My brain hurts reading this. How are we still arguing again Djokovic as the GOAT? What metric can you possibly point to? Grand slams? Head to head? Weeks at #1? Obviously Nadal is the greatest clay court player ever, but aside from that I don't think its close.
There's no metric, but Federer was like an alien dropped onto earth to play tennis. Nadal and Joker are very standard tennis players, they just play at an absurdly incredible level. With Federer there was stuff where it was like how does a tennis ball even do that? As a person who has played a lot of tennis, I always appreciate Fededer more because he's done stuff that I can't even figure out how to do and that really isn't the case with the other 2. I'm not good enough to do anything they are doing, but I understand how they are doing it.
Roger was the mentally weakest of the three. Djokovic is Jordan level in terms of mental toughness and the tennis GOAT.
I would say Djokovic is the GOAT, but he doesn't blow away Nadal. Joker's metrics are better such as more grand slam titles, more ATP titles, more weeks at #1, but Nadal is excellent at those metrics, too. The biggest differentiation is the Djokovic has won 6 ATP finals titles while Nadal has zero. The ATP courts are not good for Nadal's style.
. If there is a surface that zeroes out your style you aren't in the conversation for GOAT in tennis.
Oh Nadal is definitely in the conversation, he is just #2 behind Djokovic. Indoor hard courts didn't "zero out" Nadal's style, it just was not great for him. He still went to the finals of the ATP's, he just couldn't win them. It's not much different than clay courts not being good for Pete Sampras. He never got past the semifinals of the French Open and he only got to the semifinals once. But Pete Sampras is in the GOAT conversation and has been for a while. I wouldn't say he is the GOAT, but he certainly deserves a mention in GOAT conversations, it's not absurd to mention Pete's name in those conversations.
Nadal & Joker were basically even - head-to-head & Slams won. OK. Joker has a very slight edge, but Nadal clearly wasnt anywhere near 100% healthy in the their last few meetings in the last few years - (unlike Joker, Nadal plays hurt and doesnt use it as an excuse). Majority of Joker Slams is the AO which is widely considered far inferior than the other 3 Slams in terms of level of competition, quality of tennis, prestige, etc. Like I said, in their Primes & Healthy, give me Nadal over Joker.
Joker won majors with a torn hamstring and a torn stomach muscle. If he wasn't banned from the US Open and the Aussie Open and Wimbledon wasn't canceled he would have a couple more majors. He was the best player in the world, and favorite to win in all of them and was playing some of the best tennis of his career. He was also kicked out of the US Open he was favored to win for accidentally hitting the ball lady with a tennis ball. With all of that his accomplishment far exceed Nadal and Federer.
Absolutely when it comes to sports.BTW.... it seems like you're all into guys
An amazing run for Madison - it was a superhuman effort for her to come back and beat Iga in the semis. I don’t know that I see her beating Sabalenka in the final but there should be some huge hitting in this match. Can’t wait.BTW.... it seems like you're all into guys
Something never said about a male player.
It's crazy tennis went from Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer dominating for 20 years to Sinner and Alcaraz who are going to dominate for a long time.
