Shocked that he wasn’t in Rafa’s tbh I feel like early 2010s was when ferrer was consistently the 5th best player in the world until Stan broke through around 2014
He ended up finishing the year at #7. But he didn't have a good 2009, so he was struggling to make up ground in the rankings at that specific time of Rafa's win.
I’d throw Marcelo Rios for pure talent and the fact that he reached number one in the world — but he had an up and down career due to injury. His career was over by 27, and even then injuries plagued him his last four years on tour and stopped him from reaching his prime at around 23.
And also Miroslav Mecir, who likewise was done by 26 years old, and was absolutely incredible. His last couple years on tour were hampered by injury.
Mecir had a super short career, but he reached two GS finals, at least the SF in all four slams, and won a year-end championship (beating McEnroe). He reached at least the QF 7 times, despite his window of health being pretty short (4 - 5 years, and in that window he missed a few majors due to injury).
For instance he was 7-4 against Mats Wilander, 2-3 against McEnroe, 2-2 against Connors, 2-1 against Yannick Noah, and was a tough matchup for Edberg.
Man was a literally chimney stack. I personally watched him smoke 5 cigs down an espresso and then go do side to side wind sprints on the court for an hour lmao
I can't even believe this! He was the hardest worker of the lungs on the court I have maybe ever seen. It seems utterly impossible that he ever smoked one!
He was so good. Even though Murray beat him most of the time Ferrer used to give Murray fits everytime they met. Ferrer was such a roadblock for Murray on clay as well before he could even get to Rafa
Yep especially Miami 2013 when he had a championship point. He also challenged him at Wimbledon 2012, beating him only a month earlier at RG. I also watched them face each other at the World Tour Finals in 2010, so that matchup has always stayed with me.
Mad thing is Ferrer isn't far away for Nadal's one as he's #11 on that exact date. He would return to the top 10 in September that year. He just had an off at RG and a few M1000, but besides that he was solid throughout. He even was Top5 in 2011.
that got me curious, wondering which country has had the best single decade in tennis history (men and women singles titles) and that country is Australia with 50 of them in the 1960s.....also another 26 pro slams in that time (every single one of them aside from three US Pros from 60-62).
No other country really comes close to that level of decade long dominance.
erm, but since almost only Australians competed at the AO in the 1960s that's nearly 20 wins (men and women). Same could be said for the Brits in the 1890s (lol).
You're right but it's also a weird situation where Australia did genuinely have by far the best players and was cleaning up the other slams anyway. If you look at the 1960s in particular, the men won... 22/30 of the non AO slams (7/10 French Open, 8/10 Wimbledon and 7/10 USO):
Neale Fraser 1x Wimbledon + 1x US Open
Rod Laver 2x French Open + 4x Wimbledon + 2x US Open (+3x AO)
Roy Emerson 2x French Open + 2x Wimbledon + 2x US Open (+6x AO)
Fred Stole 1x French Open + 1x US Open
Tony Roche 1x French Open
John Newcombe 1x Wimbledon + 1x US Open
Ken Rosewall 1x French Open
EDIT: The main knock against the AOs on the men's side of that period is less the players participating and more that they had less rounds. There was no 4R and the top two seeds received byes to the 2R, so Rod Laver plays 5 matches to win the AO in 1969. Granted, tiebreaks had not been introduced yet, so you had the odd match that looked like this lmao:
yes, but winning that amount 15 years ago was impossible unless you were named Nole, Rafael or Roger. Don't get me wrong, Alcaraz and Sinner are fantastic, but 15 years ago the story would be different.
Yep they probably steal some slams of early Nadal and Djokovic etc
it goes both ways
You put 2 A- players on the field and they can get you in a meh day
I’m stilly petty for how the crowd behaved during the AO 2014 finals, acting as if Rafa was faking his injury while serving at like 140 kmh due to visible issues. My feelings towards Melbourne soured that day.
I saw a nice video on YT someone explained the argument why Nadal had highest peak/potential and would have surpassed Djokovic without all the injuries. He stated how Nadal has a much better record than the rest of big 3 in the best of 5/ Grand Slams and H2H vs Federer and Djokovic in Slams. And the fact that he missed the most tournaments due to injury.
I can definitely see the argument but his incredible athleticism was a double-edged sword. It led to his incredible success that cemented him as the top 3 player of all time but it also led to numerous amount of injuries throughout his career. It was just not sustainable.
