Top seasons of the Open Era

[Federberg]

I mentioned Del potro in mistake, but this reminds me - the fact that in 2006 six active slam winners didn't get to play Federer laso says how "hard" competition was then.

Actually it does tell you how tough the competition was, but not in the way you imply. Federer played in the final of every tournament but one that year, if those active slam winners didn't play him it's because the competition was too tough for them to get there. The idea that the top players always getting deep in tournaments is a sign of depth and strength is utterly bizarre to me. It's the complete opposite actually, and I'm amazed I have to point that out

 

[Federberg]

This bit is so shocking that I must come back to it. If Federer and Nadal were not factors in 2015, who do you think was a factor in 2006?

How's Federer non factor in 2015 just because of his age when he was ranked 2 or 3 all year long and he played finals of Wimbledon, US Open, and WTF besides 3 Masters, Cincinati he won as well as couple of other tournaments? Were there any players who were more factors in 2006 than he was in 2015, except for Rafa who woon his second RG that year? No.

How was Nadal non-factor if he was top 10 player all year long? Who are those Federer's 2006 rivals who were more factors than Nadal in 2015? Maybe Roddick and again Nadal that year.

Why did you exclude Cilic when he is comparable to Roddick? Just Western bias or you really think Roddick was so much better player?

Errr... Roddick was hands down a better player than Cilic. In what world is this even a discussion. Consistently a top 5 player for years, slam winner, multiple finals and semifinals? I'm stunned you can even try to make a comparison, I really am

 

[Ricardo]

This bit is so shocking that I must come back to it. If Federer and Nadal were not factors in 2015, who do you think was a factor in 2006?

How's Federer non factor in 2015 just because of his age when he was ranked 2 or 3 all year long and he played finals of Wimbledon, US Open, and WTF besides 3 Masters, Cincinati he won as well as couple of other tournaments? Were there any players who were more factors in 2006 than he was in 2015, except for Rafa who woon his second RG that year? No.

How was Nadal non-factor if he was top 10 player all year long? Who are those Federer's 2006 rivals who were more factors than Nadal in 2015? Maybe Roddick and again Nadal that year.

Why did you exclude Cilic when he is comparable to Roddick? Just Western bias or you really think Roddick was so much better player?

Fed in 2015 making all those finals, yes he did, isn't that indication of the state of the competition? that a guy in his mid 30s should be allowed to do that, what were other players doing?

who in his mid 30s in history, plays his best ever tennis?

going by that trend, Fed would be 5 times better when he turns 85.

don't get me started on Rafa, who out of the blue had his worst career year by far, yet you think he was a main rival of Novak? he kept getting beat up by players he used to eat for breakfast that year, i am actually trying to find a reason to justify what you said....

or we can forget about any facts, reason or logic and just go by your formula, whenever Fedal play Novak they are in their absolute best ever form. Right?

 

[Backhand_DTL]

Actually it does tell you how tough the competition was, but not in the way you imply. Federer played in the final of every tournament but one that year, if those active slam winners didn't play him it's because the competition was too tough for them to get there. The idea that the top players always getting deep in tournaments is a sign of depth and strength is utterly bizarre to me. It's the complete opposite actually, and I'm amazed I have to point that out

Neither parity nor a clear hierarchy behind the No. 1 speaks for tough competition on its own as they can be caused by a certain weakness at the top or a weakness below the top respectively. In my opinion both 2006 and 2015 overall weren't particularly strong years competition wise.

In 2006 Rafa was already great on clay but apart from that nobody was doing especially well with any consistency. Davydenko, Blake and Ljubicic as the players ranked 3, 4 and 5 in the Year-End-Ranking definitely doesn't indicate extremely tough competition.

In 2015 Murray was quite good from the start of the year until Toronto and Roger did very well in the second half of the year, especially from Halle until the US Open, but other than that and Wawrinka's performance at the French Open the level of the field was rather mediocre most of the time.

Also in both years the dominant player missed just one final (Roger in Cincinatti, Novak in Doha), which makes the differences really small. So which one you assess better comes down to if you value the higher number of titles, wins, better winning percentage and only two "weak" losses (against Rafa in Dubai and Murray in Cincinatti, whereas Novak on paper was expected to win every match he lost in 2015) of Roger in 2006 higher than Novak's two additional Masters titles, significantly bigger number of wins against Top 10 players and the fact that he lead every relevant H2H (while Roger was 2:4 against Rafa in 2006) in 2015.

In ranking points Novak finished 2015 with 16585 while Roger when using the current system would have been at something between 15500 and 16000 (depending on how many of the smaller tournaments he won you treat as 250 and how many as 500) at the end of 2006. But because in 2006 Masters weren't yet mandatory the way they are since the 250/500/1000 structure was introduced I don't think there is any argument that you can base calling one season objectively better than the other on.

