The Black Hole of Sports

[BUHusky]

It does. On clay, where Nadal is the best ever, he has a 13-2 lead.

Elsewhere, it's 10-8 Nadal...but keep in mind Nadal hit his prime around 07 or 08 (won Wimbledon for the first time in 2008 at 22), and Nadal hit his prime in 2003 (when he was 22)--so when Nadal was reaching his prime, Fed was nearing the end of his.

Also, let's see if Nadal wins a major at 31. His body has been breaking down.

Another way of looking at it.

Finals Appearances by Grand Slam Events

US Open

Sampras: 8
Nadal: 3
Federer: 6

Wimbledon

Sampras: 7
Nadal: 2
Federer: 9

Australian Open

Sampras: 3
Nadal: 3
Federer: 5

French Open

Sampras: 0
Nadal: 9
Federer: 5

First, Nadal has 5 Wimbledon finals, not 2. Get some facts, and come back and see me.

Also, if you want to talk about Nadal reaching his prime while Federer was leaving his prime (which wasn't actually the case), let's also talk about some of the pushovers Federer beat up enroute to his first bunch of majors. That list of nobodies Fed beat from 2003 to 2006 is quite impressive. Nadal (or Djokovic) never had such a luxury.

 

[huskyinfl]

It is interesting that people feel a 90 minute game with two 45 minute commercial free periods is boring. Yet a 3+ hour game with massive lulls in action and commercial breaks for tommy copper is less boring.

No one can predict the future and often times it is a polarizing athlete that draws attention to a sport - having them go through cycles. Remember how crazy the McGwire / Sosa time period for baseball was? Jordan, Bird , Magic etc Bball era? Manning Brady?

Soccer will be huge in the USA in the future, baseball will be fine. I am in SWFL and it is an athlete factory - all sports are being played at a high level, academics...not so much.

Sanctity of the game is very important to me, I hate how watching sports on tv has turned into a media pr blitz money scheme, with the game being influenced and changed to accommodate more revenue producing moments. Media time outs are wrong.

 

[Robertelamin]

Bud Selig was the Jeff Hathaway of the MLB, I think he looked the other way for a long time regarding steroids and the all star game thing is absurd. Hopefully Rob Manfred has some sort of vision. The NBA has come back from their image problems and I think hockey is finally starting to come back. The NFL has a ton of issues now that it has to deal with and I'm not sure Goodell is the right guy. As for soccer, it is here to stay at least on a national level because like the NFL there are so few games each one is must see.

 

[tzznandrew]

First, Nadal has 5 Wimbledon finals, not 2. Get some facts, and come back and see me.

Also, if you want to talk about Nadal reaching his prime while Federer was leaving his prime (which wasn't actually the case), let's also talk about some of the pushovers Federer beat up enroute to his first bunch of majors. That list of nobodies Fed beat from 2003 to 2006 is quite impressive. Nadal (or Djokovic) never had such a luxury.

Yes, so I missed that. One mistake.

One can argue that they are pushovers because Federer was so much better than them.

In your "non-preferred surfaces," you count two surfaces for Nadal, and one for Federer. That tells you something. If you also merely eliminated grass for Fed and Sampras, they look better.

And while we can knock Sampras for his inability to make the French finals, Federer made 5 French Open Finals, and only lost 4 of them because there he met Nadal, the best clay court player ever.

And forget the "nobodies": from the 2005 Wimbledon to the 2010 French Open--19 events with most well within your window--Federer was in the Finals 18 times, won 12, and was in the semi-finals the one he wasn't. Nadal has made the Finals of a Grand Slam even 20 times total.