For years people have argued about the existence of the weak era, and the answer was always right in front of us. All songs by Patrick Patrikios: "Crazy" "Where We Wanna Go" "Know Myself"
Thank you for watching and commenting. Most of you are making the same comment (that Federer stopped everyone else from winning in the weak era). We will address this argument in part 2 (or 3) of this series. I also recommend the previous videos in this series which debunk some common myths: "Federer era was strong" myth: th-cam.com/video/-dp2JgqvHVY/w-d-xo.html "Peak Federer" myth: th-cam.com/video/M6klGZgcjQk/w-d-xo.html "Federer got old in 2011" myth: th-cam.com/video/qGZjKcxRnaQ/w-d-xo.html "Courts slowed down" myth: th-cam.com/video/eKWlOtdOJfA/w-d-xo.html
No shit he stopped his rivals from winning. If Roddick had won Wimby 04 and 09, that's two more majors. If Hewitt had won AO 04 and USO 05, that's two more majors. Every major that Fed didn't win from 04 to Australia 10 went through him with one exception.
He stopped them from winning because he was playing at a much higher level. You cannot fault him for this. He was consistently beating Safin and Hewitt who both beat Sampras at the US Open. The reason there weren't more all-time greats during the "weak era" is because Roger was simply better than his elite peers.
One can argue that Federer’s presence created what looked like a weak era simply because of how good he was. Imagine if there was no Federer. Then his slams and records would obviously be distributed among the rest of his contemporaries, likely more evenly than any one person standing out (which Federer did). Then there might as well be no such weak era as proposed in the video. This is the main counter to that overall idea of the weak era.
I think u missed a very important point , that since the beginning of 2000s tennis authority, had drastically changed the court speed, ball weight. The courts had become slower predictable bounce , balls had become heavier. That coupled with enormous improvement of racket technology enabled incredible top spins and control. As result , the older styles of Serve and volley based tennis complete vanished in between 2000s to 2007. So neither could Sampras, Rafter and many contemporary continue nor Riddick, Safin , Hewitt etc could survive much. Federer had mastery on both, the top spin forehand and serve and volley. So he could dominate for a while , b4 finally ground stroke jiants like Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Warwinka came up.
I am looking forward to you addressing the issue of lacking competition from players born after 1987. Why was Djokovic's major competitions were coming from two players that are older than him but not the players that are up to 15 years younger than him? What I am also interested is in your explanation as to why most of Djokovic's win came after 2012 when Federer was already 31? Who were Djokovic's major rival after 31 that were actually all-time greats that are younger than him?
Every dominant athlete in their sport was dominant in a weak era according to your logic. You were either born the wrong time or the right time according to your facts
Murray is an all time great, but only has 3 slams bcos of the GOATS. His stats excluding GS wins before his injuries etc put him comfortably in the top 10 all time.
Great video. I guess the biggest counterargument is that Federer prevented other players from becoming all time greats by beating them and preventing them from winning slams - for example he beat both Hewitt and Roddick 8 times in Grand Slams.
If that was the case Federer would have 30 slams minimum because just between 2001 to 2007 thats 28 slams. So not only was it a weak era but even then he couldn't rack up Grand slam trophies. Two things made it crystal clear in my mind by watching this. 1) is for sure Federer was in the weak era and 2) it just shows even more so how great Novak is because he had to beat not 1 but 2 greatest players of all time to overtake them. Mind blowing.
@@MineFullStop good point, but the reality is that players have to take on 127 players to win a slam, so this focus on All Time Greats may be overly simplistic.
@@MineFullStop Actually, Djoker's achievements aren't that meaningful if one of his two toughest opponents is a "weak era" champ. Still waiting for Djokovic fans to realise this. Maybe next year, eh?
@@MineFullStop Actually it's Nadal who had to deal with prime Federer and prime Novak. Novak is only 1 year younger than Nadal but only Nadal was going toe to toe with Federer at that time then when Novak reached his peak in 2011 Federer was already declining but Nadal remained and won 13 slams since 2011.
@@MineFullStop So out of one side of your mouth you're saying Federer doesn't deserve to be called one of the all time great players and then in the very next sentence you refer to him as one of the all time great players to prop up Novak's record. Yeah, nothing wrong with that "logic".
Haha. I love this. Great job on this channel. Very interesting with the rivalry vs former champions as a metric. Don't worry, Djokovic has got the GOAT numbers even for us Fed fans. However, here is the major flaw with this thesis. The argument falls apart when Federer gets penalized for winning too much. By letting Hewitt and Roddick win more finals, he would have supposedly entered a stronger area, and lost more slams as a result. Can't win any which way.
Yeah but if Fed had lost more slams it wouldnt even be debated that he could be the GOAT. In a few years this debate will be over for good when Djokovic keeps on winning and is leading by 5 or more GS titles.
@@RaxflexCA The 'ifs" are starting to add up. if Fed hadn't missed by an inch at wimby 2019, he'd still have more slams than Djokovic. This never ends....I'm just saying that the "weak era" metric based on Fed not playing "great champions" is made to fit the argument. Again, Djokovic has beaten pretty much every record on the planet, anyway.
Yes, but I'm sure the next videos will deal with this flaw. The breakdown from a long 25 minute video analysis does a good job showing how one could argue that Federer that Federer was blessed in peaking during a weaker era, at least compared with Djokovic's peak seasons: th-cam.com/video/-dp2JgqvHVY/w-d-xo.html 25 minutes of tennis stats can be tedious, but this is the best 60 second clip of the video in my opinion is here: th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxW85KeL5Af36aSdBf4phTPapPxnNDo7_z It uses peak ELO ratings of Djokovic era competitors who Djokovic defeated in Grand Slam finals at their peak (Medvedev, Zverev, Tsitsipas). That is pretty incredible. But more interesting is that those players have all already peaked higher than Safin, who actually beat Federer in a Grand Slam final. It is so difficult to compare across era, but the effort and the evidence from this video is quite compelling.
I have played this sport competitively and followed tennis for may years. This sport is brutal, there was never a weak era in modern day tennis. Before the open era you could make the claim there was a weak era but present day competition (open era) has never been weak. If nadal and djokovic were to retire tomorrow wouldn't this next era be a weak era to? No one dethroned them. If these guys keep playing til their late 30s they are going to get dethroned but it really doesn't matter because they are not in their prime.
Federer just robbed great players their opportunities to become a multiple major champion. It is furthermore not Federers fault that Rafter, Sampras and Courier retired much earlier than he did and that Haas and Kuerten had to pause or retire due to health problems and that Rios, Nalbandian, Safin and others of his age didn't achieve more despite their tremendous potential and talent. Federer had to struggle hard with Hewitt in his early years. Hewitt was the Alcaraz of his time, won NY and Wimbledon and was two times Nr 1 of the year. He could have won some more majors, but Federer defeated him once in a NY final and several other times in majors. Roddick could have won like one more US Open and surrly 3 times Wimbledon but Roger denied him that. Federer only won 7 of his 20 majors after Djokovic had won his first major. But still. After Nadal and Djokovic, his career numbers are the most impressive. And if you compare the level, athleticism and speed of tennis of 2000 to 2010 and compare it with 1980 to 2000, you can easily see, that the overall level was much higher in the Federer years. Having spoken in favour of Federer, i have to say, that therefore the achievements of Nadal and especially Djokovic are even more impressive because they had to beat Federer and therefore the argument of the video really comes into play.
Roger did in fact play in a weaker era. Emphasis on "weaker," not "weak." Top players during this time did not progress far into tournaments as consistently during this time regardless of whether they ran into Federer or not, indicating weakness at the top, or, rather, less strength at the top vs. that of the Djokovic-Nadal era. This can be measured using all kinds of metrics. This channel has a very good video illustrating this. Another way is to look at the ATP points of a reference rank (5 or 10, for example) by year. There is a clear separation between pre- and post-2008. This suggests that players at the top were far stronger during this time; going farther iin tournaments more consistently and accumulating more ATP points reflects that. ELO of reference ranks (again, 5 and 10 for simplicity and accesibility of data) by year also paints a similar picture: Post-2008, players at the top were stronger. You can peruse who was at the top during each year, which only confirms the thesis. From 2004-2007, the ones at the top getting swatted by Federer were Hewitt, Roddick, old Agassi, Safin, Nalbandian, Davydenko, Blake, and then a rising Nadal who was a non-threat off clay until 2008 yet not in his prime until 2010. 2008-2017 was a historically strong era at the top of the rankings, perhaps the strongest ever. Federer's competition was now prime Djokovic, prime Nadal, Murray, Del Potro, and Wawrinka, among others. It's no wonder he only won 1 slam from 2011 to 2016. Don't believe me? Go to Ultimate Tennis Statistics, Rankings Chart, and look at rank 5 by year. Look at ATP points and ELO ranking, either one works. It's crystal clear that Roger dominated due to the absence of Djokovic and Nadal.
@@uRdumdum Yeah same it is as crystal clear as Nadal and Djokovic only great player they have to beat was Federer. Their generation sucked. Players like Murray, Del Potro, Cilic, Gasquet, Monfils are the most decent from that gen. Where only 2 won a GS. Between their gen and Federer gen it was for example Stan Wawrinka that has better h2h against them than he has against Federer. Then you have the “lost gen” that are players between 29-34years old that don’t exist in the tour. Then you have the “new gen” that are players between 23-28 like Medvedev, Tsitsipas, Zverev, Rublev, Berretini, Fritz, etc…that are decent but they struggle against an almost retired Federer. And is a generation where only 2 of them have reach a GS final and that’s only after Federer was out the tour injured. Then you have now “covid gen” that are Auger-Alliassime, Alcaraz, Sinner, Rune, etc..and are the only gen that have some hope of detroned them. So Djokovic and Nadal faced players weaker than Federer did. Federer played all of them, plus Nadal and Djokovic 5-6 years younger (a huge advantage for them), plus players like Sampras, Agassi, Hass, Rios, Kuerten, then Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, Nalbandian, Davydenko, Gonzalez, etc..all players that won GS or at least reach finals of them. Federer played different eras and in all of them he was the one to beat player or the one admired by the other players. Roger Federer definitely had the stronger generation to deal with. It may seem as if there was not any tough player besides him and Nadal from 2004 to 2007, but this is untrue because Federer obliterated opponents on the court, making them seem like sub-par players when they were actually much better than today's tennis field.
@@nicolaschacon2707 No, you completely missed the point. 2004-2007 was weaker than (approximately) 2008-2016. You are right this era we are in right now (2019-present) is also weaker than 2008-2016. However, based on ELO and ATP points of reference ranks, the current era is no weaker than 2004-2007; actually it is still a bit stronger at the top. You can check the statistics. Think of it this way: Roger racked up titles in a weaker generation. Djokovic and Nadal are also currently racking up titles in a weaker generation. The true test was 2008-2016, and the title count is Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal with 5, 12, and 11, respectively. Federer achieved markedly worse results in the Golden Era. His level of play did not drop off, either. He staved off a decline very well and played close to his 2005 level through about 2018. Federer played Sampras only once... I don't know why you're saying he had to deal with Sampras as if he was a regular competitor like the other members of the Big 3 were in the Golden Era. He also only had to contend with an aging Agassi with a bad back. Hewitt and Roddick were destroyed by Djokovic and Nadal, even when the latter two were young and before their primes. Using Hewitt and Roddick as a measuring stick, it just further proves that 2004-2007 was weaker. Having to face the other 3 members of the Big 4, plus prime Wawrinka and Del Potro already blows any competition Federer had to face during his 2004-2007 run out of the water. It's not even close. Imagine having 2 other 20+ GS winner-quality players at nearly every slam, plus one right on their heels (Murray). You're only calling Murray "decent?" After going over what you said, it's clear you don't know much about tennis. "Federer played different eras and in all of them he was the one to beat player or the one admired by the other players." This is just nonsense. He was not the one player to beat. Djokovic and Nadal both eclipsed him during 2008-2016. Djokovic and Nadal were winning more in a harder era. In fact, Federer was only ranked #1 for about 6 months over this 9-year stretch. "Federer obliterated opponents on the court, making them seem like sub-par players when they were actually much better than today's tennis field." Also nonsense. Djokovic and Nadal did the same to non-Big-4 competition. Again, you completely missed the point on how to evaluate whether a generation is strong or weak. In strong eras, the players at the top advance deeper in tournaments more consistently, indicating strong play. You can measure this by the ATP points or ELO ratings of reference ranks. Rank 5 and 10 during 2004-2007 is markedly inferior to 2008 onwards. Federer won most of his titles against weaker competition, and this is a fact. He failed to replicate his prior success in the Golden Era, while Djokovic and Nadal dominated. Case in point: Outside of Nalbandian's single finals appearance, he, Haas, and Davydenko all only made it as far as 4, 3, and 4 slam SEMIFINALS. I seriously have no idea why you invoked their prowess as a testament to Federer's peak era being strong, because it's crystal clear that these three players were weak in comparison to, let's say, Wawrinka, Murray, and Tsonga. Again, it's clear you don't know what you're talking about.
I can say this much. If t wasn't for Federer we would have never seen the great level of play that Nadal and Djokovic reached! Federer set the level! You are only as good as your competition! You cannot compare eras physically because of training and equipment advances - you can only compare accomplishments! Full stop!
I don't know, Federer maybe triggered the thing, but Nadal is the one who forced him to reach his absolute top level. Beating a fresh Nadal on clay multiple times, in different tournaments, in 2&3 sets, even in Spain, is a Djoko record once again. Federer has been purchasing this for 10+ years at his top, with no success.
@@quentincrisp6933 Yes, but hard work can prevail in many cases, and is not to be denied. Even if I dislike Nadal very much, you must give him credit for that.
This is the list of matches against "all-time greats" that are younger: Jimmy Connors: 131 (!!) Guillermo Vilas: 60 Bjorn Borg: 23 John McEnroe: 82 Ivan Lendl: 90 Mats Wilander: 40 Stefan Edberg: 68 Boris Becker: 40 Jim Courier: 32 Andre Agassi: 47 Pete Sampras: 1 Roger Federer: 90 Rafael Nadal: 59 Novak Djokovic: 0 Now your can interpret what you want with this data, but you can see how you can just flip a variable and it show a completely different picture, can you spot a weak era with this numbers?
Update your list in 5 years and then compare the numbers again. We will see more all-time greats with 3+ Slams in the future who have played Djokovic, and I think Medvedev will be one of them. He is 27 and Djokovic has a 9-5 winning record against him. In fact, Djokovic has a winning record against EVERY player he has played against who has won 3 or more Slams.
Its not about the age alone, but rather if these all time greats were in their prime when another beat them. Djokovic took out two of the greatest players ever on their favorite surfaces and created an era of his own. He dominated an entire decade and is still going strong, despite the bans and media hate. That is really something. Not to mention how he shuts the hostile crowd up every time he smashes their boys.
This dataset seems spot on! Novak is just on a roller coaster ride ATM. He is a worthy competitor but an all time geat is not just defined by GS count. Novak himself knows that, although he would like to consider himself as thé GOAT based on that single factor. 60% of Novak fans can't even play tennis 🤪
You could make the argument that Roger's level of play between 2004-2007 was simply much higher than his main rivals at the time, such as Safin, Roddick, and Hewitt and that is the reason why he didn't have other all-time great rivals who had more than four slams (and I would put the number at 3 slams). Safin won two slams, but let's say that he beat Roger at the 2004 Aussie Open, which would put him at three slams. And, if Roddick beat Roger in two of the four finals appearances that would also put Andy at 3 slams which places him in the all-time great category if you place the number at 3, which seems fair. Then Roger would have had two other all-time great rivals during the "weak era" and his grand slam total would only be reduced by three, putting the number at eight from 2004-2007 instead of 11. If this happened, and this is not even mentioning if Hewitt won more against Roger, then that time period would have had more all-time greats competing against Roger and the "weak era" doesn't exist. The reason why this didn't happen is that Roger was just so much better than his main rivals at the time who were around the same age. It is not his fault that he was just playing at a much higher level than his peers. This shouldn't count against him.
