Federer continues to be my GOAT even if THE GOAT debate continues

[arturohernandez]

Hi Everyone,

I have tried and tried to get excited about tennis again. But all the players look the same. It is as if coaches have optimized tennis training so much that they have created the best player possible. The only problem is that they all look the same. No contrasts and no differences. All two handers and all righties. The most optimized tennis player is boring, a clone of all the others.

So, I watch Federer highlights. I decided to put my thoughts on the GOAT debate down on Substack. The short story is that Fed's influence spread way beyond the court. More and more people are appointing Djokovic as the GOAT. Rather than get into the whole argument I made my own ode to the great Maestro.

It is on Substack if you are interested in reading it.

https://arturoh.substack.com/p/performance-is-bounded-success-is?r=2lkd10

Cheers!

Arturo

[jimlosaltos]

Well put, Arturo! And a physicist reference. I like that

Personally, I don't think there is such a thing as a GOAT. But to engage in the debate: What is the definition of a GOAT?
.
There is no such thing as a clear definition of what that means.
.
If it's simply the most trophies then it's an accounting problem: How many pieces of silverware does one have and how much is each worth? Is the "Gentleman's Singles Trophy" worth 5 Masters shields? I don't know. Djokoic probably wins that way with the largest trophy case. To me, that's more a measure of longevity and consistency than true greatness. Like Tom Cruise getting an honorary Oscar, a lifetime achievement award. Cruise earned it. Does that make him the greatest actor ever? No. Laurence Olivier only got 2 Oscars and Walt Disney 26. Boring debate.
.
For me, the issue is more complex and subjective. I'd say what would go into determining a GOAT if it was possible would be: .

1) Highest, sustained level of performance. Fed 2004-2007 is the highest I've seen. As Andy Roddick said, "Fed was simultaneously the best defensive player and the best offensive player." I don't believe I've seen anyone else achieve that and certainly not maintain it. Fed's 237 consecutive weeks as number one is remarkable. Others have had a dominant year. Maybe two widely separated. That's not the same thing.

2) Impact on the sport. Fed grew the sport and shaped its image for a decade. No one else in the modern era has approached that, although several did earlier from Laver to BJK, from Lew Hoad to Aruthur Ash. You see this reflected in all of today's players that grew up with Fed as their role model. Carlos had a Fed poster on his wall for a reason.

3) Style. What's the right word? Grace, aesthetics, style? There are players in all sports fans want to see - Kobe in basketball, Ohtani in baseball, Jerry Rice in football; for me among millions if it was Fed in tennis.


As Bill Simons wrote at InsideTennis: "Federer is the Fred Astair of tennis." { I'd add that Djokovic, by contrast, is the LeRoy Neiman of tennis. }

Again, I don't think there can be a single greatest player. How well would Rafa play with a wood racket? Laver in an era where the ball bounces over his head? Does that make either "less" of a tennis player? I don't think so.

So, I don't call Fed the GOAT. I simply call him my favorite player among many.

#

[jimlosaltos]

More evidence to support my second point - the overwhelming response by other HoF members to Federer's unanimous first-ballot vote to the Tennis Hall of Fame.

From The Athletic ( NYT paywall )

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6815358/2025/11/19/roger-federer-tennis-hall-fame-induction/

Excerpts:

"Last week, at the headquarters of Swiss Tennis in Biel, Switzerland, with about 50 junior players from his country, the 20-time Grand Slam champion, first man of the Big Three, and one of the greatest players of all time, was waiting for the call from the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

"
Kim Clijsters and Patrick McEnroe, the organization’s honorary and official president, dialed in for one of the least surprising sports announcements in the history of sports announcements. In August next year, Federer will become the first of the legends of the era of tennis that he helped define to enter the exclusive club based in Newport, R.I.

But then, the names and images of other giants of the sport started popping up from around the world. Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Tracy Austin, Pam Shriver, Michael Chang, Stan Smith, and on and on. It was 3 a.m. in Australia, but there was Pat Rafter, ready to chime in, all of them bringing their congratulations and a few memories.

There were 33 Hall of Famers in all. Even Federer was not expecting that. “I thought that maybe they were just going to go like, ‘congrats,’ and then wave into the camera, but every person literally spoke on the call,” Federer said during an interview following the call.

“It was really meaningful to have your heroes speak to you in a moment like this.”

~~~~

"Then he ran into Pete Sampras, the player whose Wimbledon torch he carried and whose Grand Slam title record he broke, after the American’s induction ceremony in 2007. Sampras, not known for his public displays of emotion or his connections with the greater tennis world, said it overwhelmed him. That left Federer thinking it was pretty serious.


"Rosie Casals, who was central to the fight for equal prize money in women’s tennis in the 1960s and 1970s alongside Billie Jean King, delivered her own warning on last week’s call.

“I know you are a crier, you better bring plenty of Kleenex,” she said.

