oberyn3 wrote:To be fair, though, I do think that, on some level, Federer supporters are too quick to give Fed what amounts to a complete pass on it. To me, it’s not about whatever their head-to-head is at the moment it’s that Federer, knowing Nadal was pretty much the one way guy standing his way, was unable to really find a way to prevail consistently in the big matches. For example, if Federer wins Wimbledon 2008 and Australia 2009 not even the most ardent Nadal fan would mention the head-to-head. Those were two 5-setters, off of clay, in which Federer couldn’t get the job done. Ditto if Federer wins just one of their French Open finals (2006 he won the first set easily and had his ch
Great post as usual. Wanted to talk about this specifically:
As you said, what the Nadal head-to-head means really is that it's a chink in Federer's armor. When people go from there to elevating it to being the deciding factor they are not being reasonable, but there's no doubt it changes how Federer's greatness will be perceived going forward as it should.
Two me there are two main components to what it means:
1. Federer at his best could beat anyone anywhere, except Nadal on clay. And of course, Nadal is at this point both the clay GOAT, and the guy on overall GOAT lists whose greatness is more based on one surface than anyone else. At the time this was looked at largely as the GOAT generalist vs the GOAT specialist, and I didn't disagree.
2. At around age 27, Federer seemed to be clearly surpassed by the 22 year old Nadal...though we then had some serious wavering. One of the things I've long said is that I don't think people view Federer's longevity properly. In a sport where 27 year old are often a shadow of their former selves, Federer still looked fantastic, and this led people to conclude that Federer simply wasn't aging. So when Nadal (and later others) surpassed Federer, some attributed to them just getting better than peak Federer in a way they wouldn't have if Federer's drop off were more clear. But if you looked at the details, it was always clear that Federer wasn't the complete package he used to be.
So when I see mentions of the 2008/2009 matches and reference to "Federer couldn't figure Nadal out", it seems weird to me. Not because the statement is literally false - else he'd have multiple French wins - but because I can't think of any scenario where it would make sense to watch a guy fall from his physical peak and come away with a narrative relating to something mental as the primary takeaway. Federer was able to "figure out" Nadal on other surfaces just fine until his age went away from tennis prime and Nadal wen toward it.
As I say all this though, Nadal's (very) recent resurgence has the potential to signal something huge here - in many ways really, but in particular to primes: Nadal is now about the age Federer was when Federer first got surpassed and he's currently looking better than ever. If this continues and we see Nadal not only take back the top spot, but also dominate with a consistency he never did before it becomes harder to look at the 2008 change over as a natural effect of aging.
And for those a little unsure what I mean by "consistency": Nadal's never had a full season where he's lost less than 10 matches, and he's never had a season period where he's won 90% of his matches. By contrast in Federer's '04 to '07 run, he never lost 10 matches in a year, and it wasn't until the 4th year of the run he was even close (one year he only lost to 2 guys all year - granted one of those guys was Nadal on clay repeatedly). Djokovic in '11 joined the club of year clearly more dominant than Nadal had ever done (he hasn't been able to maintain it though).
Nadal is currently 53-3 in 2013. 95% winning percentage. Now, no matter what he does the rest of 2013, I'm not going to champion it as a GOAT calendar year because of the time missed, but if Nadal keeps it going all the way through a worthy run at Wimbledon (which to be fair, feels a long way away), this will totally upend thinking on not only him but his generation.