Completely agree and what you pointed out is the one major flaw of this metric. In the end the only people who have the right to judge wether or not the era was weak are the players who actually went against prime fed.
I've always wondered why Slams are the only metric for the strength of an era. Why do other major titles or Olympic medals count for so little in a sport that is competitive all year round?
Regardless of the arguments for or against. Any true objective tennis fan that has been watching the sport for a while (I've been watching since Lendl was dominating) will tell you that it was a weak era post Sampras. Again .. I'm saying a tennis fan that's not being biased either way ....an objective one I like all 3 before any of you pounce on me. I love the sport and I appreciate all 3 equally.... Too much time is spent arguing about the 3 rather than appreciating the fact that history is being made and how fortunate we are to witness it. But yeah .. it was weak .. that's just the truth ....just going off the eye test .. forget stats .. .. just the game play I mean Leyton Hewitt was number 1. The guys you're talking about .. Roddick and Safin ... They weren't of that peak Sampras Agassi courier class ... They were slightly lower. Safin was great on his day .. but not consistent enough to be considered "great" regardless of slams and stats. Roddick was a fantastic server with a pretty average game . He never hit the ball deep enough consistently...nor did he have sharp angles.. Just by going off the eye test you can tell who's great and who's not. For example right now I can tell you that Alcaraz is going to be considered a great when his career is done ( provided he doesn't get injured too often) Whereas someone like Rublev for instance will not be. They're both relatively early in their careers and both too 5 players....but you can see it already. So yeah ... Just the eye test .. It was weak ....I mean Sampras, Agassi , Becker , keurten ... .... To Hewitt????? C'mon man I distinctly remember saying this to a friend when Hewitt was number one.. " I can't believe this guy is number one... I mean he's ok ... But he's boring" Sure he was quick and he fights for every point but he's bang average and he's only winning these titles coz there's no one else there ..." I swear to god ...I truly said that to a friend in the Hewitt era 👆🏽
Federer went through 3 generations of players.. the end of the Agassi and Sampras era, the beginning of the Hewitt Roddick and Sadin era and then the Nadal and Djokovic era. He dominated first 3 for the most part
IMHO can’t really compare him with Sampras and Agassi. Sampras, especially, was on the verge of retirement and riddled with injuries. Both players were pale shadows of their prime time prowess.
Hweit rodick safin wra they were all knjured or difressed in performance or they were not interested to work As for sampras and agassi, sampras last year of trainjng was 1998 with exception of one home tournament qhere he trained after years to use as final tour. And had back problems. And agassi had back problems he was not even walking properly after 2002 or so. Fed did not meet their era except for one two games with Agassi.
@@scottwarren4998 Yes, a Nadal that was not even at his best compared to 2010-2013, you do realise that Feds biggest rival at that time was 21 year old Nadal. Cmon now.
Dude, Federer faced Nadal 14 times between 2004 and 2007. in which Nadal beat him 8 times. 5 were grand slam finals and semifinals in which Nadal won 3. How is it Federer didn't have a rival until 2008?
So just think a young boy beaten prime Fed more then Fed able to did. If Fed,Nadal & Novak were born in the same age then Fed wouldn’t even have 10 majors.
@@asifiqbal-Relentless All of them would have less slams, and prime Novak and Fed never faced each other, so we don't know what would happen in that matchup.
According to your timeline, it's also anomalous that there hasn't been an all time great player after Nadal and Djokovic. In fact, the gap between Federer and Nadal/Djokovic is less than the gap between Nadal/Djokovic and current time. Where are all the all time greats that are supposed to be popping up every few years? Could it be that Nadal and Djokovic are preventing great players from winning majors just like Federer prevented the likes of Roddick and Hewitt?
Yes, but unlike federer who had no one during his years, those 2 have had each other and STILL do + as it was shown in the video 2/3 3 times slam champions are also from Nadal/Djokovic era. Facts speak for themselves. I love Federer because he made Nadal/Djokovic what they are and because he generally made tennis interesting
@@KungLao392 It's true Nadal and Djoko had to compete against each other, but they've had a much longer period without a new GOAT popping up. Federer only had 2004-2007 (4 years) before Nadal and Djoko. Nadal and Djoko have had 2008-now (15+ years).
@@fedfoofy That is a bunch of bs. Nadal and Novak are the main reason why there are no all time greats after them, cause they PREVENTED it. Muray would have won 10+ slams alone if not for these two. Other great players like stan, ferer, tsonga, delpo would have won many more as well. Unlike the weak era period, those players were consistent in reaching quarters/semis of majors, only to be stopped by these two.
You are kaning waty too much sence :D This video is pretty stupid. It says that if there is nobody to beat the big 3, then they are all not GREAT. Meanwhile if sir Andy Murray played in the 90s, he would have smacked and lobed the sh!t out of everybody, and would have at least 10 slams.
I had the same explanation in my mind why Federer dominated tennis so much in that era. It was that 15-year span between Sampras and Nadal. But by the same math if Alcaraz becomes next great with 4+ slams (which is not a lock just yet), the span between Nadal and Alcaraz is 17 years which is even longer. Does it mean the post-Djokovic era is weaker than pre-Federer era? So far there is no telling that any player post-Djokovic can become a multiple GS champion though.
You really hit his argument out of the park, from what I can see none of the players born in 1987-1996 the likes of Thiem or Medvedev will ever be consider all time greats with 4 slam wins.
Really liked this video, although something is weird to me. If a player is so good that he can prevent other players from winning slams, then he automaticly creates a weak era. In other therms, being too good discredits your greatness by making you stand out, which is quite a paradox to me Similarly, if we imagined a wolrd without the big 3, then the rest of the players would split slams between them, probably ending with 4 or 5 each in a span of 15 years. If only average players compete against each other on a similar level, then they would be a lot of players considered "all time greats" at the same time. Wich means that it would give the illusion of a higher level on the tour, wile it is not the case because we took out the best 3. That means that this indicator does not mesure accurately the "level of the era" but rather the difference of level between the top players
The argument has nothing to do with Federer “preventing” other players from becoming champions. The basic premise is that Federer did not have the opportunity to “dethrone” the dominant champion(s) nor have “rivalries” with any of the ”all-time greats”.
@@laline74 I know, i am not talking specifically about roger. I am just saying that this logic is flawed, and is just trying to prove a point by any means nescessary
You couldn’t have said it better. It’s a nice video but the theory doesn’t really hold up in any other scenarios. If Djokovic and nadal were to retire right now and one individual player f.e. Alcaraz would manage to dominate the tennis world he’d automatically become a weak era champion by this theory.
Federer at his peak is really about 2003 to 2007. His biggest rivals were Roddick, Hewitt, and Safin, and he destroyed them during those years. I'm fairly confident that if Federer had not been around, Roddick and Hewitt would have qualified as an "all time great."
yes , he was able to dominate the game and winning 9-12 tournaments a year consecutively . If we look at Fed's movement and fluidity between 2004-2009, he was actually swift and fast that any player couldn't find any weak spots. Unlike his counterparts, they dominated 1-2 years, and then their domination skipped but Fed dominated in succession.
I disagree. They would of won max 4-5 slams. That's an amazing feat, but all time great for me is that range of 7+ slams. Lendl, Connors, McEnroe, Wilander, etc. all fall in the range of 7-8. The guys that have won 3-6 are amazing players, but fall short of that all time status IMO. That's where I see Rod, Hewitt, and Fed's early rivals at best.
yes but the problem with Federer is that Safin and Nalbandian who had the game to beat prime Federer was not fully dedicated to the sport like Nadal and Djokovic. As far as Hewitt and Roddick they are not all-time greats even without Federer, Nadal murray and Djokovic beat them consistently. Federer could beat them not playing his best, he could play average and still beat both of them.
For about three or four years it was basically impossible to win a Slam. Federer had a lock down on three of them and then you had the greatest clay court player of all time winning the French Open every year. Also, the eye test just tells me that prime Djokovic would have had a very difficult time beating prime Federer. I think Djokovic IS the GOAT, but this video bothered me with the sloppy way that it seemed to casually dismiss Federer's peak.
@@crawjo good point. I view Federer and Djokovic as a 1 and 1a scenario. I think in a 3 match scenario as I do not look at Clay matches when analyzing GOAT debates. I only look at majors not masters 1000 because they are not best out of 5 anymore like they were before 2007. So at wimbledon, australian and us open they all 3 are close to call. If we take Federer 07 vs Djokovic 15 it is too close to call, so not much difference between the two. I give the slight edge to djokovic at the us open before 2008 when the balls seem to move through the court quicker. And literally toss-ups at the other 2 majors. Would not surprise me if djokovic won on grass and Fed at australia even though both have been dominate at those two majors. Playing wimbledon before 2002 when they changed the grass.
Difficult to compare eras. If you ask me, the fact that it was a weak era as you call it, did not benefite Federer. He could have improved a lot more with all three being the same age. He had to do it after his prime years, which made you think that his prime years were after he stepped into his 30s, which is not the case. He was just forced to improve after 30 years because of the other two great rivals. I strongly believe that being the same age as Nadal and Djokovic, would have helped Roger a lot more!
This video has nothing to do with reality. This would never pass scientific requirements for research. One could say that the players in 2000 - 2010 were so competitive other than Roger Federer so they didn't win grand slams. It's impossible to logically conclude that it was a weak era. Actually, players from Federer's era who turned 30yrs old in 2010 dominated the top 50 from 2010 - 2020. It was tragicomic to see the 30+yo veterans dominating the game year after year because next gen couldn't beat them. Also keep in mind, 'weak era' Roddick beats Djokovic 5-4 in H2H. Just absolute nonsense, people are so biased to over-estimate the present and can't see the past.
Djokovic lost to Federer at US Open 3 years in a row in 2007, 2008, 2009. Djoker always had age advantage; in 2018 when Federer was 37yo Djokovic surpassed him in H2H. No one can seriously say that Federer was on his prime anymore. This video's creator purpose is just to boost his favorite player Djokovic image. I could list a pages long text about why Djoker is not the goat and why actually 2000-2010 was more competitive era. Real tennis people know these things and it's sad that people are so biased to only see the present and not care about truth here in social media.
@@markolim8938 1. Novak beat Roger at AO 08, US open 10,11. Saying, that Novak always had age advantage is a load of horseshit. In 2007 he was inperienced kid, Roger was 26. Roger had CLEAR age advantage then.
Pratim tenis od '89,'90. Znam i pratio od vremena Samprasa,Agasija,Bekera i posle Dzokera,Nadala,Mareja,Federera. Gde je gap moje zainteresovanosti za beli sport? '99-2000 do 2006-'07. Taman me video toga setio.. I taman skoro tako✔ Sampras (meni na kraju nezanimljiv),čini razliku. Ti vadiš koren iz postavke 👏😄 Svaka pohvala za trud ✊ Živeo nam Djole bratina i porodica njegova 💖 Imamo ekskluzivu i privilegiju da gledamo našeg Teslu 🎩🇷🇸
The argument could also just be made that the talent level of all players got better. Therefore each title win during the Federer era was harder to come by. Especially considering the best tennis player of all time was playing now then. You could also say the era of Agassi and Is Sampras was weaker therefore they were able to dominate the game between the 2 of them. Sampress especially had it easy because Agassi was out of the game for a couple of years due to Mental fatigue. Sampras and Agassi also had it easier because there were no up and comers that were any good to challenge them until the greatest tennis player of all time Roger Federer.
Would you also admit that 2003 to 2022 is the "weakest era" in tennis history because only 3 players won 90% of the tournaments and only 4 players have been no.1 for this whole period? There is no other 10 or 15 yr period (let alone 20 year period) when such a thing happened. Again, this is using your own logic that "if one player dominates for 10 years it makes him weaker" .. which is a self defeating and very contradictory logic.
Weakest and the most shameful era was when one player was stopped to play, for out of sport reasons, and even punished by deducting points, although he won the tournament. Whoever survives this and returns to the number one position is undoubtedly the greatest ever. And we all know who that man is, whether anyone likes it or not.
This analysis makes a lot of sense. But there is also the possibility that Federer was so much better than the rest to make to make the said era look weak
@@baixinhousa one can be great and still lose a lot to other greats, to answer your question. You miss the overall point of the discussion on the weak era. Think about it?
he just manipulated the stats. hewitt, roddick would have been ATG without federer . But as in 2004 federer reached a crazy level by winning almost everything, his direct contemporaries could not win much. To give an example of the level of federer between 2003 and 2004 . Before 2004 federer hewitt : 2-7 . After 2004 : federer - hewitt 16 - 2. Then about the fact that he didn't take the crown at an ATG. If in some way he did it by beating sampras at wimbledon . Sampras had won 7 wimbledons (record) and was the favorite to win wimbledon. And the number 2 during federer domination was nadal . Nadal won 11 title in 2006. It is the year where he win most tournament
Very insightful. Data gleaning has definitely happened. Pls ensure you are 100% accurate at all times. Pls be unbiased and factual for the benefit of tennis lovers of all age groups right from 70s to current year. Pls allow for intelligent Q & A and probing here. Let us spread knowledge and not a agenda. Hoping for thorough and good content going ahead ..
I've never heard Fed or Rafa fans claim that Djoko is in a "weak era". In my opinion, the first 2 decades of the 2000s has been the strongest era in history, even stronger than the late 70s/early 80s Borg Connors McEnroe era. That's purely because of the Big 3/4/5 and other legends like DelPo, Roddick, Hewitt, Safin, Kuerten, Nalbandian, Ferrer etc. As another commenter said - this one's very very simple to debunk. The quality of Roger/Rafa prior to Djoko/Andy coming on the scene, prevented anyone else from winning anything significant. Just look at some of the ranking points breakdowns from some of those pre-Novak years. Fed/Rafa won almost everything between them. The other thing to consider is the career timeline of Andre Agassi. Have a look at Andre's career stats on Wiki. He won the majority of his Slams and had his most consistently GOAT-level performances from 1999-2004 - that's when Roger took over. The passing of the torch wasn't really from Sampras to Fed, it was from Agassi to Fed. Any readers over 35 here will remember how good Agassi was in those first few years of the 2000s, and how many epic battles he had with Roger during that time. There's still no good reason to mark "4 Slams" as an "all time great" btw. Rafter, Hewitt and Safin all won 2 and all got to world #1 - I'd consider them all time greats too. The argument falls apart if you include those 3 - and again, they only won 2 Slams (and Roddick only got 1) purely because of Andre/Roger/Rafa's complete dominance during 1999-2007, when Djoko arrived. Sorry, nice vid, and it's a really interesting stat, but there's no weak era. It's two (or 3, if you include Andre) GOAT contenders snatching up every prize on offer until they were joined by Novak and Andy/Stan (6 Slams between the 2 of them = equivalent to another all time great), then they had to share everything 4 (or 5) ways.
I personally don’t understand how including one time or two time slam winners as all time greats. If we do that then we might as well say Medvedev is an all time great because he has a Slam, multiple finals and has been number 1….but we all know Medvedev is not an all time great.