 

[Ricardo]

Neither parity nor a clear hierarchy behind the No. 1 speaks for tough competition on its own as they can be caused by a certain weakness at the top or a weakness below the top respectively. In my opinion both 2006 and 2015 overall weren't particularly strong years competition wise.

In 2006 Rafa was already great on clay but apart from that nobody was doing especially well with any consistency. Davydenko, Blake and Ljubicic as the players ranked 3, 4 and 5 in the Year-End-Ranking definitely doesn't indicate extremely tough competition.

In 2015 Murray was quite good from the start of the year until Toronto and Roger did very well in the second half of the year, especially from Halle until the US Open, but other than that and Wawrinka's performance at the French Open the level of the field was rather mediocre most of the time.

Also in both years the dominant player missed just one final (Roger in Cincinatti, Novak in Doha), which makes the differences really small. So which one you assess better comes down to if you value the higher number of titles, wins, better winning percentage and only two "weak" losses (against Rafa in Dubai and Murray in Cincinatti, whereas Novak on paper was expected to win every match he lost in 2015) of Roger in 2006 higher than Novak's two additional Masters titles, significantly bigger number of wins against Top 10 players and the fact that he lead every relevant H2H (while Roger was 2:4 against Rafa in 2006) in 2015.

In ranking points Novak finished 2015 with 16585 while Roger when using the current system would have been at something between 15500 and 16000 (depending on how many of the smaller tournaments he won you treat as 250 and how many as 500) at the end of 2006. But because in 2006 Masters weren't yet mandatory the way they are since the 250/500/1000 structure was introduced I don't think there is any argument that you can base calling one season objectively better than the other on.

I think you should not give Fed 2015 stock, he is 10 years removed from his peak; whereas Rafa was on the up and much closer to his peak at the time (2006). Agreed about Wawrinka at RG, which was odd that he was so in form then, exactly like Safin at AO 2005, played unlike himself for a few weeks before getting back to 'normal'.

Fedal 2015 were really 'names' only, like Agassi in 2006. Still a big name, but we all know he is a shadow of his former self.

 

[Federberg]

Neither parity nor a clear hierarchy behind the No. 1 speaks for tough competition on its own as they can be caused by a certain weakness at the top or a weakness below the top respectively. In my opinion both 2006 and 2015 overall weren't particularly strong years competition wise.

In 2006 Rafa was already great on clay but apart from that nobody was doing especially well with any consistency. Davydenko, Blake and Ljubicic as the players ranked 3, 4 and 5 in the Year-End-Ranking definitely doesn't indicate extremely tough competition.

In 2015 Murray was quite good from the start of the year until Toronto and Roger did very well in the second half of the year, especially from Halle until the US Open, but other than that and Wawrinka's performance at the French Open the level of the field was rather mediocre most of the time.

Also in both years the dominant player missed just one final (Roger in Cincinatti, Novak in Doha), which makes the differences really small. So which one you assess better comes down to if you value the higher number of titles, wins, better winning percentage and only two "weak" losses (against Rafa in Dubai and Murray in Cincinatti, whereas Novak on paper was expected to win every match he lost in 2015) of Roger in 2006 higher than Novak's two additional Masters titles, significantly bigger number of wins against Top 10 players and the fact that he lead every relevant H2H (while Roger was 2:4 against Rafa in 2006) in 2015.

In ranking points Novak finished 2015 with 16585 while Roger when using the current system would have been at something between 15500 and 16000 (depending on how many of the smaller tournaments he won you treat as 250 and how many as 500) at the end of 2006. But because in 2006 Masters weren't yet mandatory the way they are since the 250/500/1000 structure was introduced I don't think there is any argument that you can base calling one season objectively better than the other on.

While I applaud your objectivity, and I don't have a fundamental objection to the argument you're putting forth, I think you need to apply the "eye test". There's a tendency to just look at the players involved and weight them based on career achievements. This is lazy in my view. It's used to boost players who beat Federer when he's well past his peak, and further used against Federer when he was at his peak. I'll use just one example, Fernando Gonzalez in AO 2007. Some on this forum will look at Federer's comfortable victory over him in that final and say.. "so what, it's Gonzo!". But that forgets the sort of tennis he was playing. That's not good enough for me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but just because it was so and so and they never won any slams is not a substantive enough reason to dismiss how they were playing at the time

 

[Backhand_DTL]

I think you should not give Fed 2015 stock, he is 10 years removed from his peak; whereas Rafa was on the up and much closer to his peak at the time (2006). Agreed about Wawrinka at RG, which was odd that he was so in form then, exactly like Safin at AO 2005, played unlike himself for a few weeks before getting back to 'normal'.

