Who will win the 2010 Australian Open?!

[Dupp]

I can't think of any examples off the top of my head right now, but it just seems like he has some pretty decent ego there. Maybe it all just depends on how far you read into the things he says. The way I understand something to be is probably different to the way that you do.

yeah like i said its hard to hide you ego when your the best ever by a bit. i think he does well to be gracious

[Dupp]

Oh, I also wanted to talk about your other statement. Federer has no doubt had a lot of success in his sport, and is probably now regarded by most as the best ever. However, to say that no one else has dominated a sport as much as he has raises a few questions for me.

What about Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time who dominated the league for his entire career?

How about Bill Russell, who won a record 11 NBA Championships while changing the way that defense is played?

Wilt Chamberlain dominated the sport like almost no other. He scored 100 points in a game, and if I remember correctly, he AVERAGED over 50 points per game.

Muhammad Ali is one of the most recognized athletes in sports history for his boxing achievements.

Wayne Gretzky set almost every record in the NHL.

Don Bradman averaged 99 runs in Test Match cricket, which is about as impressive as averaging 80 points per game in the NBA.

Tony Lockett broke the AFL goal-kicking record with over 1300 goals in his career.



This is not to say that Federer isn't a damn good tennis player, but I think saying that no one has dominated a sport like he has is to ignore or overlook a few other athletes who have achieved amazing things.

i think you either miss read or i miss typed. i ment or typed no ones dominated tennis like he has, hes the most dominate at that ever, and he will be in the argument for most dominate "athlete" ever... cant remember exactly what i wrote but thats what i meant.


ill just say this first, im not actually much of a tennis fan or a roger fedderer fan actually, what he has done just amazes me. i like all sport in general.

i might counter some of what you said though, the fact you listed 3 seperate basketball players shows there was 3 ppl that dominated their sport in the same sport. but to be honoust if you just said jordan i would agree thats a fair argument.

wayne gretsky, yeah hes in argument too. not that i know anything about hockey.

id say no to ali, boxing is my second favorite sport next to basketball and this guy one of my all time favs. hes greatest boxer ever yes. but he had his troubles, he was 50 something and 5... them last 3 loses id write off, he was old and deteriating, just didnt know when to retire. but he still lost 2, he won 2 out of three against frazier, to my memory all three of them could have gone either way, maybe one of them he was a clear winner. he also had 2 wins over norton that were pretty lucky and probably should have lost them. i think he pulled the stitching from his glove to give himself more time to recover from a knockdown in one fight, or he was gonna be done for. i mean hes a good argument, i personally would say federer over ali by time its all said and done.

yeah bradman. though how many matches did he play? i mean hussy averaged high 70's in quite a few tests, im in no way compairing hussey to bradman, but my point is someone like tendulkar and ponting have had great averages over a much longer time span and in a era when bowling is far superior. i dont think don bradman is as clear cut as people think, though hes average will NEVER be touched, id throw in shane warne in conversation as wel. hes teh best bowler ive ever seen(forget murali, shane warnes record is far more impressive to me) and hes the biggest gamewinner/gamechanger ive ever seen. i think if it wasnt for his off field disscressions he would have been our greatest captain ever, quite easily. but thats just here say. but very smart cricketer.

i dont think tony lockett is even the best afl player ever, that it self is very debatable, who is it leigh? carey?

whats your take on the loss of fev? im not trying to be an arse you just dont see many afl fans on here?

ive wrote way to much, and i hope it makes some sense coz im far from sober

[Dupp]

I should also apologize for the "nut-hugger"" comment. The whole being called stupid thing just bugged me.

i didnt call you stupid i called your post stupid, same dif i guess. its all good, i posted in an aragont way that i was right and you were wrong on something that was personal opinion, so it was probably warrented

[TNBT]

i think you either miss read or i miss typed. i ment or typed no ones dominated tennis like he has, hes the most dominate at that ever, and he will be in the argument for most dominate "athlete" ever... cant remember exactly what i wrote but thats what i meant.


ill just say this first, im not actually much of a tennis fan or a roger fedderer fan actually, what he has done just amazes me. i like all sport in general.

I'm not much of a tennis fan either, but I agree that he has done some crazy things in the sport.

i might counter some of what you said though, the fact you listed 3 seperate basketball players shows there was 3 ppl that dominated their sport in the same sport. but to be honoust if you just said jordan i would agree thats a fair argument.