This proves that Federer was so good compared to previous generations of “all time greats” that he prevented anyone in his era to win multiple slams. I would say some of these players (Hewitt, Roddick, Safin, Nalbandian etc) would have won more than 3/4 slams if Federer wasn’t so strong, it took exceptional players in Nadal and Novak and the age between them to challenge Federer.
@@relentless2917 and they lost more to other lower ranked players than losing to Fed. So no he didn't stop them. Stats tell the truth no matter what you deluded Fed fans believe
This video has nothing to do with reality. This would never pass scientific requirements for research. One could say that the players in 2000 - 2010 were so competitive other than Roger Federer so they didn't win grand slams. It's impossible to logically conclude that it was a weak era. Actually, players from Federer's era who turned 30yrs old in 2010 dominated the top 50 from 2010 - 2020. It was tragicomic to see the 30+yo veterans dominating the game year after year because next gen couldn't beat them. Also keep in mind, 'weak era' Roddick beats Djokovic 5-4 in H2H. Just absolute nonsense, people are so biased to over-estimate the present and can't see the past.
@@markolim8938 Roddick himself said that he was lucky to retire and keep the h2h record against Djokovic because they played most of their matches before Djokovic entered his prime. If there was ever a scientific channel on tennis, then this is it. You don't have to like it, but when you come up with a factual counter-argument and make a decent video on it, send us the link and we'll see if you did any better than Goatkovic.
@@Charismaniac I just told you the reasons why this video's message is false. Player's from Roger's era dominated tennis from 2010 to 2020 so they cannot be then weak. Just start by wearing off those djoker fanboi glasses to see the truth.
@@markolim8938 Again, you brought zero facts. The players from 2010 to 2020 were ALL in Novak's era which he dominated and was declared the player of the decade, way ahead of everyone else but a bitter, lazy hater such as yourself could never possibly accept that. The few of those that played during Roger's reign in the early 00s were far from their best at that time. Murray, Del Potro, Wawrinka, Cilic, Soderling, Tsonga, Ferrer etc, all played their best post 2008/9. Guys like Isner, Dimitrov, Zverev, Thiem and Anderson who won big titles showed up and peaked even later. End of discussion.
@@Charismaniac hahaha you've no idea what you're talking about. Not anyone in real tennis community would say anything that stupid. Have fun with ur fantasies. Prime roger > prime djoker.
There was no weak era. The real reason for the gap between Sampras and Roger is the following: People who started tennis in the 70's and early 80's started with wooden racquets, and different principles when it came down to style of play. Many, many, many people became very invested in a serve-and-volley style. Back then, it was very difficult for someone to win all four Grand Slams. There were specialists for every surface. At the end of the 90's, the ATP made lots of rule changes for tennis equipment (especially balls), and court surfaces in an attempt to make the game slower. Thus, a whole generation of players' playing styles became inefficient from one day to the next. Patrick Rafter would have won a lot more grand slam tournaments had there not been such rule changes. The other thing that hurt tennis is that Marat Safin never took it seriously, just like Nick Kirgios didn't. Source: I beat Nadal when we were younger
I agree. I do not necessarily think that there is a weak era. However, today's game is definitely much more homogenized than before for the reasons that you mentioned above. It is no co-incident that more players started to win all four slams. In the 90s, if players employ a clay court game on fast grass like Wimby, they surely get tossed out of early rounds. The surface was just too fast and irregular, and the balls were less fluffy and slightly smaller. To this day, I only consider Andre Agassi's achievement as the legitimate four slam wins. But I do believe that Roger was the better player than Agassi.
Wimbledon grass was considerably slowed down in 2002. This hurt S&V players like Tim Henman but immensely benefitted baseliners like Hewitt and allrounders like Federer. Just look at the two finalists in 2001: Goran and Rafter, two S&V specialists. Then look at the 2002 finalists: Hewitt and Nalbandian, two baseliners. Since 2001, no S&V player has ever won Wimbledon again.
We can't also forget a potential Federer rival in Marcelo Rios, who at only 27 , played his last GS match just before Federer's 03 Wimbledon win, and for a few years before was unable to play his best tennis due to back injuries. Also, clearly Roddick would have been an all-time great but is the player most victimized by Federer's 03-07 onslaught.
@@gregpeerenboom7439 also Roddick has significant drop in performance after early twenties, Hewitt did not work to regain fitness after injury, and the Brazilian who won rolland garros also did not work enough or maybe was other reason that did not go to aimilar fitness after injury. And Nalbadian as well did not take it seriously.
Pure science, only facts, without passion or biases. Your tennis channel is smashing other tennis channels with excellent quality. I look forward to your new videos. Keep up the amazing work. I am quite confident your channel now is a favorite with those who appreciate the truth. Having said all this, I really hope Nole can steady the hamstring to put Nadal in his proper place.
Hit the nail on the head. Djokovic has the same problem as Federer. In the recent years both Federer and Nadal have either been injured or out for sometime. Djokovic has completely benefited from it as there isn’t a Nadal or djokovic player in this era that challenged him.
You have to be too fanatic to go along with this. Just the name of the channel says it all. There are something that records and numbers will never buy. You can twisted that all you want but in the end is just diminished the one you are supposed to be defending. There is No GOAT and there will never be. It is just a discussion the fanatic people have. Fanatic of Players. Not fanatic of Tennis. Those one (like myself) were blessed to share and era with Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka etc… The real GOAT if there is something you can call that it is the ERA itself (las 20 years).
Yeah you're right in saying we were lucky to have witnessed the big 3. But this argument will keep going until time exists or someone else starts getting close to the numbers
An addition to this analysis should include the fact that no “all-time” greats have appeared since Djokovic/Nadal. Using your cutoff for all-time greats as having won 4+ grand slam titles, there will be a giant void after Djokovic/Nadal. The current player most likely (if I had to guess) to win 4+ GS titles is Carlos Alcaraz, born in 2003. You highlight a 15-year period for Federer that extends from Sampras to Nadal in which he was the only all-time great, but this would be a 22 year period for Djokovic/Nadal! Yes there are two all-time greats at the same time, but they are quite complimentary when it comes to GS win (Nadal wins almost all GS on clay, Djoker dominates the others). Something to consider for your analysis and maybe what helps to explain why Djokovic and Nadal have continued to win GS at such a prodigious rate at the tail end of their careers. Final thought-there is also the argument that true GOATs (vs. all-time greats) might cause the weak eras! There is an argument that they deprive other players from developing into all-time players in individual sports...we see this in other sports, but maybe this is what caused the giant gaps after Sampras, Federer, and Djokovic/Nadal.
I think Federer is too dominant between 2003-08, sooo dominant he massacre all the All Time Greats candidate between that period (except Nadal in clay). I also think that Nadal is the one who crushes Fed's mentality causing him to decline after W'08 and AO'09. For me there are 3 GOATs. In the end I'm happy to see these 3 GOATs playing in the same era, creating amazing moments and feelings that will hard to replicate by younger gen of players
@@rishinatarajan1859 The "weak era" Federer played in was from 2003 to 2007 (which is 4 years), while "the weak" era Nadal and Djokovic are playing is at least from 2012 to 2022 (which is ten years). Even though there are two all time greats there are twice as many slams they can possibly obtain which means that they can profit the same amount Federer did. But I don't think there are any "weak era's" as Novak, Roger, And Rafa created them by winning everything, which of course does not allow for any other players to reach 4 slams and be considered an all time great.
This is the most valid argument. There is a gap between Sampras and Fed because they were so strong than no other player developed. It has a lot to do with much better recovery so players can play more tournaments. The facts are quite simple, Federer développed quite late and has an unbelievable peak with no rival. It took Federer to decline for djoko to become the main man and now that Fed, Murray and others are retired he's winning more slams than ever. As difficult as it is to have the discipline of djoko, it is possible to keep it because he knows he can win. Federer didn't have this luxury during the last ten years of his career. Djokovic will end up with the numbers, but nobody will be able to say who was best at their respective peak.
This is stilly. If Federer was less good your argument doesn’t work. Safin. Rodrick. Hewitt. Would all have 4 plus slams. Also aren’t we in a week area now. What’s the age difference between Novak and the next three slam winner going to be? Best part of ten years again if Medvedev. Longer if Alcaraz.
The channel is called ’Goatkovic'. There is no ‘weak era’ imo. However, Safin, roddick, Hewitt didn’t lose to only Federer, they lost to each other and to others. There’s no one who consistently beat others in that era except Federer. While 2008 onwards, there’s the Big 4, Wawrinka, Cilic. Even these players r more consistent
@@ShaunbirKlair24 "Someone like Mededev" -- LOL. Don't you guys normally praise Medvedev to high heaven for being strong competition for Djokovic, or whatever? In hypothetical world he's nothing but a "weak era" champ?
Ive never heard about this theory and I’m all open ears, my only counter (if you can even call it that) was that federer was just so good he prevented anyone from reaching a slam 😂
There is a 25 minute breakdown by this channel from a year ago showing with a lot of stats why that is likely not the case. Here is a clip where he uses ELO ratings to compare players from across eras: th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxW85KeL5Af36aSdBf4phTPapPxnNDo7_z It does seem likely that Djokovic's era was stronger and that Federer profited from playing against weaker competition. That is not to say that Federer was not great, but that stats do indicate that part of his greatness was profiting from an era that was weaker than others.
@@derkoenigjaeger ELO ratings are bs in tennis, you just had to look to the formula and see how much tennis variables it left out, ELO should only be use to compare players currently playing, I dont know why people are so fixated in those numbers, not a single professional analyst use it
Federer played against SOMEBODY in the slams he won? Who? No one name stands out until Nadal came of age. Then it was Federer and Nadal until Djokovic matured. It was a weak era. That doesnt mean Federer ia a lesser player for it, just that he was the only strong one.
@@MsGrowltiger i dont mean nobody reached a slam, i mean nobody beat him in a slam final. Because during his peak he was better than everyone else. He still won against nadal and djokovic many times as well even though it wasnt “his” era
Bravo brate svaka cast da se neko ovoga sjetio i to jos profesionalac kao ti. Jer realno treba staviti tacku na sve budalastine koje trpimo a istina i statistika je na nasoj strani,ti si jos istinu predstavio na najprofesionalniji nacin svaka cast.
Brate, otkinuo je, ko god pogleda ovaj video i nastavi po svome, onda stvarno nema sta, pocastiti ga pivom i kupiti mu cips dok pise hejt komentare jer drugacije satisfakcije nemaju...
"Weak era" is a circular argument, because it becomes such when one player collects too much titles, subtracting those from his rivals. Roddick, who suffered most from Federer dominance and therefore excluded from this list, holds the positive head-to-head against Djokovic. This alone shutters to peaces all this "research" which is built with the matrix, selected beforehand to fit the desired result.
Weak era is just to downplay Federder Greatness and elevate Djokovic status and to a lesser extent Nadal ... I can argue 2018-2022 was weak era with Federer old and Nadal on last legs
@@shaunbures7557 How is Nadal on last legs? He won 6 majors since 2018. Still Djokovic's most dominant period was 2011-2016, where everyone was in their prime
Make a counter video proving otherwise until then not only has it opened my eyes on a weak era it just made sense even more so why Nadal was consistently beating Federer. He had it easy until Nadal came in to the picture.
@goatkovic Based on your videos, I get the sense that you don’t like Fed and Nadal. Do you actually heavily dislike each player, or just in comparison to Nole? Also, who do you prefer between Fed and Nadal (my prediction is Fed)? And who do you think is better between them?
Is there not an argument, that Federer was so dominant that he did not allow the likes of Rodrick, Hewitt and Safin at the time win 4 slams to be an ‘all time great’ you could argue if the other were so great they would not of let players win in there era. Just a thought
Thats exactly the point he is missing on purpose.. but its not really a surprise when this guys name is "Goatkovic", doing anything to discredit Federer (and Nadal)
That would be true if any of these were constantly 2nd or 3rd in the ranking but they werent Roddick was about 5th 6th all the time...Safin was 1st or second only in 2001/2 and then dipped in form then came back for 1 year then went out of top 20...Hewit is even worst cos he was mostly out of top 15 and only 3rd in 2005...Roddick was his biggest rival cos he faced him 4 times in the GS final inlike Safin and Hewit which happen only once but still Rodic wasnt 2nd on the ranking so that shows alot...
I'm more of a Djokovic fan and I thought the same thing too about maybe Federer being so good that he didn't allow the other best players of his prime era to become all time greats by this youtuber's definition. The goat debate is not really productive, because you could go back and forth all day. However, I believe that a stronger case for the weakest era is the one we are in now. This is an era that is still being dominated by past their primes Djokovic, Nadal and even an geriatric by tennis standards Federer (Fed up until early 2020). Djokovic is beating people with one damn leg in AO this year!!! What about Djokovic and Nadal not having to compete against another "all time great" that is younger than them? Isn't that more difficult? The way it's shaping up, it looks like Alcraraz is going to be the next one, and he was born in 2003. Am I taking crazy pills? Would a prime Djokovic beat a prime Federer more times than not? I don`t know and no one will ever know. I'm irritated that I felt the need to waste my precious time with this lol. This guy's argument was too dumb/confident, that I sprung my keyboard into action.
@@zachchamberlain2805 thanks im obviously a huge Federer Fan. And I wouldn’t get mad if people claim djokovic is the goat because simply said, the numbers speak for him. But I hate the disrespect and discrediting of Nadal and Federer. (Also hate it when Federer and Nadal Fans discredit djokovic of course)
Yeah, I personally don’t believe in the GOAT debate. People who quantify these things with numbers are so short sighted. If there were 2 grand slams on clay instead of hard Nadal could of had 30+ lol, likewise about grass and Sampras and Federer. Personally my favourite is Federer as I love watching him play the sport he entertains me more than any other sportsman I have seen. But I have ultimate respect for all of these greats, look at what Murray has done at the AO what commitment to his passion, true legend of the sport.
Perfect analysis! The ultimate proof, Federer is a weak era champion, is the fact true legend (NADAL) a clay court specialist dethroned Federer at Wimbledon after 5 consecutive titles. Meanwhile Nadal was dispatching Federer with easy at Roland Garros.
First of all, just more 🔥 from you as usual!!! Too long in between videos, but I can only imagine the amount of research you put into this. My only question is, after these FACTS what does that mean for Federer? You have said in the past that he is better than Nadal because most of Nadals accomplishments are on clay and when you take away clay and compare him to Novak or Roger, he pales in comparison. How do we know how good Roger really is though, when he never faced anyone good to win most of his slams and as soon as Rafa and specifically Novak hit their primes, he STOPPED winning slams.
@faizeltaliep Hardest for whom? For Sampras, Federer, Djokovic, Mcenroe, Becker...yes, it's the hardest for them. For Bruguera, Kuerten, Muster, and Nadal is the easiest.
U also have to consider to that nadal has not been in prime till 2010 with your statement , nadal has already won 8 grand slams till 2010 but in Novak case he only won 1 slam , I can also say Federer past his prime after 2010 with your logic . But I can't say it because there are much more factors than just prime of a player like hunger to win after winning so much in such a short span , slowing of courts even grass after 2010 from the atp and ofcourse new players with great talent , nadal and Novak raising their level .
@jack pathak What are you talking about. The only thing you can say is that Novak "took long to mature/hit prime". Federer was winning easily against everyone else. Since 2011 Roger federer has to to Novak 22 times in a SF or the Finals of a slam or Masters 1000. That means that federer was getting there all the time and just losing to Novak. For Rafa it's worse because off of clay he is always injured for some reason...
