Rockindeano wrote:Ehwmatt wrote:Rockindeano wrote:madsplash wrote:Tiger is a classless, pouting little baby.
The most dominant athlete ever. Too bad more people don't have his character.
Tiger is a fucking stud.
You have to put Federer up there for consideration at most dominant athlete ever Dean,
Oh yeah, Federer is a beast. I still love Pete Sampras, and Johnny Mac. Those guys played against what I feel better competition. Agassis, Borgs, Connors, and those dudes. hell, Roger completely dominates Roddick nowadays. His ultimate test may be playing the Williams sisters, ie, Predator and Predator 2 the Sequel. Those bitches can flat out ball. I wouldn't sass them no way.
This kinda depth/quality debate goes on every generation in tennis... I am a huge Federer, Agassi, and McEnroe devotee. On the depth question, I tend to share Sampras's view that he articulated recently: Today, there are less true "champions" competing with Federer, but the overall depth and quality of players is far greater than any preceding generation. There were more consistent performers, especially at the grand slam level back in the 70s-90s days, then there are today where there's basically Federer, Nadal, and a select 2 or 3 players who happen to be in great form for that given slam. But, overall, the #50 player today is far better than the #50 guy was back in the mid 90s or 80s during Pete and Mac's heydays. That kinda depth pretty much goes down the line today, at least in men's tennis, which makes Federer's consistent ability to avoid a huge upset at a slam very remarkable (even Sampras bowed out early in slams quite frequently, especially in the latter half of his storied career).
With all that said, Federer has set so many ridiculous milestones - to me, the most underrated accomplishment of his outside tennis die-hards' knowledge is the 21 straight grand slam semi-final or better appearances. As a lifelong player who competed collegiately/nationally (so I have some idea of what I speak of), I can tell you that this is a ridiculous feat! Someone could come along and break his grand slam record someday (if it stays at 15... any more and I doubt even this), but I don't ever see someone breaking all of the milestones he's set - most weeks at #1, most grand slams, the career slam, most years winning 2+ grand slams, highest consecutive streak of initial grand slams won, most years winning 3 grand slams, most consecutive finals won... the list goes on.
He's a human record book. Even Tiger hasn't reached his level of consistent greatness. Although he's finally shown signs of being human the last couple years (and the media has uttered his demise quite loud frequently), he's still only lost to Nadal in grand slams save the one time an in-form Djokovic took him out. He's near unbeatable in slams for the rest of the field. Simply ridiculous.