Tennis Top-10: #4 Martina Navratilova and #3 Roger Federer

4) Martina Navratilova

Tennis measures its all-time greats by results in the four major tournaments and almost nothing else. Certainly Martina Navratilova answered the bell in Grand Slams time and again. Overall Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles championships, including nine Wimbelodons, the tournament many consider the crown jewel of the tennis world. At one point she won six-consecutive Slam singles championships, tying Margaret Court, Maureen Connolly Brinker, and Don Budge on the men’s side for the longest such streak.

From 1983-1988, Navratilova made 19 consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearances, a record that is unmatched by any man or woman in tennis history. Martina had streaks of making 6- and 11-straight women’s Grand Slam finals. Thus, for a stretch of 17-straight tournaments, she was either the best or 2nd-best player in the world. She also won slams in three separate decades, the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. Perhaps the most astound statistic to me was the fact that four times she won Wimbledon without dropping a set the entire tournament!

Between mixed doubles (10), doubles(31), and singles (18), Navratilova compiled 59 Grand Slam championships. Such a number is frustrating to all writers because there simply aren’t words to sum up how impressive that kind of domination is. “Versatility,” “perseverance,” “intelligence,” “commitment,” and “excellence” are inadequate to describe the career of Martina Navratilova, but they will have to do.

#4 Martina Navratilova

3) Roger Federer

I have to borrow from my cohort/mentor/life coach Eric to sum up the debate raging in my head over the top men’s player of all time, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal? As he eloquently put it, “How do you reconcile the fact that the ‘greatest of all-time’ wasn't even the greatest of his own time?” Perfectly said, and a really hard argument to crack.

I settled on Federer for a mixture of reasons: part personal bias, part logic, and part historical analysis. In the broadest context, looking at tennis as a whole, Federer has to be considered the best men’s player ever because he has dominated the history of the game. He owns the record books, so he must take precedence over every other man that has ever picked up a racket. Nadal is no doubt great, but he does not yet have the number of Grand Slams to match up with Federer. In addition, the more recent dominance of Novak Djokovic over Nadal has helped accentuate the fact that domination of one personal matchup does not mean dominance of the entire historical landscape of tennis.

Nadal and Federer are going to be forever inseparable when we debate greatness and this era of tennis because of their thrilling rivalry, but I have to look at Nadal’s career conquests over Federer as more of a matchup problem for Roger than proof that Rafa is the greater all-time player. The best comparison I can draw is the year the Patriots went 16-0 and then lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. The Giants could not claim they were the better team, but they matched up well enough to emerge victorious Super Sunday. Of course, Nadal is obviously a much greater figure in his respective sport than the 2007 Giants, but the comparison is valid.

Federer has a variety of shots and an artistry to his game that simply overwhelms nearly every person he has ever faced on the court. Nadal counters with perhaps the best defensive game we have ever seen, able to track down Federer’s miraculous strokes and answer with thundering forehands, impossible angles, and blinding speed. Federer also began his dominance at a time where absolutely nobody stood up to him, nor could they. Nadal was the first player to have the mental fortitude to stand up to Roger and believe that he could—and should—beat him.

Nadal could be number one only by virtue of his relative domination of Federer, but we can’t really compare how he would have fared against Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, or Roy Emerson, men Federer has surpassed on the all-time Grand Slam list, since Nadal has yet to reach the career accomplishments of those players.

Simply put, Roger Federer is like Jack Nicklaus, and until somebody surpasses his number of Grand Slam titles, he is the greatest. Nadal may be the equivalent of Tiger Woods chasing down the legend, but he has yet to get there.

Federer has won every single major tournament, and has 16 total slams, two more than second all-time Pete Sampras, who was widely regard ten years ago as the best male player ever. Federer has won the 6 Wimbledons, 5 US Opens, 4 Australian Opens, and 1 French Open. He won Wimbledon and the US Open each five years in a row and the Australian three out of four years during a stretch of his career. Nadal’s domination has spread to every major, and he has 10 total, but six of them have come at the French Open, showing that he’s not as versatile a player as Federer.

Comparing Federer and Sampras is a relatively simple exercise. Number two all-time in men’s singles Grand Slams, Sampras never advanced past the semi-final round at the French Open. Federer’s career winning percentage is just over 80%, while Sampras is right at 77%. In 2004, 2006, and 2007, Federer won three out of the four grand slam tournaments, excluding just the French Open, which he claimed for his first and only time in 2009. In 2005 he slacked off, winning just two out of the four possible Slams.

His numbers are undeniable as is his domination, but what is really the tipping point for me is the way Roger plays the game. So refined, so precise and yet not without emotion. He cares, he falls to the court in ecstasy even after his sixteenth major win, and his variety of shots is something nobody has ever seen. Sampras thrived off of a great serve, good net game, and stunning forehand. Nadal is great because of his speed, strength, baseline game, and mental toughness.

Yet nobody in the history of the sport has had quite the variety, nor displayed the true essence of tennis beauty quite like Federer has on the court. Moving effortlessly, mixing slice, with power, and unbelievable top spin combined with a deadly accurate and powerful serve. He also possesses a type of “oh by the way” beautiful net game that he uses only when necessary. Whatever skill you can think of, whatever talent you could possibly want on a tennis court, Federer has to the fullest.

Federer may not have quite the numbers of some of his female counterparts lower on this list, but you have to measure him at least in some extent relative to the standards of men’s tennis. Since he has been by far the gold standard in the history of the men’s tour, it merits his high placement on the list. Heck, he could be the top player given his historical domination relative to other men, but our top two spots were so statistically impeccable that I had to bump the most aesthetically pleasing and dominant male player ever to number three on my unisex list.

