A very good frind of mine, the senior Graphic Designer for the Erickson Tribune, Gerry Fey and I were talking in great length about the weekend’s sporting events and we got into the discussion of whether Roger Federer and Tiger Woods were really the best there ever was in their respective sports.
Well, believe it or not, Gerry had an answer, and backed it up with facts and stats. His take on the whole subject was fascinating, so I asked him to put it down to share with the you all.
Here is his take. Enjoy:
With the golf and tennis worlds getting back to normal this weekend, this seems like an appropriate time to put the accomplishments of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer into the proper light.
I would argue that Woods, right now, is the best golfer ever to play the game, while Federer still has A LOT of work to do for anyone to make the claim that Federer is best.
If you missed the action, Tiger Woods won the Memorial Tournament Sunday, putting him in prime position to make yet another run at the U.S. Open, a major tournament he’s won three times before. By the way, Tiger came back from 4 strokes down to win after shooting a 74 earlier in the tournament, his worst competitive score in two years.
Tiger- The best of the best?
Meanwhile, Roger Federer captured his career sweep of the four grand slam tournaments, finally winning the French Open, his only struggle in an otherwise spectacular resume. He becomes only the sixth player to accomplish the feat.
If you’re counting, that’s 14 grand slam tournaments for Federer and 14 major titles for Woods.
Now, comparing the two is practically impossible, given the different sports they play. However, what I think is possible to do is compare the athletes to their predecessors. Federer ties Pete Sampras for most grand slam wins, while Tiger sits four back from Jack Nicklaus’ unbelievable record of 18 majors.
This snapshot would give the impression that Federer, who still has plenty of tennis left to play, will finish his career head and shoulders above Sampras, while Woods has more work to match Nicklaus.
But let’s look at Federer and Woods’ competition compared to Sampras and Nicklaus.
Looking at the World Tennis Rankings right now, Federer is ranked second behind Rafael Nadal. But that’s not the most interesting stat. Right now, in the top 10, not counting Nadal and Federer, only two players have won a grand slam, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick — one each.
Here’s tennis’ current top 10, with their grand slam wins:
Rafael Nadal (6)
Roger Federer (14)
Andy Murray
Novak Djokovic (1)
Juan Martin del Potro
Andy Roddick (1)
Gilles Simon
Fernando Verdasco
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
Fernando Gonzalez
In contrast, here are the tennis rankings on June 7, 1999, which was the 11th pro season for Sampras, equal to Federer’s current career:
Yevgeny Kafelnikov (2)
Patrick Rafter (2)
Pete Sampras (12)
Andre Agassi (5)
Richard Krajicek (1)
Tim Henman
Gustavo Kuerten (1)
Alex Corretja
Marcelo Rios
Mark Philippoussis
Sampras’ competition, by this chart, was much tougher. Basically, these days it’s Nadal or Federer and that’s it. Also, take into account that Federer’s first season as a professional was 1998. He did not win a grand slam until Wimbeldon 2003. Now let’s look at those who have won grand slams NOT named Nadal or Federer since 1998:
Djokovic, Roddick, Marat Safin, Gaston Giaudio, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Andre Agassi**, Sampras, Lleyton Hewitt, Albert Costa, Thomas Johannson, Goran Ivonisevic, Gustavo Kuerten, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Patrick Rafter*, Petr Korda, Carlos Moya.
These are the players NOT named Sampras who won grand slams from 1988-1999, the first 11 years of Sampras’ career:
Kafelnikov, Rafter*, Agassi**, Richard Krajicek, Kuerten, Moya, Korda, Boris Becker*, Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera, Jim Courier*, Stefan Edberg*, Michael Stich, Andres Gomez, Ivan Lendel*, Michael Chang*, Mats Wilander*.
Bold denotes repeats. *-denotes Hall of Famer. **-denotes probable Hall of Famer
You be the judge on which list is more impressive. Eight Hall of Famers won grand slams in Sampras’ first 11 years of tennis. Sure, some of Federer’s competition could put together Hall of Fame careers, but I don’t think so.
Part 2 coming soon-
“Digging Deeper: Who did they beat?”
