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Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack
I dunno how much weight the "best at their absolute peak" factors into the goat list. certainly anybody in the top tennis.com's top 10 had periods in their careers where they were totally invincible. but then a lot more players outside the hall of fame also have those moments. for example Cilic at USO 2014 stomped on his final 3 opponents like some angry tennis kaiju, and nobody from any era was going to stop it. but then he never reached that level again, except for like 1 set in the final last month.
I agree that peak Djoker likely takes down prime Fed and Rafa, especially on hard court. but I don't think it's enough to cover the majors spread. if he comes back healthy for clay, is able to take advantage of an ailing or possibly even absent Rafa, then he might be the first of the 3 to grab two of each slam...then that scale starts to tip a bit more his way.
speaking of which, it would suck to lose Rafa again for a big chunk of this year, but if the worst happens and he's not there to defend Roland Garros, does Fed give it one more try? I'm still gonna guess no, but it would be fascinating to see how his current game translates. would it actually work or would he just end up looking like Sampras out there?
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Hopefully Rafa is back for the clay season, that's all I care about now. Get a couple more Masters 1000 titles and add an insane 11th RG title would be nice.
I don't think Fed will play clay, the type of tennis is brutal and he can't play 50 second service games at RG like he can at Wimbledon. Also Fed loves Wimbledon and he wants his own La Decima like Rafa at RG. Playing RG hurts his chances at Wimbledon IMO.
Even a 50% Rafa is still enough to win the French, he literally destroyed the competition last year and it wasn't even close. It was the most dominant performance in an individual sport I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. He lost a total of 35 games in 7 matches. Never went to a tie breaker, the closest anyone got to beating him in a set was winning 4 games. He took a peak former champion Stan Wawrinka and gave him a beatdown in the finals. The gap is just too large and the French is also 3 months away, you know given Rafa's fighting spirit if there is even a 1% chance he can play.
BUT if he is out for the French then I'm fairly confident in Dominic Thiem to win even if Fed plays. Thiem was the only man to beat Rafa last year on clay so I think Thiem becomes the favorite.