You make it sound as if Novak had a choice in taking that 1.5 years off. So, are we speculating about the elbow injury being made up (in the similar fashion you discredit Nadal's injuries)?

Was it the Nanny's fault? Jelena? Boris? Pepe?

Novak was playing A LOT of tennis, and with his style it was a matter of time before a serious injury would stop him for a while.

I'm not buying the injury. I think he needed an excuse for personal issues going on that are none of our business.

And mate please scroll up to post #178 and explain to me how Nadal is #1 by almost 2000 points when he withdrew/retired from 12 tournaments over the last 12 months.

Surely in no other era could that happen. Even Federer at the peak of his powers in the mid 2000s couldn't have skipped that many tournaments and still been #1. Ditto for 2011/2015 Djokovic.

Just look at that list. Nearly a 2K lead over No. 2 and would have YE#1 locked up if Djokovic didn't rise from the ashes.

Matey mate, you must share your sources with the rest of us ignorant plebs. The speculations you lay out with almost 100% uncertainty can't be just that, speculations.

I'll simplify it if you don't want to read all that.

He's skipped 5 Masters (5000 points), ATP Finals (worth 1500), and retired from 2 slams before the final (missed out on 2400-4000)... yet has a 2000 point lead on the #2 who is a 37 year old father of 4.

It's a clown show.

I already agreed the field is weak sauce.

Look at what McEnroe said about Djokovic being like Tiger Woods. And then look at Novak's casual reply. Then he's playing, then he's having surgery, then he's photographed with something on his wrist, then he's showing up in IW and Miami to get pounded by scrubs. And he keeps talking about climbing mountains with his wife and the experience gave him "a new perspective." Read between the lines. The whole thing is fishy.

If you want to believe he was seriously injured be my guest but I'm not buying it any more than Federer's stunt a year earlier only to return at the age of 35 hitting over backhands like his peak years. Shades of Nadal 2013 returning from a 7 month hiatus to basically drop one match from February-September en route to winning 2 slams. Sure these guys have had physical issues, no one plays for 10+ years pain free, but there's a lot of fishy stuff going on. Believe it if you want and call me a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy nutter but that's my take on it.

The amount that Dom exaggerates Hewitt and Roddick is almost comical. Hewitt is a better volleyer than Fed... fuking lol. All because he doesn't want to admit Fed feasted on some weak years.

Sure Roddick and Hewitt did go deep in some tournaments, but that was before Novak was Novak and before Nadal got more comfortable on other surfaces. Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that Hewitt is better than Ferrer? Ferrer stuck around at the top a lot longer than Hewitt did. How many slams did he win though? 0.

If Hewitt came just 2 years later he'd have 0 as well.

It's only comical because you're still pretty green. When did you start watching tennis, 2013?

Yes Hewitt was better than Ferrer.

Hewitt had excellent feel at the net. So does Murray. Federer's skill at the net is overrated which explains why he's pretty ordinary in doubles. Compare Federer's volleying to Sampras and Patrick Rafter. Like night and day.

Hewitt didn't have a serve like Federer to come charging into the net as frequently, ditto for Nadal, but his feel at the net was superior IMO — technique is spot on. Had an excellent smash and arguably the 2nd best topspin lob of all time behind Murray.



"Sure Roddick and Hewitt did go deep in some tournaments,but that was before Novak"

Roddick reeled off 5 wins out of 6 against Top 3 Novak during 2008-2010 and he was approaching the end of his career.

What you don't seem to realize is Novak is rarely comfortable facing big serves and Roddick's serve was tough for everyone not named Federer.

By all means keep diminishing that era (which also diminishes Nadal's early years before Djokovic showed up) but it would wipe the floor with today's pack of jokers.

I'll say it again. Only 3 players under the age of 30 have reached a slam final. 3. You want comedy... just process that nugget of information.

And I'll remind you again Nadal has skipped/retired from 12 tournaments this past year, skipped 5 Masters, ATP Finals, retired from 2 slams before the final, and is ranked #1 by almost 2000 points. And if Djokovic didn't rise from the ashes like a phoenix he'd have Wimbledon in the bag and another YE#1 locked up.