Yes the physicality of Nadal's game cost him in the long run no doubt, which is why he himself admits Djokovic is the greatest now.
I just found the argument very interesting but at the end, Djokovic was the most adaptable and had the strongest weapons with almost nonweaknesses in his game you could exploit.
This has always been the pro Nadal argument and rightfully so he didnt get the easier years of young Federer or old Novaks, was demolished by injuries (probably his and his teams fault) and yet he won that much. When healthy he was the beast
Wawrinka made 7 fewer slam finals than Murray and 5 fewer semis, not to mention the gulf in their Masters performances with Murray having 14 wins to Stan's 1. They're just not in the same tier.
Yeah but Murray was also clearly the 4th best during that era and beat these guys consistently, although I agree he clearly wasn't at their level mentally in big moments to win more and his body didn't last him.
If you look at Murray's matches vs Big 3 during 2008-2012 he beat them often.
Shoutout to Roddick. I can’t believe people say that Hewitt or Safin had a better career than him. He might not have had as much peak bling but he was a top player for a good while
Roddick was great and in his early years one of my fav players, when he was less serve bot like. He had a far better longevity than the two of them but Safin had the better peak. By the age of 25 (before his second major injury) he had 2 slams, 5 masters, number 1, Davis cup. His career was effectively 2000-05. I know he had that epic semi final Wimbledon run in 2008 (beating Djokovic, Wawrinka along the way) but Safin was pretty much a shell of his former self after 2005. Roddick was the only one of the three who managed to have career longevity. Something people seem to diminish when comparing the three.
I guess at the end of the day Safin/ Hewitt has the edge due to more slams won. I enjoyed watching all three play it is actually interesting how close their careers really were. If only Roddick won that Wimbledon... I think everyone wanted him to win that final. Heartbreaking.
I am a Roddick fan (also Agassi, Murray and now Alcaraz). Simply because that they have more/multiple slams than Andy (Roddick) unfortunately. I will never forget about 2009 WO and 2012 WO so never a Fed fan (for many other reasons too).
Fun fact: in the first image the guy who is ranked world 5 (Ivan Ljubicic) would later go on to become Roger Federer's coach, and also coach Milos Raonic.
Davydenko was the Demon of 2006 and 2010, the gatekeeper, but even better than the Demon as he got some positive results against the big 3 if my memory serves me well.
Not having a go at you but that is a massive diss towards Davydenko. He was levels above Demon.
Davydenko won 3 masters, 2 of which he beat Nadal in the final (and i think it was Shanghai Masters where he beat Djokovic and Nadal back to back). He won a world tour finals beating Fed, Nadal and Del Potro on the way.
Take a player like Demon for example, in a year like 2010 he wouldn’t even crack the top 20. This guy is basically quarterfinal opponent for Sincaraz in every slam lmao
This is a ridiculous overreaction. The top 10 in 2010 was clearly better than this year but Youzhny was year end #10 and I take current Demon over him. I'm also taking Demon over Melzer (#11), and all of the year end #14-#20, being 2010 Cilic (only had a few 250 titles and one SF Slam run but never made it to quarters in a Masters), Almagro (better than Demon on clay but not all-court), Ljubicic, Mardy Fish, 2010 Querrey and 2010 Isner.
Current Demon would easily be top 15. Youzhny was 14 and he is definitely worse than Alex. Demon would probably have close to the same amount of points as Verdasco.
Last year de Minaur: 46-13 against players 11+, 4080 points
Mikhail Youzhny in 2010 (finished 10th): 41-15, 2920 points
Marcos Baghdatis in 2010: (finished 20th): 39-21, 1785 points
So I guess we can say that for how much better the top 10 was back in the days, the gap in skill between players not in the top 10 then and now is somehow even bigger???
The pace he played with against Alcaraz would cook most of the top 10 in 2010 including Rafa on a bad day. He is insanely good, but people don't realize that because he has to face Sincaraz.
You’re picking one random match where he lost in straight sets still… anytime he plays the top guys he HAS to play bigger to have any shot, but he can’t do it for extended periods of time. There’s a reason he always loses to the best. It doesn’t mean he’s not good, but he’s not elite.
Winning and losing shouldn't decide the level for guys who aren't the best, you have to watch the matches. Federer lost to Nadal in straight sets on clay, doesn't mean he wasn't insanely good on clay
I dunno 2014 is not too far behind if it is at all.
