Where Does Djokovic's 2015 Season Stand In History?

[Great Hands]

I still maintain that Murray's mentaility is hugel6 underated, because he's contantyly cmpared to fednalivc. they are matanyl stonger than him, yes. but they are looking like becoming 3 of the top5 greatst players who ever lived. and murray has beaten everyonw esle on the tour pretty comfrotbly for about 8 years now. I mean, he hardly ever loses a big match to anyone else. so it makes him look less good than he is. if you look at his matches against everyone excpet fedalvic, he is a mental titan.

 

[Great Hands]

Roddick is the other Muzzard, just better one.

Roddick has no gold medal and no Wimbly trophy

Andy Murray played a very fatigued over the hill Federer in the Olympic final who had just beaten Del Potro 19-17 in the 3rd set of their semi and a very subpar Djokovic in the Wimbledon final he won. Incidentally both cases resulted in Del Potro seriously impacting the final as the semi against Del Potro at Wimbledon took a lot out of Djokovic both mentally and physically as well.

Compare that to Roddick losing to Djokovic in the 2012 Olympics when he was well outside his prime and a few months from retirement, and well, guess who he lost to in the Wimbledon finals 3 times? Could it be the guy who holds the joint record along with Sampras at 7 Wimbledon titles? Yes it could and there's absolutely no shame in that whatsoever and Andy Murray never ever faced Roger Federer in his prime at Wimbledon and lost to him even when Federer was 1 month from his 31st birthday and this year 1 month from being 34. You can imagine the scoreline if Federer was still in his prime.

There really are no parallels whatsoever except that Djokovic beat Roddick at the Olympics just a few months before he retired and was a mere shell of his former self (he retired with a winning h2h after all) and likely would've beaten Djokovic when he (Roddick) was in his prime as he was the 2nd best grass court player after Federer during his prime. Likewise Murray beat a physically and emotionally drained Federer in their Olympic final and never had to face prime Federer on grass and lost to him in the matches they played after Roger was years outside his prime. It's pretty obvious why Roddick has no Olympic medal or Wimbledon titles.

I agree with what you're saying, Front, but I would add this:

1. Murray has been playing in the era of not one, not two but three of the greatest players of all time. In fact, it looks like Fedalovic may end up being 3 of the top 5 greatest players who ever lived. This is spectacularly unlucky for Murray. So he deserved a few things going his way at a couple of slams, to make up, just a little bit, for the incredible bad luck of being in the toguhest era ever.

2. Andy gave himself the opportunity for things to go his way by getting to the latter stages of slams, sfs and fs, over and over again. the more you keep knocking on the door, the more likely it will finally open for you.

3. even if the door opens for you, you still have to walk through it. murray showed great techical skill, inceradibvle athelticitm, and great mental fortotude to win his slams. I don't think anyone else could have beaten Novak in that uso final, could have frustrated him the way murray did. (nadal wasn't even fit, and fed cldnt even beat berdych.) likewaise, in the wd f 13, even though novak was not at his best, no one else in the world at that time coulf have beaten him, excepty murray. (Fed was struggling with his back and coudl;n#'t even beat stakvojsky, and nadal was having his usual recent woes on grass).

 

[mrzz]

Well, surely Murray is more complete, and may give us a better show. And also surely have a better resume...

...but in an hypothetical slam final between the two, both in their primes, I would put my money on Roddick no doubt, and I would guess that most people would too.

Oooh, I'm not sure about that. On grass, maybe, but on clay, or slower hards? Murray would frustrate Roddick by getting all his balls back until he missed - he was nowhere near as solid from the baseline as Murray is. And Murray would have a field day passing him if he tried to net rush. Murray has a big first serve too, and Roddick was not the best returner. And Murray is one of the best players in history at getting big serves like Roddick's back into play.

And if you are limiting it to a 'slam final' because you think Roddick could cope with the pressure of that better, well...Roddick won one slam where he beat the legend of hard court tennis and the all-time great that is Juan Carlos Ferrero (!), and the one other time he got close to winning a slam final - multiple set points to go up 2 sets to love in the WD09 final - he choked really badly, missed an absolute sitter of a volley, and then lost the tiebreak. So I don't see that there is any evidence that he is mentally stronger than Murray either.

Ok about clay, but on all other surfaces I would stick with (prime) Roddick. In such a hypothetical discussion, there is no definite "evidence", and I know my opinion is subjective.

Anyway, it must be based on something: My point was not about being mentally stronger, was just about the serve + forehand combo, as Front pointed out. In such situations, a clear cut weapon makes all the difference.

About WD09, I do not think that is a fair example, the guy was simply playing not only one all time great, but the one who denied him multiple times. I do not think you could find much more "choke" examples from him.

 

[Kirijax]

Both players in their prime? Doesn't matter the surface. Murray beats Roddick 8 out of 10 times.

They met eight times. Murray leads 8-3. On hard court Murray leads 6-2. On grass Murray leads 2-1. Murray's return is too good and he has that all-time great lob.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Both players in their prime? Doesn't matter the surface. Murray beats Roddick 8 out of 10 times.

They met eight times. Murray leads 8-3. On hard court Murray leads 6-2. On grass Murray leads 2-1. Murray's return is too good and he has that all-time great lob.

Looks like Djokovic's 2015 season is standing in between Roddick and Murray.

 

[Great Hands]

Well, surely Murray is more complete, and may give us a better show. And also surely have a better resume...