June 10th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
“these days it’s Nadal or Federer and that’s it.”, dude do you even know tennis? Right now Murray is making himself an incredible presence in tennis, there were many who saw him as a viable opponent for the French title before Nadal went out, there’s Djokovic, Monfils, Tsonga, and many other up-and-comers who have been motivated by the 5-years that Federer dominated. Even Nadal commented that “when you have someoone in your sights” to model your game after in hopes of overtaking them it is motivating, and this helped him improve to the #1 spot. You don’t sound as if you know much about tennis. Granted, I’m a bit younger and am not as intimately familiar with the games of the legends that you compare Sampras to, however your argument has the benefit of time and perspective does, which has proven these older players to be greats. I’m sure that many of the guys that Federer is playing today might be described as legends many years from now, thus justifying the field in which Roger has had to dominate to prove himself. Sorry but this silly argument doesn’t hold water, ROGER IS SIMPLY THE BEST (HE HAS 14 AND TIGER HAS 13, HE’S BETTER THAN TIGER TOO!!!
June 11th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I have to disagree, Nicole,
Federe is a fantastic talent, and will be remembered as such. But I think the point is Sampras was beating everyone in his path like Federe, but that also included other players who won grand slam tournaments.
Sampras played during the golden ages of Men’s professional tennis when there were no lghtweights and no passes all the way to the finals. Federer is amazing but has benefitted from playing in a shallow pool.
Also of note, Federer has 14 and Tiger has 14 too.
June 11th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Hi Nicole,
Thanks so much for your comment. I actually had to correct my original post because I shortchanged Tiger’s number of majors. He actually has 14 now. Oops! Sorry about the error.
While I agree with you that the current crop of top tennis players have yet to play out their careers, looking at the names Sampras played against, they were already proving their greatness when Sampras faced them. Many tennis fans will tell you that Sampras’ fellow competitors were some of the best to ever play the game: Lendl, Agassi, Courier, Becker, Wilander, Edberg. I mean, these guys are legends of the sport.
Regardless of what some of the current players do the rest of their careers, I don’t think they’ll ever reach the status as some of the best ever. That said, Nicole, it is true that in sports you truly never know what’s coming next, and that’s why we love to watch! Thanks again for the comment, and keep enjoying Federer’s ability. He truly is one of the best.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
You missed one very important fact: Krajicek, Kafelnikov and Rafter have those slams because Sampras failed to beat them or lost early in the tournament allowing them to win. You basically reward Sampras for his failures. Do you realise how ludicrous that is ??
June 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
BTW Sampras had 11 slams in june 1999.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:32 am
You fail to include Nadal on the list of winners of Grand Slams in the Federer era. You also forgot to put an asterisk behind the name of Pete Sampras, a very strange omission.
One more point: if 1-slam wonder Chang and 2-slam wonder Rafter end up in the Hall Of Fame it’s very likely that players like Hewitt, Safin and Roddick will end up in the Hall Of Fame doesn’t it ?
“Many tennis fans will tell you that Sampras’ fellow competitors were some of the best to ever play the game: Lendl, Agassi, Courier, Becker, Wilander, Edberg. I mean, these guys are legends of the sport.”
All these players were basically done by 1993 or earlier, except a very inconsistent Agassi and Becker who won 1 Australian Open after 1993.
So why didn’t Sampras start winning 3 slams a year at that point if it’s so easy what Federer is doing ?? I’ll tell you why: he lost to guys like Yzaga, Schaller, Philippoussis, Kucera, Delgado, all 0-slam winners.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Have you ever thought that maybe the reason no one in the top ten of the ATP has won any majors is because federer and nadal haven’t let them? I think that’s harder to accomplish, to erase everyone from your generation because of your abilities. That would be like concluding that Barcelona isn’t that great because they won every tournament they played and therefore had no strong competitors.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Andres, that’s a very plausible argument. But for awhile, ending about three years ago, Nadal couldn’t beat Federer anywhere except on the clay. And if you look earlier in Federer’s career, when some of the same players Sampras beat were still around, he couldn’t beat them. Now, one could say that Federer was still very young, and that may be true, but Pete won his first grand slam at age 18 I believe. The main reason I wanted to bring up this discussion was to see the logical arguments that people could make for Federer and Sampras. So thank you very much for your comments.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
By the way Andres, did you see Sunday’s Wimbledon final? WOW, talk about an exciting match! I wish Roddick would play to that capability every grand slam. He has proven he has that kind of talent. He just isn’t consistent enough, and sometimes seems to lose focus. Maybe this is the start of something for him, albeit late in his career. I’d love to see tennis’ version of the big three: Nadal, Federer and Roddick. Might bring American interest back to the game!
October 30th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Pete Sampras: “When I look at Roger, I’m a fan.”
Here I’ve tried to collect many more tributes and quotes on Roger Federer by famous peers: http://www.tributespaid.com/quotes-on/roger-federer