OT: Djokovic is best ever
Djokovic just won his 3rd French Open and 23rd Grand Slam title. Unless Nadal returns to elite form, I don't see how anyone catches him. If he can win another French and US Open before retirement, he'll have 4 of each. Only Nadal, Laver, and Emerson have more than 1.
He is 36 and won in straight sets, amazing! No need for GOAT debates as there is NO debate.
This is my opinion and it shall not be debated!
Also leading the Nuggets to an NBA championship. Pretty crazy.
Yep.
Federer is the greatest ambassador for the sport of tennis.
Nadal is the greatest clay player ever.
But Djokovic is the greatest player overall.
I'm a huge Nadal fan and don't like Djokovic. But hard to argue your point.
Meh I don't know. Feels like Fed got to rack up a bunch of majors pre-Nadal/Djokovic primes and Djokovic has now gotten to rack up a bunch post-Fed/Nadal primes. Nadal meanwhile was winning his majors by beating peak Fed and/or Djokovic. One match at his prime 100% healthy for the fate of the universe... I think I'm taking Nadal. In fact, Djokovic wouldn't even be my second choice.
On clay? 100%. Hard or grass? I dunno, man.
No way I'm taking Nadal on grass. I'd probably say Nadal clay, Fed grass, Djoker hard, but Djoker best overall.
In his prime Nadal is not losing on clay and can get a win against either Fed or Novak on grass/hard.
I can see that argument against Federer, since he's 5-6 years older than the other two, but Nadal and Djokovic are only a year apart. If anything it's a credit to Djokovic for staying on top of his game this long.
Head-to-head, it really depends on the surface: Djokovic leads Nadal 20-7 on hard while Nadal leads 20-8 on clay. They're 2-2 on grass.
As for Federer-Nadal, Nadal had a commanding 14-2 lead on clay while Fed had the edge on the others: 11-9 on hard and 3-1 on grass.
Djokovic was 27-23 vs. Federer, with a slight edge on hard 20-18 and surprisingly (to me) a 3-1 lead on grass. They were tied 4-4 on clay.
So overall:
Djokovic is 40-25 vs. the others on hard, 12-24 on clay and 5-3 on grass.
Nadal is 16-31 vs. the others on hard, 34-10 on clay and 3-5 on grass.
Federer was 29-29 vs the others on hard, 6-18 on clay and 4-4 on grass.
Rack up a bunch post Nadal/Fed prime? The man is 36 and by any measure is well past his prime in tennis years. This is not to mention being taken out of 2 tourneys in the US and Aussie Open that he very well may have won as well.
GOAT.
“Being taken out of”
Interesting use of the passive there
Idemo Nole!!!
Halfway to the slam.
"Dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives." — Novak Djokovic aka Thanovic
I'm rooting for the Djoker to accomplish the Calendar Slam this season and then accomplish the ultra rare Golden Calendar Slam next season (with the Olympics in Paris) in route to winning 30+ Slams over the next few years.
I feel privileged to have watched Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic all play but as a fan of Djokovic this feels so damn good considering all the shit-talking we had to endure from Fedal fans for many years.
Hopefully the US let’s him play. Hasn’t been able to play in US tournaments recently…
Indeed. When we thought the vaccine prevented transmission there was a reason to keep him out unless he vaccinated, but we now know that it doesn't, so I hope they revise the rules.
I still can't believe people believe this anti vaccine hysteria. But then again horse paste snorting people will do what they do
I'm vaccinated, but thanks for the stereotype. It is a simple fact that the vaccine doesn't stop transmission, there isn't even a real argument about that. On the flip side it helps reduce severity and death. Those two things can be true at once
I mean... What is funny is you are ridiculing a poster who said something that is 100% true that no credible person disagrees with. The debate is over. The science is in. You can transmit Covid if you have been vaccinated. This has been known for well over a year.
The Mayo Clinic is not in on some QAnon conspiracy theory. https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/fully-vaccinated
That policy was revoked in May of this year. He can play. I think all he needs to show is a negative Covid test.
They’re still requiring covid tests?
The White House is hosting college champions and they are required to test negative.
Unfortunately for Djokovic the Covid policies were antiquated the day they came out. I wouldn’t call him a victim because he could’ve handled the situation better, but there’s no question that the US Covid policy probably cost him at least one grand slam.
Eh, that's weird.
He also couldn't go to Australia last year — it's not like America was the only country trying to limit the spread of the virus by means of (reasonable) rules affecting travel. All he had to do, for God's sake, was get the shot!
In any event, even if you feel that shot was some overstepping Illuminati bullshit, it's weird to say that the travel policies were "antiquated" (i.e., old-fashioned or outdated) on the day they were implemented.
They were ... old-fashioned?
I am the best ever
Then next best always seems to be the best ever. We were saying the same about Sampras and Federer.
congrats to djokovic. Amazing player.
The bar keeps being raised. Sampras won 14 slams (never the French though) and Federer 20. If someone tops Djokovic’s record, he’ll deserve it too. It will be tough.
My goodness I didn't remember Sampras winning so many. And when I think of him he reminds me of Adrien Grenier.
On another note, he's one of the most linguistically talented players, too. He speaks something like six languages. His French speech today was pretty solid, especially for a guy whose native language (Serbian) is very different.