Interesting thoughts. However, I feel like you forgot to account for possible effects that might distort your data sample. For example, imagine Federer was never born. It would then be quite likely that Hewitt, Roddick, or Safin would have won 4 or more slams. Suddenly your weak era disappears. You simply cannot prove with your metric that it wasn't Federer's dominance itself that prevented other players from reaching all-time status. E: looking forward to seeing if you address this in future videos. E2: nevermind. I saw some of your other videos and the conspiracy crap you promote. Too bad, but you are clearly not interested in an open-minded, objective, and serious discussion. Your name should have been a red flag from the beginning, so it's partially my own bad.
Abit mean with that last comment haha. But i totally agree with what you said before that, it's very possible, almost fact actually, that Federer simply stopped more all time greats from emerging.
_You simply cannot prove with your metric that it wasn't Federer's dominance itself that prevented other players from reaching all-time status_ The fact that Federer's dominance prevented all his opponents from reaching all-time greats status from/including 2004 to 2009 (5 years), and failing to do so thereafter - is a PROOF of the weak era. Simply: the fact that the same Federer failed to prevent other 2 (Nadal and Joker) from reaching all-time great status speaks about strong era that started after 2009. Suddenly from 2010 to 2016 (6 years!) Federer won only 2 GS, and was not ranked YE#1 ever after 2009. There is your proof.
federer also changed the game as it was primarily a serve and volley game and fed turned it into more baseline and serve (all around game). the mid to late 2000's is now a baseline endurance match requiring a lot of consistency, precision and endurance. djokovic just grew up battling Fed and Nadal and his game got better and better adapting. no one now has those 2 or 3 players to put them through clinics on the court at big tournaments. when djok and nadal are gone - someone will rise to the table ? maybe? or will it be another big gap?
Great video, man. I’m a tennis coach by profession and I’ve been playing most of my competition during the late 90’s to the early 2010’s. My take is that Federer was just a very talented player. In my eyes he’s the GOAT compared to the likes of Nadal and Djoko. If I was a betting man and all three were injured free, my money would be on Federer. Besides that I would think that the early 2000’s was a very STRONG era. I think that era made tennis very popular internationally as you can see that most players that were in the top ten are not American, but from players all over the world. If you take Federer out of the picture, I’m sure you will have a lot more all time greats like maybe Roddick, Hewitt, James Blake, Coria, Fernando Gonzalez, just to name a few more that may have won more than 3 grand slams. Federer just destroyed all of them and that maybe the reason why the early 2000 seemed weak which statistically is correct. Great video 👍
Yup! Tennis became even more international during that era. The courts changed to be slower too. And the Tennis developed a lot during that time. Much harder ground strokes became the norm. I find it very curious that having many players winning only one single grand slam tournament instead of just a select few top players means that it is a weak competition? Shouldn't that imply that it is the opposite? That many different players are able to win?
@@fortitude1208 I don’t understand. In your point of view, the surface of the court determines the weakest era in tennis? You definitely have a narrow point of view of things 😂
you are tennis coach ? and you IGNORE the numbers ? so according to you Bayern, Barcelona, Chicago Bulls and all other most acomplished teams or Muhamad ALI were ALL just MEDIOCRE players or clubs as YOU ignore their acomplishments ? wow, such a "great" coach ! one of those "dont worry son, winning does not matter" because " I WILL CALL YOU GREATEST PLAYER OF ALL!"
I wish Kuerten had stayed healthy. Born 1976. 3 grand slams. Beautiful one handed backhand. Some great clips of him played Federer. Would have been a great rivalry. Did his hip problems keep him from being a better grass/hard court player?
Just gonna say before I watch this video: How can anyone claim Djokovic's played during a weak era? Nadal and Djokovic came after Federer already won many grand slams, so I can see the argument for weak era for Federer, since he didn't even have competition until Nadal showed up. However, Djokovic won a ton of slams against Nadal and Federer (and Murray), so that was not a weak era. Maybe now we are moving into a weak era, but the last decade was not. Edit: and the age gap table already shows me where this is going! Great video.
The last 4-5 years are certinaly a weak era. The video also suggests that Federer started beating (or being equal to Agassi) when Agassi became old, isnt it similair with Novak-Fed rivalry then?(especially on Grass when he first beat Fed when he was 33).And how are we dismissing Nadal's results in 2005-2007?he was number 2 in all those years no? Take 2005 Nadal on Garros and put him vs today's players on clay he would still beat them all(not counting Novak ofc, only Thiem would probably challange him). Also the old argument that Federer made Hewitt,Roddick,Nalbandian,Safin etc look ordinary instead of all time greats its kinda true.Safin and Hewitt already suprassed Agassi and Sampras by 2000 when they were just teenagers lol and from 2003 ownards Federer wiped the floor with them. And if your argument is true then by your standards Fed is fake pumped all time great and would barely have couple of slams(not even double digit numbers) then why do you rate Novak's wins against him so much?The guy you dismiss is the biggest Novak rival on grass and hard court for most of Novak's prime years and was 3/4 points way on multiple occasions to beat Novak. Just imagine if Fed didnt mishit the second matchpoint us open 2011, it would have been 2-1 against Novak in his top1/2 year ever on grandslams
the torch was already passed to Roddick,Hewitt and Safin, they were already number 1 and would have been multiple grand slam winners if not for Fed,Roddick would have been at least 3/4 Wimbledon champ and 2-3 US Opens. Also lets take the era where Novak's reign(and overall era is considered strong) 2011-2016. Wasnt Federer injured and totaly out of form during 2013?Wasnt Nadal injured in most of 2015 and 16? And when Novak passes his torch it would look worse for him than it looks for Fed on this video since probably there wont be a all time great(4gs+)born before 1999/2000
I've never seen this before. Very insightful and makes sense. When you are born makes a difference in so many ways [tennis, job market, stock market/economy, etc]. Hewitt, Safin, Philipoussis, Roddick, Baghdatis...none of these are all-time greats, and that's who Fed beat to win his slams along with an old Agassi. I've subscribed because this is smart content.
And nowadays who it is too? lol So you are taking credit for how GOOD Roger was back in those days? The argument is because there was a "weak era"? 😂😂😂 If so, what is this era now?
The biggest question is how would the slam race look if Rafa, Roger and Novak all were born in the same year. Either make Roger be born in 1986 or Nadal and Djokovic in 1981. I think the outcome would mean that Roger and Novak end up with more slams than Rafa assuming Novak gets his diet in 2011 and Roger plays another 4-5 years
Weak era is now. The worst players in history play now, top 5 lose in first rounds in gs. Federer is the most important player in tennis because he grew the sport.
yes they are not all time great because of federer . I think many people don't see the start of the 2000s but it was very good era. Before federer take control and dominate the game , the battle between hewitt, federer, safin, ferrero was great. Before 2004 Hewitt vs federer h2h : 7-2 . After 2004 : 16 - 2. And we are talking about hewitt the guy who takes the number 1 place after sampras.
Again like with all your videos I really like the facts that get presented. I would really like to see a comparison between the “eras” where the “all time greats” are removed and we see the diversity who would have been grand slam champions if it weren’t for the “all time great players”. This way we can compare the actual strength of the field of opponents each all time great had to go up against.
Federer era comparable today would have his toughest competition be like a Zverev, 20 yo Alcaraz (aka Rafa), and Dominic thiem. Everyone else is unseeded qualifiers. Seriously weak. Just look at the people he beat in GS finals during that period.
The current era is definitely weaker than 2001-07; the players in that era had a grand total of 8 slams. The players in the current era have a grand total of 3 slams.
@@viksinha5410 except you have Nadal with 22, Novak with 21, Murray with 3, Wawrinka with 3, Medvedev with 1, Cilic with 1, etc... Need I go on? What are you talking about?
@@dzrdza 36 year old Nadal who can't make it past the 4th round of any non-clay tournament, 35 year old Murray who is nowhere near the same player, 37 year old Wawrinka who is also nowhere near the same player, same with Cilic. Those players are part of the previous era because that is when they hit their prime, like Agassi was part of the era before Federer even though they faced each other 11 times.
@@uross7116 Who are you? Part of Nadal's team or what? The ad hominin attacks are warranted because the ass picker through Novak under the bus last year without a second thought. Pathetic little shit Rafa is.
Here's the thing, Roger beat Agassi and never looked back. Agassi couldn't beat him anymore. Roger continued to beat Novak in his mid to late 30s. Even still did at 38. Just couldn't do it in slams but came awfully close. However, Novak being 6 years younger has a clear advantage in bo5. Novak is supposed to win those matches and he did but in more than 1 occassion needed luck and choking from roger's part.
@4:19 - This is why the weak era happened, there is a 15 year age gap b/w Sampras and Nadal, a 15 year gap in which only 1 ATG born in that 15 year gap, he didn't have any ATG to compete in his prime. @7:33 - Why did the weak era happen, because Federer was the only player ATG born in the 15 years b/w Sampras and Nadal. These arguments can be taken the other way to indicate something unique about Federer or Nadal if I want to. The primes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were never overlapped significantly. The only exception here could be Nadal who faced a 'prime Roger' and a 'prime Novak'. The way you interpret numbers is extremely flawed. Look at various historical player ELO ratings and matches for a more sensible comparison. Just because no player apart from Federer achieved your ATG definition for the longest period of time has to be contextualized w.r.t Federer's record against those 'could be' ATG players, which is stellar, which lends more credence to the fact that Federer actually was quite good when compared against those players.
Svaka čast na razbijanju mitova o Federeru kao najboljem svih vremena. To je još jedna zabluda sa Zapada, čiji je on bio miljenik i koga su gurali do krajnjih granica u svemu, od termina igranja mečeva do povlašćenih žrebova. Podrška za kanal, brate otvaraš oči slepima.
E brate moj tebi je treba otvoriti oci i ovom Goatkovicu jer od 2015 do sad ti je weak era za noleta malo pogledaj proti kome nole igra a nadal ti je poskodovan i nemre da ga zaustavi osim na pesku. Mozes da pricas sta hoce ali nole nikada nece biti najbolji svih vremena jer igra finale proti krygios beretini i takvim nesposobnjakom.
@@tircek1233 Filipusis,Bagdatis,Blejk,Ljubicic, Gonzales,Rodik,Mardi Fis.Novak ima 13 gs titula protiv najvecih rivala.Medvedev,Wawrinka,Delpo i Tim prije povrede daleko bolji igraci od navedenih.Ili Zverev i Cipas.
@@borisbalta2542 bas dobri igraci a niko od njih nema vise od 1 grand slam osim wawrinke koji od 2016 ne igra ni za sta. Sada se polako javljaju dobri igraci tipa alcaraz rune sinner
@@tircek1233hahaha brate koji si ti hejter a nemas pojma sta pricas,scime se coek sve susreo u karijeri i opet je sve pobjedio i uvjek dominirao. I dalje ga diskriminisu jer je snasih prostora ko sto bi i tebe ili nekog tvog. To ti je zapad,a sto se tice novaka mislim brate samo budala nece priznati da je on najveci igrac svih vremena jer je to cisto ko suza nije vise ni blizu.
What this video proved is that the distribution of quality of Federer's competition was more even than the distribution of quality of the competition of other players. If you consider this to be weakness then sure. What's also notable, however, is that even according to the logic of this video, Djokovic might end up becoming the "weak era champion". If Thiem and Medvedev were to not succeed and someone like Alcaraz would be the next so called "all time great" then the gap between Djokovic and another "all time great" would be 17 years.
But consider this, Federer STOPPED WINNING SLAMS after Nadal and Djokovic showed up (Federer still not that old), and when we talk about Novak, almost no one can beat him even in the age of 36 (and there is still Nadal active, the second best player in history).
Thank you for watching and commenting. Most of you are making the same comment (that Federer stopped everyone else from winning in the weak era). We will address this argument in part 2 (or 3) of this series. I also recommend the previous videos in this series which debunk some common myths:
"Federer era was strong" myth: th-cam.com/video/-dp2JgqvHVY/w-d-xo.html
"Peak Federer" myth: th-cam.com/video/M6klGZgcjQk/w-d-xo.html
"Federer got old in 2011" myth: th-cam.com/video/qGZjKcxRnaQ/w-d-xo.html
"Courts slowed down" myth: th-cam.com/video/eKWlOtdOJfA/w-d-xo.html
No shit he stopped his rivals from winning. If Roddick had won Wimby 04 and 09, that's two more majors. If Hewitt had won AO 04 and USO 05, that's two more majors. Every major that Fed didn't win from 04 to Australia 10 went through him with one exception.
He stopped them from winning because he was playing at a much higher level. You cannot fault him for this. He was consistently beating Safin and Hewitt who both beat Sampras at the US Open. The reason there weren't more all-time greats during the "weak era" is because Roger was simply better than his elite peers.
One can argue that Federer’s presence created what looked like a weak era simply because of how good he was.
Imagine if there was no Federer. Then his slams and records would obviously be distributed among the rest of his contemporaries, likely more evenly than any one person standing out (which Federer did). Then there might as well be no such weak era as proposed in the video. This is the main counter to that overall idea of the weak era.
I think u missed a very important point , that since the beginning of 2000s tennis authority, had drastically changed the court speed, ball weight. The courts had become slower predictable bounce , balls had become heavier. That coupled with enormous improvement of racket technology enabled incredible top spins and control.
As result , the older styles of Serve and volley based tennis complete vanished in between 2000s to 2007.
So neither could Sampras, Rafter and many contemporary continue nor Riddick, Safin , Hewitt etc could survive much.
Federer had mastery on both, the top spin forehand and serve and volley. So he could dominate for a while , b4 finally ground stroke jiants like Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Warwinka came up.
I am looking forward to you addressing the issue of lacking competition from players born after 1987. Why was Djokovic's major competitions were coming from two players that are older than him but not the players that are up to 15 years younger than him? What I am also interested is in your explanation as to why most of Djokovic's win came after 2012 when Federer was already 31? Who were Djokovic's major rival after 31 that were actually all-time greats that are younger than him?
Every dominant athlete in their sport was dominant in a weak era according to your logic. You were either born the wrong time or the right time according to your facts
Murray is an all time great, but only has 3 slams bcos of the GOATS. His stats excluding GS wins before his injuries etc put him comfortably in the top 10 all time.
Great video. I guess the biggest counterargument is that Federer prevented other players from becoming all time greats by beating them and preventing them from winning slams - for example he beat both Hewitt and Roddick 8 times in Grand Slams.
If that was the case Federer would have 30 slams minimum because just between 2001 to 2007 thats 28 slams. So not only was it a weak era but even then he couldn't rack up Grand slam trophies. Two things made it crystal clear in my mind by watching this. 1) is for sure Federer was in the weak era and 2) it just shows even more so how great Novak is because he had to beat not 1 but 2 greatest players of all time to overtake them. Mind blowing.
@@MineFullStop good point, but the reality is that players have to take on 127 players to win a slam, so this focus on All Time Greats may be overly simplistic.
@@MineFullStop Actually, Djoker's achievements aren't that meaningful if one of his two toughest opponents is a "weak era" champ. Still waiting for Djokovic fans to realise this. Maybe next year, eh?
@@MineFullStop Actually it's Nadal who had to deal with prime Federer and prime Novak. Novak is only 1 year younger than Nadal but only Nadal was going toe to toe with Federer at that time then when Novak reached his peak in 2011 Federer was already declining but Nadal remained and won 13 slams since 2011.
@@MineFullStop
So out of one side of your mouth you're saying Federer doesn't deserve to be called one of the all time great players and then in the very next sentence you refer to him as one of the all time great players to prop up Novak's record. Yeah, nothing wrong with that "logic".
