spells, but not for as long.

3. The generation after Rafa/Nadal (Lost Gen) was historically weak. No Slam winners from players born in 1989-92, and only Grigor Dimitrov and Jack Sock won big titles.

4. The Next Gen is better, but not great. If we say that Next Gen begins with Dominic Thiem (born Sept 1993), it is significantly better than Lost Gen, but with no clear all-time greats emerging.But there are a lot more big title winners: Thiem, Zverev, Medvedev, Khachanov, Tsitsipas, and Hurkacz so far. I would compare this generation to the one between Sampras/Agassi and Federer, that included players like Kuerten, Moya, Rios, Costa, etc. A bunch of guys winning a single Slam and/or multiple big titles, but only one guy (Kuerten) with three. Or to put it another way, between Sampras (b. 1971) and Federer (b. 1981), or 1972-80, only three players won multiple Slams, and none more than 3: Kuerten (3), Rafter (2), Safin (2).

When you combine all four factors, you have three 20 Slam winners.

I do think Next Gen will win more Slams. It is hard imagining that players like Medvedev, Zverev, and Tsitsipas won't win at least a Slam or two. But I highly doubt any of them reach the sacred 6+ mark that separates the ATG from the lesser greats.

To get to our next 6+ Slam winner, I think we have to look for the "Millenial Generation" - those players born 1999 or later. the most promising of the bunch so far seem to be Denis Shapovalov (1999), Felix Auger Aliassime (2000), Sebastien Korda (2000), Jannik Sinner (2001), Lorenzo Musetti (2002), and Carlos Alcaraz Garfia (2003), maybe one or two others. IMO.

But those players above are between 18 and 22 years old, so only Shapo is entering prime years.

 

[El Dude]

Fun stat: groups of 60 Slams

• Roger, Rafa, Novak
• All 6+ Slam winners born 1939-1969: Newcombe, Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Wilander, Edberg, Becker.
• All non-Big Three Slam winners born after Boris Becker (plus Muster, born a month and a half before): Thiem, Murray, Wawrinka, Cilic, del Potro, Gaudio, Roddick, Ferrero, Costa, Hewitt, Johansson, Safin, Ivanisevic, Kuerten, Kafelnikov, Moya, Korda, Rafter, Krajicek, Muster, Bruguera, Stich, Chang, Courier, Agassi, Sampras.

Percentage of Open Era Slams won by the Big Three: 28.2% (60 of 213)
Percentage of Slams won since first Big Three Win: 83.3% (60 of 72)

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Anyhow, this is arguable. But the main point is that prime/peak greatness is not the same as GOAT. A player's peak is harder to define - I mean, what do you mean by that? How long?

The point being, "GOAT"--if we want to answer the question--has to be something measurable and definable, and for that we can look at a player's total career. That is the only thing that has definite boundaries.

Contrary to what you say, it is NOT the case that a player's total career is the only thing that has definite boundaries. This is where the concept of "strreak" developed by the author of the blog in the Most Dominant Player comes in. When a player is starting to play, initially their results will not be good as they are maturing as a player. Finally, when a player is hanging around without retiring even though the mojo is lost, once again the results will not be good. We need to look at the in between period when the player was a dominant force. This period is what we informally call as "peak period" of a player. This informal notion is formalized by the definition of a streak which is a sequence of slams in which the player did not fail to make the finals twice in a row (not counting missed slams).

There is this accumulated credentials over the entire career. There is the performance at their peak. I think both should play a role in the determination of GOATness. I would probably give each one 50% weightage in determining GOAT.

 

[monfed]

Who is the men's Greatest of All Time (GOAT)?

Thank you for voting. Here are the current results.

Novak Djokovic
38%

Roger Federer
55%

Rafael Nadal
7%

https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/57768307


So it's not just about the numbers. Hmm fascinating.

 

[MikeOne]

Coming to my analysis - Fed is clearly better than Novak at WB and USO. Novak is clearly better than Fed at AO.

Now let's come to RG. RG is complicated because Novak is better at beating Nadal on clay than Roger so that translates to more RGs but Fed is better than Novak on clay against the field. The only match that they played closest to their peaks was RG 11 and Fed won that so I'm going with Fed here.

So overall Fed is better than Novak other than AO that's why Fed is the GOAT and not Novak.

We always measure prime to prime otherwise what's the point? Then you may as well get Pete out of retirement and make him lose to Novak or Fed and say he's not as good as them. Would that be fair to Pete? Cmon mate, It's illogical and this is my point of disagreement with you.

