Re: Despite what Sampras says, Federer was better by Johnette Howard (Newsday)


"Dave Hazelwood" <the_big_kahuna@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:01:48 GMT, "RuPEDski" <datacipher@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


"undecided" <costasz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Aug 31, 7:35 am, "RuPEDski" <datacip...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Adam Thirnis" <adam.thir...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On Aug 31, 11:25 am, Whisper <beaver...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Adam Thirnis wrote:
On Aug 31, 10:48 am, Whisper <beaver...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
RuPEDski wrote:
"D" <iamde...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-sphow305351974aug30,0,348...
I'm sure this will start a thread of 20+ posts......
Hopefully not. Even RST should be able to see that this
person
is
an idiot.
Astonishingly poor. Doesn't mention people like Becker or
Guga
who
agree
with Sampras, seems to think Laver held the most slams before
Sampras, seem
to think that Federer and Sampras met more than once, seems
to
think
that a
young buck beating an aging champion indicates one is greater
than
the
other(well OK, there are many fanboys on RST who actually
advocate
that
stupidity)....and on and on.....
It's really kind of offensive to a genuine, knowledgable fan
to
read
garbage
like this from a clueless journalist.
Yes, there's nothing there to back up the claims - simply
keying
words
into a keyboard with no evidence is amateurish. Despite what
Agassi
says the actual record proves Andre came far closer to beating
peak
Fed
at 2004 & 2005 USOs than he ever did in 4 matches v Sampras.
At
age
35
he actually got a big look in at beating peak Fed at USO,
something
he
could never do v Sampras at his youthful peak. Fed barely
sneaked
past
Andre 63 26 75 36 63 at 2004 USO (interestingly he never won
more
than 1
set v Pete), & in 2005 final Agassi led 36 62 42 & point for
52.

playing the home fave at uso is tough - something sampras never
had to
contend with - plus the 5 setter was played over 2 days in a
gale
which almost reduced the match to a lottery. of course federer
crushed
agassi when they met at the ao - while pete lost both his
matches
to
andre there.

Keep in mind this is old decrepit Agassi v youthful/peak Federer.

also keep in mind that agassi at 34/35 was as good as he ever was
(andre confirms this himself).

LOL. YOu gotta be kidding me man! You know that's total BS. Andre is
just a
WEE bit biased about that. He may even FEEL he was as good. He
wasn't.
As
Fed himself said, he's wasn't as good as when he was #1.

In any case, I also don't put too much credence on the who beat who
by
exactly how much argument as too many factors come into play.
However, I
do
think it clearly shows that 1.Agassi has reason to be biased and
2.Agassi
may have forgotten just how cleanly Sampras played in some of their
encounters.

The funny thing is that Andre may say that or even feel that but I
think
his
style of play MIGHT have been better suited to playing Fed than
Pete!!!
At
his best, I think he has a slightly better chance against Fed's best
than
against Sampras' best. Difficult to say for certain as either one of
them
peaks slightly higher than Andre.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Very good point. With Fed AA had to content with another baseliner but
with Pete it was a lot harder. I have to say that the AA of 2005 hit
the ball as cleanly as the 99 AA BUT his movement was SOOOO much
better in 99 and he got waxed easily by Pete. I have to say that Pete
had to content with AA which is a much superior player to anyone Fed
is/has been contending with and AA was a threat on all surfaces.

That's an excellent point. The lack of a rival of that calibre is really
quite sad when you think about it. When you see what a middle aged, 2
step
slower Agassi was still doing to battle Fed in the last years of his
career,
you realize how good he was. Had Sampras kept playing, he might well have
done the same.

People often bemoaned that of Sampras when Andre wasn't around. Pete had
some other greats to contend with like Becker but we were also lucky to
have
the special chemistry of the 4 American's....all of the same generation.
Great battles between all of them.

I was just raking Safin over the coals for not coming anywhere remotely
near
his potential. Here is a guy who could have been a real rival for
Federer.
You know, even if you were a diehard fedfanboy, a rival of that quality
is
what allows true greatness to really show through.

I don't know that I realized how much I missed that until Nadal came
along,
so many fanboys here feel threatened by him but like him or hate him, how
much more interesting has he made Federer the lst couple years??!

PS. I actually think Agassi was quicker in 1995, by 99, he had perhaps
lost
1/2 or a 1/4 step ALTHOUGH, he was fitter and stronger which helped
compensate. (though again, people forget that in 1995 Agassi was in
superb
condition, he just let it go in 96) By 2005, it was pretty obvious that
despite still being very fit, he had really lost a lot of movement.



Sampras quit because of Agassi.

Agassi was starting to peak in his mid thirties and Pete knew he would
beat him slam after slam so he quit.

Way worse than Mac/Borg in that aspect.

LOL. The only problem with your theory is that Mac kept BEATING Borg. Kind
of different than Smpras/Agassi.


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