Haha. I love this. Great job on this channel. Very interesting with the rivalry vs former champions as a metric. Don't worry, Djokovic has got the GOAT numbers even for us Fed fans. However, here is the major flaw with this thesis. The argument falls apart when Federer gets penalized for winning too much. By letting Hewitt and Roddick win more finals, he would have supposedly entered a stronger area, and lost more slams as a result. Can't win any which way.
Yeah but if Fed had lost more slams it wouldnt even be debated that he could be the GOAT. In a few years this debate will be over for good when Djokovic keeps on winning and is leading by 5 or more GS titles.
@@RaxflexCA The 'ifs" are starting to add up. if Fed hadn't missed by an inch at wimby 2019, he'd still have more slams than Djokovic. This never ends....I'm just saying that the "weak era" metric based on Fed not playing "great champions" is made to fit the argument. Again, Djokovic has beaten pretty much every record on the planet, anyway.
@@Mr7Poz yes, if Federer didn't lost that Wimbledon he would won. That would cleary change statistic.
Exactly brother. And that would go for any dominant athlete. Just call their era weak
Yes, but I'm sure the next videos will deal with this flaw. The breakdown from a long 25 minute video analysis does a good job showing how one could argue that Federer that Federer was blessed in peaking during a weaker era, at least compared with Djokovic's peak seasons:
th-cam.com/video/-dp2JgqvHVY/w-d-xo.html
25 minutes of tennis stats can be tedious, but this is the best 60 second clip of the video in my opinion is here:
th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxW85KeL5Af36aSdBf4phTPapPxnNDo7_z
It uses peak ELO ratings of Djokovic era competitors who Djokovic defeated in Grand Slam finals at their peak (Medvedev, Zverev, Tsitsipas). That is pretty incredible. But more interesting is that those players have all already peaked higher than Safin, who actually beat Federer in a Grand Slam final.
It is so difficult to compare across era, but the effort and the evidence from this video is quite compelling.
I have played this sport competitively and followed tennis for may years. This sport is brutal, there was never a weak era in modern day tennis. Before the open era you could make the claim there was a weak era but present day competition (open era) has never been weak. If nadal and djokovic were to retire tomorrow wouldn't this next era be a weak era to? No one dethroned them. If these guys keep playing til their late 30s they are going to get dethroned but it really doesn't matter because they are not in their prime.
Federer just robbed great players their opportunities to become a multiple major champion. It is furthermore not Federers fault that Rafter, Sampras and Courier retired much earlier than he did and that Haas and Kuerten had to pause or retire due to health problems and that Rios, Nalbandian, Safin and others of his age didn't achieve more despite their tremendous potential and talent.
Federer had to struggle hard with Hewitt in his early years. Hewitt was the Alcaraz of his time, won NY and Wimbledon and was two times Nr 1 of the year. He could have won some more majors, but Federer defeated him once in a NY final and several other times in majors. Roddick could have won like one more US Open and surrly 3 times Wimbledon but Roger denied him that. Federer only won 7 of his 20 majors after Djokovic had won his first major. But still. After Nadal and Djokovic, his career numbers are the most impressive. And if you compare the level, athleticism and speed of tennis of 2000 to 2010 and compare it with 1980 to 2000, you can easily see, that the overall level was much higher in the Federer years. Having spoken in favour of Federer, i have to say, that therefore the achievements of Nadal and especially Djokovic are even more impressive because they had to beat Federer and therefore the argument of the video really comes into play.
Are U asking if we can predict the future.
Roger did in fact play in a weaker era. Emphasis on "weaker," not "weak." Top players during this time did not progress far into tournaments as consistently during this time regardless of whether they ran into Federer or not, indicating weakness at the top, or, rather, less strength at the top vs. that of the Djokovic-Nadal era. This can be measured using all kinds of metrics. This channel has a very good video illustrating this. Another way is to look at the ATP points of a reference rank (5 or 10, for example) by year. There is a clear separation between pre- and post-2008. This suggests that players at the top were far stronger during this time; going farther iin tournaments more consistently and accumulating more ATP points reflects that. ELO of reference ranks (again, 5 and 10 for simplicity and accesibility of data) by year also paints a similar picture: Post-2008, players at the top were stronger. You can peruse who was at the top during each year, which only confirms the thesis. From 2004-2007, the ones at the top getting swatted by Federer were Hewitt, Roddick, old Agassi, Safin, Nalbandian, Davydenko, Blake, and then a rising Nadal who was a non-threat off clay until 2008 yet not in his prime until 2010. 2008-2017 was a historically strong era at the top of the rankings, perhaps the strongest ever. Federer's competition was now prime Djokovic, prime Nadal, Murray, Del Potro, and Wawrinka, among others. It's no wonder he only won 1 slam from 2011 to 2016. Don't believe me? Go to Ultimate Tennis Statistics, Rankings Chart, and look at rank 5 by year. Look at ATP points and ELO ranking, either one works. It's crystal clear that Roger dominated due to the absence of Djokovic and Nadal.
@@uRdumdum Yeah same it is as crystal clear as Nadal and Djokovic only great player they have to beat was Federer. Their generation sucked. Players like Murray, Del Potro, Cilic, Gasquet, Monfils are the most decent from that gen. Where only 2 won a GS.
Between their gen and Federer gen it was for example Stan Wawrinka that has better h2h against them than he has against Federer.
Then you have the “lost gen” that are players between 29-34years old that don’t exist in the tour.
Then you have the “new gen” that are players between 23-28 like Medvedev, Tsitsipas, Zverev, Rublev, Berretini, Fritz, etc…that are decent but they struggle against an almost retired Federer. And is a generation where only 2 of them have reach a GS final and that’s only after Federer was out the tour injured.
Then you have now “covid gen” that are Auger-Alliassime, Alcaraz, Sinner, Rune, etc..and are the only gen that have some hope of detroned them.
So Djokovic and Nadal faced players weaker than Federer did. Federer played all of them, plus Nadal and Djokovic 5-6 years younger (a huge advantage for them), plus players like Sampras, Agassi, Hass, Rios, Kuerten, then Hewitt, Safin, Roddick, Nalbandian, Davydenko, Gonzalez, etc..all players that won GS or at least reach finals of them.
Federer played different eras and in all of them he was the one to beat player or the one admired by the other players.
Roger Federer definitely had the stronger generation to deal with. It may seem as if there was not any tough player besides him and Nadal from 2004 to 2007, but this is untrue because Federer obliterated opponents on the court, making them seem like sub-par players when they were actually much better than today's tennis field.
@@nicolaschacon2707 No, you completely missed the point. 2004-2007 was weaker than (approximately) 2008-2016. You are right this era we are in right now (2019-present) is also weaker than 2008-2016. However, based on ELO and ATP points of reference ranks, the current era is no weaker than 2004-2007; actually it is still a bit stronger at the top. You can check the statistics.
Think of it this way: Roger racked up titles in a weaker generation. Djokovic and Nadal are also currently racking up titles in a weaker generation. The true test was 2008-2016, and the title count is Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal with 5, 12, and 11, respectively. Federer achieved markedly worse results in the Golden Era. His level of play did not drop off, either. He staved off a decline very well and played close to his 2005 level through about 2018.
Federer played Sampras only once... I don't know why you're saying he had to deal with Sampras as if he was a regular competitor like the other members of the Big 3 were in the Golden Era. He also only had to contend with an aging Agassi with a bad back. Hewitt and Roddick were destroyed by Djokovic and Nadal, even when the latter two were young and before their primes. Using Hewitt and Roddick as a measuring stick, it just further proves that 2004-2007 was weaker. Having to face the other 3 members of the Big 4, plus prime Wawrinka and Del Potro already blows any competition Federer had to face during his 2004-2007 run out of the water. It's not even close. Imagine having 2 other 20+ GS winner-quality players at nearly every slam, plus one right on their heels (Murray).
You're only calling Murray "decent?" After going over what you said, it's clear you don't know much about tennis.
"Federer played different eras and in all of them he was the one to beat player or the one admired by the other players."
This is just nonsense. He was not the one player to beat. Djokovic and Nadal both eclipsed him during 2008-2016. Djokovic and Nadal were winning more in a harder era. In fact, Federer was only ranked #1 for about 6 months over this 9-year stretch.
"Federer obliterated opponents on the court, making them seem like sub-par players when they were actually much better than today's tennis field."
Also nonsense. Djokovic and Nadal did the same to non-Big-4 competition. Again, you completely missed the point on how to evaluate whether a generation is strong or weak. In strong eras, the players at the top advance deeper in tournaments more consistently, indicating strong play. You can measure this by the ATP points or ELO ratings of reference ranks. Rank 5 and 10 during 2004-2007 is markedly inferior to 2008 onwards. Federer won most of his titles against weaker competition, and this is a fact. He failed to replicate his prior success in the Golden Era, while Djokovic and Nadal dominated.
Case in point: Outside of Nalbandian's single finals appearance, he, Haas, and Davydenko all only made it as far as 4, 3, and 4 slam SEMIFINALS. I seriously have no idea why you invoked their prowess as a testament to Federer's peak era being strong, because it's crystal clear that these three players were weak in comparison to, let's say, Wawrinka, Murray, and Tsonga. Again, it's clear you don't know what you're talking about.
I can say this much. If t wasn't for Federer we would have never seen the great level of play that Nadal and Djokovic reached! Federer set the level! You are only as good as your competition! You cannot compare eras physically because of training and equipment advances - you can only compare accomplishments! Full stop!
I don't know, Federer maybe triggered the thing, but Nadal is the one who forced him to reach his absolute top level.
Beating a fresh Nadal on clay multiple times, in different tournaments, in 2&3 sets, even in Spain, is a Djoko record once again.
Federer has been purchasing this for 10+ years at his top, with no success.
@@Steevy84 Bottom line Federer was a more talented player than Nadal!
@@quentincrisp6933 Yes, but hard work can prevail in many cases, and is not to be denied.
Even if I dislike Nadal very much, you must give him credit for that.
@@quentincrisp6933 Probably but federer basically out of the goat conversation now lmao its between him and djokovic at this point
Murray as well
This is the list of matches against "all-time greats" that are younger:
Jimmy Connors: 131 (!!)
Guillermo Vilas: 60
Bjorn Borg: 23
John McEnroe: 82
Ivan Lendl: 90
Mats Wilander: 40
Stefan Edberg: 68
Boris Becker: 40
Jim Courier: 32
Andre Agassi: 47
Pete Sampras: 1
Roger Federer: 90
Rafael Nadal: 59
Novak Djokovic: 0
Now your can interpret what you want with this data, but you can see how you can just flip a variable and it show a completely different picture, can you spot a weak era with this numbers?
Update your list in 5 years and then compare the numbers again. We will see more all-time greats with 3+ Slams in the future who have played Djokovic, and I think Medvedev will be one of them. He is 27 and Djokovic has a 9-5 winning record against him. In fact, Djokovic has a winning record against EVERY player he has played against who has won 3 or more Slams.
all-time great Andy Murray three (3) GS played 36 matchups with Novak
Its not about the age alone, but rather if these all time greats were in their prime when another beat them. Djokovic took out two of the greatest players ever on their favorite surfaces and created an era of his own. He dominated an entire decade and is still going strong, despite the bans and media hate. That is really something. Not to mention how he shuts the hostile crowd up every time he smashes their boys.
This dataset seems spot on! Novak is just on a roller coaster ride ATM. He is a worthy competitor but an all time geat is not just defined by GS count. Novak himself knows that, although he would like to consider himself as thé GOAT based on that single factor. 60% of Novak fans can't even play tennis 🤪
@@AtombenderI agree and Alcaraz will likely be an all time great as well
You could make the argument that Roger's level of play between 2004-2007 was simply much higher than his main rivals at the time, such as Safin, Roddick, and Hewitt and that is the reason why he didn't have other all-time great rivals who had more than four slams (and I would put the number at 3 slams). Safin won two slams, but let's say that he beat Roger at the 2004 Aussie Open, which would put him at three slams. And, if Roddick beat Roger in two of the four finals appearances that would also put Andy at 3 slams which places him in the all-time great category if you place the number at 3, which seems fair. Then Roger would have had two other all-time great rivals during the "weak era" and his grand slam total would only be reduced by three, putting the number at eight from 2004-2007 instead of 11. If this happened, and this is not even mentioning if Hewitt won more against Roger, then that time period would have had more all-time greats competing against Roger and the "weak era" doesn't exist. The reason why this didn't happen is that Roger was just so much better than his main rivals at the time who were around the same age. It is not his fault that he was just playing at a much higher level than his peers. This shouldn't count against him.
Completely agree and what you pointed out is the one major flaw of this metric. In the end the only people who have the right to judge wether or not the era was weak are the players who actually went against prime fed.
I've always wondered why Slams are the only metric for the strength of an era. Why do other major titles or Olympic medals count for so little in a sport that is competitive all year round?
He talking about great players before Roger.. ther where almost none..
Regardless of the arguments for or against. Any true objective tennis fan that has been watching the sport for a while (I've been watching since Lendl was dominating) will tell you that it was a weak era post Sampras. Again .. I'm saying a tennis fan that's not being biased either way ....an objective one
I like all 3 before any of you pounce on me. I love the sport and I appreciate all 3 equally.... Too much time is spent arguing about the 3 rather than appreciating the fact that history is being made and how fortunate we are to witness it.
But yeah .. it was weak .. that's just the truth ....just going off the eye test .. forget stats .. .. just the game play
I mean Leyton Hewitt was number 1.
The guys you're talking about .. Roddick and Safin ... They weren't of that peak Sampras Agassi courier class ...
They were slightly lower.
Safin was great on his day .. but not consistent enough to be considered "great" regardless of slams and stats.
Roddick was a fantastic server with a pretty average game . He never hit the ball deep enough consistently...nor did he have sharp angles..
Just by going off the eye test you can tell who's great and who's not.
For example right now I can tell you that Alcaraz is going to be considered a great when his career is done ( provided he doesn't get injured too often)
Whereas someone like Rublev for instance will not be.
They're both relatively early in their careers and both too 5 players....but you can see it already.
So yeah ... Just the eye test ..
It was weak ....I mean Sampras, Agassi , Becker , keurten ... ....
To Hewitt????? C'mon man
I distinctly remember saying this to a friend when Hewitt was number one..
" I can't believe this guy is number one... I mean he's ok ... But he's boring"
Sure he was quick and he fights for every point but he's bang average and he's only winning these titles coz there's no one else there ..."
I swear to god ...I truly said that to a friend in the Hewitt era 👆🏽
If if if. And what if he put number at 5 or 6 (which is fair to me) . Fed simly got humbled by nadal and nole.
Federer went through 3 generations of players.. the end of the Agassi and Sampras era, the beginning of the Hewitt Roddick and Sadin era and then the Nadal and Djokovic era. He dominated first 3 for the most part
IMHO can’t really compare him with Sampras and Agassi. Sampras, especially, was on the verge of retirement and riddled with injuries. Both players were pale shadows of their prime time prowess.
Hweit rodick safin wra they were all knjured or difressed in performance or they were not interested to work
As for sampras and agassi, sampras last year of trainjng was 1998 with exception of one home tournament qhere he trained after years to use as final tour. And had back problems. And agassi had back problems he was not even walking properly after 2002 or so.
Fed did not meet their era except for one two games with Agassi.
Well done. You have good points. Looking forward to part 2.
pure crap video. federer had to play nadal in wimbledon 2006 and wimbledon 2007.
@@scottwarren4998 Yes, a Nadal that was not even at his best compared to 2010-2013, you do realise that Feds biggest rival at that time was 21 year old Nadal. Cmon now.