Yeah, I probably could have listed just Jordan, but I felt that the achievements of guys like Russell and Chamberlain should be mentioned. Tennis is a solo game, whereas basketball is a team game, so for someone to dominate the sport in the way that any of those three have is even more impressive in my opinion.

wayne gretsky, yeah hes in argument too. not that i know anything about hockey.

I'm not a huge hockey fan myself, but I know that he has set some crazy records in that sport.

id say no to ali, boxing is my second favorite sport next to basketball and this guy one of my all time favs. hes greatest boxer ever yes. but he had his troubles, he was 50 something and 5... them last 3 loses id write off, he was old and deteriating, just didnt know when to retire. but he still lost 2, he won 2 out of three against frazier, to my memory all three of them could have gone either way, maybe one of them he was a clear winner. he also had 2 wins over norton that were pretty lucky and probably should have lost them. i think he pulled the stitching from his glove to give himself more time to recover from a knockdown in one fight, or he was gonna be done for. i mean hes a good argument, i personally would say federer over ali by time its all said and done.

I'm not a big boxing fan, so I will have to take your word for it.

yeah bradman. though how many matches did he play? i mean hussy averaged high 70's in quite a few tests, im in no way compairing hussey to bradman, but my point is someone like tendulkar and ponting have had great averages over a much longer time span and in a era when bowling is far superior. i dont think don bradman is as clear cut as people think, though hes average will NEVER be touched, id throw in shane warne in conversation as wel. hes teh best bowler ive ever seen(forget murali, shane warnes record is far more impressive to me) and hes the biggest gamewinner/gamechanger ive ever seen. i think if it wasnt for his off field disscressions he would have been our greatest captain ever, quite easily. but thats just here say. but very smart cricketer.

The number of matches Bradman played is about the only thing that can be used to minimize the impact that he had on the game. Back when he played, cricket wasn't a full-time job the way it is for players of this era. Guys like Ponting, Tendulkar, Lara etc all have very impressive records, but they have all played over a longer period of time. That probably doesn't make much sense, but my point is that with the amount of games they have played, they can afford to have a bad innings here and there because they can cover it by one particularly big innings. For Bradman, he had to score runs EVERY time he played. As for Warne, I agree with you. There has been no one in cricket history who has had the impact with the ball that Warne has. He took leg spin and turned it into equal parts art and science. No one has mastered a cricket ball like he has.

i dont think tony lockett is even the best afl player ever, that it self is very debatable, who is it leigh? carey?

whats your take on the loss of fev? im not trying to be an arse you just dont see many afl fans on here?

I agree that Lockett isn't the best AFL player ever. I mentioned him because his goal record is about the most impressive-sounding statistic that I could think of. As for the best player ever, I'm really not sure. Some people say Carey, and while he was a star, I always thought he was over-rated. Leigh Matthews is probably considered by most people to be the best overall, but I think it's hard to say who is better than who for players in different positions.

As for losing Fevola, I was crushed when I heard the news. He was my favorite player, and I think it could be argued that he was our most important player, even ahead of Judd. All of my friends have had a great time teasing me and asking where our goals are going to come from this season, but after thinking about it for a bit, I think we will be OK. We will have a far more even spread of scoring options than we have had in recent years, although no one in our forward line will match the individual impact that Fev did. We got Lachie Henderson (pick #8 a couple of years ago) who is a real star-potential key position forward. We have Eddie Betts who is dangerous, Judd will go forward at times, as will our four ruckmen. We also have Chris Yarran, the #6 pick last season. He has great potential as well. I'm sure there are players that I am forgetting, but my point is that our forward line should be able to produce a decent amount of goals, not to mention we have a midfield which can kick goals as well.

ive wrote way to much, and i hope it makes some sense coz im far from sober

I understood most of what you were saying, except for some of the most dominant athlete stuff about Federer.

[Dupp]

I agree that Lockett isn't the best AFL player ever. I mentioned him because his goal record is about the most impressive-sounding statistic that I could think of. As for the best player ever, I'm really not sure. Some people say Carey, and while he was a star, I always thought he was over-rated. Leigh Matthews is probably considered by most people to be the best overall, but I think it's hard to say who is better than who for players in different positions.

