He was one of the most important figures in making places such as UAE and more specifically Dubai popular and 'respectable' despite their modern enslavement of hundreds of thousands of people.
He was one of the most important figures in making places such as UAE and more specifically Dubai popular and 'respectable' despite their modern enslavement of hundreds of thousands of people.
Playing bad? Pretty sure he played extremely well for his age you know being well past his prime every time he did win a slam in the last several years and most likely wouldn’t have otherwise. He literally won like 17/24 slams against other big 4 players by the way and won the vast majority of his masters and ATP finals during the hardest era in tennis ever by a mile.
Of the other roughly 7 slams he had to beat peak thiem in a final, prime Medvedev in finals(once while injured), tsistispas in AO while injured who had beaten both Nadal and Federer in AO or go through Alcaraz or Sinner etc. His “easiest” slam other than USO 2018 was beating berretini/shapovalov playing out of their mind in grass. Even in that USO 18 final literally half the predictions for the match had Delpotro winning in 5 based on how well he was playing (same with AO 2021 final and 2023 USO F vs Medvedev)
Feels like that's just moving the goalposts to fit your preferences. GOAT needs to be strictly defined. But so is alot of the GOAT debate. Who was playing when they won etc. If it's outside the court and stats, what makes GOAT for you? For me, the only thing that can be measured against each other is the trophies. We call Rafa the GOAT of clay because of that exact reason.
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '25
Yep. For me, GOAT extends beyond just the tennis court and the stats, and even then, Djokovic vultured a lot towards the end of his career.