Dude, Federer faced Nadal 14 times between 2004 and 2007. in which Nadal beat him 8 times.
5 were grand slam finals and semifinals in which Nadal won 3.
How is it Federer didn't have a rival until 2008?
So just think a young boy beaten prime Fed more then Fed able to did.
If Fed,Nadal & Novak were born in the same age then Fed wouldn’t even have 10 majors.
@@asifiqbal-Relentless All of them would have less slams, and prime Novak and Fed never faced each other, so we don't know what would happen in that matchup.
@@asifiqbal-Relentless 10 majors? 😂😂😂😂😂 he had 20 like now.
@@tijgertjekonijnwordopgegeten you're just making up when their 'prime' was according to you.🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
@@moaningpheromones I'm not making it up, most people will agree that Fed's real prime ended before Djokovic entered his in 2011.
Excellent video. Highly under rated channel. Deserve many subs. All the best.
According to your timeline, it's also anomalous that there hasn't been an all time great player after Nadal and Djokovic. In fact, the gap between Federer and Nadal/Djokovic is less than the gap between Nadal/Djokovic and current time. Where are all the all time greats that are supposed to be popping up every few years? Could it be that Nadal and Djokovic are preventing great players from winning majors just like Federer prevented the likes of Roddick and Hewitt?
Yes, but unlike federer who had no one during his years, those 2 have had each other and STILL do + as it was shown in the video 2/3 3 times slam champions are also from Nadal/Djokovic era. Facts speak for themselves. I love Federer because he made Nadal/Djokovic what they are and because he generally made tennis interesting
@@KungLao392 It's true Nadal and Djoko had to compete against each other, but they've had a much longer period without a new GOAT popping up. Federer only had 2004-2007 (4 years) before Nadal and Djoko. Nadal and Djoko have had 2008-now (15+ years).
Djokovic and Nadal are so great that they essentially killed the old GOAT (Fed) and fully suppressed the next generation of All Timers
@@fedfoofy That is a bunch of bs. Nadal and Novak are the main reason why there are no all time greats after them, cause they PREVENTED it. Muray would have won 10+ slams alone if not for these two. Other great players like stan, ferer, tsonga, delpo would have won many more as well. Unlike the weak era period, those players were consistent in reaching quarters/semis of majors, only to be stopped by these two.
You are kaning waty too much sence :D This video is pretty stupid. It says that if there is nobody to beat the big 3, then they are all not GREAT. Meanwhile if sir Andy Murray played in the 90s, he would have smacked and lobed the sh!t out of everybody, and would have at least 10 slams.
Looking forward to part 2
Bravo na istrazivackom novinarstvu, sada cu svakog da upucujem na ovaj video.
I had the same explanation in my mind why Federer dominated tennis so much in that era. It was that 15-year span between Sampras and Nadal. But by the same math if Alcaraz becomes next great with 4+ slams (which is not a lock just yet), the span between Nadal and Alcaraz is 17 years which is even longer. Does it mean the post-Djokovic era is weaker than pre-Federer era? So far there is no telling that any player post-Djokovic can become a multiple GS champion though.
You really hit his argument out of the park, from what I can see none of the players born in 1987-1996 the likes of Thiem or Medvedev will ever be consider all time greats with 4 slam wins.
Dude Djokovic and Nadal are one year apart. As long as both are playing you can't say that it's a weak era because both have 20+ slams
@@jliang70 We can look at ELO rating
Very nice video, I enjoyed listening to statistics you provided. Thank you brother
Really liked this video, although something is weird to me.
If a player is so good that he can prevent other players from winning slams, then he automaticly creates a weak era.
In other therms, being too good discredits your greatness by making you stand out, which is quite a paradox to me
Similarly, if we imagined a wolrd without the big 3, then the rest of the players would split slams between them, probably ending with 4 or 5 each in a span of 15 years. If only average players compete against each other on a similar level, then they would be a lot of players considered "all time greats" at the same time. Wich means that it would give the illusion of a higher level on the tour, wile it is not the case because we took out the best 3.
That means that this indicator does not mesure accurately the "level of the era" but rather the difference of level between the top players
That doesn't explain why there are 10 years gap between Federer and Sampras i.e no one win 4 grand slams while Freder wasn't there to beat them.
The argument has nothing to do with Federer “preventing” other players from becoming champions. The basic premise is that Federer did not have the opportunity to “dethrone” the dominant champion(s) nor have “rivalries” with any of the ”all-time greats”.
@@laline74 I know, i am not talking specifically about roger. I am just saying that this logic is flawed, and is just trying to prove a point by any means nescessary
You couldn’t have said it better. It’s a nice video but the theory doesn’t really hold up in any other scenarios. If Djokovic and nadal were to retire right now and one individual player f.e. Alcaraz would manage to dominate the tennis world he’d automatically become a weak era champion by this theory.
@@o3523 Yes, but what you said is "if". What the video is talking about is the way it was, not the way it may be. Facts, not a guess.
Yours is the first channel i am subscribing in a long time
I can’t believe how much work you do for the Vedios greatest channel ever
Thank you very much!
Your welcome
Federer at his peak is really about 2003 to 2007. His biggest rivals were Roddick, Hewitt, and Safin, and he destroyed them during those years. I'm fairly confident that if Federer had not been around, Roddick and Hewitt would have qualified as an "all time great."
yes , he was able to dominate the game and winning 9-12 tournaments a year consecutively . If we look at Fed's movement and fluidity between 2004-2009, he was actually swift and fast that any player couldn't find any weak spots. Unlike his counterparts, they dominated 1-2 years, and then their domination skipped but Fed dominated in succession.
I disagree. They would of won max 4-5 slams. That's an amazing feat, but all time great for me is that range of 7+ slams. Lendl, Connors, McEnroe, Wilander, etc. all fall in the range of 7-8. The guys that have won 3-6 are amazing players, but fall short of that all time status IMO. That's where I see Rod, Hewitt, and Fed's early rivals at best.
yes but the problem with Federer is that Safin and Nalbandian who had the game to beat prime Federer was not fully dedicated to the sport like Nadal and Djokovic. As far as Hewitt and Roddick they are not all-time greats even without Federer, Nadal murray and Djokovic beat them consistently. Federer could beat them not playing his best, he could play average and still beat both of them.
For about three or four years it was basically impossible to win a Slam. Federer had a lock down on three of them and then you had the greatest clay court player of all time winning the French Open every year. Also, the eye test just tells me that prime Djokovic would have had a very difficult time beating prime Federer. I think Djokovic IS the GOAT, but this video bothered me with the sloppy way that it seemed to casually dismiss Federer's peak.
@@crawjo good point. I view Federer and Djokovic as a 1 and 1a scenario. I think in a 3 match scenario as I do not look at Clay matches when analyzing GOAT debates. I only look at majors not masters 1000 because they are not best out of 5 anymore like they were before 2007. So at wimbledon, australian and us open they all 3 are close to call. If we take Federer 07 vs Djokovic 15 it is too close to call, so not much difference between the two. I give the slight edge to djokovic at the us open before 2008 when the balls seem to move through the court quicker. And literally toss-ups at the other 2 majors. Would not surprise me if djokovic won on grass and Fed at australia even though both have been dominate at those two majors. Playing wimbledon before 2002 when they changed the grass.
Mind blowing. Great video
Good stuff, very well done and entertaining. Thank u
Difficult to compare eras. If you ask me, the fact that it was a weak era as you call it, did not benefite Federer. He could have improved a lot more with all three being the same age. He had to do it after his prime years, which made you think that his prime years were after he stepped into his 30s, which is not the case. He was just forced to improve after 30 years because of the other two great rivals. I strongly believe that being the same age as Nadal and Djokovic, would have helped Roger a lot more!
It's interesting... that as recently as 2017-2018, Djokovic was considered to be Federer's Legacy Protector.
I mean he was back then because if he didn’t exist nadal would have blown
Federer away in terms of gs numbers but in the end both surpassed him
@@Christzo18 nope nadal is only better than federer on clay other surfaces fed is better
You're the GOAT ! this video has to be shared honestly
Great Video n couldnt hv find a better video analysis than this 👍👍👍
Crazy! I would never have thought that the situation is so clear, but no one talks about it!
Welp, Rolex and Nike wouldn't like to talk about it. Heck, even the ATP and ITF wouldn't like to talk about it!
No one wants to talk about it and its funny cause we were right all along.
This video has nothing to do with reality. This would never pass scientific requirements for research. One could say that the players in 2000 - 2010 were so competitive other than Roger Federer so they didn't win grand slams. It's impossible to logically conclude that it was a weak era. Actually, players from Federer's era who turned 30yrs old in 2010 dominated the top 50 from 2010 - 2020. It was tragicomic to see the 30+yo veterans dominating the game year after year because next gen couldn't beat them. Also keep in mind, 'weak era' Roddick beats Djokovic 5-4 in H2H. Just absolute nonsense, people are so biased to over-estimate the present and can't see the past.
Djokovic lost to Federer at US Open 3 years in a row in 2007, 2008, 2009. Djoker always had age advantage; in 2018 when Federer was 37yo Djokovic surpassed him in H2H. No one can seriously say that Federer was on his prime anymore. This video's creator purpose is just to boost his favorite player Djokovic image. I could list a pages long text about why Djoker is not the goat and why actually 2000-2010 was more competitive era. Real tennis people know these things and it's sad that people are so biased to only see the present and not care about truth here in social media.
@@markolim8938 1. Novak beat Roger at AO 08, US open 10,11. Saying, that Novak always had age advantage is a load of horseshit. In 2007 he was inperienced kid, Roger was 26. Roger had CLEAR age advantage then.
Definitely the best tennis channel !
Well done Sir 🤝
Wow amazing analysis purely thru data/ numbers ... ! FACTS .. AMAZING !!!
What a great video!!
Pratim tenis od '89,'90.
Znam i pratio od vremena Samprasa,Agasija,Bekera i posle Dzokera,Nadala,Mareja,Federera.
Gde je gap moje zainteresovanosti za beli sport? '99-2000 do 2006-'07.
Taman me video toga setio..
I taman skoro tako✔
Sampras (meni na kraju nezanimljiv),čini razliku.
Ti vadiš koren iz postavke 👏😄
Svaka pohvala za trud ✊
Živeo nam Djole bratina i porodica njegova 💖
Imamo ekskluzivu i privilegiju da gledamo našeg Teslu 🎩🇷🇸
Brilliant thanks so much
Very Interesting! Great video, great Job!
Nice work guys. People may disagree because of their personal inclination but your stats are amazing and confirm weak era.
The argument could also just be made that the talent level of all players got better. Therefore each title win during the Federer era was harder to come by. Especially considering the best tennis player of all time was playing now then.
You could also say the era of Agassi and Is Sampras was weaker therefore they were able to dominate the game between the 2 of them. Sampress especially had it easy because Agassi was out of the game for a couple of years due to Mental fatigue. Sampras and Agassi also had it easier because there were no up and comers that were any good to challenge them until the greatest tennis player of all time Roger Federer.
Would you also admit that 2003 to 2022 is the "weakest era" in tennis history because only 3 players won 90% of the tournaments and only 4 players have been no.1 for this whole period?
There is no other 10 or 15 yr period (let alone 20 year period) when such a thing happened.
Again, this is using your own logic that "if one player dominates for 10 years it makes him weaker" .. which is a self defeating and very contradictory logic.
Weakest and the most shameful era was when one player was stopped to play, for out of sport reasons, and even punished by deducting points, although he won the tournament. Whoever survives this and returns to the number one position is undoubtedly the greatest ever. And we all know who that man is, whether anyone likes it or not.
Really liked the analysis
This analysis makes a lot of sense. But there is also the possibility that Federer was so much better than the rest to make to make the said era look weak
If Fed was good way he lost many slams to Djokovik and Nadal. Think about.
@@baixinhousa one can be great and still lose a lot to other greats, to answer your question. You miss the overall point of the discussion on the weak era. Think about it?
@@baixinhousa as an aside, you seem to imply Federer was not good? Think about it
Federer can do everything with a racket on every surface. That's why he is the goat.
Outstanding!
One of best videos ever about sport.
So with your logic, if Federer let Hewitt and Safin win some more slams, he wouldn't have been in the weak era?
Fed is one of the players that got me watching tennis when I was younger and he has my respect. Nole is the goat. Great video once again
his video doesnt really say anything.
Seeing peak Federer face peak Djokovic is the only way to know who is better..,,
he just manipulated the stats. hewitt, roddick would have been ATG without federer . But as in 2004 federer reached a crazy level by winning almost everything, his direct contemporaries could not win much.
To give an example of the level of federer between 2003 and 2004 . Before 2004 federer hewitt : 2-7 . After 2004 : federer - hewitt 16 - 2.
Then about the fact that he didn't take the crown at an ATG. If in some way he did it by beating sampras at wimbledon . Sampras had won 7 wimbledons (record) and was the favorite to win wimbledon.
And the number 2 during federer domination was nadal . Nadal won 11 title in 2006. It is the year where he win most tournament
@@sriv0014 Yeah, nadal existed in federer's peak era. So, federer for sure had hard a competition.
The guy in this video doesn't say the whole truth.
@@scottwarren4998of course Federer had hard comperition with rising of Nadal he started to lose immediatelly.
@@scottwarren4998 sorry I do not recall Federer moviing like god in 2006 French open final!
great analysis, really
Very interesting, never thought to consider this idea.
Wow eye opening for sure! Ofcourse there will be people pushing back but to me it makes sense.
Can you do a video on who’s better between Federer and nadal taking account of all surfaces, h2h, and titles?
I like your analysis 👍
Very insightful. Data gleaning has definitely happened. Pls ensure you are 100% accurate at all times. Pls be unbiased and factual for the benefit of tennis lovers of all age groups right from 70s to current year. Pls allow for intelligent Q & A and probing here. Let us spread knowledge and not a agenda. Hoping for thorough and good content going ahead ..
Damn straight, great video @goatkovic
I've never heard Fed or Rafa fans claim that Djoko is in a "weak era".
In my opinion, the first 2 decades of the 2000s has been the strongest era in history, even stronger than the late 70s/early 80s Borg Connors McEnroe era. That's purely because of the Big 3/4/5 and other legends like DelPo, Roddick, Hewitt, Safin, Kuerten, Nalbandian, Ferrer etc.
As another commenter said - this one's very very simple to debunk.
The quality of Roger/Rafa prior to Djoko/Andy coming on the scene, prevented anyone else from winning anything significant. Just look at some of the ranking points breakdowns from some of those pre-Novak years. Fed/Rafa won almost everything between them.
The other thing to consider is the career timeline of Andre Agassi.
Have a look at Andre's career stats on Wiki. He won the majority of his Slams and had his most consistently GOAT-level performances from 1999-2004 - that's when Roger took over.
The passing of the torch wasn't really from Sampras to Fed, it was from Agassi to Fed.
Any readers over 35 here will remember how good Agassi was in those first few years of the 2000s, and how many epic battles he had with Roger during that time.
There's still no good reason to mark "4 Slams" as an "all time great" btw.
Rafter, Hewitt and Safin all won 2 and all got to world #1 - I'd consider them all time greats too. The argument falls apart if you include those 3 - and again, they only won 2 Slams (and Roddick only got 1) purely because of Andre/Roger/Rafa's complete dominance during 1999-2007, when Djoko arrived.
Sorry, nice vid, and it's a really interesting stat, but there's no weak era. It's two (or 3, if you include Andre) GOAT contenders snatching up every prize on offer until they were joined by Novak and Andy/Stan (6 Slams between the 2 of them = equivalent to another all time great), then they had to share everything 4 (or 5) ways.