As for losing Fevola, I was crushed when I heard the news. He was my favorite player, and I think it could be argued that he was our most important player, even ahead of Judd. All of my friends have had a great time teasing me and asking where our goals are going to come from this season, but after thinking about it for a bit, I think we will be OK. We will have a far more even spread of scoring options than we have had in recent years, although no one in our forward line will match the individual impact that Fev did. We got Lachie Henderson (pick #8 a couple of years ago) who is a real star-potential key position forward. We have Eddie Betts who is dangerous, Judd will go forward at times, as will our four ruckmen. We also have Chris Yarran, the #6 pick last season. He has great potential as well. I'm sure there are players that I am forgetting, but my point is that our forward line should be able to produce a decent amount of goals, not to mention we have a midfield which can kick goals as well.

ive wrote way to much, and i hope it makes some sense coz im far from sober

I understood most of what you were saying, except for some of the most dominant athlete stuff about Federer.

well what fev did i didnt see as such a bad thing, more of an issue to channel 9 then carlton fc i would have thought, but i guess it was his last strike. but surely they could have got more in return for him, brisbane basically stumbled on a gold mine. why in the hell didnt you guys take bradshaw? i know he failed fitness test but its not like the whole deal fell through because of it, you just got less. and now he's gonna be kicking goals for sydney.

[TNBT]

I agree that I didn't see what Fevola did as being that bad. I mean the guy had a few too many beers at an post-season function. I guess he has had other chances, but for us to trade him like that, it makes me think that either the coach/board are trying to show how big and powerful they are by trading whoever they want, or there was something else that happened on that night which wasn't widely reported.

As for the trade, I think the original deal had Fevola going to Brisbane for Bradshaw and Rischitelli, but Rischitelli didn't want to come to Carlton, so we got Henderson instead. He may not become as individually good as Fevola, but he was the #8 pick a couple of years ago, has key position size and is still only 20. He has amazing potential, and is a very strong mark, which has seen him be compared to Jonathan Brown and Matthew Pavlich. The way I see it, Fevola has maybe 2 years left at his peak before he starts to go downhill. Henderson on the other hand, is on his way up. I'm willing to give up a guy who might get us 70 or 80 goals for the next 2 years if it means that we get a guy who might kick 40 or 50, but for the next 10 years. Assuming Henderson develops to his full potential, we may have landed ourselves a star center-half forward for the next decade.

[TNBT]

Hey King23, I think I might start an AFL thread on the General Other Sports Talk board. It would be great if you want to come and post there, and maybe we can find a couple of other Aussies who might want to post too.

[Dupp]

Hey King23, I think I might start an AFL thread on the General Other Sports Talk board. It would be great if you want to come and post there, and maybe we can find a couple of other Aussies who might want to post too.

yeah might as well , nab cub starts this weekend i think

[Doctor MJ]

Oh, I also wanted to talk about your other statement. Federer has no doubt had a lot of success in his sport, and is probably now regarded by most as the best ever. However, to say that no one else has dominated a sport as much as he has raises a few questions for me.

What about Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time who dominated the league for his entire career?

How about Bill Russell, who won a record 11 NBA Championships while changing the way that defense is played?

Wilt Chamberlain dominated the sport like almost no other. He scored 100 points in a game, and if I remember correctly, he AVERAGED over 50 points per game.

Muhammad Ali is one of the most recognized athletes in sports history for his boxing achievements.

Wayne Gretzky set almost every record in the NHL.

Don Bradman averaged 99 runs in Test Match cricket, which is about as impressive as averaging 80 points per game in the NBA.

Tony Lockett broke the AFL goal-kicking record with over 1300 goals in his career.



This is not to say that Federer isn't a damn good tennis player, but I think saying that no one has dominated a sport like he has is to ignore or overlook a few other athletes who have achieved amazing things.

I wanted to address these, at least the one's I know something about:

-Jordan, Gretzky, and Wilt had years playing in their absolute prime where they didn't come close to winning the title, so clearly he didn't dominate the sport like Federer does tennis. I don't consider this on knock on them - I consider it just to-be-expected that guys in team sports have it harder to achieve comparable domination to individual guys.

-Russell is someone who you might think could make an argument for because he won so damn much - but the fact that you mention Wilt is telling. There's really no one who thinks that Russell was winning those titles every year because he was so much better than any other player his team couldn't possibly lose, and Wilt is Exhibit A in why everyone thinks that way.

-Ali did not dominate his sport like Federer did his. Ali's amazing, and he is arguably the biggest star of anyone, but he didn't use the rope-a-dope strategy, letting himself get bludgeoned into brain damage, because it was easy for him. Ali lost matches in his prime, and barely won others - that's part of what made him so compelling.

-Don't know about the other guys you mention.