Roger Federer and the GOAT debate: How valid is the 'weak era' argument?

Roger Federer

When you sit to write an economium on Roger Federer, you face the problem of ruminating on the obvious. Every major accolade that can be paid to him has been exhausted already, so what new can anyone add?

Yet, I can imagine that more glory would have gone his way, more laurels added to his coiffeurs, more Grand Slams won, and he would have been sitting on the pedestal as the undisputed greatest that tennis has ever seen – had it not been for a certain Rafael Nadal.

Rise, Rule and the rest

Roger Federer’s first major breakthrough in Grand Slams came in 2001, when he beat defending champion Pete Sampras in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. From that time, touted as the emerging prince to the game’s hierarchy, till today, as the holder of 17 Grand Slam singles titles in a sport he has seen change so much, Federer has come a long way.

In the 2003 Wimbledon final, a 22-year-old pony-tailed Federer fell to his knees on the lawns of the All England courts after beating Mark Philippoussis for his first Grand Slam trophy. By the end of 2007 he had won 11 more, 13 ATP Masters 1000 titles, 5 ATP 500’s and countless other tournaments - in one of the greatest periods of domination the game had ever witnessed. For four straight years he finished as the World No. 1, and kept all other major contenders surreptitiously subdued.

It was only against Rafael Nadal (and post 2008, against Murray) that he had a higher loss ratio. Between the 2005 Wimbledon and the 2008 Australian Open he had appeared in 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals, winning 8 of them! He also has the records for the most consecutive semi-finals (23), and the most consecutive quarter-finals (36), as well as that for the most weeks at World No. 1 (302). Besides these he has a baggage of other records, but the scoreboard alone is not a measure of his greatness.

Post 2007, his aura dimmed slightly. Rafael Nadal reached his peak around this period, and after 2010 the Fab Four – Djokovic, Murray, Nadal and Federer – occupied the pedestal that once Federer alone had stood upon. Between the 2008 French Open and this year’s Roland Garros, Federer has won only five Grand Slams – quite low in comparison to his own prior standards.

This decline coincided with Nadal’s emergence as the new all-court champion, as the Spaniard dismantled Federer from the Wimbledon crown in the 2008 final and took the World No. 1 title from him after 286 straight weeks. Between 2008 and 2013 Nadal won 2 Wimbledons, 1 Australian Open and 2 US Opens, apart from 6 Roland Garros trophies, thus slowly evolving into an all-round player from just a clay-court bully.

The GOAT question

Many cite these stats and Nadal’s head-to-head dominance (he leads Federer by a whopping 23-10, and 6-2 in Slam finals!) as the basis for considering him as the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). Recently Andre Agassi publicly affirmed a claim to that effect – lending weight to a growing murmur. The argument is – Federer ruled a comparatively weaker era, in contrast to Nadal’s peak period which coincided with the escalation of the Golden Generation.

However, a closer look at the facts would dismiss such a notion.

Bring to mind a certain Lleyton Hewitt – the gritty, counterpunching heir to Jimmy Connors. Then again, anybody who remembers how Marat Safin destroyed Sampras in the Wimbledon of 2000, would remember how people wondered at the time whether it would be possible to counter the Russian at all over the next 7-8 years. But during Federer’s reign he never allowed any of them a shot at the top, by maintaining a ruthless consistency and by winning most of the head-to-head combats. In an era of specialists he was the first to stamp an all-round credibility by winning on all surfaces. His comprehensive superiority challenged the emerging stars – the likes of Nadal, Djokovic and Murray – to attempt a level of sustained performance that had become the new benchmark. This has been admitted by Djokovic himself.

Rafael Nadal

Let’s return to Nadal now though. Between winning his first French Open and his first US Open, James Blake, Mikhail Youzhny and David Ferrer all had the better of him at Flushing Meadows, while Gilles Muller at Wimbledon and Fernando Gonzalez and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the Australian Open also emerged victorious against him. Not all of these players were the cream of the so-called Golden Generation. Now compare that with Federer’s stats after winning his first Slam.

Of course, this doesn’t prove anything conclusively, but it does show that Nadal’s evolution into an all-round winner – a competent yardstick for choosing the greatest – was much slower than Federer’s. Also, Federer’s all-encompassing dominance – except at the French Open – in his heydays was never matched by Nadal. Against these arguments stand Nadal’s head-to-head statistics, but one doesn’t become the GOAT based simply on having soundly beaten one particular player – even though that player might’ve been held as the best of his time!

If you argue that Nadal has the Olympic Gold and a better Davis Cup record, the counterpoint is that Federer has more Grand Slams and year-end championships. Also, if Nadal was put on the court with the Hewitts, and Nalbandians and Davydenkos of Federer’s peak – based on his records, one isn’t so sure he would’ve excelled against them on grass or hardcourts.

The weak generation theory falls rather flat on its face.

Then who would you pick as the GOAT? I guess it winds down to a matter of choice. If you prefer style, grace and shot-making you might pick Roger. If you prefer a never-say-die spirit and the ability to return anything under the sun – you might go with Rafa.

But while the debate rages on, we should remember that it was Federer who constructed the towering echelons on which the game has sat for the past decade, and this is what we now sit to dissect.