Very interesting analysis on clay here.. fed better than djokovic vs the field? Explain. Djokovic has more masters on clay, more french opens, more fo finals.. i think more semis. Beaten raf on clay more than anyone else. I don’t think there is a single stat that tips fed over djoker on clay, is there one?

funny you ignore all the above and mention 2011 fo semis, yet you dismiss 12 fo, the very next year when novak straight setted rog.

man, we need to talk about grass, forget about clay. I’m not so sure rog is much better than novak on grass? So 6 wimbledons for djoker, 8 for fed and djoker is 3-0 vs fed in finals. Pretty amazing... Prime fed unbeatable on grass? Well, in 07 young rafa took fed to 5 sets in wimbledon finals. Prime djoker is superior to rafa on grass. It’s much more likely than you are willing to accept that prime novak could’ve defeated 04-07 federer at wimbledon. Why not? Because rog was owning roddick? Hewitt? Philippousis? Once nadal came into scene, rog was needing 5 sets to beat rafa on grass and lost to him in 08. Interestingly, 19 fed beat rafa easier at wimbledon than prime fed beat young rafa on grass. Rog beat rafa easier in 19 than in 07,08... but he lost to? In 19 finals? You guessed it!

man, i’m not even sure 04-07 fed would’ve been a clear favorite vs djoker on grass, i’m just not sure man. Stats, results and facts point to it being a close call, slight edge to fed maybe. Djoker may even get to 8 wimbledons!

 

[monfed]

LOL.. how are you arriving at this? So because fed beat novak in 11 at roland, fed better? You forget novak beat fed at roland, the very next year. Doesn’t count? 2011 does, not 2012? And roger barely beat novak in 11 whilst novak straight setted roger in 12.

even stranger, you argue fed better vs field than novak?


Very interesting analysis on clay here.. fed better than djokovic vs the field? Explain. Djokovic has more masters on clay, more french opens, more fo finals.. i think more semis. Beaten raf on clay more than anyone elseI mean, i don’t think there is a single stat that tips fed over djoker on clay, is there one?

funny you ignore all the above and mention 2011 fo semis, yet you dismiss 12 fo, the very next year when novak straight setted rog.

man, it’s even close in grass believe it or not. 6 wimbledons for djoker, 8 for fed and djoker is 3-0 vs fed in finals. Pretty amazing... fed old? Past his prime? Well... baby, yet to learn on play on grass rafa took 07 fed to 5 sets in wimbledon finals. Prime djoker is superior to rafa on grass. It’s much more likely than you are willing to accept that prime novak could’ve defeated 04-07 federer at wimbledon. Why not? Becauase rog was owning roddick? Hewitt? Philippousis? So? Once nadal came into scene, rog was needing 5 sets to beat rafa on grass and lost to him in 08. Interestingly, 19 fed beat rafa easier at wimbledon than prime fed beat not so great on grass raf on grass. Rog then lost to, in 19 finals?

man, i’m not even sure 04-07 fed would’ve beaten novak on grass... baby nadal was giving him he ll and hewitt, roddick, philippousis won a couple of slams... they were no prime djokovic

Noone cares about what Fed did on clay in 2012, infact noone cares what Fed did post 2011 on clay. 2011 was his last best clay season so quit strawmanning, Fed hater. Noone cares what Fed did on clay in 04 either because he hadn't entered his prime on clay in 04. The reason why RG 11 is an incredible feat is because post prime Fed took out an absolute peak Novak and for the most part dominated him in that match, it's not like he fluked on some MPs to win. There is zero excuse for peak Novak to lose that match to a post-prime Fed who's ground game was way inferior to Novak at that point specially on CLAY. None whatsoever. Nada. Zilch.

Fed's clay prime = 05-09. In that period, Nadal was at the final in like 99% of the tournaments which Fed couldn't beat so that's why he has lower clay MS count than Djokovic and that also covers my point about Djokovic being better than Fed at beating Nadal on clay.

Djokovic has a 2HBH GOAT BH. He should be dealing with Nadal way better than Fed did with his 1HBH on CLAY. It's almost impossible to beat Nadal specially at RG with a 1HBH, never been done to date. Stan couldn't do it, Thiem couldn't do it. Djokovic should have won atleast RG 13 but he miserably failed clowning on the net and missing routine overheads.

And lastly, when Fed had a clear shot of winning RG in 09, he took it. Faker had a clear shot of winning RG 15 and he got destroyed by an inferior player like Stan. This was the final nail for Djoko being better than Fed on clay.

 

[MikeOne]

In terms of peak vs peak.. rafa has spoken on this:

After 16 doha final:

“I played against a player who did everything perfect,” Nadal said. “I don’t know anybody who played tennis like this ever. Since I know this sport I never saw somebody playing at this level.”

