He had his chances in @ at the French early on to beat Nadal in 2005-2007 but then the door shut on him.

The USO 2015 final was a choke job of epic proportions.

Cilic turns 30 today and for the first time in the 141 years of tennis history no man under the age of 30 holds a singles slam title.

Brutal.

Tomorrow is Fognini vs Tomic is the Shenzhen final.

Lmao. What a day.

That actually sounds entertaining as fuk. I really enjoy both of their playing styles.

They might be douchebags but there’s something about their effortless looking strokes that I enjoy watching.

Fognini looks like he'll snap in two if he dares bend his knees and the Aussie ******* looks like a spaghetti running around the court with your generic chicken wing forehand.

Exciting.

I know right?

#lostgen

Average age on this list is 22 going back to 1960. I don't care how great the "Big 3" are one of those 90s born players should have pulled off an upset somewhere.

Spoiler!
Even worse is they rarely even get a sniff. Only 3 of them have been to a slam final —once.

Thiem 1 final (2018) 2 SF
Raonic 1 final (2016) 2 SF
Nishikori 1 final (2014) 2 SF
Dimitrov 0 finals 2 SF
Chung 0 finals 1 SF
Edmund 0 finals 1 SF
Carreno Busta 0 finals 1 SF
Goffin 0 finals 2 QF
Kyrgios 0 finals 2 QF
Zverev 0 finals 1 QF

I think it is a combination of having the 3 GOATs playing in the same era vs the weakest back to back generation of male players in tennis history.

The big 3 even past their prime are 2-3 levels above the lostgen and next gen. You put Nadal, Fed and Djoker at their prime now and lmao they'd make these duds look like 3.5 club players, that's how especial they are.

Drop Federer's "weak era" into this one and Safin, Hewitt, Roddick, Nalbandian, and even Davydenko would be winning slams.

I get the "3 GOATs" part but there's no excuse for how abysmal #lostgen has been. Too quick to pose for selfies and blow smoke up their asses on social media. Lack of talent aside they're clearly not hungry enough.

Thiem. Raonic. Nishikori. 3 slam finals between them. That's all generation 1989~ has done.

You put clay up on a pedestal as the toughest surface so tell mewhere are the Spanish clay-courters? Pre Nadal from 1993-2003 Bruguera, Moya, Costa, and JC Ferrero all won RG. Since then only one other Spanish player has reached the RG final — David Ferrer. What's going on there?

Look at someone like Coria in 2005. Do you think Nadal is playing at a higher level on clay today than in 2005? I can't see 2018 Nadal beating him if that guy showed up today. So where is the talent?

The perfect example of how bad things are is Thiem beating Anderson in straight sets with a carbon copy of Nadal's return tactic in the same tournament a year later.

You would think Anderson would have gone away and developed a strategy to counter that comedy show of standing that far back on a slow HC. Nope. He showed up a year later and got pantsed. No slicing out wide and following it in for the easy put away. No. Serve exactly the same way, retreat to the baseline, and rinse repeat for 3 sets.

Spoiler!


After Nadal lost to Federer in the 2006 Wimbledon final he came back in 2007 better than the year before and almost won. 2008 he finally closed the deal. Djokovic obviously went away and hatched a plan for 2011 complete with going "gluten free." Destroyed the field. Even Federer who is as stubborn as they come made some big changes after a nightmare 2013 and came within a match or two of returning to #1 and took a few wins off 2015 Djokovic. After 2016 he obviously went away with a plan to beef up the BH and it paid dividends in the first half of 2017.

Kyrgios is going backwards. Zverev still isn't doing jack chit in slams. These guys seem to be content waiting for the old farts to retire.

Tomic wins Chendu open for 250 points and returns to the top 80. Beats fognini 6-1 3-6 7-6.

That tiebreak was lulzy AF. Nice celebration from Tomic though, good luck to him.

Again.

There has been no one reaching RG final because Rafa, Djoker and Federer are simply too fuking good. No matter the nationality.

You put the tier 2 of players of the early 2000's up in a pedestal way too often, you forget that they were displacing an aging Rafter, Sampras, Agassi. Will you put them on the same tier as the big 3?

So, for the most part these second tier players had to only contend against their peers.

I watched those matches. Maybe you should watch a few. Outside the "Big 4," Delpo, and maybe Stan who showed up a few weeks a season, please tell me who you would rank ahead of Safin, Hewitt, and Roddick.

Zverev?
Anderson?
Cilic?
Dimitrov?
Goffin?
Isner?

You know when a basketcase like Fognini reaches a career high ranking at the age of 31 that the competition is a joke.

Forget their prime years, 2017 Fedal and 2018 Djokovic are way past it and should be getting upset by <25 players on the rise which happened in every other era but this one.

You miss the big ass elephant in the room.

They didn’t have the big 3 to contend with. And they were all peers.

You keep talking up the Big 3. Federer was past his prime once he hit his 30s. Nadal jumped the shark after 2013. Djokovic in 2011 was better than 2015 so he was already in decline. Last 3 years all of them have been below their best for obvious reasons. No one has stepped up and it's got less to do with them and more to do with the lack of talent.

The quality of this match was superior to the Wimbledon 2008 final.



Name one player outside the group I mentioned who can hit the ball like Safin? Include Delpo if you like because I think he was better than him.

Look at the level Murray was at here. That version would be cleaning up today.