Very good points
I personally don’t understand how including one time or two time slam winners as all time greats. If we do that then we might as well say Medvedev is an all time great because he has a Slam, multiple finals and has been number 1….but we all know Medvedev is not an all time great.
They do now, especially this year's AO.
This proves that Federer was so good compared to previous generations of “all time greats” that he prevented anyone in his era to win multiple slams. I would say some of these players (Hewitt, Roddick, Safin, Nalbandian etc) would have won more than 3/4 slams if Federer wasn’t so strong, it took exceptional players in Nadal and Novak and the age between them to challenge Federer.
The weak era rivals video debunks this as most of the time Federer wasn't the one stopping them from winning slams
@@ajani7852 Federer beat both Hewitt and roddick 8 times in grand slams
@@relentless2917 that's 20% of the time, they were mostly beaten by unseeded players. You should weak Era Rivals video by GoatKovic.
@@relentless2917 and they lost more to other lower ranked players than losing to Fed. So no he didn't stop them. Stats tell the truth no matter what you deluded Fed fans believe
Svaka cast care, objasni ljudima koji neznaju ili se prave da nije tako...
why wasn't rod laver in the list, he won 4 slams in the open era, please make the list complete
Cause it wouldn’t support the theory
Words can't express how much I love this channel. Factual knowledge is important when we talk about greatness.
This video has nothing to do with reality. This would never pass scientific requirements for research. One could say that the players in 2000 - 2010 were so competitive other than Roger Federer so they didn't win grand slams. It's impossible to logically conclude that it was a weak era. Actually, players from Federer's era who turned 30yrs old in 2010 dominated the top 50 from 2010 - 2020. It was tragicomic to see the 30+yo veterans dominating the game year after year because next gen couldn't beat them. Also keep in mind, 'weak era' Roddick beats Djokovic 5-4 in H2H. Just absolute nonsense, people are so biased to over-estimate the present and can't see the past.
@@markolim8938 Roddick himself said that he was lucky to retire and keep the h2h record against Djokovic because they played most of their matches before Djokovic entered his prime. If there was ever a scientific channel on tennis, then this is it. You don't have to like it, but when you come up with a factual counter-argument and make a decent video on it, send us the link and we'll see if you did any better than Goatkovic.
@@Charismaniac I just told you the reasons why this video's message is false. Player's from Roger's era dominated tennis from 2010 to 2020 so they cannot be then weak. Just start by wearing off those djoker fanboi glasses to see the truth.
@@markolim8938 Again, you brought zero facts. The players from 2010 to 2020 were ALL in Novak's era which he dominated and was declared the player of the decade, way ahead of everyone else but a bitter, lazy hater such as yourself could never possibly accept that. The few of those that played during Roger's reign in the early 00s were far from their best at that time. Murray, Del Potro, Wawrinka, Cilic, Soderling, Tsonga, Ferrer etc, all played their best post 2008/9. Guys like Isner, Dimitrov, Zverev, Thiem and Anderson who won big titles showed up and peaked even later. End of discussion.
@@Charismaniac hahaha you've no idea what you're talking about. Not anyone in real tennis community would say anything that stupid. Have fun with ur fantasies. Prime roger > prime djoker.
There was no weak era.
The real reason for the gap between Sampras and Roger is the following:
People who started tennis in the 70's and early 80's started with wooden racquets, and different principles when it came down to style of play. Many, many, many people became very invested in a serve-and-volley style. Back then, it was very difficult for someone to win all four Grand Slams. There were specialists for every surface.
At the end of the 90's, the ATP made lots of rule changes for tennis equipment (especially balls), and court surfaces in an attempt to make the game slower.
Thus, a whole generation of players' playing styles became inefficient from one day to the next.
Patrick Rafter would have won a lot more grand slam tournaments had there not been such rule changes. The other thing that hurt tennis is that Marat Safin never took it seriously, just like Nick Kirgios didn't.
Source: I beat Nadal when we were younger
I agree. I do not necessarily think that there is a weak era. However, today's game is definitely much more homogenized than before for the reasons that you mentioned above. It is no co-incident that more players started to win all four slams. In the 90s, if players employ a clay court game on fast grass like Wimby, they surely get tossed out of early rounds. The surface was just too fast and irregular, and the balls were less fluffy and slightly smaller. To this day, I only consider Andre Agassi's achievement as the legitimate four slam wins. But I do believe that Roger was the better player than Agassi.
Marat could hit a tennis ball that's 100% Give him Novak's mental drive and that would've been interesting.
Wimbledon grass was considerably slowed down in 2002. This hurt S&V players like Tim Henman but immensely benefitted baseliners like Hewitt and allrounders like Federer. Just look at the two finalists in 2001: Goran and Rafter, two S&V specialists. Then look at the 2002 finalists: Hewitt and Nalbandian, two baseliners. Since 2001, no S&V player has ever won Wimbledon again.
We can't also forget a potential Federer rival in Marcelo Rios, who at only 27 , played his last GS match just before Federer's 03 Wimbledon win, and for a few years before was unable to play his best tennis due to back injuries. Also, clearly Roddick would have been an all-time great but is the player most victimized by Federer's 03-07 onslaught.
@@gregpeerenboom7439 also Roddick has significant drop in performance after early twenties, Hewitt did not work to regain fitness after injury, and the Brazilian who won rolland garros also did not work enough or maybe was other reason that did not go to aimilar fitness after injury. And Nalbadian as well did not take it seriously.
Wow, the analysis!
Pure science, only facts, without passion or biases. Your tennis channel is smashing other tennis channels with excellent quality. I look forward to your new videos. Keep up the amazing work. I am quite confident your channel now is a favorite with those who appreciate the truth.
Having said all this, I really hope Nole can steady the hamstring to put Nadal in his proper place.
without biases. sure buddy, watch his other videos and youll see how unbiased he is.
Boo.
Honestly the best tennis news/info cover channel ever. Can't wait for part 2 and you earned a sub from me!
I cant help to notice that Djokovic had not face any "all-time great" that is younger than him, and looks like he never will
Hit the nail on the head. Djokovic has the same problem as Federer. In the recent years both Federer and Nadal have either been injured or out for sometime. Djokovic has completely benefited from it as there isn’t a Nadal or djokovic player in this era that challenged him.
Yes but federer was playing in a weak era in his own era while Novak is playing in a weak era that is not his era
You have to be too fanatic to go along with this. Just the name of the channel says it all. There are something that records and numbers will never buy. You can twisted that all you want but in the end is just diminished the one you are supposed to be defending. There is No GOAT and there will never be. It is just a discussion the fanatic people have. Fanatic of Players. Not fanatic of Tennis. Those one (like myself) were blessed to share and era with Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka etc… The real GOAT if there is something you can call that it is the ERA itself (las 20 years).
Yeah you're right in saying we were lucky to have witnessed the big 3. But this argument will keep going until time exists or someone else starts getting close to the numbers
An addition to this analysis should include the fact that no “all-time” greats have appeared since Djokovic/Nadal. Using your cutoff for all-time greats as having won 4+ grand slam titles, there will be a giant void after Djokovic/Nadal. The current player most likely (if I had to guess) to win 4+ GS titles is Carlos Alcaraz, born in 2003. You highlight a 15-year period for Federer that extends from Sampras to Nadal in which he was the only all-time great, but this would be a 22 year period for Djokovic/Nadal! Yes there are two all-time greats at the same time, but they are quite complimentary when it comes to GS win (Nadal wins almost all GS on clay, Djoker dominates the others). Something to consider for your analysis and maybe what helps to explain why Djokovic and Nadal have continued to win GS at such a prodigious rate at the tail end of their careers.
Final thought-there is also the argument that true GOATs (vs. all-time greats) might cause the weak eras! There is an argument that they deprive other players from developing into all-time players in individual sports...we see this in other sports, but maybe this is what caused the giant gaps after Sampras, Federer, and Djokovic/Nadal.
But the thing is, Federer is 1 person. Djokovic and Nadal are 2 people, so they still have each other to compete with.
I think Federer is too dominant between 2003-08, sooo dominant he massacre all the All Time Greats candidate between that period (except Nadal in clay).
I also think that Nadal is the one who crushes Fed's mentality causing him to decline after W'08 and AO'09.
For me there are 3 GOATs. In the end I'm happy to see these 3 GOATs playing in the same era, creating amazing moments and feelings that will hard to replicate by younger gen of players
@@rishinatarajan1859 The "weak era" Federer played in was from 2003 to 2007 (which is 4 years), while "the weak" era Nadal and Djokovic are playing is at least from 2012 to 2022 (which is ten years). Even though there are two all time greats there are twice as many slams they can possibly obtain which means that they can profit the same amount Federer did.
But I don't think there are any "weak era's" as Novak, Roger, And Rafa created them by winning everything, which of course does not allow for any other players to reach 4 slams and be considered an all time great.
@@rishinatarajan1859 yes, they have a good trade in specialties, so each has 1shoe-in + another chance in US or Wimbledon.
This is the most valid argument. There is a gap between Sampras and Fed because they were so strong than no other player developed. It has a lot to do with much better recovery so players can play more tournaments.
The facts are quite simple, Federer développed quite late and has an unbelievable peak with no rival. It took Federer to decline for djoko to become the main man and now that Fed, Murray and others are retired he's winning more slams than ever.
As difficult as it is to have the discipline of djoko, it is possible to keep it because he knows he can win. Federer didn't have this luxury during the last ten years of his career.
Djokovic will end up with the numbers, but nobody will be able to say who was best at their respective peak.
Absolutely fascinating. Great video.
Very interesting analysis...
This is stilly. If Federer was less good your argument doesn’t work. Safin. Rodrick. Hewitt. Would all have 4 plus slams. Also aren’t we in a week area now. What’s the age difference between Novak and the next three slam winner going to be? Best part of ten years again if Medvedev. Longer if Alcaraz.
The channel is called ’Goatkovic'. There is no ‘weak era’ imo. However, Safin, roddick, Hewitt didn’t lose to only Federer, they lost to each other and to others. There’s no one who consistently beat others in that era except Federer. While 2008 onwards, there’s the Big 4, Wawrinka, Cilic. Even these players r more consistent
Federer's dominant era was a little bit weak...That's the truth
His era was considerably weak. Someone like Mededev would’ve won like 7 slams in that era, if Federer wasn’t there
@@ShaunbirKlair24 He would have 5 slams today already if Djokovic wasn't there, and probably 10 by the end of his career
@@ShaunbirKlair24 "Someone like Mededev" -- LOL. Don't you guys normally praise Medvedev to high heaven for being strong competition for Djokovic, or whatever? In hypothetical world he's nothing but a "weak era" champ?
@@mantaishere Dude none of your comments make any sense. You're just being a bitter old bitch.
@@tomd6517 2020 you mean; in 2019 all of the big 3 were still playing at a high level
Ive never heard about this theory and I’m all open ears, my only counter (if you can even call it that) was that federer was just so good he prevented anyone from reaching a slam 😂
There is a 25 minute breakdown by this channel from a year ago showing with a lot of stats why that is likely not the case. Here is a clip where he uses ELO ratings to compare players from across eras:
th-cam.com/users/clipUgkxW85KeL5Af36aSdBf4phTPapPxnNDo7_z
It does seem likely that Djokovic's era was stronger and that Federer profited from playing against weaker competition. That is not to say that Federer was not great, but that stats do indicate that part of his greatness was profiting from an era that was weaker than others.
@@derkoenigjaeger ELO ratings are bs in tennis, you just had to look to the formula and see how much tennis variables it left out, ELO should only be use to compare players currently playing, I dont know why people are so fixated in those numbers, not a single professional analyst use it
Federer played against SOMEBODY in the slams he won? Who? No one name stands out until Nadal came of age. Then it was Federer and Nadal until Djokovic matured. It was a weak era. That doesnt mean Federer ia a lesser player for it, just that he was the only strong one.
@@MsGrowltiger i dont mean nobody reached a slam, i mean nobody beat him in a slam final. Because during his peak he was better than everyone else. He still won against nadal and djokovic many times as well even though it wasnt “his” era
his video doesnt really say anything.
Seeing peak Federer face peak Djokovic is the only way to know who is better..
Makes sense with statistics. Thanks for sharing.
wow very good analysis. very convincing.
Bravo brate svaka cast da se neko ovoga sjetio i to jos profesionalac kao ti.
Jer realno treba staviti tacku na sve budalastine koje trpimo a istina i statistika je na nasoj strani,ti si jos istinu predstavio na najprofesionalniji nacin svaka cast.
Brate, otkinuo je, ko god pogleda ovaj video i nastavi po svome, onda stvarno nema sta, pocastiti ga pivom i kupiti mu cips dok pise hejt komentare jer drugacije satisfakcije nemaju...
"Weak era" is a circular argument, because it becomes such when one player collects too much titles, subtracting those from his rivals. Roddick, who suffered most from Federer dominance and therefore excluded from this list, holds the positive head-to-head against Djokovic. This alone shutters to peaces all this "research" which is built with the matrix, selected beforehand to fit the desired result.
I just commented that on this video :D. Glad to find someone who realizes what is going on here.
Weak era is just to downplay Federder Greatness and elevate Djokovic status and to a lesser extent Nadal ... I can argue 2018-2022 was weak era with Federer old and Nadal on last legs
Simple, pls make another video. 😅
@@shaunbures7557 How is Nadal on last legs? He won 6 majors since 2018. Still Djokovic's most dominant period was 2011-2016, where everyone was in their prime
Make a counter video proving otherwise until then not only has it opened my eyes on a weak era it just made sense even more so why Nadal was consistently beating Federer. He had it easy until Nadal came in to the picture.
this is SPOT-ON accurate
@goatkovic Based on your videos, I get the sense that you don’t like Fed and Nadal. Do you actually heavily dislike each player, or just in comparison to Nole?
Also, who do you prefer between Fed and Nadal (my prediction is Fed)? And who do you think is better between them?
Federer is much better. I'll make a video about it.
Great content, keep it up!
Is there not an argument, that Federer was so dominant that he did not allow the likes of Rodrick, Hewitt and Safin at the time win 4 slams to be an ‘all time great’ you could argue if the other were so great they would not of let players win in there era. Just a thought
Thats exactly the point he is missing on purpose.. but its not really a surprise when this guys name is "Goatkovic", doing anything to discredit Federer (and Nadal)
That would be true if any of these were constantly 2nd or 3rd in the ranking but they werent Roddick was about 5th 6th all the time...Safin was 1st or second only in 2001/2 and then dipped in form then came back for 1 year then went out of top 20...Hewit is even worst cos he was mostly out of top 15 and only 3rd in 2005...Roddick was his biggest rival cos he faced him 4 times in the GS final inlike Safin and Hewit which happen only once but still Rodic wasnt 2nd on the ranking so that shows alot...
I'm more of a Djokovic fan and I thought the same thing too about maybe Federer being so good that he didn't allow the other best players of his prime era to become all time greats by this youtuber's definition. The goat debate is not really productive, because you could go back and forth all day. However, I believe that a stronger case for the weakest era is the one we are in now. This is an era that is still being dominated by past their primes Djokovic, Nadal and even an geriatric by tennis standards Federer (Fed up until early 2020). Djokovic is beating people with one damn leg in AO this year!!! What about Djokovic and Nadal not having to compete against another "all time great" that is younger than them? Isn't that more difficult? The way it's shaping up, it looks like Alcraraz is going to be the next one, and he was born in 2003. Am I taking crazy pills? Would a prime Djokovic beat a prime Federer more times than not? I don`t know and no one will ever know. I'm irritated that I felt the need to waste my precious time with this lol. This guy's argument was too dumb/confident, that I sprung my keyboard into action.