Rafa also said this when comparing them:

he said he puts fed in front of novak as best ever due to achievements ( years ago though) but again seemed to indicate novak better peak vs peak.

“But at a technical level, when Djokovic has been at the top of his game, I have to say that I’ve been up against an invincible player.”


berdych said this once after getting crushed by novak in 14 final:

'I probably played maybe over, what, 600 matches in my career, and I met guys like Andre (Agassi), Roger (Federer), all those probably in their best times,'' he said. ''But I have never, ever experienced anything like that.''

These are two players who faced novak and fed, at their peaks.. they probably know more than some of us on the tennis forum.

 

[monfed]

Obviously Nadal will pick Djokovic over Federer as he's the tougher opponent for him. That doesn't make Novak the better player than Federer. All it means is that Novak is the tougher opponent for Nadal than Federer is.

Similarly Stan would say Federer is the toughest opponent he faced because he has faker's number. Doesn't prove that Fed is greater than Novak on Stan's opinion.

These statements have to be properly vetted and contextualised for them to have any meaning.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Whether "Peak X > Peak Y" is a mythological discussion, unless Peak X actually faces Peak Y across the net (which actually happens sometimes also).

There are two ways of dealing with the issue.

1. Since often two players will not have a substantial overlap of their peak periods, we can simply figure out as how dominant a player was during his peak period in comparison to the dominance of another player during their peak period. This is exactly what is being attempted with the notion of "most dominant player" (see that thread for details).

2. In the MDP thread, the notion of streak is defined and it has an element of objectivity to it. We can use the streak periods as the peak period of a player instead of users arbitrarily saying when a player is at peak. Once the peak period of Fedalovic is defined, it is very easy to computer the "peak to peak H2H" which is the H2H of two players X and Y restricted to the period when both X and Y were at their peaks. Obviously, if the peaks of players X and Y don't overlap at all, then the P2PH2H will be 0-0. But, I do believe that for no pair of Fedalovic, the P2PH2H is 0-0. I will compute and report on this P2PH2H later when I get time.

 

[MikeOne]

Obviously Nadal will pick Djokovic over Federer as he's the tougher opponent for him. That doesn't make Novak the better player than Federer. All it means is that Novak is the tougher opponent for Nadal than Federer is.

Similarly Stan would say Federer is the toughest opponent he faced because he has faker's number. Doesn't prove that Fed is greater than Novak on Stan's opinion.

These statements have to be properly vetted and contextualised for them to have any meaning.

Berdych also said it and he faced both at their peak

stan gave djokovic some trouble but djoker vs stand head to head is? 19-6, not even close

nick bolletieri:
"He is one of the best. Not the best tennis player (ever) but the best constructed player, pound by pound, shot by shot, in that way he is the best in history,".

“When Novak was at his peak I always felt that he was the best all-round player in the history of our sport.”

Pattick mouratoglou:

“Novak is the most complete player of all times. That enables him to find the solution to most of the problems on court and this, on every surface. It explains why he is now in the best position to become the GOAT”

it’s all subjective and we can all speculate but these are well respected coaches and players who faced both at their peaks

i still think federer’s edge in aesthetics creates an illusion of being better at respective peak but novak may be the most complete ever..

 

[tented]

These are two players who faced novak and fed, at their peaks.. they probably know more than some of us on the tennis forum.

So … what do we do now?

 

[El Dude]

Contrary to what you say, it is NOT the case that a player's total career is the only thing that has definite boundaries. This is where the concept of "strreak" developed by the author of the blog in the Most Dominant Player comes in. When a player is starting to play, initially their results will not be good as they are maturing as a player. Finally, when a player is hanging around without retiring even though the mojo is lost, once again the results will not be good. We need to look at the in between period when the player was a dominant force. This period is what we informally call as "peak period" of a player. This informal notion is formalized by the definition of a streak which is a sequence of slams in which the player did not fail to make the finals twice in a row (not counting missed slams).

There is this accumulated credentials over the entire career. There is the performance at their peak. I think both should play a role in the determination of GOATness. I would probably give each one 50% weightage in determining GOAT.

I think there is truth to the bold part, and was thinking similarly, although with a caveat: determining what defines a player's peak is somewhat arbitrary and can be defined in different ways. I like the idea of the streak from that article, but it only works for truly dominant players. Andy Murray's longest such streak was Wim 2012 to Wim 2013 (4 Slams, he missed one), but his best overall year was 2016. A player like Andy might be best judged by years in which he didn't miss more than one SF, rather than F, in a row. Meaning, we could broaden the criteria from F to SF, to accommodate players other than the best of the best.