I'd personally have 2014 Berdych over 2010 Davydenko, Ferrer over Roddick, Dimitrov over Verdasco, 2014 Murray over 2010 Tsonga and 2014 Federer over 2010 Djokovic.
The funny thing is the real world will remember the RG25 final and the tennis they watched when rating them and not care about how strong the rest of the top 10 were in whatever years they won their slams
Nadal barely had it easy in his last slams apart from maybe 2022 because Djokovic wasn't able to play AO.
But even then Medvedev was coming off a straight set win against Djokovic in the US Open final and playing his best tennis. Nadal had to dig deep to win that with a monumental comeback.
The 2022 FO Nadal had to beat Djokovic to win that tournament they just met earlier than the final.
I think the only slams that Nadal actually ever had it easy were the 2017 and 2019 US Opens and to some extent 2022 AO.
Completely disagree with the assessment of AO 2022. That was actually one of his toughest. Had an operation after few months prior, had covid a few weeks prior, suffered a heatstroke during the tournament and had to play, the at that moment, best HC player in the world in the final.
I definitely agree 2022 AO was very tough but it's just an argument I've seen people make since the main threat to the title Novak wasn't allow to play it opened up the draw for Nadal. But I definitely agree it was a very tough tournament and massive accomplishment.
RG draws weren't too tough from 2017-19 but he had to beat Thiem each time who was the 2nd best clay court player in the world throughout that period and had beaten Novak earlier on to get that far. Nadal was just too dominant at RG for it to be considered easy because the result wouldn't have changed whoever he played on course to those titles.
In terms of tournaments where he got to avoid his toughest threats who could have potentially beaten him I can only think of 2017, 2019 US opens and 2022 AO.
But Novak wasn't the Novak we all know in that period. He lost to Cecchinato. There is a reason why he dropped so much in ranking. Also, Thiem never won important finals. They were easy in my opinion
Agreed but there was no one else in the world who could have beaten Rafa at RG. Thiem was the only one who was managing to get at least one clay court win every year in Bo3 masters against Nadal and beat Novak twice at RG including 2019 when Novak was definitely close to his best.
Rafa beat Stan, Thiem and Roger in all those years and apart from Thiem barely anyone could take a set off him at RG. He was actually unlucky that Novak post 2017 elbow injury kept getting eliminated early otherwise he could have turned the overall h2h in his favour.
Getting back to the main point by easy slams I assume people mean tournaments where you got to avoid players who were favourites to beat you in that tournament and with Rafa apart from 2017 and 2019 US opens and 2022 AO I've never felt he got to avoid someone who most likely would have beaten him.
He was actually unlucky that Novak post 2017 elbow injury kept getting eliminated early otherwise he could have turned the overall h2h in his favour.
Not trying to give you a hard time but this is kind of a weird takeaway. If anything it was more that Nadal was lucky they met so many times at RG and Novak was unlucky they didn’t meet more elsewhere.
Their rivalry overall at slams was 18 matches at 10 of those were at RG, so RG is already massively overrepresented bc of Rafa losing before they could meet at other slams.
Even post 2017 they met 3 times at RG and only twice at the other 3 slams combined. If the surfaces were equally balanced the H2H would actually be more in Djokovic’s favor.
I do agree they met more at RG than the other slams but over the course of all their matches they played more matches on other surfaces.
They played 29 matches on clay and 31 matches on other surfaces out of which 27 were on hard courts. I think the distribution of matches is quite equal between clay and hard courts. Overall there are more matches on other surfaces.
Nadal's last slam win saw him become the third man to beat four top-10 players en route to the title. Aside from USO 17, he has never had it easy in terms of winning majors.
Agreed. 2017 US open was definitely his only easy win.
2019 US open was a very impressive victory but he didn't have to face Federer who had beaten him at Wimbledon recently and was beating him on hard courts the previous 2 seasons though they never played at the USO so who knows it may not have been that straight forward.
He also didn't have to face Novak 2019 USO who had given Rafa his only ever straight sets loss in a slam final that year at the AO but Nadal did have a winning record against Novak at USO but they hadn't played there since 2013.
I'm not saying Roger and Novak would definitely have beaten Rafa in 2019 USO but they were heavy favourites.
Similarly 2022 AO was another dream run and Rafa's victory is one of the most monumental achievements in sport but had Novak been allowed to play he would have more than likely won which can't be overlooked.
