Surfacing issue: Why Roger Federer is not the greatest ever tennis player

The is no such thing as a "Greatest Ever". Even if Roger wins the French this year or some other year, he will not be the greatest ever as there are too many variables to make such a ridiculous judgement. He is one of several great players in the history of the sport: leave it at that.

Nadal leads fed 7-1 on clay. i don't know where you found 19-1

No, Roger would have to change his game and risk losing his edge on hard court and grass in the process. For now Laver is the best ever.

Borg never won the Australian because he only played it once, in 1974. It was considered less than other non-major tournaments until the late 80s. I'm sure with it being on slow grass, Borg could have won it multiple times. Wait, you made another error...when Borg played, the Australian was on grass, and is thus is not an indicator of his problems on hardcourts. By the way, he did make four finals at the US Open, which is much better than say Sampras's one semifinal at the French. You need to do better research for your articles.

Not a bad article but spoilt by one badly phrased sentence...clay is not Federer's one glaring "weakness". Actually, Federer is a wonderful and natural clay court player. Nadal on clay is his one glaring "problem". Nadal is the best clay court player in history and Federer would have won 2-3 Roland Garros titles already if he had not lost to Nadal the past 3 years. But losses are losses and Federe must be meaured on his results, whoever his competition is - however you can not say that clay is a weakness for Federer.

I agree with Joe Willis (the first person to comment on this article). There is no one greatest of all time... like all of us tennis followers I have read a number of articles on this subject arguing this way and that who was the Greatest of All Time. It truly is a ridiculous notion, seducive as it may be. There are sports where a very small number of competitors tower over the other truly excellent players, and tennis is one of them. And what Federer has achieved in the last 5 or 6 years puts him in that group. But no-one in that smallish group can be picked out as the one that exceeds the others... there are indeed too many variables. Along the same lines Nadal has achieved enough already between the ages of 18-21 to be placed in the small group of greatest claycourt players of all time. Greatest, plural. And for Federer to beat Nadal once at Roland Garros or never doing so truly does not change how excellent he has been - and perhaps will go back to being for a while - and whether he belongs among the greatest. Greatest, plural.

Way too many mistakes in the article. 1]Roger is not weak clay court player like Sampras was. 2]AO wasnt a hardcourt during mid 70's and hence Borg winning an AO would not have proved he is great on hard court. 3]Borg has reached US open final couple of times clearly says he is very good hard court player like he is on other courts as well. 4]Borg is a better all court player than Pete is. 5]If Pete should be considered as all timer great for his slams tally then Mats Wilander should be no.2 with 12 wins according to your argument which would be very silly. Pete is a great player but no ways the greatest in any case. Rod Laver who dominate his time and era by winning all 4 slams in the same year is the best ever.Many can argue that those slams werent on differnt surface but Rod can only achieve whats laid in front of him. Borg and Roger come next with dominant performance on all court. Andre come 4th in the list with perfect career slam winning all four. Pete was so dominant on 2 courts but only semifinal appearance as his best on clay GS cannot be said as the game's greatest.

Its a little too early to talk about either Roger or Rafa being all time Greatest players. Roger is one of the all time greats but still has a few years to proove to the world that he is the greatest player ever. Rafa is a great Clay Court player, probably the greatest,...But not nearly the greatest all-round player!!! We should also be careful not to consider number of grandslams as the sole criterion. Other variables include the standard of tennis, Number of high profile payers. e.g. Federer would probably have won the Australian Open this year without the emergence of the Djoker, He would also have won the last 3 grandslams if not for Nadal. I also agree that federer's all-round game is probably the best ever. Time will tell!!!