Are you familiar with baseball statistics, particularly the stat "WAR" (Wins Above Replacement")? It is an accumulative stat so tends to favor players with longevity, not unlike Ultimate Tennis's GOAT Points. One guy came up with a metric called "JAWS" which averages out career WAR with "WAR7"--which is a player's best seven years. So it balances out career value and peak value. I could see trying something like that with tennis.

 

[El Dude]

These are two players who faced novak and fed, at their peaks.. they probably know more than some of us on the tennis forum.

I hear what you are saying and am not suggesting that those two are wrong, but...it is two players. We'd have to hear from more, far more. And as monfed suggested, it also depends on the matchup.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

I think there is truth to the bold part, and was thinking similarly, although with a caveat: determining what defines a player's peak is somewhat arbitrary and can be defined in different ways. I like the idea of the streak from that article, but it only works for truly dominant players. Andy Murray's longest such streak was Wim 2012 to Wim 2013 (4 Slams, he missed one), but his best overall year was 2016. A player like Andy might be best judged by years in which he didn't miss more than one SF, rather than F, in a row. Meaning, we could broaden the criteria from F to SF, to accommodate players other than the best of the best.

We don't have to worry about Andy Murray or anyone else who did not have a streak of length at least 7 while debating about GOAT.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Are you familiar with baseball statistics, particularly the stat "WAR" (Wins Above Replacement")? It is an accumulative stat so tends to favor players with longevity, not unlike Ultimate Tennis's GOAT Points. One guy came up with a metric called "JAWS" which averages out career WAR with "WAR7"--which is a player's best seven years. So it balances out career value and peak value. I could see trying something like that with tennis.

I am not into baseball. But, I do know that baseball is one sport that makes use of all kinds of statistics.

While like the idea of WAR in general, I don't like the idea of WAR7. Who are we to restrict the peak period to just 7 years? What if a player was in their peak for 10 years? So, correct metric should WARx, where x is the length of the peak of the player concerned. x could be different for different players. But, still a fair comparison if we average it out.

 

[El Dude]

We don't have to worry about Andy Murray or anyone else who did not have a streak of length at least 7 while debating about GOAT.

Oh, I know. But if we want to look at players beyond just GOAT candidates, I think we'd need a different metric. And, of course, era concerns and other contextual elements that skew the value of it, the further back you go. I always think of Laver in the early 70s, when he had pretty much given up on Slams, for political and financial reasons.

On a side note, if we include Pro Slams, Rod Laver's longest streak is 36 Slams...he had a 14-Slam streak from Wim 59 - USO 62 before he went pro, then all 18 Pro Slams of his professional career, then his first 7 Open Era Slams.

I know some don't consider Pro Slams on par with Open Era majors because they were only four rounds, but during the 30s to 60s they included the best players in the world. I'd probably consider them more comparable to the current (five round) WTF.

 

[monfed]

Berdych also said it and he faced both at their peak

stan gave djokovic some trouble but djoker vs stand head to head is? 19-6, not even close

nick bolletieri:
"He is one of the best. Not the best tennis player (ever) but the best constructed player, pound by pound, shot by shot, in that way he is the best in history,".

“When Novak was at his peak I always felt that he was the best all-round player in the history of our sport.”

Pattick mouratoglou:

“Novak is the most complete player of all times. That enables him to find the solution to most of the problems on court and this, on every surface. It explains why he is now in the best position to become the GOAT”

it’s all subjective and we can all speculate but these are well respected coaches and players who faced both at their peaks

i still think federer’s edge in aesthetics creates an illusion of being better at respective peak but novak may be the most complete ever..

Federer is an easier opponent for Berdych than Djokovic is. Birdman has always troubled Federer going back to Olympics 04. I would take his opinion with a grain of salt.

 

[Mile]

Yeap, there isnt destroyed just one generation by Big 3, more near to 2+. But Djoker keeps sending them to mental disarray. Stefanos, Shapo are now on mental disorder, Berretinni somehow needs a pill or two - not serious "injured".

Where is Jerzy Janowicz anyway ?

 

[El Dude]

Yeap, there isnt destroyed just one generation by Big 3, more near to 2+. But Djoker keeps sending them to mental disarray. Stefanos, Shapo are now on mental disorder, Berretinni somehow needs a pill or two - not serious "injured".

Where is Jerzy Janowicz anyway ?

He retired in 2017. His last match was Stockholm in October, which he lost to Dimitrov in the second round after defeating Herbert in the first.