What a difference a year makes! Exactly twelve months ago, Rafael Nadal had put an exclamation point on one of the greatest seasons that the tennis world had seen by winning the 2010 US Open. Not only had he completed a career grand slam, he now held three of the four majors in the same calendar year, a feat accomplished by a select few. If that weren’t enough, he had managed to finally chase down the inimitable Roger Federer, dethroned him from the sport’s pinnacle, established himself firmly as the numero uno, all set to rule for a while.
Or so it seemed, until 2011 happened! Rafa’s amazing year would pale in comparison to the year that Novak Djokovic has had so far. Not only has Novak managed to win three of the four majors himself, and usurped the number one ranking, he’s won all except two of his matches all year, and in the process, has decimated the entire field, including two of the greatest players the sport has ever seen in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
As much as it highlights the phenomenal year that Djokovic has had, it also throws into sharp focus, the greatness of Roger Federer. Wait, what? Didn’t I just say that Roger got decimated by Novak too? Yes, I did, but let me explain!
The #1 Ranking
For a little over four years, the tennis world was ruled by Roger Federer at #1. And, for most of those four years, Rafa was right behind him at #2, realizing only too well that Roger would not be able to sustain his ridiculously high level for ever. He would be there to swoop in for the kill when the inevitable slip-up came. It sure did on an autumn day in August of ’08, but for a mind-boggling 141 weeks, Federer had managed to keep at bay, his tormenter on the tennis court.
In stark contrast, Novak Djokovic, in the span of exactly 52 weeks has taken over the number one spot from Rafa. Something which goes to show that holding on to the number one spot is a lot harder than getting there. There is a lot more pressure – the pressure to defend all the points that made you the number one, the pressure of being the hunted as opposed to being the hunter, and last but not the least, the media pressure that comes from being the #1.
Despite being the number one in recent times, Rafa has always downplayed himself down as the favorite to win any tournament. He pictures himself as the underdog, likely because it’s a lot less pressure to deal with. Roger on the other hand completely embraced everything that came with being number one and has handled the pressure of being the numero uno much better than most other number ones!
The Number 16!
Every tennis fan and analysts will point to the one number that almost cements Federer’s place as the greatest of all time… a record 16 major slam titles, two more than the great Pete Sampras. As great as this number is however, it pales into insignificance when we look at just a few of the many other gaudy stats that this man owns on the grand slam stage.
- 30 straight quarter finals
- 23 straight semi-final appearances (nearest is 10)
- 23 finals
- 5+ appearances at the finals of each slam (nearest is 2)
- Has held three of the four slams on three separate occasions
This shows nothing if not the undeniable fact that he is the greatest grand slam player of all time. He has been there at the final stages of a slam, every time that he’s played since 2004. Detractors however would love to bring up the “weak era” argument, which holds no water. Be that as it may – a weak era – it still shows the incredible mental zone that he’d have needed to be in, to have had very few bad days at the grand slams.
Year(s) of Dominance
Talking of bad days, Novak Djokovic during his unbelievable run this year has had all of two! Let’s just take a second to digest that. In a sport where the calendar is pretty much full and the schedule is grueling, we’re almost into October already, and Novak has had two losses in the 66 matches he has played so far? That is a winning percentage of 97%, which boggles the mind.
Mind boggling as it is, now imagine doing something similar over a three year span. That’s exactly what Roger Federer did between 2005 & 2007. And, at the end of each of those three years, Roger held three of the four slams – Rafa would not relinquish control of the French. If that wasn’t enough, during two of those three dominant years, he won the season ending tennis masters, where only the top eight players are featured, losing a tough five setter to his former nemesis, David Nalbandian in ’05.
| Year | Player | W-L | Win % | Slams | YEC |
| 2010 | Novak Djokovic * | 64-2 | 97 | 3 | ? |
| 1984 | John McEnroe | 82-3 | 96.4 | 2 | Y |
| 2005 | Roger Federer | 81-4 | 95.3 | 3 | N |
| 2006 | Roger Federer | 92-5 | 94.8 | 3 | Y |
| 2007 | Roger Federer | 77-9 | 89.5 | 3 | Y |
| 2010 | Rafael Nadal | 79-10 | 88.7 | 3 | N |
These stats alone are more than enough to show that Roger has been the most dominant player of the open era, but why stop there?
Debunking the “H2H”
Time and time again, the detractors (some of them outright haters!) of Roger Federer have brought up his head-to-head record (henceforth referred to as “The H2H“) against Rafael Nadal in an effort to belittle his greatness. His incredible list of accomplishments, it seems are completely immaterial in the face of the one stat that matters most… “the H2H”
The H2H is so blinding that they fail to see that it unfairly punishes Federer for making it to all those clay-court finals, the domain of the Spaniard, while Rafa himself often didn’t make it far enough to play Roger, who has almost always been a fixture, on the faster courts.
You’d think a former champion like Mats Wilander might have a sensible head on his shoulder, but alas, in his obsessive compulsive need to stomp on champions who have made him irrelevant, he wields the H2H like a loaded weapon pointed at Roger’s greatness.
“How can one guy (Federer) be the greatest, if he cannot even beat another guy (Nadal) in the same era consistently?” he asks.
Nothing highlights the sheer absurdity of using the H2H to discredit Federer more than what has transpired this entire year. Rafa, the guy who a year ago, at the same time, was at the absolute pinnacle of the sport has failed to win two full sets, let alone manage to beat his new “rival” in any of the six matches they’ve played this year. Although their H2H now stands at 16-13 in favor of the Spaniard, you’d have to figure that the tide has turned, and when all is said and done that H2H will surely be in favor of the Serb.
