GOAT stands for Greatest Player of All Time and the discussion of who can rightfully claim that “title”. Since Federer holds many of the records, especially the heaviest one with 17 Grand Slam titles, most people seem to think that he deserves the GOAT distinction, but when he keeps losing to Nadal and Nadal keeps winning title after title, the discussion starts again. The facts are (Federer first, Nadal second): Federer has obviously won more tournaments, but Nadal is much younger at 26 while Federer is 31. So you could say that Nadal has five more years at least to …
GOAT
Yes, Nadal showed his dedication to the sport and to his career by coming to Queens despite and exhausting French Open. It’s more important for Nadal to get a lot of practice and matches under his belt, than it is for Federer. Federer tries to keep the body fit, chooses his tournaments carefully and that’s probably one of the reasons he hasn’t missed from a Grand Slam in many, many years (ever?). This approach show how different the two legends are and that of course makes their rivalry and their quest for the GOAT title even more interesting. Today he …
Does size matter? Sports Illustrated tennis writer Jon L. Wertheim wrote the excellent book Strokes of Genius about the titanic battle of the Wimbledon final 2008 and since then I’ve followed his writing on twitter and on SI.com and enjoyed and agreed on much of it. His latest “mailbag” post discusses the interesting question of what would happen to Federer’s game if he changed from his Wilson BLX Tour with its 90 inch head to a bigger racket to increase his sweetspot and margin for error. I’ve always been a strong believer of this change and I’m happy that I’m …
I don’t think there was a single soul in the “stadium” in Monte Carlo who was surprised when Nadal threw his Schwartznegger-like arms in the air and celebrated his seventh Monte Carlo Masters title. He is Rafael Nadal and on clay, there is nobody in the history of mankind that can outfox him. The recent results of Federer, Djokovic and Nadal has made me think a bit about the GOAT debate. GOAT is not only an animal it’s also an acronym for “Greatest of All Time” which is a popular discussion among tennis pundits and know-it-alls such as myself. In …