Is Roger Federer the Greatest Ever?

Nadal can't be the greatest because he is not as consistant as Federer. They've played in 19 slams together where one of them won the title. Fed leads 13-6 in this category, which to me is more important than head 2 head. Don't punish Federer because Nadal couldn't get into the final.

In addition, their head to head is skewed because Federer has made it to so many clay finals. Nadal who is probably the greatest clay courter of all time leads 9 -2 on clay. You take clay out of the equation and Fed leads Rafa 5-4. Why punish Federer for making so many clay finals. If Sampras made it to 11 clay finals against Nadal, Sampras would lose everyone of them, badly (I'm talking 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 here).

As for Borg, he quit the game because McEnroe defeated him at both Wimbledon and the US Open and couldn't bear the thought of being #2. That is not the mentality of a GOAT, Borg ran when things got tough while Federer improved his game when things got tough.

Federer is the GOAT, no question about it.

@mayerj72 I'm only counting the majors where either one of them won. If you can win a major, you are in your prime. If I counted all the majors that both were involved in then the record would be skewed even MORE in favor of Federer. Simple math and reading should have made that evident to you.

As for Sampras, he routinely got eliminated in the opening rounds of the French Open by QUALIFYERS not even ranked in the top 50. While Federer would lose to Nadal in the French Open, Sampras would get blown out by some no name. That to me takes him out of the argument. He didn't have an all around game.

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! What are you talking about "Sampras had tougher competition"? WHO? Courier? Agassi? Come on? I can give you five, right off the top on my head who are easily tougher competition than anyone Sampras faced: Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Nalbandian (we tend to forget how good he was in his prime) and Roddick (and if you want to argue with him, who else during the Sampras era served at 135 mph?). This thing about, oh he just won the French because Nadal didn't make the finals is BS. That's the way the game is played. You play 7 matches and have to win them all and that's that. Injuries happen. Say Roddick wins Wimbledon this year because both Federer and Nadal are out, does that make his win any less of a win? How many matches did Sampras win because one of his opponents was hurt? If that isn't enough, both Agassi AND Sampras have said in the press that Federer is the best ever. That's enough for me. I know this will never be chosen as the best answer though, because no matter how many arguements are put forward to support Federer as the greatest ever, your mind is made up and nothing will convince you otherwise. You will choose someone who is equally in denial, a Raffa fan no doubt, and will probably sign off on his answer "Vamos Raffa!"

Yes, he is. He won the French Open, and has made the final several times, something Sampras could not do. And in making the final, he lost to the best player on clay.

It's not even arguable anymore...23 straight Semifinals and counting???? Do you realize how amazing that it? It may be taken for granted now, but there will probably NEVER be a player to achieve something as great as that. He makes nearly all slam finals.

When people talk about his head to head with Nadal. Just because you have trouble playing a certain player, it does NOT undermine your achievements. Nor does it mean that Rafa is a better player than Roger. I think Rafa is by far the better player than Roger on clay...but on other surfaces Roger has achieved much more and is the best there.

Roger struggles against 1 player at the French Open, Sampras struggled to beat crap players there. So Roger is definately the greatest of all time so far.

Also: It is not Roger's fault that Nadal isn't healthy enough to make the finals of grand slams. If people say that Roger's only winning because of Nadal's injury, then I'll say Nadal only had that great '08 season because of Roger's mono.

I think both players should be given the credit they deserve. Nadal is not his best now, Roger was not playing his best in '08. But that doesn't matter. We can't say "What if Nadal was playing at his best now? Would Roger still win?" Well, it doesnt' matter because he is not at his best now, and Roger DID win. Like it or not it's the truth.

When Roger won the French Open and passed Pete Sampras in Grand Slam wins, he cemented his place as the Greatest Ever.

It's funny that all of the Nadal fans think that Federer isn't the greatest of all time simply because Nadal has a winning record against him. By that logic, Murray is better than Federer. And Dominic Hrbarty. And Gilles Simon. Hell, Gilles Simon has never lost to Federer! He's the greatest of all time!

Listen you ingrates; just because a great player struggles against a certain player, doesn't detract from his success. Every great player has had trouble against one or several certain style players. This is because for every kind of style in tennis, there is an opposite style that gives them trouble. For Federer, it's a lefty that puts uber amounts of spin and keeps the ball on one side of the court. For Nadal, it's big hitters (Tsonga, Del Po). For Murray, it's guys like Federer & Djokovic that play great defense and then can explode into offense.

And what's more annoying, is that Nadal fans don't even turn around and make a case for Nadal being the greatest of all time (because they logically can't because his results are not good enough and because he can't remain healthy), they turn around and say guys like Sampras (who never won anything of note on Clay), Borg (who retired randomly because of his destroyed confidence due to McEnroe beating him at Wimby and the US Open) and Laver (who played against amatuers and on basically nothing but Grass - side note: How many slams would Roger and Sampras have if 3/4 of the majors were on Grass?) are the GOAT.