To use Mats’ idiotic argument against himself, how can Rafa be called the greatest if he cannot even beat Novak, the guy who is in the same age group as him? Don’t get me wrong, this is not meant as a slight against Rafa, who I have the utmost respect for, but a slight against the pundits that have on occasion included the likes of Brad Gilbert and Patrick McEnroe.
Therein lies the fallacy of the H2H argument, which ignores the following facts:
- Despite being in the same age group, players mature at a different pace. Despite being just under a year older than Novak, Rafa matured much earlier than him and won his first slam at the age of 19. In contrast, both Roger and Novak only won their first one at 21.
- Tennis players, as this New York Times chart points out, are at their peaks between the years 23 & 26.
- Despite being the second ranked player since 2006, Rafa’s first victory over Roger in a slam not named the French Open, came at Wimbledon ’08, a year past Roger’s theoretical prime, with Rafa just getting to his.
- Roger Federer has been the second best clay court player since the year 2004. What has it earned him? Nothing but defeats at the hands of the best clay court player, and a lousy H2H.
- There are way more clay court tournaments favoring Rafa, than there are on grass, a surface that favored Roger!
- This is a game of matchups – Rafa’s game doesn’t match up too well against Novak, just like Roger’s game doesn’t match up to well against Rafa.
And for those who bring up the H2H in slam finals as an indicator of a failing, I give you Novak’s 2-1 H2H over Rafa. If H2H were the only stat that mattered, Nikolay Davydenko, with a 6-4 record over Rafa would be a better player, right?
Traits of greatness – efficiency, longevity & creativity
He is at the advanced tennis age of 30, and the chart above hardly looks promising. Yet, there he is at #3 in the world, having made it to every single one of the slam quarter finals, two semi-finals and one final this year, giving himself an opportunity to add to his 16 slams. To put things in perspective, the nearest 30 year old in the rankings is Jurgen Melzer at #17, while the nearest 30 year old former champion is Juan Carlos Ferrero at #107.
Granted that he has been fairly lucky with injuries (or the lack of it), but a lot of that has to be attributed to the efficiency in his game, combined with a carefully planned schedule. Time however, catches up with pretty much everybody, and even the greatest tennis player isn’t exempt from nature’s laws. He appears to be a fraction of a second slower than he was at his peak, which at the highest levels of tennis, might well be the difference between winning a slam and being the 100th ranked player.
The fact that Roger, as a father at 30, is still a contender at every tournament he enters, speaks volumes about his longevity, his amazing skills and the passion that he still has for the game. For all the crap that he takes at the hands of his detractors, he might very well have single-handedly preserved Rafa’s legacy and greatness (along with his own, of course) by stopping Novak dead in his tracks at the French Open semis.
In a brilliant display of tennis that far belied his 29 years, he showed the rest of the tennis world that he still has the goods to beat the juggernaut that is Novak Djokovic, a feat that even Rafa has been unable to perform all year. The irony is that if it weren’t for Roger, we’d likely be talking about the greatest year ever, in the history of tennis with the Serb holding all four slam titles in the same calendar year.
In fact, I’m absolutely certain that our afore mentioned tennis analysts and pundits would have anointed Novak as the greatest player of all time, overlooking and completely ignoring in the process, the fact that Roger & Rafa together own 26 slam titles, obtained while keeping at bay a fast improving field, over a period of years.
So there he stood at the service line last week, at the US Open semi, well past his theoretical prime, just two match points away from handing Novak Djokovic only his second defeat in a slam this year. It took nothing short of a gutsy gamble, and an incredibly lucky shot from Novak to get out of it and thwart Federer. Nevertheless, he remains the only player to have taken two full sets off Novak this year… and… he’s done it twice.
Where am I going with this you ask? To be brutally honest, Roger looks like the only guy who might be able to challenge Novak’s supremacy over the 12 months. Rafa has been confounded by the matchup against Novak, his game lacking the variety to make a dent in Novak’s confidence right now. Roger on the other hand has shown that he can make the necessary adjustments, and bring creativity into his game to stay with a rival six years younger than him, and possibly remind him that he used to be king of the courts!
The measure of Greatness
Although we could make the argument for the number of slams won, as the yard stick to measure greatness – it is after all the one stat that spans generations, right? – we need to look at it holistically. Rafa, with all that he’s accomplished, will have his own place besides the all time greats even if he doesn’t add another title. Novak has had a fantastic year, but we’ll have to wait and see how he does the following year and the one after it to put him in the same category as Roger and Rafa.
At 30 years of age, Roger Federer is at the twilight of his career. Unabashed fan that I am, I’d love nothing more than for him to add at least one more slam to his already gaudy record collection. No matter if he does or not, if we were to simply look at his accomplishments, his records, his consistency, his longevity, and above all his artistic genius on the court, we’d see that this man is greatness personified, unparalleled in what he has done to and for the game of tennis!
I’ve tried to make my case for Roger as the GOAT here, and hopefully I’ve managed to convince you, if you weren’t already convinced, that is. In the end however, there’s just this one thing that pushes it over the edge for me. His game has this indescribable component to it that simply provides joy, creates this feeling of love, and elevates my consciousness in a way that nobody else has ever been able to, and likely never will. That to me is true GOATness!!!
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