Palookas Named Andy – The Making of the Roger Federer Legend

More quick metrics following Nadal’s latest domination of the French Open. Our own ratings have Nadal at Number 1 with 7 Frenchies beating a cumulative field twice as good as Borg did in his 6 slams. Nadal has also passed Sampras on the cumulative power list of quality slam victories.

A former pro player mentioned to us that Nadal and Djokovic were beating Federer when he was not at his peak. And, that Federer, as the winner of 16 slams, is just better. This is mind numbingly dumb as 99% of society believes that in any sports endeavor when someone beats someone else, the winner is better than the loser. Nadal’s 6 title wins at Grand Slam finals without a loss to Federer the last 5 years dictates pure superiority. But not for that slim .1% of the tennis intelligentsia and innumerates like Peter Bodo. No wonder other sports fans don’t take tennis seriously. So we have a new metric to cut through the argument.

At #3 in the world, Federer is still at his peak. Since Federer’s first loss to Nadal at the 2006 French Open final when he was 24, Federer has reached the finals of more than 40 atp tournaments or about 47% of his total finals. There has been very little dropoff in performance unlike for example, Lleyton Hewitt, who reached only 9 finals or the last 20% of his career finals after his 2004 loss to Federer at the finals of the US Open and quickly fell out of the ATP top 3. Our eyes don’t deceive us, Federer at his peak is simply not as good as Nadal or Djokovic at their peak.

Below, we have a table that looks at the players Nadal beat in his Grand Slam finals vs. the players Federer and Sampras beat for their championships. Nadal owned Federer 6 times (from Federer at 24 years old to 29, beating him on every surface) and Djokovic twice to win 8 of his 11 championships. Putting a cumulative score on the number of slam wins of Nadal’s opponents, that amount is 106. For Sampras his cumulative score is 48. Federer’s cumulative score is 43 of which 27 come from beating Nadal and Djokovic before they turned 21.5 years old.

Unlike Nadal and Federer, Sampras 3 times beat 3 other grand slam winners to win a slam. His field was much tougher and he didn’t have a 32 seed draw to protect him from early round challengers. Sampras also was winner in 2 of the toughest Wimbledons and US Opens ever played. Nadal won a single slam defeating 3 prior slam winners but never repeated that feat. Federer never accomplished this. Another feat that Sampras accomplished that Federer did not near the end of his career is that when Sampras lost to Marat Safin at the US Open finals in 2000, he came back and defeated him in the subsequent year’s championship. Once Federer has lost to Nadal and Djokovic on any surface at a Slam, he has never beaten them again at that Slam.

But just who did Federer beat at his slam championships. Close scrutiny shows he won against a collections of journeymen named Andy (Palookas), Nadal and Djokovic before their prime (Puppies) and the Ghost of Andre Agassi. Four of Federer’s slam victories, and 4 of his cumulative “points” came against Andy Roddick. Andy Roddick never should have won the 2003 US Open. He was losing to David Nalbandian 2 sets to love, in a 3rd set tiebreaker with the score 7-7 when a fan called an in ball “Out” and Nalbandian mishit the next ball and lost the next point, the next two sets and the match. Another 2 of Federer’s slams came against Andy Murray. So 6 of his 16 have come against …

Palookas Named Andy

All Federer’s Slam wins against Nadal and Djokovic came before their peaks. Federer won his first slam at 21 and 11 months old.

Federer’s other big win was against an over the hill, 35 year old Agassi. Agassi was a shell of the player that demolished Federer at the US Open in 2002 when he was 32 years old. Taking out Federer’s win over out of his prime Agassi in 2005 with before their prime Nadal and Djokovic (as our former pro would do), his overall slam score falls to a mundane 8 points with wins over Palookas like Andy Murray, Marcos Baghdatis and Robin Soderling.

In contrast Sampras beat a host of players at their peak such as Edberg, Becker, Lendl, Agassi, Courier and Chang. He was the best player on hard courts until his last tournament, the 2002 US Open, which he won. The year following Sampras’ loss to Marat Safin at the US Open finals, he came back and beat him at the next year’s semifinals. Similarly, Nadal also came back in 2010 to avenge his loss against Soderling at Roland Garros. Federer hasn’t won a Wimbledon, his best surface, since 2009 and that year Nadal was out with a knee injury. It has been 5 years since Federer won a Wimbledon with Nadal in the field. If Nadal isn’t injured or out at the end of 2008 through the beginning of 2010, maybe Federer’s slam count stays at 14 and Nadal’s is at 13.

You can say for the all time greatest, Federer had a very short peak, from 21 years and 11 months old to 25 and 11 months old (the last time he beat Nadal at a slam) unlike any other all time great. Or that his path to number 1 was paved with Palookas named Andy.

How Much Longer For Federer and Nadal – Tennis Champion Lifecycles

After a magnificent victory against Novak Djokovic, ending the match in the 4^th set when the tennis-viewing audience would bet against him in a 5 setter, Roger Federer was the story of this year’s Roland Garros despite losing in the final to Rafael Nadal.  Federer ended Djokovic’s 43 match winning streak.  Though we stuck a fork in Federer’s future slam chances last year when he lost in the US Open semifinals in a grinding 5-setter to Djokovic ( a match as pivotal to Djokovic as Lendl’s French Open victory against McEnroe was) we aren’t surprised to see Federer reach another slam final.  Federer beat a competitive field and had the most difficult draw in the tourney.

