Roger Federer becomes the greatest of all time

Roger was certainly a candidate for the best we have ever seen. He had won the most Grand Slams. He won on clay, something that eluded many great players like Connors and Sampras. He had the career slam. For a long period he owned Wimbledon. But he struggles with Nadal.....and somehow he has never won in great adversity. He needed one more jewel in his crown....and today he got it.

Andy Murray for once played to his huge potential. He covered the court magnificently, getting to impossible balls. For the first two sets he hardly made an error. He was serving at 130mph regularly.

Federer reeled a bit at the start....but then in the second set he picked up the pace of his groundies. What points he constructed ....hard slices, soft slices, backhand top up the line and cross court. Inside out forehands so severe the ball seemed to be travelling parallel to the net. Brilliant, artistic stuff.  What a privelege to watch this man play the game.

And now there can be no doubt, we have been watching the greatest of all time.

 The man is pure class, must be that Saffa blood in him

 There is one more jewel that is missing Moz, and hopefully he will have that one as well very soon......................... an Olympic Gold

Mozart

Welcome to the club.   Even before today - Federer was the greatest tennis player ever.   Both he and Nadal last year was not in form or iinjured and that gave Djokovic the chance to move to number 1 in the world.   Federer is the best player ever and that is a fact.

And the best thing about him is that he doesn't grunt everytime he hits the ball. Can't wait for them to outlaw that rubbish. Anyway, back to Federer, he is a legend! Thats all there is to say.

Fedrerer may well be the best to fall time but consider the claims of Rod Laver:

Rodney George "Rod" Laver MBE (born 9 August 1938) is an Australian former tennis player who holds the record for most singles titles won in history of tennis, with 200 career titles. He was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970 (from 1964 to 1967 in the professional circuit). He is the only tennis player to have twice won the Grand Slam (all four major singles titles in the same year) – first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969. He is the only male player and was the first player, male or female, to have won the Grand Slam during the open era (in 1988 Steffi Graf also achieved this feat). Laver won a total of twenty major tournaments, including eleven Grand Slam tournament titles and nine Pro Slam titles. In 1967, Laver also won the Professional Grand Slam. In addition he won nine Championship Series titles (1970–75) the precursors to the current Masters 1000. Laver won and excelled on all the surfaces of his time (grass, clay and wood/parquet), and was ranked as the best professional player in the world during the five-year period he was excluded from the Grand Slam tournaments.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Rod Laver is the second and last male player to win each major title twice in his career. Only Roy Emerson and Margaret Court had won all four Grand Slam tournaments twice before Laver in the history of tennis. Laver is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.[9] Within his slams there are also 6 in doubles and 3 in mixed doubles.

Beeno

I rate Laver as well - but those days competition was not strong and the players of that era did well - but they are not a patch on the modern players.   Competition nowadays on interntional level and with due regard to the present calbre of players - it is not really possible to compare them.   Federer remains the best player ever in the professional era and definitely the best player of all time.

By the way I recently watched the world cup games on ERPN and saw Joost playing there.  His ball handling was pathetic and so was that of the rest of the team.   The only difference was that the All Blacks were even worse.   That showed the difference between what happened in those days - merely 17 years ago - and what is the norm nowadays.

Mike I agree that comparisons are difficult to make. However Laver was probably more dominant in his generation than Federer. If I understand it correctly he did a grandslam as an amateur, then was not able  to compete  in slams for 5 years becasue he was professional. Then when the open era commenced he did another grandslam. Laver  would have surely ended with many more single slams than Federer?

To add to that he won dobles, mixed and mens, slams as well.

Was glad re the Federer win as he deserved it for hanging in. He also beat Doks who would have won otherwise. Murray played very well and should win a slam in the near future but even when Federer  retires he still has Nadal and Doks to beat  and who knows who will rise up. Murray is at his peak and must win soon.

I was interesting to note that Canada won both the girls and boys junior titles. Ou snapster might wish to take note that the girl, Eugenie Bouchard (Severely good looking), is ranked 300 odd in the ladies section and the guy (Whose name I cannot spell) is ranked in the 500s.

Snapster doesnt understand it takes time to make ones mark in senior ranks! 

its tough to compare players from different times. roger is just pure class and his records speaks volumes. he might very well be the best tennis player that has ever played the game

Greater than Rod "Rocket" Laver?...

Hi ya Denny where have you been?

Yes I also wonder re Laver - see my comment above.

i cant really say the problem is the only thing that one can use to compare players are stats really. one can argue that rod had less quality players to compete against ext ext. its really tough. unless one can go back in time and let them compete against each other then there is really not other way to really compare. rod played very much as n amateur in those days and that in itself had its own set of challenges to overcome. roger competes with the likes of nadal novak murray you name. very tough draws every week traveling all over the world ext ext. its just close to impossible to compare players. to be fair they both are legends but i feel roger has done more for the sport of the court and on it as well. his personality grace and general way in which he represents himself if great for tennis in general.