Fedal 2015 were really 'names' only, like Agassi in 2006. Still a big name, but we all know he is a shadow of his former self.

While Roger certainly wasn't playing at his peak level or even playing better than ever last year the level he showed from Halle to the US Open was still very high in my opinion. I think apart from the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open he hardly lost serve in that period and put on pretty dominating displays against Murray and Wawrinka in the respective semi finals or against Novak in the final of Cincinatti. If he would have been able to play like that this year I would have liked his chances to win at least one if not both of Wimbledon and the US Open.

While I applaud your objectivity, and I don't have a fundamental objection to the argument you're putting forth, I think you need to apply the "eye test". There's a tendency to just look at the players involved and weight them based on career achievements. This is lazy in my view. It's used to boost players who beat Federer when he's well past his peak, and further used against Federer when he was at his peak. I'll use just one example, Fernando Gonzalez in AO 2007. Some on this forum will look at Federer's comfortable victory over him in that final and say.. "so what, it's Gonzo!". But that forgets the sort of tennis he was playing. That's not good enough for me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but just because it was so and so and they never won any slams is not a substantive enough reason to dismiss how they were playing at the time

I agree and that's why for example I think despite Roger being 33/34 beating him in the two Slam finals he made last year was still a worthy achievement. But in 2006 I cannot remember a performance like Safin's at the Australian Open 2005, Del Potro's at the US Open 2009, Wawrinka's at the French Open 2015 or even Gonzalez' Australian Open in 2007 or Nalbandian's in the fall masters in 2007. Baghdatis at the Australian Open might come close, but even his level during that tournament was noticeably less impressive than Gonzalez' the year after in my opinion. To me regarding the level of competition 2006 was definitely the weakest year during Roger's dominance and Davydenko, Blake and Ljubicic finishing within the Top 5 without an achievement or a performance that is really remembered indicate that impression can't be completely wrong.

 

[Federberg]

^Opinions, opinions! I respectfully disagree, but I do enjoy the discussion. As I've said a few times, and again this is the "eye test", 2011 was vastly more impressive to me than 2015. I'm surprised that people disagree. You could "feel" the toughness of the competition. Last year was just... "meh". 2006 again, you could feel the utter dominance of Federer, you could see it. It wasn't that he was playing weak opposition, he was just insanely good.

 

[britbox]

^ Agree, I personally found Novak's 2011 more impressive, despite the stats.

 

[Backhand_DTL]

^Opinions, opinions! I respectfully disagree, but I do enjoy the discussion. As I've said a few times, and again this is the "eye test", 2011 was vastly more impressive to me than 2015. I'm surprised that people disagree. You could "feel" the toughness of the competition. Last year was just... "meh". 2006 again, you could feel the utter dominance of Federer, you could see it. It wasn't that he was playing weak opposition, he was just insanely good.

I actually agree that 2011 was more impressive than 2015 (and 2006 as well) because for three quarters of it, it was similarly dominant with significantly tougher competition. Because of the subpar last quarter it's a step below in terms of pure results compared to the other two but in greatness it's still on a similar level.

An advantage Roger might have is that his style of play regularly can even make routine wins look exciting while Novak's routine wins (of which he had a lot last year) usually look and feel...routine.

 

[Federberg]

I actually agree that 2011 was more impressive than 2015 (and 2006 as well) because for three quarters of it, it was similarly dominant with significantly tougher competition. Because of the subpar last quarter it's a step below in terms of pure results compared to the other two but in greatness it's still on a similar level.

An advantage Roger might have is that his style of play regularly can even make routine wins look exciting while Novak's routine wins (of which he had a lot last year) usually look and feel...routine.

For me the sheer weight of the numbers (as well as the eye test) make 2006 difficult to top. And re: your other observation, it's sometimes easy to dismiss how well losing opponents actually played against Federer when he was at his peak. It cuts both ways, but I have a feeling there are perception biases, that's to be expected I suppose

 

[Backhand_DTL]

Yes and with 2006 already being 10 years ago it's hard to remember how the overall level of play was perceived on a match-to-match basis at that time. Also following the matches via live streams wasn't possible for me at that time so I saw less than I do in recent years.

But I think part of Roger's superiority in the eye-test is that when both styles are executed at a similar level of play an attacking minded all-court player usually will look more impressive than a conservative minded baseliner. I think last year or at the Australian Open this year there were still many people that thought before the slam matches between Roger and Novak that based on the play of both until that point Roger might even be the favourite.