Look, Federer holds almost every important record (or will hold them when all is said and done) in the history of the game. He has easily won more Slams than anyone else (16). He has won all 4 at least once. He held #1 in the world for 237 STRAIGHT weeks. He will hold the greatest number of weeks at #1 by the end of this year. He has won a gold medal. He is one of only four players to win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back. He is the only player to win five straight Wimbledons. He is the only player to win 5 straight US Opens. In fact, he's the only player to win 2 different slams 5 consecutive years. He's one of only like 3 guys to win the Australian Open 3 out of 4 years. Is the only guy to win 3 slams in a year 3 times. 23, COUNT THEM, TWENTY THREE straight Grand Slam Semi Finals. That's more than twice the 2nd best streak. 18 out of 19 Grand Slam Finals. The last two are insane. Talk to me when Nadal can even stay healthy enough to have a chance at streaks like that. The guy can't even enter half the tournaments every year. How about Sampras or Laver? How many straight SF or Finals did they make? Not ANYWHERE near those numbers.

There really is not an argument for Federer NOT being the greatest ever. I'll even tell you, Nadal is the greatest player ever on clay when he is healthy (which is a rare occasion anymore). But you have to reasonably say that Federer is probably the 2nd greatest player of all time on Clay (if he didn't run into Nadal every year in the French, he'd have 3 Calendar slams), and he is easily the greatest ever on hard and grass. And Nadal or anyone else are not even the 2nd greatest ever on ONE other surface. How could he not be the GOAT?

He is great not only for the number of tittles he has achieved but for some other little things:

- He has been #1 for a super long time

- He has conquered all the surfaces

- He doesn't suffer physical problems

- He has never retired from a match or withdrawn a tournament

- He doesn't have a coach!

Those are the facts I can think of right now

This could become a heated debate. Roger is definitely right up there. His perceived weakness is clay, but if Nadal wasn't around he'd probably have 2-3 French Open titles too. (Apart from one year, it's also not like Nadal completely dominates on clay and many of the matches is 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5)

It is dangerous to go the Mayer route and say that Sampras was never dominated by a single player, but statistics lie. Roger is 5-4 on surfaces that is not clay and while he is way behind in clay, he possibly has the best ranking against Nadal on clay. It is also interesting to note that the mighty Sampras has a 7-6 record against a player as powerful as Wayne Ferreira. (Agassi was 11-0, and I'd bet Roger would have dominated that series)

Also some giants of the game :-) like Paul Haarhuis, Marat Safin and Leyton Hewitt (of the I don't know how to beat Roger fanclub) has won more than they lost against Sampras.

I don't think we can say that one person is the greatest of all time as we are unable to compare players from different eras.

It could be argued that Laver is the best because he won a calender grand slam, but Federer has to now play Slams on three different surfaces, so a calender grand slam now cannot be compared to Laver's.

Secondly we could say that Federer has won the most Grand slams so he is the best. Do we judge just by Slams or by other tournaments too? Surely we must say that Steffi Graff is a better player than Federer because she won more Slams?

What about the fact that other players in the past had different competition? It could be argued that Federer had very little competition in the beginning of his career compared to other greats such as Sampras.

Also i don't think we can compare active players at all. To say that Federer is better than Nadal is absurd because he has been playing proffessionally for longer. The only fair way to compare them is to look at their results when they were the same age. When Federer was 23 he had less slams than Nadal does now. Even this isn't fair though. We should wait until the end of their careers before comparing them.

Not only is tennis a deeper field, but as you state, the variation in surfaces is also a massive factor. not to mention the increased intensity, fitness, serving speeds and the punishing ATP tour year.

I agree that Federer is the greatest ever - he is certainly the greatest I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Sceptics will always point to the lack of a calendar Grand Slam but in my eyes this is a massive red herring. Again in your details, you correctly ascertain the number of competitive players in the hunt - these days the top 10 alone are capable of beating Federer on their day (OK, maybe not Roddick).

People need to remember that comparing current players to those of the distant past is fruitless because the game has changed so massively. But I cannot see any other period in history where a man dominated so many of his peers for such a prolonged period in so many competitions - which is why Federer is the greatest for me.

Oh yes, it is unquestionable at this point that Federer is the greatest of all time. How many straight grand slam finals has he been to now? It is absolutely absurd, and there won't be another player the likes of him for a very long time. I think Nadal appeared to be possible contender, but his lack of consistency and health problems will plague him and leave him only with about 3-4 more slams in all likelihood.