I suspect Laver, who had great opponents was the more domiant player but I am a Federer fan and love watching his artistry. If he is acclaimed the greatest so be it.

Steffi Graf in an article I saw seems to claim the best female spot. Another article says this Graf was second to Amrtina. Cant agree.

Steffi Graf — 22 Grand Slams, 107 titles, 88.7% win

In 1988 and 1989, Graf won 25 of 30 tournaments, seven of eight Grand Slams and an Olympic gold medal. She was No. 1 for a record 337 weeks and is the only player to ever win each Grand Slam four times. Detractors will say that her record is inflated because Monica Seles missed two years after being stabbed on the court, but that shouldn't be held against Graf any more than Court's lack of competition should be held against her. Plus, Steffi won 11 Grand Slams prior to the Seles incident and held a 6-4 record against her rival at the time.

1. Martina Navratilova — 18 Grand Slams, 167 titles, 86.8% win

Take your pick of greatest Martina stats: 1,442 wins, 167 titles, a 74-match win streak, playing in 23 consecutive singles finals, 18 singles titles at Grand Slams, 59 total titles at the Slams, nine victories at Wimbledon. Even as a 53-year-old breast-cancer survivor, Martina could probably hold her own on tour today.

Graf probaby played for a shorter period . Certainly she had a slighly better win ratio and more slams. She also beat Martina who was not over the hill when that first happened?

Loved Wimbledon this year - what a magnificent tournament.

Clevermike, when you say Federer faces tougher competion than what Laver did then I ask but one question....why then did Laver not win every single tournament he entered?

carpetmuncher.....everyhing you say about Roger is true but you forget that exactly the same can be said of Laver.

and then there's the inescapable fact that the modern player has a rich history to draw on, Laver, Hoad, Tlden and Gonzalves did not have that luxury. C'mon let's give it up for Sampras, stylewise there's hardly any difference between him and Roger. Was Roger an admirer?

The great Mohammed Ali was a great admirer of "Sugar" Ray Robinson and so was "Sugar" Ray Leonard, so who did Ray Robinson base his style on? The  greats of the past lay the foundation for the greats of the future, that's how well history serves us.

the bottomline is its impossible to compare players. one can only really use stats. that is the only method really. i mean rod played with a wooden racket as well the times very so different really. the players now a days spend hours analizing the other players ext ext. rod was a legend and will be remebered as such but roger in my view does a lot of other things outside of the court as well so for me in that sense he is more complete

Stuff stats....give me the pleasure of watching these greats while they carve their names into immortality.

3 things make a sporting GREAT!...

1. Talent
   
2. Dedication
   
3. Results
   
4. Humility
   

I think we have been fortunate enough to witness 2 tennis greats in action in recent times... Both Fed and Sampras are real sporting GREATS!

...In rugga terms, guys like McCaw and J Wilkinson would also fill all 4 of those criteria.

... Cricketers for some odd reason tend to miss out on number 4, for some odd reason. Perhaps because cricket has always been seen as an elitist sport?

In golf, to be honest... only G player comes to mind. A true humanitarian who lives for others. ... but then again my golfing knowledge isnt spot on... so there may be a few other fellas.

 "3 things" huh Chippo? - I see you list 4. Brains didn't make your list, now we know why !!

You must work for SARS

Yep two things make brains....being able to count.....hahaha.

Denny.... Laver is probably the only other player in the debate. The reason I think this win tilts it in Roger's favour is, it's  a significant late career win over the next generation. Rod tried and failed to lower Jimmy Connors.....although he brilliantly saved 6 match points before going down in the Challenge match.

Beating Novak and Murray in the biggest tournament of the year says, past his prime, he was still better than the best of the next generation at their prime. Despositive as the NY lawyers love to say.

Denny

As far as I can remember - Laver is a rlatively small guy compared to players now playing.  Small guys find it impossible to compete and Laver polayed in an era where small guys could perform better.   Also - equipment plays a role.   When Borg tried a comeback it did not last - he was using a wooden racket - same as the one used by Laver.

I rate Laver highly - but compared with the top players nowadays in the professional era - it is difficult to compare players and looking at the size factor Laver would have had problems/

Writing about great female players - it is equally difficult to compare them.  Martina had too much muscles and was into the homo thing - no real beauty to be sure.  Steffi has had one advantage over her - when she left the tennis world - the loss of the sight of those magnificent legs brought me near to tears.:)