Not to be undone, the 25 year old Rafael Nadal won his 6^th French Open championship equaling the iconic Bjorn Borg.  Nadal and Borg are European twins with equally haughty won-loss records against the field of 82.6%.   Much of their damage was done on clay.  Nadal has eclipsed Borg with a career grand slam.  He is one of only 5 modern era champs to win slams on 3 surfaces including Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Mats Wilander.  What makes Nadal’s record more impressive than Federer’s is that he beat Federer on all surfaces in the finals of the slams they played.

Last year we gave our reasons for Federer’s fade:  (1) He needs too many winners against a player like Nadal to be competitive, (2) He can be outlasted in a tourney and by the semi-finals or finals is out of gas i.e French Open final set, (3) He doesn’t have a major-league fastball serve like Sampras that gets him many easy points, important as you get older.  LZ  Granderson from ESPN gave all the reasons Federer is not the greatest in agreement with our prior arguments but also described why Federer would lose to Nadal in Paris.  Greg Garber from ESPN has jumped on the bandwagon as well with Tim Joyce of Realclear Sports.  Is it much longer for Peter Bodo to acquiesce?

When we look at historical tennis data, we begin to conclude that Nadal is near the end of a remarkable story arc as well.

What has been Nadal’s story arc?  Like fellow all-time greats: Borg, Becker, Sampras and Wilander, his championship play manifested itself as a teen winning his first French Open at 19 after thoroughly dominating the South American clay tour.   Later he moved onto the finals of Wimbledon at 21 years of age.   Like every other left hander to reach the finals at a young age(McEnroe, Ivanisevic), he went on to win the championships and a total of 10 grand slams with this year’s French Open compiling an astounding 47-17 won-loss record in pro finals again rivaling Borg’s final percentage.

So the question remains how much gas do either have in the tank?  Is there data in tennis history that is relevant to answering the question?  If Federer is going strong near 30 years old, why shouldn’t Nadal?

Grand Slam Championships by Age – One Handed Backhand strokers.

So what does tennis look like for All Time Great (ATG) Slam champions after 25.  First let’s talk about the data.  We have compiled data since the Open era began for all tennis champions.   Eliminating the Rosewall and Laver data due to the “Dream Team” affect i.e. pros playing against amateurs we come up with a data set that shows a typical age range for people to win Grand Slams is from age 17 to 32 or about 15 years.  More dramatically we see that with the exception of Connors and Agassi, most two handed all time greats end their championship runs around 25 years of age.   We see the limit on one handed backhand hitters winning slams as 31 years of age.

Ultimately, the test of aging in the grand slams is whether you can win 7 matches and up to 35 sets in 14 days in terrible heat and other conditions against opponents 5-10 years younger than you.   Sampras had the benefit of easy points from one of the best first serves tennis has seen and certainly the best second serve far  faster than Federer’s with as much disguise.  Its not about the aces as much as the unreturnable serves or easy setups for putaway volleys.

Grand Slam Championships by Age – Two Handed Backhand strokers.

Data on Connors and Agassi winning post 25 should be taken with a grain of salt.  Connor’s 2 of 3 slams post 26 years of age benefitted from draws where Ivan Lendl eliminated McEnroe prior to a finals match with Connors as well as Borg’s sudden early retirement i.e would Connors win a tourney with semifinalists Borg, Lendl and McEnroe, instead of Bill Scanlon?  All of Connors victories over Lendl were before Lendl’s career-defining victory over McEnroe at the French Open.

Whose Head is Bigger?

  

Agassi’s admission of Performance Enhancing Drug(PED) usage in his autobiography casts a huge red flag over Agassi‘s  THREE slams at the age of 29. At 28 and 29 Lendl, Sampras and Federer, perhaps the fittest players ever to play tennis limped into the final years of their careers having problems lasting through the later rounds. With a career decline far worse than Roger Clemens as a Red Sox, Agassi  emerged with 10 pounds of additional muscle and endurance better than the fittest players in tennis history.  Things that make you go hmmm.

Regardless, Nadal is a different style player than Connors and Agassi as he has relied on defense far more in his career whereas Connors and Agassi dictated the pace of their play throughout their careers.   We have concluded that this is the last year or two of Nadal’s challenging for slam championships.   This is based on a few changes in the tennis environment and Nadal’s aging.

1.  Nadal is losing to Djokovic on all surfaces and Del Potro has returned to tennis which will threaten Nadal on harder / faster surfaces.
2. Nadal has shown that he is vulnerable on clay to flat ball hitters like Djokovic.  And now Tsonga on grass.
3. Nadal’s game more resembles Borg where he is opportunistic rather than Connors or Agassi where they forced play.  That is a harder game to maintain as you age per Borg and Wilander (Chang, Hewitt, etc).

Though Nadal is a different type of physical specimen than tennis has seen with Popeye musculature, a boxer’s gait and a peculiar penchant to adjust his shorts on every serve, we think this may only buy him an additional year of challenging for slams.  Do we favor Rafa to win Wimbledon this year?  Yes, but we won’t be surprised if he loses either.   The US Open will depend on the draw, where DelPo and Andy Murray land and if Djokovic can find his form again by the US Open.