And I would definitely agree Novak controlling matches based on a superior serve-return-combination backed up by good point construction and rock solid baseline play isn't as impressive as Roger in full flight but I'm not sure that means the level of play itself was that different.

 

[Obsi]

Steve Flink about Djokovic's 2015:

"This year, he definitely surpassed what he did in 2011. In my view, he also outdid the Connors of 1974 and eclipsed McEnroe in 1984. I also put this one just above Federer in 2006, but slightly below Laver’s outstanding 1969 campaign."

http://tennischannel.com/steve-flink-barclays-atp-world-tour-finals-belongs-to-djokovic/

 

[Ricardo]

Yes and with 2006 already being 10 years ago it's hard to remember how the overall level of play was perceived on a match-to-match basis at that time. Also following the matches via live streams wasn't possible for me at that time so I saw less than I do in recent years.

But I think part of Roger's superiority in the eye-test is that when both styles are executed at a similar level of play an attacking minded all-court player usually will look more impressive than a conservative minded baseliner. I think last year or at the Australian Open this year there were still many people that thought before the slam matches between Roger and Novak that based on the play of both until that point Roger might even be the favourite.

And I would definitely agree Novak controlling matches based on a superior serve-return-combination backed up by good point construction and rock solid baseline play isn't as impressive as Roger in full flight but I'm not sure that means the level of play itself was that different.

not really, doesn't matter what your perception of Roger still playing well, its simply physics that players in their mid 30s would be a step slower and it's hard to tell how much it drags down his overall level of play. He might have appeared to play at still high level, but i just don't buy it that players of that age can play at their career peak level.

similarly, when Novak himself becomes mid 30s he should not be seen as at peak level even if (yes IF) he can maintain a high level.

 

[Ricardo]

I would still go with conventional wisdom that an attacking player playing best offence would penetrate defensive players who perform the best level of defence.

 

[Federberg]

Steve Flink about Djokovic's 2015:

"This year, he definitely surpassed what he did in 2011. In my view, he also outdid the Connors of 1974 and eclipsed McEnroe in 1984. I also put this one just above Federer in 2006, but slightly below Laver’s outstanding 1969 campaign."

http://tennischannel.com/steve-flink-barclays-atp-world-tour-finals-belongs-to-djokovic/

I do hope you realise it's just his opinion. I give no weight to this whatsoever. I do my own thinking

 

[Federberg]

Yes and with 2006 already being 10 years ago it's hard to remember how the overall level of play was perceived on a match-to-match basis at that time. Also following the matches via live streams wasn't possible for me at that time so I saw less than I do in recent years.

But I think part of Roger's superiority in the eye-test is that when both styles are executed at a similar level of play an attacking minded all-court player usually will look more impressive than a conservative minded baseliner. I think last year or at the Australian Open this year there were still many people that thought before the slam matches between Roger and Novak that based on the play of both until that point Roger might even be the favourite.

And I would definitely agree Novak controlling matches based on a superior serve-return-combination backed up by good point construction and rock solid baseline play isn't as impressive as Roger in full flight but I'm not sure that means the level of play itself was that different.

Let me ask you a question... I get that Rogers own claim to be playing better tennis recently has some Novak fans confused. Hard to see what else he could say really, but I suspect what he's really trying to say is he plays with a higher tennis IQ now. My question is this... do you really think Federer of 2015 would stand a chance against his 2006 version? Because his 2015 version would have to beat that guy from 9 years ago, yes... nearly a decade ago. Hope that sounds as preposterous to you as it does to me.

As for styles, here's my issue with that... one of Rogers big issues now is that his lack of speed makes him vulnerable with his tendency to camp on the Ad side. Novak kills him with that, by hitting winners into an open deuce side. Please go and watch Federer in his prime, I dare you to try that tactic against him then. The point is that in his prime he had a more lethal attack as well as a better defence. Now he no longer has the point ending forehand and his defence is compromised by loss of movement. How can anyone think this player is on a par with what he used to be??

 

[brokenshoelace]

I haven't kept up with the thread, but is anyone really arguing that Roger was playing better tennis in 2015 than he did in 2006?

Here's a question, can anyone please remind me of Roger's results in the first half of 2015 and the people he lost to? Thanks.

 

[Obsi]

I do hope you realise it's just his opinion. I give no weight to this whatsoever.

It's interesting you haven't said that to britbox who quoted the TennisNow listing. I wonder why.

 

[Federberg]

It's interesting you haven't said that to britbox who quoted the TennisNow listing. I wonder why.

Lol! I must have missed that one. But please go ahead and ask @britbox himself if I would care if he was the one to put forth an argument I disagree with! Nothing wrong with having different opinions mate. Our own personal opinions...

and by the way, have a look at some other threads to see the debates @britbox and I are currently having