~~~~

"Clijsters spoke about rushing out with her friends to see him play at a junior tournament when they were 15 after hearing he was on the court. Edberg recalled the Swiss’ ability to switch from relaxed to intense in an instant. Many remembered the movement and the grace; Billie Jean King recalled the “guts, such focus, such intensity” of his 2017 win over Rafael Nadal.


~~~

"Federer, aware of the weight of his history with the sport, could lean into the absurdity of it all as he did during his career.

“This is the best video call I’ve ever had,” he said.

[arturohernandez]

It is definitely a complicated equation. My personal view (the one not in the article) is that Djokovic's record was specific to a homogenous conditions. This reduced the surface differences making it easier to win more GS titles. But there is no way to prove the point.

I like your argument better. Great players are great players. But Fed is special beyond the numbers.

[jimlosaltos]

Yup. All of the Big 3 benefitted from the homogenization but as the youngest, Djokovic benefitted for most of his career.

Fed was able to win at the dusk of the serve-and-volley era, then again through the power baseline era, and morphed his game again into the "everything is slow by 80s standards" era.

[don_budge]

The Illusion of Roger Federer...modern tennis is FAKE tennis

It is definitely a complicated equation.

It is in a sense, a very real sense, a mathematical equation. Interestingly in solving for a variable in any equation...whatever you do to one side of the equation you have to do on the other side. There is no rational approach to GOAT equations. The variables are not consistent or constant. Introducing the oversized graphite racquet into the equation nullified tennis as a sport. By definition you have so radically changed the landscape it isn't even a reasonable facsimile.

Homogeneous surfaces a variable...and multi faceted at that. Consider that until 1975 three of the four Grand Slam tournaments were played on grass courts. This is not to be confused for whatever it is they are playing on at Wimbledon these days. That seems to be some kind of synthetic velcro or weird hybrid of grass. The wear patterns in the turf are a more than obvious sign that something drastic has happened with the former game of tennis, with the wear now behind the baseline instead of a blazing trail to the net. Everything is slow by 80's standards? That is an interesting remark. What about 70's standards? Just what are the specs of the grass?

By definition the players in 2025 are not playing the same game as in 1980 when the greatest rivalry in tennis was only getting started. The contrast in style of John McEnroe and Bj?rn Borg made the game so fascinating to watch. The fact that two contrasting styles of the game could reach the top plateau of the professional sport had to be telling us something. There is more than one way to skin a cat. The same cannot be said of the game today...and nobody even dares to try. Trying to judge the performance of players across eras with different equipment and conditions is not so impossible to an astute student of the game. Someone that understands grips and various styles of play. For instance, it is my contention that Novak Djokovic, the Greatest Player Of All Time in some novice tennis fans, would be fighting tooth and nail from the first round on with a Dunlop Maxply Fort on slick grass. His grips on the forehand and inability to traverse to the net with a natural ease would make him on the verge of elimination to any of the 128 players in the Wimbledon or U. S. Open draw of 1980. I'll bet that really gets the modern day liberal tennis fan's temperature up. But it's true. It's a fact. These modern day players are ridiculously spoiled with the amount of area they have to work with in the racquet head. The mishits of today would be complete whiffs in yesterdays game. It would be so amusing to watch the primadonnas framing a forehand with the Dunlop Fort or even the off center hits. Actually...players of yesterday were much better athletes due to the fact it was much more difficult to find the center of the racquet and you had to work so much harder to produce "clean" shots. I laugh at the idiots today talking about how clean the players are hitting it.

Roger Federer is the only player in the last fifteen years that could have made the transition over the decades going backwards in time to compete in the Classic Era of tennis. The end of the classic era was the Golden Days of tennis. It was evolving and the players that followed that era would have made serious contributions to the legacy of the game. Players such as Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Pete Sampras and the like cannot be discussed using the same language as their predecessors. I believe that each and every one could have made the transition. Wouldn't it have been interesting to watch these players play out their careers with the same equipment and conditions that the former did? It actually goes against nature that we cannot have had the privilege. I'll go one step further and say that it goes against God. Afterall...who was it that said the tennis and golf are God's gift to mankind in terms of recreation? Wasn't it me?

Thank you Arturo for you excellent thread regarding your musing of the GOAT discussion. It only further makes the point that modern tennis is FAKE tennis. It isn't tennis by definition. The equation cannot be balanced in any rational sense. An obvious fact and one that is not recognized by 99.999% of the tennis herd mentality.

[don_budge]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky on Modern Tennis...

image.png

[jimlosaltos]

The Illusion of Roger Federer...modern tennis is FAKE tennis