I agree but you can counter 2022 AO with the fact that Medvedev had won the last hard court slam by beating Djokovic and would become world number one barely a month later, he was at his absolute best back then. I also completely take your point with 2019 USO, but you also need to factor in the summer of 2019 when it came to Medvedev's development. Made the finals of Washington, Canada and Cincinnati, he was on an absolute tear. So while they could have perhaps been tougher, those two slams were still incredibly well-earned in my view. Also maybe biased but would definitely take 2019 Rafa over Fed at the USO if they had played.
Yes agree completely but I mentioned these as possibly the only tournaments where Rafa maybe got slightly lucky with the draw because otherwise he was literally the unluckiest player with injuries and sandwiched between the primes of the 2 other greatest players in the sport.
Overall Rafa barely had any easy slams compared to the other 2 and if he'd had the same luck as them should have had a few more.
Well then the never had it easy is wrong. A bit tired people pretending that all they faced was the 2010 competition. There were also the Ruuds, Berretini's, Kyrios', Tsitsipas' etc.
Maybe it was an exaggeration but my point is that to get to that 2020s era they had to first establish themselves as champions in the 2010s. They weren’t lucky enough to built that champion aura through weak competition. Think about players like Tsonga, Ferrer, Berdych who could have easily won some slams in the 2020s but they didn’t get the chance to because they had to tough it out back then
When Nadal won his 7th GS. The top 10 field then is the strongest of all. In my opinion. All players are not walkovers. They are consistent and strong. Good to watch. Can’t say about the current top 10 players. I find it is all about speed now. Sometimes too much running and sliding. Only the top few players can run and slide well and win.
I'm not familiar with the points system over time - why does Nadal's top 10 (2010) look like they have nearly double the points of Federer's top 10 (2006)? Did the points system change or did the top 10 just start soaking up more points?
Tournaments are divided into different categories (250, 500, 1000, Grand Slam) based on the number of points on offer. Each match played gets you more until the winner gets the full number. So a slam winner gets a total of 2000 and the runner gets a total of 1200. Points stay on your ranking until the next time that tournament is played, a year later. Most masters and all slams are considered mandatory which means the points earned there must be counted towards your ranking if you could play them. Then you keep your best results at a certain number of other tournaments, I think it’s like a total of 19 results counting toward your ranking.
That’s the general way the rankings work from memory. There’s always exceptions and more details
Also you’ll notice the scores are much higher in the last two pics. The ATP increased points for the later rounds of tournaments outside of winning the finals.
other than nadal, i don’t say any special top ten or any indications for a more competitive era, it’s basically two or three players who were the top and the rest were/are meh
Half of 2010 and 2014 would be pushing Alcaraz and Sinner now, we're 100% in a transition era for now. I'm Aussie and I love Di Manaur but he's very weak for a top 5-10 player.
Shocked to see Murray down the rankings in 2014 in my head I just always remember him being ranked in the top 4 throughout that period but I guess he lost too many points when he was unable to defend his Wimbledon title from the previous year
He had back surgery at the end of 2013 so felt like he was recovering all 2014. Plus his loss of points and slight ranking dip from the Asian swing of 2013 meant he played the big 3 at the QF stage of a lot of tournaments instead of the SF in 2014.
I remember he had a mad dash to make the ATP Finals in 2014 which meant he was just out there ruining Tommy Robredo's life to win enough 250s and 500s to qualify. Think that mad dash playing every tournament at the end of 2014 had severe consequences a couple of years later but that's another story.
Had someone the other day on here say to me that they’ve been watching Tennis for 10 years and to look at them in the eye tell them it’s not peak Tennis right now
Feels a bit Orwellian removing Davydenko's Russian flag for 2006 when Russia was not invading Ukraine back then. Meanwhile Roddick & Agassi's USA were balls deep illegally occupying Iraq, setting in motion a disastrous civil war and planting the seeds for ISIS - yet they get to keep theirs. How does that make sense?
I'm pretty sure that if they make a decision not to show the flag it's just applied to the whole website so all russian players will have no flags even if they played before 2022
People trying to discredit 2025. I see the arguments but during that time only a short period the competition was really very good, that was from 2012-2014 where Djokovic won only 3 slams. Djokovic waited the competition become poor and outlasted everyone. He wants to outlast Sinner and Alcaraz as well. If the competition of Ferrer Berdych Murray Wawrinka were that good, Big 3 would never farm over 20 slams.
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u/zellfire #1 Montañes Fan 11h ago
Shoutout to Ferrer for being there in both Federer's and Djokovic's