The next gen is considerably worse talent wise than the lost gen who for all their short comings some of them were at least in the top 10 and all were reaching the second week in the slams when the big 3 were in and not so far past their prime. Nishikori, Dimitrov, Thiem, Raonic >>> Zverev, Kyrgios, Chung, Rublev, Khashanov, Donald, Tiafoe.

From the next gen only Shapovalov I believe has the talent and mental fortitude to come close to the tennis level we enjoyed from the big 3.

And just no Dominik, stop playing down Wimbledon 2008 final, I know it still stings but the tennis displayed there is at the very least a tier above any other match, and certainly above any other slam final.

Only AO 2012 comes close.

Hewitt is overrated, he got lucky and found the gap between Sampras and Federer. Soon as Federer came along he became an afterthought.

Roddick is probably on the same level as Anderson.

Safin is the only one out of that group that had generational talent, but he squandered most of it. People talk about Kyrgios but Safin is somebody who had real talent. IMO on par with Federer, Djokovic and Nadal.

Guy was a basketcase though. He also had girls thirsting for him 24/7 so his attention was elsewhere.

I think it's massively overrated and it has nothing to do with the outcome. Federer lost the Safin match. I also think the Rome 2006 final was better than Wimbledon 2008 where Federer was below par. Great win for Nadal but hardly the "GOAT tennis match."This is unadulterated recency bias. Anderson wouldn't be Top 10 in any other era and will never win a slam. Roddick won a slam, reached #1, and would have had another 5-6 slams without Federer.

Roddick fell out of the Top 10 in 2010 and retired in 2012 but played Djokovic 9 times for a winning 5-4 H2H including a5-1 stretch from 2008-2010 while Novak was a Top 3 player.If he's just another Kev Anderson then explain that.

Hewitt set the benchmark for competing for every point, was arguably the fastest around the court, had one of the best ROS, a lob only eclipsed by Andy Murray, and vastly superior skills at the net to anyone else playing today including Federer. Hewitt laid the blueprint for Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray. He spent 80 weeks at #1 and won 2 slams including back to back ATP Finals titles which would be more important to you if Nadal had actually won it.

Early 2000s Hewitt would be cleaning up today.

2008-2013 Nadal would be cleaning today.
2011-2016 Djokovic would be cleaning today.
2005-2009 Federer would be cleaning today.

With 2 of the big 3 missing they would all have cleaned in their era and even today.


What's your point?

Yes, I acknowledge that this is the weakest men's field since the early to mid 2000's. But to underrate the level the big 3 STILL bring out past their primes is a huge insult, imo.

None of the peak players you mentioned would consistently trouble the big 3 TODAY, with the exception of MAYBE Safin IF he wasn't a crazy SOB Russian more preoccupied with parties and women than actual tennis, but then again... IF IF IF.

Bolded didn't need to be said. We already know this. Ditto for Murray 5-10 years ago.

The only point I'm making is I think you massively overrate the Big 3 today. They are way past their prime and are only winning slams because this generation is an absolute joke.

And yes all those players I mentioned playing in their prime today against these old farts would thrash them mercilessly just as those guys took turns pounding an aging Sampras and Agassi.

When Federer and Nadal started winning again in 2017 it was only because Djokovic wasn't around. Funny how he showed up again way past his best and he's back to beating them. I'm not living in some fantasy land thinking these guys at 30+ are playing better than 5-10 years ago and in Federer's case 10-15 years ago.

All they're doing right now is padding their stats against pushovers.

Look at how many tournaments Nadal has withdrawn from or retired in over the last 12 months and he's still No. 1 by nearly 2000 points.

2017 Paris withdrew
2017 ATP Finals withdrew
2018 Brisbane withdrew
2018 AO retired
2018 Acapulco withdrew
2018 Indian Wells withdrew
2018 Miami withdrew
[2018 clay season back to running like a gazelle injury free for 3 months]
2018 Queen's withdrew
2018 Cincinnati withdrew
2018 US Open retired
2018 Beijing withdrew
2018 Shanghai withdrew
???



No question about it this era is red hot garbage.

These is where we differ.

And I highly doubt 2018 Djokovic would've beaten 2017 Fedal, to begin with Fedal's level was considerably higher in 2017 (especially Federer's) and Nadal didn't miss 9 tournaments with injuries.

Djoker fans would hate to read the truth that Ultron benefited from a Fedal decline in form and fatigue from 2017 carried into 2018 coupled with injuries to capitalize in those 2 slams where he didn't even look that strong to begin with. He lucked out at Wimbledon with the closed roof and 2 day long match (even with the roof closed Rafa had a better chance beating him in the same day, Novak's physical condition is his weakness in 2018) and had a cakewalk (just like Nadal in 2017) at the USO.

Well I'm talking more about Novak never going off the boil in the first place. 2016 he was thrashing them. After winning RG it's like he just closed up shop. He was trailing a seemingly washed up Nadal by only 2 slams and probably thought he could take a mental break for a while. That turned into a 2 year tailspin which cost him his chance to overtake both.

I do agree with you that Nadal and Federer were playing at a higher level in 2017 and better than the form he's displayed in his comeback but matchups are tricky so you never know. I thought Federer was playing much better than Nadal at the AO and he almost lost that match. Novak has a similar psychological effect on Nadal. I thought he was the better player in that Wimbledon SF until clutchvak showed up down a BP.

Anyway I think all 3 should be done winning slams and be getting pumped by talented <25 players in their physical prime. The talent just isn't there.