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Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack
yes, annoying to me that he's so far above and beyond anyone in history on clay. they always talk about what would happen if he met Borg in his prime at the FO, and I say Rafa would beat the living crap out of him straight sets just like he does to everyone else. I'm in awe of it but I'm still allowed to personally not enjoy it.
Rafa's career is still in progress so no sense trying pin down his ranking right now, but I say at the moment he's one of the greatest overall, just not THE GOAT until he gets close to the 16 slam record. It just feels like everyone has really short memories about what Fed has accomplished, and he doesn't get enough credit for actually being there to meet Rafa in the FO final all those years. That's just how history is recorded though...it's all raw title wins and in the end nobody will care about how one player's game matched up against another, or if one guy was in his prime while the other wasn't, etc. Probably few people will even remember or talk about Fed's ridiculous consecutive slam QF/SFs after he retires.
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You don't have to look too far as Rafa has said numerous times that Fed is the best of all time. The record of what 23 straight semifinals, the 16 grand slams thus far, and his master 1000 record is very impressive. He is just one week away from tying Sampras for longest time as number 1.
The bottom line is, whether you are a Fed, Rafa or Nole fan, these last 6 years have been a great time to watch tennis.
Another thing i want to note is that the clay season is much shorter than the hard court season. Plus you have 2 slams on hard and 1 on clay. This give an advantage to certain players, and notedly Rafa is not one of them. He has long been a clay specialist but he's learnt to adapt first to grass, then to hard. I feel you when you say Rafa stole 5 FOs from Fed... as far as Rafa fans are concerned, without Novak around Rafa may have 1 more on grass and 2 on hard. However at this time, Djoker is definitely number 1 and Rafa is definitely number 2.