@@zachchamberlain2805 thanks im obviously a huge Federer Fan. And I wouldn’t get mad if people claim djokovic is the goat because simply said, the numbers speak for him. But I hate the disrespect and discrediting of Nadal and Federer. (Also hate it when Federer and Nadal Fans discredit djokovic of course)
Yeah, I personally don’t believe in the GOAT debate. People who quantify these things with numbers are so short sighted. If there were 2 grand slams on clay instead of hard Nadal could of had 30+ lol, likewise about grass and Sampras and Federer.
Personally my favourite is Federer as I love watching him play the sport he entertains me more than any other sportsman I have seen. But I have ultimate respect for all of these greats, look at what Murray has done at the AO what commitment to his passion, true legend of the sport.
Perfect analysis! The ultimate proof, Federer is a weak era champion, is the fact true legend (NADAL) a clay court specialist dethroned Federer at Wimbledon after 5 consecutive titles. Meanwhile Nadal was dispatching Federer with easy at Roland Garros.
First of all, just more 🔥 from you as usual!!! Too long in between videos, but I can only imagine the amount of research you put into this. My only question is, after these FACTS what does that mean for Federer? You have said in the past that he is better than Nadal because most of Nadals accomplishments are on clay and when you take away clay and compare him to Novak or Roger, he pales in comparison. How do we know how good Roger really is though, when he never faced anyone good to win most of his slams and as soon as Rafa and specifically Novak hit their primes, he STOPPED winning slams.
Part 2 (or 3) 🙂
You right but don't forget clay is the hardest surface to play on it's insane the amount of lung capacity you need to have
@faizeltaliep Hardest for whom? For Sampras, Federer, Djokovic, Mcenroe, Becker...yes, it's the hardest for them. For Bruguera, Kuerten, Muster, and Nadal is the easiest.
U also have to consider to that nadal has not been in prime till 2010 with your statement , nadal has already won 8 grand slams till 2010 but in Novak case he only won 1 slam , I can also say Federer past his prime after 2010 with your logic . But I can't say it because there are much more factors than just prime of a player like hunger to win after winning so much in such a short span , slowing of courts even grass after 2010 from the atp and ofcourse new players with great talent , nadal and Novak raising their level .
@jack pathak What are you talking about. The only thing you can say is that Novak "took long to mature/hit prime". Federer was winning easily against everyone else. Since 2011 Roger federer has to to Novak 22 times in a SF or the Finals of a slam or Masters 1000. That means that federer was getting there all the time and just losing to Novak. For Rafa it's worse because off of clay he is always injured for some reason...
Nevertheless, this is a unique perspective. As always Goatkovic you have struck gold.
Hey Goatkovic awaiting part 2 of the video!
Coming up next week.
Although I am not a fan of Djokovic, I like your rigorous analytics in this video!
Interesting thoughts. However, I feel like you forgot to account for possible effects that might distort your data sample. For example, imagine Federer was never born. It would then be quite likely that Hewitt, Roddick, or Safin would have won 4 or more slams. Suddenly your weak era disappears. You simply cannot prove with your metric that it wasn't Federer's dominance itself that prevented other players from reaching all-time status.
E: looking forward to seeing if you address this in future videos.
E2: nevermind. I saw some of your other videos and the conspiracy crap you promote. Too bad, but you are clearly not interested in an open-minded, objective, and serious discussion. Your name should have been a red flag from the beginning, so it's partially my own bad.
Abit mean with that last comment haha. But i totally agree with what you said before that, it's very possible, almost fact actually, that Federer simply stopped more all time greats from emerging.
_You simply cannot prove with your metric that it wasn't Federer's dominance itself that prevented other players from reaching all-time status_
The fact that Federer's dominance prevented all his opponents from reaching all-time greats status from/including 2004 to 2009 (5 years), and failing to do so thereafter - is a PROOF of the weak era. Simply: the fact that the same Federer failed to prevent other 2 (Nadal and Joker) from reaching all-time great status speaks about strong era that started after 2009. Suddenly from 2010 to 2016 (6 years!) Federer won only 2 GS, and was not ranked YE#1 ever after 2009.
There is your proof.
Phenomenal and accurate analysis. Just the facts...
This vid made me subscribed... 🙂
great comparesing method!!
federer also changed the game as it was primarily a serve and volley game and fed turned it into more baseline and serve (all around game). the mid to late 2000's is now a baseline endurance match requiring a lot of consistency, precision and endurance. djokovic just grew up battling Fed and Nadal and his game got better and better adapting. no one now has those 2 or 3 players to put them through clinics on the court at big tournaments. when djok and nadal are gone - someone will rise to the table ? maybe? or will it be another big gap?
Agassi changed it but mainly court prganisers who slowed the courts at the demand of viewers
Great video, man. I’m a tennis coach by profession and I’ve been playing most of my competition during the late 90’s to the early 2010’s. My take is that Federer was just a very talented player. In my eyes he’s the GOAT compared to the likes of Nadal and Djoko. If I was a betting man and all three were injured free, my money would be on Federer. Besides that I would think that the early 2000’s was a very STRONG era. I think that era made tennis very popular internationally as you can see that most players that were in the top ten are not American, but from players all over the world. If you take Federer out of the picture, I’m sure you will have a lot more all time greats like maybe Roddick, Hewitt, James Blake, Coria, Fernando Gonzalez, just to name a few more that may have won more than 3 grand slams. Federer just destroyed all of them and that maybe the reason why the early 2000 seemed weak which statistically is correct. Great video 👍
Yup! Tennis became even more international during that era. The courts changed to be slower too.
And the Tennis developed a lot during that time. Much harder ground strokes became the norm.
I find it very curious that having many players winning only one single grand slam tournament instead of just a select few top players means that it is a weak competition? Shouldn't that imply that it is the opposite?
That many different players are able to win?
It depend on surfuce coach. You must be retired coach coz you forgot basic things..
@@fortitude1208 I don’t understand. In your point of view, the surface of the court determines the weakest era in tennis? You definitely have a narrow point of view of things 😂
you are tennis coach ? and you IGNORE the numbers ? so according to you Bayern, Barcelona, Chicago Bulls and all other most acomplished teams or Muhamad ALI were ALL just MEDIOCRE players or clubs as YOU ignore their acomplishments ? wow, such a "great" coach ! one of those "dont worry son, winning does not matter" because " I WILL CALL YOU GREATEST PLAYER OF ALL!"
@@kajjebre you made no sense with your comment because you do not understand what I’m trying to say….idiot
Great video! #kingNole ❤
I wish Kuerten had stayed healthy. Born 1976. 3 grand slams. Beautiful one handed backhand. Some great clips of him played Federer. Would have been a great rivalry. Did his hip problems keep him from being a better grass/hard court player?
Just gonna say before I watch this video: How can anyone claim Djokovic's played during a weak era? Nadal and Djokovic came after Federer already won many grand slams, so I can see the argument for weak era for Federer, since he didn't even have competition until Nadal showed up. However, Djokovic won a ton of slams against Nadal and Federer (and Murray), so that was not a weak era. Maybe now we are moving into a weak era, but the last decade was not.
Edit: and the age gap table already shows me where this is going! Great video.
The last 4-5 years are certinaly a weak era. The video also suggests that Federer started beating (or being equal to Agassi) when Agassi became old, isnt it similair with Novak-Fed rivalry then?(especially on Grass when he first beat Fed when he was 33).And how are we dismissing Nadal's results in 2005-2007?he was number 2 in all those years no? Take 2005 Nadal on Garros and put him vs today's players on clay he would still beat them all(not counting Novak ofc, only Thiem would probably challange him).
Also the old argument that Federer made Hewitt,Roddick,Nalbandian,Safin etc look ordinary instead of all time greats its kinda true.Safin and Hewitt already suprassed Agassi and Sampras by 2000 when they were just teenagers lol and from 2003 ownards Federer wiped the floor with them.
And if your argument is true then by your standards Fed is fake pumped all time great and would barely have couple of slams(not even double digit numbers) then why do you rate Novak's wins against him so much?The guy you dismiss is the biggest Novak rival on grass and hard court for most of Novak's prime years and was 3/4 points way on multiple occasions to beat Novak. Just imagine if Fed didnt mishit the second matchpoint us open 2011, it would have been 2-1 against Novak in his top1/2 year ever on grandslams
the torch was already passed to Roddick,Hewitt and Safin, they were already number 1 and would have been multiple grand slam winners if not for Fed,Roddick would have been at least 3/4 Wimbledon champ and 2-3 US Opens.
Also lets take the era where Novak's reign(and overall era is considered strong) 2011-2016. Wasnt Federer injured and totaly out of form during 2013?Wasnt Nadal injured in most of 2015 and 16?
And when Novak passes his torch it would look worse for him than it looks for Fed on this video since probably there wont be a all time great(4gs+)born before 1999/2000
I've never seen this before. Very insightful and makes sense. When you are born makes a difference in so many ways [tennis, job market, stock market/economy, etc]. Hewitt, Safin, Philipoussis, Roddick, Baghdatis...none of these are all-time greats, and that's who Fed beat to win his slams along with an old Agassi. I've subscribed because this is smart content.
And nowadays who it is too? lol
So you are taking credit for how GOOD Roger was back in those days? The argument is because there was a "weak era"? 😂😂😂
If so, what is this era now?
The biggest question is how would the slam race look if Rafa, Roger and Novak all were born in the same year. Either make Roger be born in 1986 or Nadal and Djokovic in 1981. I think the outcome would mean that Roger and Novak end up with more slams than Rafa assuming Novak gets his diet in 2011 and Roger plays another 4-5 years
Weak era is now. The worst players in history play now, top 5 lose in first rounds in gs. Federer is the most important player in tennis because he grew the sport.
yes they are not all time great because of federer . I think many people don't see the start of the 2000s but it was very good era. Before federer take control and dominate the game , the battle between hewitt, federer, safin, ferrero was great. Before 2004 Hewitt vs federer h2h : 7-2 . After 2004 : 16 - 2. And we are talking about hewitt the guy who takes the number 1 place after sampras.
Again like with all your videos I really like the facts that get presented. I would really like to see a comparison between the “eras” where the “all time greats” are removed and we see the diversity who would have been grand slam champions if it weren’t for the “all time great players”. This way we can compare the actual strength of the field of opponents each all time great had to go up against.
th-cam.com/video/-dp2JgqvHVY/w-d-xo.html
Not only that, but for career accomplishments, I think the year they turned pro is a much more relevant metric than birth year
Please mention the speed of the courts on ATP circuit and how it eliminated attacking tennis.
All 3 benefitted from weak competition for years everyone knows this
Federer era comparable today would have his toughest competition be like a Zverev, 20 yo Alcaraz (aka Rafa), and Dominic thiem. Everyone else is unseeded qualifiers. Seriously weak. Just look at the people he beat in GS finals during that period.
The current era is definitely weaker than 2001-07; the players in that era had a grand total of 8 slams. The players in the current era have a grand total of 3 slams.
@@viksinha5410 except you have Nadal with 22, Novak with 21, Murray with 3, Wawrinka with 3, Medvedev with 1, Cilic with 1, etc... Need I go on?
What are you talking about?
@@dzrdza 36 year old Nadal who can't make it past the 4th round of any non-clay tournament, 35 year old Murray who is nowhere near the same player, 37 year old Wawrinka who is also nowhere near the same player, same with Cilic. Those players are part of the previous era because that is when they hit their prime, like Agassi was part of the era before Federer even though they faced each other 11 times.
@@uross7116 He isn't doing any ad hominem attacks in this video; that was only in the Nadal videos in which he was saying that Nadal is taking drugs
@@uross7116 Who are you? Part of Nadal's team or what? The ad hominin attacks are warranted because the ass picker through Novak under the bus last year without a second thought. Pathetic little shit Rafa is.
I have noticed that you said that Federer didn't beat Agassi till his 33, but you need to look other side too. Maybe Roger was too young?
Here's the thing, Roger beat Agassi and never looked back. Agassi couldn't beat him anymore. Roger continued to beat Novak in his mid to late 30s. Even still did at 38. Just couldn't do it in slams but came awfully close. However, Novak being 6 years younger has a clear advantage in bo5. Novak is supposed to win those matches and he did but in more than 1 occassion needed luck and choking from roger's part.
@4:19 - This is why the weak era happened, there is a 15 year age gap b/w Sampras and Nadal, a 15 year gap in which only 1 ATG born in that 15 year gap, he didn't have any ATG to compete in his prime. @7:33 - Why did the weak era happen, because Federer was the only player ATG born in the 15 years b/w Sampras and Nadal.
These arguments can be taken the other way to indicate something unique about Federer or Nadal if I want to. The primes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were never overlapped significantly. The only exception here could be Nadal who faced a 'prime Roger' and a 'prime Novak'. The way you interpret numbers is extremely flawed. Look at various historical player ELO ratings and matches for a more sensible comparison. Just because no player apart from Federer achieved your ATG definition for the longest period of time has to be contextualized w.r.t Federer's record against those 'could be' ATG players, which is stellar, which lends more credence to the fact that Federer actually was quite good when compared against those players.
Svaka čast na razbijanju mitova o Federeru kao najboljem svih vremena. To je još jedna zabluda sa Zapada, čiji je on bio miljenik i koga su gurali do krajnjih granica u svemu, od termina igranja mečeva do povlašćenih žrebova. Podrška za kanal, brate otvaraš oči slepima.
E brate moj tebi je treba otvoriti oci i ovom Goatkovicu jer od 2015 do sad ti je weak era za noleta malo pogledaj proti kome nole igra a nadal ti je poskodovan i nemre da ga zaustavi osim na pesku. Mozes da pricas sta hoce ali nole nikada nece biti najbolji svih vremena jer igra finale proti krygios beretini i takvim nesposobnjakom.
@@tircek1233 Filipusis,Bagdatis,Blejk,Ljubicic, Gonzales,Rodik,Mardi Fis.Novak ima 13 gs titula protiv najvecih rivala.Medvedev,Wawrinka,Delpo i Tim prije povrede daleko bolji igraci od navedenih.Ili Zverev i Cipas.
@@borisbalta2542 bas dobri igraci a niko od njih nema vise od 1 grand slam osim wawrinke koji od 2016 ne igra ni za sta. Sada se polako javljaju dobri igraci tipa alcaraz rune sinner
@@tircek1233 a ovi levati sa kojima je igrao Federer.Rodik ima jednu.
@@tircek1233hahaha brate koji si ti hejter a nemas pojma sta pricas,scime se coek sve susreo u karijeri i opet je sve pobjedio i uvjek dominirao.
I dalje ga diskriminisu jer je snasih prostora ko sto bi i tebe ili nekog tvog.
To ti je zapad,a sto se tice novaka mislim brate samo budala nece priznati da je on najveci igrac svih vremena jer je to cisto ko suza nije vise ni blizu.
What this video proved is that the distribution of quality of Federer's competition was more even than the distribution of quality of the competition of other players. If you consider this to be weakness then sure. What's also notable, however, is that even according to the logic of this video, Djokovic might end up becoming the "weak era champion". If Thiem and Medvedev were to not succeed and someone like Alcaraz would be the next so called "all time great" then the gap between Djokovic and another "all time great" would be 17 years.
But consider this, Federer STOPPED WINNING SLAMS after Nadal and Djokovic showed up (Federer still not that old), and when we talk about Novak, almost no one can beat him even in the age of 36 (and there is still Nadal active, the second best player in history).