His "bread and butter" volleys and net coverage were outstanding - dare I say better than Pete's? Pete was better at the really hard volleys, like the ones at your knee off a return of your 135 mph serve.
Now imagine Federer had the competition Sampras had. Forget about 20 slams....all the big three would have maybe 10-15 slams if they faced the caliber of oponents Sampras had...
It's not like Sampras faced the greatest in their prime to win all of his grand slams. By 1995 Edberg was done, same for Becker after 1996. And from this point, who did Sampras faced apart from Agassi (who was non existent in 97-98) ? The likes of Kafelnikov, Rafter, Ríos, Moya, Ivanisevic. Sure they were great players don't get me wrong, but they were about the same caliber as Hewitt/Safin/Roddick/Wawrinka/Del Potro. You can tell me I'm wrong but numbers say otherwise, so at the end of the day it's really about opinion. If a single member of the big 3 had to face the 90s competition with their current equipment I don't think they would win less than 20 slams honestly. Don't forget that the big 4 all had to *face each other* which itself represents tremendous obstacles.
@@魚-c3d Big 3 played in an era of homogenized playing styles, conditions, and surfaces - Federer and Roddick and Blake have said this among others. Pete played in an era of specialists where conditions were quite different, so that automatically made winning slams much harder. Not to mention 16 seed system at slams which meant the high seeds were going to play better players sooner, unlike the current 32 seed brackets. Lastly, the vastly improved nutritional sciences, and training methods which give players far greater longevity and fitness, and equipment like poly strings which make shots and consistency that was unimaginable in the past now effortless (as Agassi said in his book "Open"). Take all this together, and yes, the big 3 actually had it much easier when playing the field than Sampras did. Courier, Rafter, Goran, Kracijek, Chang, Bruguera, Guga (who destroyed Fed at RG in 2004) etc. were all better players than the Hewitts and Roddicks that Federer played. Del Potro had ATG potential but was injured and fell off the map and Wawrinka didn't turn into a slam winner caliber player until 2014 and was really a Djokovic rival rather than a Fed one. The majority of Fed's generation (Roddick, Hewitt, Blake, Nalbandian) were mental midgets who folded in big pressure situations against him because of their lack of self belief and would often say it was an honor to lose to Roger or make jokes about their pitiful records against him as Roddick often did. Pete's competitors would NEVER say that after a loss, they were far too competitive. If we're going to be fair, in the 90s Nadal would not have a slam off clay and would have fewer of them against the specialists of the time. Novak would never Wimbledon, and Roger would never win RG and would win Wimbledon maybe once or twice since Pete would beat him more often than not. They would all retire at 30-32, and probably finish with 8-10 majors each.
![[50fps] Federer v. Roddick - Australian Open 2007 SF Highlights](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iU9RUf7dhMI/mqdefault.jpg)
People forget Henman was a crafty lil bastard. Great player and great guy.
His "bread and butter" volleys and net coverage were outstanding - dare I say better than Pete's? Pete was better at the really hard volleys, like the ones at your knee off a return of your 135 mph serve.
Rare racket smash at 6:19
Impressive tiebreak
Beautiful tennis 👏👏
First Federer's defeat as world number 1.
*Federer's first defeat
and Last Tim's victory against Roger.
buen partido de Henman. una pena no se le haya dado un wimbledom, pero de los mejores pegados a la red
Now imagine Federer had the competition Sampras had. Forget about 20 slams....all the big three would have maybe 10-15 slams if they faced the caliber of oponents Sampras had...
It's not like Sampras faced the greatest in their prime to win all of his grand slams. By 1995 Edberg was done, same for Becker after 1996. And from this point, who did Sampras faced apart from Agassi (who was non existent in 97-98) ? The likes of Kafelnikov, Rafter, Ríos, Moya, Ivanisevic. Sure they were great players don't get me wrong, but they were about the same caliber as Hewitt/Safin/Roddick/Wawrinka/Del Potro. You can tell me I'm wrong but numbers say otherwise, so at the end of the day it's really about opinion. If a single member of the big 3 had to face the 90s competition with their current equipment I don't think they would win less than 20 slams honestly. Don't forget that the big 4 all had to *face each other* which itself represents tremendous obstacles.
Sampras playes tennis players outside of top50 to win Wimbledon 2000.Only Rafter was top20
@@魚-c3d Big 3 played in an era of homogenized playing styles, conditions, and surfaces - Federer and Roddick and Blake have said this among others. Pete played in an era of specialists where conditions were quite different, so that automatically made winning slams much harder. Not to mention 16 seed system at slams which meant the high seeds were going to play better players sooner, unlike the current 32 seed brackets. Lastly, the vastly improved nutritional sciences, and training methods which give players far greater longevity and fitness, and equipment like poly strings which make shots and consistency that was unimaginable in the past now effortless (as Agassi said in his book "Open"). Take all this together, and yes, the big 3 actually had it much easier when playing the field than Sampras did.
Courier, Rafter, Goran, Kracijek, Chang, Bruguera, Guga (who destroyed Fed at RG in 2004) etc. were all better players than the Hewitts and Roddicks that Federer played. Del Potro had ATG potential but was injured and fell off the map and Wawrinka didn't turn into a slam winner caliber player until 2014 and was really a Djokovic rival rather than a Fed one. The majority of Fed's generation (Roddick, Hewitt, Blake, Nalbandian) were mental midgets who folded in big pressure situations against him because of their lack of self belief and would often say it was an honor to lose to Roger or make jokes about their pitiful records against him as Roddick often did. Pete's competitors would NEVER say that after a loss, they were far too competitive.
If we're going to be fair, in the 90s Nadal would not have a slam off clay and would have fewer of them against the specialists of the time. Novak would never Wimbledon, and Roger would never win RG and would win Wimbledon maybe once or twice since Pete would beat him more often than not. They would all retire at 30-32, and probably finish with 8-10 majors each.
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