...but in an hypothetical slam final between the two, both in their primes, I would put my money on Roddick no doubt, and I would guess that most people would too.

Oooh, I'm not sure about that. On grass, maybe, but on clay, or slower hards? Murray would frustrate Roddick by getting all his balls back until he missed - he was nowhere near as solid from the baseline as Murray is. And Murray would have a field day passing him if he tried to net rush. Murray has a big first serve too, and Roddick was not the best returner. And Murray is one of the best players in history at getting big serves like Roddick's back into play.

And if you are limiting it to a 'slam final' because you think Roddick could cope with the pressure of that better, well...Roddick won one slam where he beat the legend of hard court tennis and the all-time great that is Juan Carlos Ferrero (!), and the one other time he got close to winning a slam final - multiple set points to go up 2 sets to love in the WD09 final - he choked really badly, missed an absolute sitter of a volley, and then lost the tiebreak. So I don't see that there is any evidence that he is mentally stronger than Murray either.

Ok about clay, but on all other surfaces I would stick with (prime) Roddick. In such a hypothetical discussion, there is no definite "evidence", and I know my opinion is subjective.

Fair enough.

Anyway, it must be based on something: My point was not about being mentally stronger, was just about the serve + forehand combo, as Front pointed out. In such situations, a clear cut weapon makes all the difference.

About WD09, I do not think that is a fair example, the guy was simply playing not only one all time great, but the one who denied him multiple times. I do not think you could find much more "choke" examples from him.

My point was that we don't know, because Roddick never got in winning positions in slam finals enough for us to find out how mentally strong he is. But since you're not arguing he was mentally better than Murray, we are not disagreeing there.

I take your point about the serve+forehand combo, but Murray has been very good throughout his career at beating players with big serves and forehands as long as they are not all time greats. And Roddick was a good player, but he was not an all-time great. Murray is also brilliant at exploiting players' weaknesses, and he would have attacked Roddick's weaker bh, and given him lots of different angles and spins from all over the court, making Roddick hit shots from places he didn't want to hit them. And Murray is one of the all-time great defenders, so Roddick's forehands would have had to have been consistently outstnading for Murray to not get them back. And Murray is a better mover than Roddick, so he could have outmanevered him. Not to mention the fact that roddick wasn't a great returner, so murray would get a lot of cheap points off of first serves and have a lot of comfortbale holds.

 

[Obsi]

The New Yorker on the issue

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/no-athlete-had-a-better-2015-than-novak-djokovic

 

[nehmeth]

The New Yorker on the issue

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/no-athlete-had-a-better-2015-than-novak-djokovic

I would fall over in pure shock if SI voted him Sportsman of the Year. Their tennis writers are (at best) tepid with their praise. If you've watched their site and the limited coverage they've given tennis - especially after Serena lost her bid for the Grand Slam - you would think they were a small town newspaper. Their biggest article was Warthog's mailbag on why nobody likes Djokovic (my paraphrase).

If it were Fed having this year... there would be one article after the other on that rag. Nadal would fall somewhere in between.

 

[Fiero425]

The New Yorker on the issue

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/no-athlete-had-a-better-2015-than-novak-djokovic

I would fall over in pure shock if SI voted him Sportsman of the Year. Their tennis writers are (at best) tepid with their praise. If you've watched their site and the limited coverage they've given tennis - especially after Serena lost her bid for the Grand Slam - you would think they were a small town newspaper. Their biggest article was Warthog's mailbag on why nobody likes Djokovic (my paraphrase).

If it were Fed having this year... there would be one article after the other on that rag. Nadal would fall somewhere in between.

Nole gets "NO LOVE" for some reason! Anything short of a CYGS, the coverage in SI will be meager! They just can't help their own partiality toward certain stars; Federer, Nadal, Tiger Woods, and LeBron James! :nono :angel: :dodgy: :cover

 

[nehmeth]

The New Yorker on the issue

http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/no-athlete-had-a-better-2015-than-novak-djokovic

Very good article and thanks for posting it Obsi!

Here is the hatchet job done by one of the illiterates at SI. If this wench were a defense attorney, her client would get a life sentence - for a misdemeanor. :nono

http://www.si.com/sportsmanofyear/2015/12/08/novak-djokovic-sportsman

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Found this amazing stat on SI.com from a reader question:

Amazing Djokovic stat of the week: According to match-by-match results pages on TennisAbstract.com, since the beginning of 2011 Djokovic has lost only four matches to players who were ranked outside the top 20 at the time of the match and none to anyone higher than No. 28 (Dimitrov in 2013). For comparison, Federer lost 12 matches to players outside of the top 20, 11 of which to players ranked higher than 30, while lost Nadal 18 matches to players outside of the top 20 and 14 to players higher than 30.

 

[the AntiPusher]

Found this amazing stat on SI.com from a reader question:

Amazing Djokovic stat of the week: According to match-by-match results pages on TennisAbstract.com, since the beginning of 2011 Djokovic has lost only four matches to players who were ranked outside the top 20 at the time of the match and none to anyone higher than No. 28 (Dimitrov in 2013). For comparison, Federer lost 12 matches to players outside of the top 20, 11 of which to players ranked higher than 30, while lost Nadal 18 matches to players outside of the top 20 and 14 to players higher than 30.

Nice stats but I would say that as of 2014, Rafa has a career head to head advantage of EVER player at that time ranked in the top 30. That's truly astounding