Federer has been injured and hadn't played nearly as much going into Wimbledon as usual, in fact I think they said that the 2016 French Open was the first Slam he'd missed since 2002 or something ridiculous.
i said this tbf, i think that's another argument against him beating murray though, injuries are both symptomatic of physical decline and contributors to it, particularly given that he was never injured in his prime. i don't think it's a good sign. his longevity and reliability are incredible though definitely, iirc he went on an insane run of reaching grand slam semi finals for years.
Haha, those infamous Murray drop shots! He didn't try to throw many in during the final. Yeah, I'd agree with this, Djok is not nearly as physical. But he does tend to play a lot of really long matches, where every point is a battle, and I wonder how much impact that will have on his body. After the disappointment of the final, I watched some highlights from classic past finals including the 2012 Australian Open of Nadal vs Djokovic. Almost every fucking point was a war of attrition and battle of sheer will, that has to take its toll. I mean some sets that ended in a tie break were 90 minutes long! Do you think he'll be able to match/overtake Federer's 17 Slams? Doesn't seem like he has too much competition at the minute, except from Murray.
ahh yeah i remember that one. another one that i always remember, aside from the obvious, is that ridiculous federer roddick wimbledon final that went to 16-14 in the fifth. it wasn't the prettiest game but it was such a long exhausting war, they both left everything on the court that day. i know henman never made a final but he had some great matches too, he was a wonderful player who unfortunately didn't possess the physical qualities to compete in modern eras - if he'd been around decades earlier he'd now be regarded as one of the all time greats i think. just to tie those two things together, i remember roddick surprisingly saying that henman was pretty much his hero.
as for djokovic, it's gonna be close. only one man in the open era (aside from laver i guess), andre agassi, has managed to win 5 slams after turning 29, and aside from him nobody else has won more than 3 - djokovic needs 6 (he's already got 1) to tie fed or 7 to beat him. but djokovic is extraordinary and has rewritten plenty of history already, plus i guess fitness is just generally better these days and you're right that it's not the most difficult era atm. i'd kind of like federer to retain that record for a long time just because i think with his style and technical brilliance he deserves it, but i admire both men a lot.
Funny you brought up the different eras. I was thinking about all these stats and overall rankings earlier myself. Imagine if Nadal hadn't been a thing, then Federer would have at least like another 4 Slams from the French Open alone. Then you have Serena equalling Graf's 22, but Graf's main competition (Seles) had to be stabbed by a crazed Graf fan for her to be able to win that many. Do you watch the women's btw? A lot of people don't like it, and I don't find it nearly as entertaining as the men's, but I'll still watch some matches.
i feel sorry for murray actually, i genuinely think he'd have close to 10 slams himself if he'd emerged at the turn of the century INSTEAD of federer. that was a rather easy era prior to nadal, which is why people (IMO legitimately) question whether federer can be seen as better than nadal given their h2h record - but then, like i said above, he plays with such style and gracefulness that he was always gonna live longer in the memory than nadal.
but yeah this is why stats can only tell you so much, or at least the basic stats can. delving deeper can be pretty interesting though, i highly recommend browsing
this wiki if you haven't already, lots of interesting nuggets of info there. particularly interesting are the top win percentages across history on various surfaces 'n shit like that. borg's grand slams winning percentage for example is absolutely mental.