Ho Lee Fuk that is making a mockery of the sport right now.

lol Dom's standard response if you don't agree with his point of view - "you don't even watch tennis".

Lol at the best returner in the history of the game not comfortable facing big serves. We all know pre 2011 Djokovic was prone to getting beat by anybody, that's why his turn around was so dramatic. Guy was retiring from matches right left and center before 2011. That's like saying Hewitt was 7-2 vs Federer pre 2004... fcking lol.

Nobody is saying that this era isn't chit, but to say that a 21 year old Roddick and Hewitt would be pumping Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic is a joke. Hewitt and Roddick could barely beat Sampras and Agassi... well Hewitt had a good record vs Sampras but Sampras was getting pumped by everyone and his dog near the end of his career.

So being "the best returner in history" automatically means he's comfortable against a handful of players who can still serve big on faster courts? Murray and Federer both look more comfortable than he does but then you'd know that if you watched those matches.

Losing H2H vs. Karlovic. Murray is 7-0. Federer 13-1.He was Top 3. Hardly a pushover. Roddick had his number.It's not my fault you fangirl so hard over Rafa you can't be critical. In any other era these guys would be thinking about hanging it up because they'd be challenged by younger players in their physical prime. It's like shooting fish in a barrel against these duds so they're not going anywhere.

You're massively overrating Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic in 2018. They're all way past their prime.

Roddick took Federer deep into 5 sets, 16-14, at Wimbledon in 2009. Federer is not playing better than 2009. You're hitting the pipe hard if you think 2017 Federer who won Wimbledon without dropping a set was better. With Djokovic and Murray out of the picture and Nadal headbutting ceilings on his way to losing to yet another journeyman Federer barely broke a sweat.

Yes I absolutely believe the era you've written off, in their prime today, would be beating them.Too much facepalm.

Somehow saying the Big Three would wipe the floor with Roddick & Hewitt = me fangirling over Nadal lmao.

Hewitt vs Agassi = 4-4
Hewitt vs Sampras = 5-4

Roddick vs Sampras = 2-1
Roddick vs Agassi = 1-5

Congrats - Roddick managed to almost be Federer after like 15 tries. Give Kevin Anderson or Zverev (wait Zverev beat him twice), or any of those guys enough bites they're bound to win one or two.

Fcking lol at Hewitt. Guy had a terrible serve, good return, and his forehand was average. He had a good backhand but he couldn't generate power off either side and would rarely take his backhand DTL. Guy is a glorified pusher.

Any scenario where Nadal is losing rustles you.

The "Big 3" is way past their best and it's pure comedy to think these guys in their 30s wouldn't be losing some big matches to them if they showed up today. No different to Sampras and Agassi losing to Hewitt, Safin, etc.That's because he faced the guy at his best for most of those matches. Fire up a time machine and I reckon 23 year old Roddick would like his chances against 37 year old Federer. What do you think?A Nadal fan mocking another player's serve. That's a good one. If your man had a better serve he would have beaten Djokovic.

Hewitt had more than a good return. Handled Pete's serve as well as if not better than Agassi. Owned Federer 7-2 before he went on that run in 2004 and injuries skewed that even further from 2006. No one is talking up his groundstrokes although his BH was like a ball machine. Rarely produced errors and was able to grind down many attacking players.

I was talking about his foot speed, ROS, volleying, overhead, and topspin lob. You don't spend 80 weeks at No. 1 weak era or not without having some weapons even if they're not obvious like a serve and big FH.

Nadal can be easily overpowered by big hitters so does that make him a pusher? I guess it's all relative. I've seen him win many matches where he went into pusher mode moonballing it up in the hope of extracting the error. On faster courts he's got no weapons to trouble Federer so does that make him a pusher?

You'll never watch the match so here are the stats. 1 BH winner to 8. Is that a pusher?

So.....

Having an almost even H2H vs a aging way past their prime Sampras and and Agassi makes Roddick and Hewitt somehow potential multi-slam winners in the current era??....




Logic, how does it work?

Shame it's potato quality but Hewitt had more than a "good ROS." What a joke.