#3 Roger Federer

--from @AdamHocking

(first image, second image)

Ridiculous Rafa

Rafael Nadal now stands alongside Bjorn Borg as the only other man to win the French Open six times after defeating Roger Federer yet again Sunday.  The win also gives him ten total Grand Slam Titles, fifth on the all-time list and only six behind his counterpart in historic greatness and all-time Slams leader, Federer—all for a man who’s just 25 years old.  It’s more than feasible that he will surpass everyone ahead of him on the list, potentially even the quote-unquote “Greatest of All-Time,” Roger Federer.

The tendency is to want to pigeonhole Nadal, in part to compartmentalize him and in part to preserve our entrenched notion of Federer as the best ever, but Rafa is so much more than a clay court specialist.  He’s won four of the last five Grand Slam championships and now leads the all-time series against Federer 17-8.  Sure Nadal owns a 12-2 advantage on clay, but the series is tied 4-4 on hard courts, and Roger holds a 2-1 career edge on grass.

Federer has never beaten Nadal at the French Open, but Nadal has defeated Federer at Wimbledon, where Federer typically dominates, in what some would say was the best match ever played.  The score in five sets was 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, and 9-7.

Thus, no matter where they play, Nadal is at least Federer’s equal, unless it’s on clay where Rafa is vastly superior.  It’s hard to appreciate just how good Nadal is on clay, but consider the fact that Federer cruised through his French Open draw, including knocking off the hottest player in the world, Novak Djokovic, before Nadal dispatched him with relative ease.  Even though this was the best Federer ever played Nadal at Roland Garros, Nadal still only gave up one set in the match.

With Federer it’s easy to see what makes him so great, especially on the faster surfaces.  He’s as superb at the baseline as he is at the net, which complements a devastating serve.  He also moves around the court with exquisite fluidity and is one of the very best shot-makers in tennis history.  This term, “shot-maker,” means simply that Federer has a huge array of spins, angles, and variety in his arsenal.  There truly is no end to the amount of shots he can create on the court.

What makes Nadal great is not as aesthetically obvious, not as artistic as Federer crafting never-before-seen shots as he glides around the court.  Nadal’s greatness comes from his grit, his speed, and most of all, his mental fortitude.  Federer beats players with pure skill; he has more shots, more variety, and more weapons to fire.  While miraculously skilled as well, it’s Nadal’s ability to break his opponent’s spirit that leads to his continual success, especially his championship triumphs over Federer.

Nadal makes his opponent work harder than any player in men’s tennis history.  He is a defensive wizard, returning shots others could only dream of.  It must be frustrating to hit the best shot of your life and have Nadal not just retrieve it, but smack the line with his return.  I paraphrase former Grand Slam champion John McEnroe when he remarked during a certain rally Sunday that Federer just hit five shots that win the point against anybody else, five winners, and Nadal returned every single one of those shots and eventually won the point.

Federer has more Grand Slams and might be prettier to watch, but as his and Nadal's tremendous careers continue to unfold, it’s getting more and more difficult to call Roger the Greatest of All-Time, much less the Greatest of His Own Time.

--from @AdamHocking

(image from rolandgarros.com) 

Courting Greatness

Rafael Nadal’s place in the pantheon of all time tennis greats was secured even before he won the 2010 US Open.  Now, with the career grand slam under his belt—and nine total slam titles—he is perhaps the only man who can be discussed in Roger Federer’s historical universe.

Rafa Rising

I realize Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Bill Tilden, Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, and of course Federer all have more career slams than Nadal.  However, at age 24, Nadal is three slam titles ahead of where the all-time leader, Federer, was at the same age.  Additionally, Nadal completed the career slam at 24; Federer did not accomplish that feat until age 28.

Another factoid to chew on is the all-time head-to-head matchup of Federer and Nadal.  The two have met twenty-one total times with Nadal winning fourteen of those matchups.  In all tournament finals, Nadal leads Federer 12-5.  In grand slam finals, Nadal leads 5-2.

One further note: Nadal joins Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi as the only players in tennis history to achieve the career slam and win a gold medal in the Olympics.

When Nadal first hit the tennis scene, he was viewed as another Spanish dirt-baller who would dominate on clay but could not translate his game to the faster surfaces.  He now has dominated on grass and hard courts and is as ingenious a shot-maker as any player in tennis history.  His mental toughness is unparalleled, his conditioning sets the standard for all other players, and his grace in victory and rare defeat is admirable.  He may be the fastest player on tour, likely is the strongest, and has recovered from serious injuries to regain top form.  The scary thing is he keeps getting better.  His serve has improved dramatically over the past two years, and his net game has become a veritable weapon.

Overcoming Tennis Royalty

Federer has owned the past decade of tennis, but since Nadal has emerged, he has owned Federer, and the two have shared dominance of the tennis landscape.  Nadal need not win another match to secure his legacy, but if he can come close to duplicating his success of the past four years over the next four, he could easily replace Federer as the best player of all time.  Keep in mind that Federer is ancient in tennis terms at age 29.  Although he is still as good as ever, he likely can only maintain his top form for two or three more years.

I urge you to appreciate what we are seeing, because it is nothing short of historic greatness in a refreshingly likable package. We may well be watching the best player in tennis history at the height of his powers in Nadal.  Even better, we get to see him try to take the label of “best ever” from Federer while Federer is still playing.  Watching these two set the bar for each other is a wonderful privilege, akin to a fantasy in which Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods could have shared the same era.  As fans of sport, we are truly lucky to witness this golden era of tennis, and it ain’t over just yet.

--from Adam

(First and third images from zimbio.com, second image from telegraph.co.uk)