It is in a sense, a very real sense, a mathematical equation. Interestingly in solving for a variable in any equation...whatever you do to one side of the equation you have to do on the other side. There is no rational approach to GOAT equations. The variables are not consistent or constant. Introducing the oversized graphite racquet into the equation nullified tennis as a sport. By definition you have so radically changed the landscape it isn't even a reasonable facsimile.

Homogeneous surfaces a variable...and multi faceted at that. Consider that until 1975 three of the four Grand Slam tournaments were played on grass courts. This is not to be confused for whatever it is they are playing on at Wimbledon these days. That seems to be some kind of synthetic velcro or weird hybrid of grass. The wear patterns in the turf are a more than obvious sign that something drastic has happened with the former game of tennis, with the wear now behind the baseline instead of a blazing trail to the net. Everything is slow by 80's standards? That is an interesting remark. What about 70's standards? Just what are the specs of the grass?

By definition the players in 2025 are not playing the same game as in 1980 when the greatest rivalry in tennis was only getting started. The contrast in style of John McEnroe and Bj?rn Borg made the game so fascinating to watch. The fact that two contrasting styles of the game could reach the top plateau of the professional sport had to be telling us something. There is more than one way to skin a cat. The same cannot be said of the game today...and nobody even dares to try. Trying to judge the performance of players across eras with different equipment and conditions is not so impossible to an astute student of the game. Someone that understands grips and various styles of play. For instance, it is my contention that Novak Djokovic, the Greatest Player Of All Time in some novice tennis fans, would be fighting tooth and nail from the first round on with a Dunlop Maxply Fort on slick grass. His grips on the forehand and inability to traverse to the net with a natural ease would make him on the verge of elimination to any of the 128 players in the Wimbledon or U. S. Open draw of 1980. I'll bet that really gets the modern day liberal tennis fan's temperature up. But it's true. It's a fact. These modern day players are ridiculously spoiled with the amount of area they have to work with in the racquet head. The mishits of today would be complete whiffs in yesterdays game. It would be so amusing to watch the primadonnas framing a forehand with the Dunlop Fort or even the off center hits. Actually...players of yesterday were much better athletes due to the fact it was much more difficult to find the center of the racquet and you had to work so much harder to produce "clean" shots. I laugh at the idiots today talking about how clean the players are hitting it.

Roger Federer is the only player in the last fifteen years that could have made the transition over the decades going backwards in time to compete in the Classic Era of tennis. The end of the classic era was the Golden Days of tennis. It was evolving and the players that followed that era would have made serious contributions to the legacy of the game. Players such as Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander, Pete Sampras and the like cannot be discussed using the same language as their predecessors. I believe that each and every one could have made the transition. Wouldn't it have been interesting to watch these players play out their careers with the same equipment and conditions that the former did? It actually goes against nature that we cannot have had the privilege. I'll go one step further and say that it goes against God. Afterall...who was it that said the tennis and golf are God's gift to mankind in terms of recreation? Wasn't it me?

Thank you Arturo for you excellent thread regarding your musing of the GOAT discussion. It only further makes the point that modern tennis is FAKE tennis. It isn't tennis by definition. The equation cannot be balanced in any rational sense. An obvious fact and one that is not recognized by 99.999% of the tennis herd mentality.

Good point don_budge on how different the game was in various eras.

Years back I obtained an image of ball impacts on Rafa's racket face, as measured by a sensor Babolat put in his racket. There are many takeaways, but one I noticed was that many, perhaps 1/3 of Rafa's shots would have been shanks or absolute whiffs if he was swinging one of Bjorn Borg's Donnay's ( ranging from 60 sq inches to 69 sq inches, I believe). Another was that over half were outside the "sweet spot", but Rafa had such racket control he could get many of those semi-mishits to land in.

Now, Rafa is a tremendous athlete and he certainly could have adapted to the game of Borg's era. But a main part of what distinguishes Rafa's game, and gave him a competitive advantage was ability to take an enormous swing and impart enormous topspin-and-lefty spin. That was have been taken away from him in the 1970s. On the other hand, Borg's open-stance forehand and slice serve would have served him well in adapting to today's game.

P.S. There are some specs for Borg's equipment in TPN's forum, in a post by a frequent contributors from the past GeoffWilliams at this link, although it lacks surface area:

https://forum.tennisplayer.net/1847-borg-and-his-equipment-frames

[don_budge]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky on Modern Tennis...

image.png

This quote, as it turns out, is fake as attributed to Dostoyevsky. "The Russian Heritage Cultural History" page on Facebook coincidentally acknowledged this today. I stand corrected.

[jimlosaltos]

This quote, as it turns out, is fake as attributed to Dostoyevsky. "The Russian Heritage Cultural History" page on Facebook coincidentally acknowledged this today. I stand corrected.

We've all been there. Easy to be led astray on social media.

Happy Thanksgiving.