7–6(4) 6–1 6–1 in a slam final no less. How many times do you think Sampras was handed a couple of breadsticks? Even in decline his serve never wavered.

I'll bet any money given he was #1 in the early 2000s Toni was using Hewitt's game as a blueprint for a young Rafa in addition to developing that FH. Ditto for Murray and Djokovic. Hewitt's passing game was as good as it gets with the tools he had to work with.

Lul don't even bother with this guy. He just claimed Nadal was a pusher and used Federer's best match vs Rafa to back it up lmao. He probably has a picture of those match stats taped beside his bed.

Lol uses that US Open final as an example.

Sampras GS in 2001 - 4th, 2nd, 4th and final. didn't win a title the entire year. also holy fuk watching that clip shows how much he declined. guy had the reactions of a drunkard at 3am in the morning.

The point at 1:15 is all you need to know about Sampra's declining years.

Mindlessly rushing the net on approaching shots hit to the middle of the court and then hitting the put away volley long.


Kinda reminds me of another potential multi-slam winner if he was playing today.....

[QUOTE=iabs post_id=1562647391]So.....

Having an almost even H2H vs a aging way past their prime Sampras and and Agassi makes Roddick and Hewitt somehow potential multi-slam winners in the current era??....

[img]https://i.imgur.com/pwR0c3G.gif[img]

Logic, how does it work?[/QUOTE]Simple. Hewitt turned pro in 1998. Roddick turned pro in 2000. At that time Sampras and Agassi were in their 20s and still winning slams.[b]Hewitt was only 20 when he beat Sampras in the US Open final.[/b]They'd already played 6 times when he was 18-19 and Pete was either #1 or #2. Pete retired when Hewitt was coming into his prime.

Logic... lost on you I know.

[QUOTE=Trudope post_id=1562647881]Lul don't even bother with this guy. He just claimed Nadal was a pusher and used Federer's best match vs Rafa to back it up lmao. He probably has a picture of those match stats taped beside his bed.[/QUOTE]Strong reading comprehension fail. I said if you're going to call Hewitt a pusher with a crap serve then I could cite plenty of examples where Nadal was reduced to a pusher by a more attacking player / big hitter.

Hewitt also developed his game in the 90s when every second player was a S&V so he didn't need a lot of power. His ROS enabled him to get into most points and his passing game as mentioned was top drawer. Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray took it up a notch with better groundstrokes but he still laid the blueprint.

1. He still had a serve that would have Nadal doing that comedy ROS routine rubbing shoulders with linesmen. A pair of breadstick sets shows Hewitt had no trouble returning it. It was more than "good" but you're just pulling this stuff out of your ass right?

2. Hewitt was 20 years old.

3. Sampras won the US Open the following year but don't let that get in the way of your cherry picking.

Roddick wasn't even in the Top 10 and retired the next year while Rafa was at his absolute peak in 2011.

If we're cherry picking how about we pick prime Roddick? Oh wait, baby Rafa lmaololol cope salt lmaololol.

6-0

So, Hewitt beat Sampras the year before this one retired?

Such accomplishment, such GOATness.

To beat a GOAT on the tail end of his career exactly a year before he hangs his racquet is deserving of considering him a GOAT and potential multi-slam winner in today's ATP field.

lmao strong hypocrisy. Refer to the post above.

welp, I guess we're back to counting H2H then...

[QUOTE=iabs post_id=1562650341]lmao strong hypocrisy. Refer to the post above.

welp, I guess we're back to counting H2H then...

[img]https://i.imgur.com/Zrqhupf.png[img][/QUOTE]Truly like pounding a head against a wall.

[b]No one on this planet thinks Roddick is better than Nadal.[/b]

The question was if say 2004 Roddick showed up today how would he fare against a Nadal who couldn't pass the QF of a slam for 2.5 years losing to the likes of Fognini and in the past year or so has lost matches to Gilles Muller, Shapovalov, Kyrgios, Goffin, and Cilic?

I reckon he'd beat him comfortably. This was never about Nadal in his prime.

This is about an era of duds making these guys in their 30s look better than they are right now.