(That's something that's bugged me about Nadal. He natively speaks two Romance languages (Catalan and Spanish) and still, after all these years, can't be arsed to say much more than "Merci beaucoup" in Paris.)
As someone who would dearly love to speak more than English, innate aptitude is underated. After 30 years of exposure to Spanish I still can't do much more than read basic signs and say hello and goodbye.
After all the French Opens he's won, they should be learning to speak Spanish. He owns that place.
In Nadal's defense, French is much more difficult. If he spent a boatload of time in Italy and still said 3 words, I think your point would be much better taken.
For a native Catalan speaker, French shouldn’t be that different. The two languages are very close in terms of grammar and vocabulary. It’s mostly a matter of learning the pronunciation differences. Given that he spends multiple weeks a year in francophone places (Monte Carlo, the French Open, the Paris Masters) it’s surprising that he can’t even deliver a short acceptance speech.
Italian and French are practically the same language. The “Romance languages” of French, Italian, and Spanish are practically mutually intelligible. The French and Spanish teachers at my daughter’s school each speak to each other in their language and carry on a conversation. Italian is very similar.
Italian and Spanish are the closest. French is closer to English than Italian.
He also does some solid impressions.
Dude wins in straight sets to set the all-time grand slam record. Half way to the CYGS. Triple career grand slam. Extends total weeks at #1 record. Has Tom Brady...the other GOAT sitting next to his wife in the box. Gives his victory speech in French. The only way he can top that is to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and complete the Grand Slam. He's the clear favorite at Wimbledon. USO will be a much bigger challenge.
Don't see anyone stopping him from winning a few more by the end of next year either. Covid may have been the best thing to happen for Novak. At the age when most males start to rapidly decline he was able to give his body some extra rest.
He did it while competing against Nadal (all the French Opens) and Federer, who sucked up more than a decade’s worth it titles between them. Imagine if golf had gone the better part of two decades of majors with only 3 winners.
Certainly what they've done is unprecedented, but you can see how scoring in tennis doesn't lend itself to big upsets compared to a lot of other sports. It seems there are more upsets in women's tennis, where a bad set gets you halfway to a loss. You have to be consistently better throughout the match to win in tennis. My guess is more elite training, fitness, etc. nowadays lends itself to the top players being harder to knock off. But we'll see what happens in the coming years. Does anyone young look as promising as the big 3 besides Alcaraz?
Upsets in the men's game used to be much more commonplace until the Big 4 came around. They're anomalies.
The mental/psychological aspect can't be underscored. The big 4 cultivated an aura and therefore a mental advantage over the years that put them ahead before stepping on the court. Playing the sport almost my entire life, the mental toughness is the most impressive. You're all alone with your thoughts and in big points, and they bring the goods almost every single time. No coach, timeout to take before a big serve, or anyone other teammate to fall back on. Have not seen anyone like the big 3 and Serena and the men happened to play all at the same time.
I would take Federer at his peak over Djokovic, but in terms of greatest career, they are the definitely the top 2.
I also think the 70s-early 90s was a more competitive era with a much deeper pool of talented players, and each of the grand slams required more specialized skills - especially the French & Wimbledon. Federer, Nedal & Djokovic would undoubtedly have been top players in that era, and they did mostly need to compete against each other, but I suspect they would've only made it to 12-18 GS titles, instead of over 20.
I'm not sure of that. I grew up then, and I certainly respect the Borgs, McEnroes, and Conners of the world, but ... there have been a lot of good players these past 20 years that we don't even think of as such because they couldn't break through. Andy Murray. Stan Wawrinka. Del Potro. Andy Roddick.
Not to mention that comparing the wooden-racket serve-and-volley game of the 1970s to today's game is almost apples and oranges. I mean, to suggest that Bjorn Borg of the mid-70s, playing with a wooden racket, would beat Djokovic, with his today, is laughable. So you have to somehow be saying that ... Borg would be better than Djokovic were he playing with today's technology. Which ... how can we possibly know that?
That's like saying Borg would have been better than Michael Jordan at basketball, except he didn't play basketball. They're just fundamentally different sports.
So what we're left with is comparing records and results — what did each achieve? And ... damn, 23 Grand Slams? TWENTY THREE? While playing at the same time as two players who each won over 20?!?! Freaking amazing.
It's kind of mind-blowing when you look at where those 3 have set the bar for men's tennis. And for them all to do it in (mostly) overlapping careers, I don't think there's a major sport that has ever come close to having the 3 GOATs all playing at a high level at the same time.
Tennis is a ways down the list in terms of my favorite sports to watch, but what a privilege it's been to see Roger, Rafa and now Novak continuing to one up each other over the past two decades.
Can "GOATs" be plural?
Funny thing is Andy Murray is forgotten but he was good enough to beat any of them healthy.
If Alcaraz is as close to any of the big 4 he could top them all, he's got no competition.
You’re right, that is funny. Murray was a great player, but c’mon man.
I mean, sure, he could. Hell, he did. So did Wawrinka (beat both Federer and Nadal three times, and Djokovic six times). But ... consistently?
Hell, the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Denver Nuggets once in the playoffs this year. The question isn't who "can beat" whom. It's can you do it often enough to establish some kind of recognizable superiority. And, as for Murray vs. Federer or Djokovic or Nadal ... nope. :-)