The Goat Debate

[Owendonovan]

Great stats. And indeed, what is happening to Thiem. I have seen him play twice since his return, and he has no precision on his BH.
I think.

He's still being paid back for his callous musings of lower ranked players being paid plenty enough.

[Scoob]

The GOAT debate is very perplexing:

For me, Rafa Nadal will always be the GOAT of Clay Court tennis. Roger Federer will always be the GOAT of the Grass Court. That leaves Novak Djokovic who seems to be able to play pretty well on all the surfaces. Does that however, make him the ultimate Tennis Male GOAT? I am not quite sure about that. When in my opinion there are still two players that are superior to him on two of the court surfaces on any given day, I cannot just hand the GOAT trophy to Novak. He might be the All Court Tennis GOAT, but still on any given day Rafa or Roger could easily outplay him on Clay and Grass.

Can there be 3 GOAT's out to pasture?

[ponchi101]

Novak's record against Roger is 27-24. His record against Roger, on grass, is 3-1 (all at Wimbledon).
Claiming that Roger would easily outplay him on that surface is a little bit of an overstatement.
Also. Selecting that Rafa is the Clay-GOAT, and Roger is the Grass-GOAT, without pointing out that Novak's best surface is hard courts and he holds wining records against both on that surface, is being very selective on how to handle the data.

[Scoob]

Novak's record against Roger is 27-24. His record against Roger, on grass, is 3-1 (all at Wimbledon).
Claiming that Roger would easily outplay him on that surface is a little bit of an overstatement.
Also. Selecting that Rafa is the Clay-GOAT, and Roger is the Grass-GOAT, without pointing out that Novak's best surface is hard courts and he holds wining records against both on that surface, is being very selective on how to handle the data.

Novak is fantastic on all the courts,but still I would lean towards Rafa on Clay any day. As for the grass courts and Roger and Novak, I do agree with you that there is a slight advantage for Novak H2H over Roger. Roger however whenever I watched him play on grass just seemed to rule the court. It was the same way whenever I watched Pete Sampras before Roger or Martina play on grass. They just seemed like they floated over the surface. It is the same way when I watch Rafa play on Clay. It amazes me. Novak plays equally that way when he steps on any such court. I just think it is going to be incredibly difficult to really select any of these 3 incredible players as just one GOAT so I am just trying to wrap them up into 3 GOATS, I guess.

[ponchi101]

As much as we can love Roger, he is two slams behind, and has losing records to both of them. Tough.

[Scoob]

As much as we can love Roger, he is two slams behind, and has losing records to both of them. Tough.

You do have to admit when you watched him in his prime playing on the grass surface it was great to see.

[ponchi101]

No doubt. In his prime, he was Mozart.

[mick1303]

It is inherent flaw of over-relying on the head-to-head. It narrows the available data to a very thin slice. We're talking about prime-vs-prime. Or about the whole "body of work". Prime-vs-prime Federer never played Djokovic on grass. One can argue that prime-vs-prime they never played each other on any surface )) As much as Novak fans like to talk up Federer 2011,2012,2015 etc, he was not the same. And in 2007 when was the last year of his true prime Novak was just a rookie, also very distant from his prime, which started in 2011. Regarding overall body of work: Federer won 19 titles on grass, Novak - 8. Granted he still has time, but with how short grass season is - not that much. And the structure of the grass court season was the same through both of their careers. It is not like you're comparing them to Connors.

[ponchi101]

Sampras number of grass court tournaments is very low, when compared to Roger's. But one reason is that Pete seldom played any other grass tournament other than Wimbledon.
As you say, everything on grass is very slim because the data is thin.

[Scoob]

Sampras number of grass court tournaments is very low, when compared to Roger's. But one reason is that Pete seldom played any other grass tournament other than Wimbledon.
As you say, everything on grass is very slim because the data is thin.

As I stated there were two players that I thought were so graceful on grace that I watched quite often and that was Sampras and Federer. I also have to mention Martina on the women's side. Novak can be put in there I guess as well. But those 3 were the cream on top of the strawberries.

[mick1303]

Also Federer's record on grass is 192-29 (86.87%), while Novak's - 109-18 (85.82%). Not only Federer played MUCH more, he also has higher winning percentage. 1% for such high career numbers that they have - is a lot.

[Deuce]

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Greatest Grass Court Players in Tennis History...

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[ponchi101]

I am surprised by that statement. 1% difference is exactly that: 1%. Basically, no difference. And their sample numbers are large enough to be comparable.

[Scoob]

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Greatest Grass Court Players in Tennis History...

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Grant it, the #4 & #5 players on this list are the two players I spoke about and are the two players I have seen play the most and consider the greatest on grass.

The top 3 listed, I barely saw play and the #1 on the list I never saw play the game. So I really cannot comment on those players although they definitely are greats of the game.

[mick1303]

I am surprised by that statement. 1% difference is exactly that: 1%. Basically, no difference. And their sample numbers are large enough to be comparable.

But if you convert percentage to the ratio, you'll have 6.05 vs 6.62. Novak has 6.05 wins per one loss, while Roger - 6.62 wins. You still think that 1% is negligible?