I never made it about Nadal, in fact you were the first one to cherry pick an early Nadal match to make him look like a pusher, then he happened to make Roddick look like the mindless net rusher Sampras was at the end of his career when he played Hewitt, it was a mirror example using YOUR LOGIC. I'm using your same rationality where you equate a young in his prime player's H2H vs an old declining GOAT and think he'd be GOATing it up today.

Get a clue, Dom.

Edit: This has been fun, but gotta go play tennis, cya later Dom's.

That was Indian Wells2017. Not an old match and the slow surface suits Nadal. In that match he was like a pusher which is what your buddy was calling Hewitt.

The point was Nadal has had his moments pushing and moonballing when it suited him and it starts with returning serve from so far back. Of course he can play aggressive when it suits him and he's far from a pusher however there's no question he borrowed from Hewitt's game early on adding stronger weapons off the ground. Playing as a lefty also helped him.

If Stan and Murray can be multi-slam winners in this era I’m not sure why Hewitt and Roddick couldn’t.

The trolling in here is killing this thread.

Kyrgios loses to Gasquet, dude is falling in the rankings.

Shapo beats Wawrinka in Tokyo, only has to beat Struff to make it to the SFs.


Predictions:
Bejing: Delpo
Tokyo: Nishikori or Anderson but I hope Shapo.

Shanghai should be fun, with the WTF's and Paris hopefully being a bit more fun than last year.

De Minaur is now Oz's top ranked player while Kyrgios falls behind John Millman to 3rd spot.Agreed. Way too much recency bias.

Someone as consistent as Hewitt who was #1 for 80 weeks would have surely had more opportunities against these guys in their 30s than Stan who showed up 3-4 weeks a year.

And how about Davydenko? 6-2 vs. prime Nadal on HC. Doesn't seem far fetched if that same guy showed up right now against Nadal that he wouldn't be troubling him even more.

Anyway I figured with no big tournaments on it couldn't hurt to pad a new thread with a few posts and keep it ticking over.

Wawrinka and Murray won their slams when the big 3 were in their primes.

Hewitt and Roddick couldn’t even handle the weak era where only Federer was dominating.

You’re so mad this thread isn’t the Federer circle jerk that it was before I started posting, you can’t stand to have some reality checks every now and then, *******.

“Every time someone disagrees with me they’re trolling”.

You must be Dominik’s alt account..

Come on mang are you forgetting it was your buddy Camalama who got busted with an alt.

"Hewitt and Roddick couldn’t even handle the weak era where only Federer was dominating."

Hewitt was #1 in 2001-2002 and Roddick #1 in 2003. Not sure how that isn't handling the weak era unless your only metric is slam wins. In that case Federer was busy winning just about all of them.2005-2007 he reached 10 consecutive slam finals.

2005-2010 Federer reached 18 slam finals from 19 entered.Think about that.

You're just salty Federer was able to vulture more titles across all surfaces. If Nadal had done it you wouldn't be calling it a weak era. Case in point is how highly you rate clay today in the absence of clay specialists. As great as Nadal is he's benefited from weak competition on clay.

[QUOTE=Dominik post_id=1562861961]Come on mang are you forgetting it was your buddy Camalama who got busted with an alt.

"Hewitt and Roddick couldn’t even handle the weak era where only Federer was dominating."

[b]Hewitt was #1 in 2001-2002 and Roddick #1 in 2003.[/b]Not sure how that isn't handling the weak era unless your only metric is slam wins. In that case Federer was busy winning just about all of them.[b]2005-2007 he reached 10 consecutive slam finals.[/b]

[b]2005-2010 Federer reached 18 slam finals from 19 entered.[/b]Think about that.

[b]You're just salty Federer was able to vulture more titles across all surfaces.[/] If Nadal had done it you wouldn't be calling it a weak era. Case in point is how highly you rate clay today in the absence of clay specialists. As great as Nadal is he's benefited from weak competition on clay.[/QUOTE]Let me wow as I admire how Hewitt was taking out an old declining Sampras for his only slam and competing for number #1 vs the geriatric Rafter and Agassi along with the almighty all courter Kuerten, among other titans such as Kafelnikov and Grosjean...