Is Nadal Better than Sampras?

First topic message reminder :

Lets leave Fedal debate till their respective careers are over, so I gonna compare an existing Legend to a legendary veteran, yes Nadal vs Sampras who is better in terms of perfection, stats, style and achievements.

Nadal *

Slams - 13
Year End No.1's - 3 most probably counting this year if not at-least 2
Consecutive Year end No.1 - 1
Total Weeks at No.1 - 102 minimum
Masters - 25/27 ?  I really lost count considering he is winning one every week ,  he made a mockery of stats here
Maximum No. of times a single slam won - 8 FO  , I guess this should be wrong, 8 for GOD sake.
Maximum no. of times a trophy won in succession - 8 Monte Carlo  
h2h - pretty much dominates all rivals [youngsters , current age group and oldies ] and tour.
Olympics - 1 Gold
Davis Cup - Against lost track how many times Spain, actually I wouldn't have this but just in case
WTF - is the only black mark
Career Slam - Yes

Sampras
Slams - 14
Year End No.1 - 6 times ,
Consecutive Year end No.1 - 6 , seriously ?  
Total Weeks at No.1 - 286
Masters - 11
Maximum No. of times a single Slam won - 7 , Wimbledon
Maximum no. of times a trophy won in succession - 4 Wimbledon ? Somebody needs to help me in this.
h2h - pretty much dominates all rivals of same age but not youngsters and oldies.
WTF - 5
Davis Cup - I know USA won so many times but not sure how many he took part in, LF could help here.
Career Slam - No
FO an incomplete part
Olympic - 0.

Right now Rafa dominates in some stats while Sampras dominates in some stats, hence if Rafa wins 1 more slam which is more than likely then in my view he will move above Sampras in total accomplishment and GOAT order.

This is just a fun discussion on ranking of the legends, only constructive critcs please. 

LuvSports! wrote:With current day tech on a fast surface? Sure.
With 90's tech on the proper fast surfaces of the 90's, i don't think so.

Impossible to tell as both players developed their games according to the surfaces of their eras. I'm sure Sampras would have developed differently on slower grass/HC and Nadal differently on faster grass/HC

legendkillarV2 wrote:

ChequeredJersey wrote:

zaron wrote:

mthierry wrote:

zaron wrote:
Nadal vs Sampras is much harder because Sampras has stats that Nadal won't touch even with 2 more slams.
For it to get interesting, I would say Nadal needs to close the gap in weeks@#1, win some more fast court slams, as well as a few WTFs.

He needs to win more slams and bridge the gap in weeks at number 1. The others aren't relevant. It doesn't matter the distribution of the slams across whatever kind of surface. And Sampras' superior WTF wins is easily matched by Nadal's vastly superior Masters count.

I think the distribution of slams would matter. Lets say Nadal wins two more FO. He would have 15 slams, and an incredible 10 FO wins, but the other slams: 5 wins (Fedx2,Djokox2,Berdx1), plus 4 loses in the finals (Fedx2, Djokox2). Doesn't look so good does it? My point is he would need to do more outside of the clay.

Winning a WTF is much harder than winning a typical Masters, so you can't equate the two records. Plus you have events like Monte Carlo, which are really a 500 level event skewing the numbers. It hurts Nadal's case to of never won the WTF.

Under what criteria does it not look good? Anyway, ALL of Sampras' slams were on fast court...

All Nadal's Slams are on slow courts.

I think the only chink in the Nadal armour is the weeks at number 1. If he can make inroads on that, then Federer should start looking over his shoulder

One issue I have with Nadals #1 rank record is he has never spent 1 full season or all weeks of a year at #1...... I think he needs to hold the #1 from Australian through WTF at least once..

^ But if he gets to number one having not played a full year therefore giving everyone a head start... doesn't that count for something?

When Federer won the Aussie Open in 2010, I don't think anyone would have said it would be 2 and a half years until he won another slam. When McEnroe won the US Open in 1984 I don't think anyone would have said that would be his last slam, so of course Rafa could surpass Pete and Roger but you never know whats around the corner. It has changed so quickly each year since 07

While these sorts of comparisons are futile, they are also fun, so why not?

If Rafa were to win no slams from here on, I would give a nod to Sampras - with some margin to spare too.

To me, as far as the importance of the objective criteria goes, it is something like:

1. slam success
2. #1 ranking (I am more inclined to take total weeks than YE rankings as the barometer)
3. nothing else for a while
4. some more of nothing else
5. maybe WTF or things like total number of tournaments (or maybe Masters?) won
6. everything outside that (but perhaps even 5. above) is good just for trivia

As of now, Sampras is still ahead in the slam count and miles ahead in the #1 ranking count.  For me, to get ahead of Sampras, Rafa would need to get to 15 slams, if not better.

In addition to the measurable criteria, one might want to add various intangibles.  The problem with those is that it tends to become even more subjective.  In addition, the game has changed so much since the time Sampras played, that the intangibles are very hard to compare between the two of them.  What counts for more?  Pete's volleys or Rafa's court coverage?  Well, in the 90s it would certainly be the volleys, while these days it is definitely the court coverage.  So which of the two should be valued higher on an "absolute" basis?  You go and figure that.

Rafa, of course is not done yet, and if the last few months are an indication, perhaps not done by a long shot.  So he may well shift the final comparison to be well in his favor.

lydian wrote:Tough one for me as I'm a big known fan of both guys.

Presumably it would be even tougher if you were only a fan of one of them, no?  The question is, which of the two is better, so the answer has nothing to do with which of them you favor more.  If you favored one of them more, it would be harder to keep it unbiased I think.  Being a fan of them both is, relatively speaking, easier?

One thing that I do not hold against Sampras compared to today's players is his lack of the career grand slam.  Those who remember 1990s will remember that trying to win both Wimbledon and RG back then was massively different from trying to do the same nowadays.  Back then, clay and grass tennis were almost two different sports - many top clay courters would simply skip Wimbledon because they found it pointless to go and try.  That is just not the case these days (Andy's skipping of the French this year notwithstanding).

You're absolutely right summerblues, as regards "almost two different sports"

And it was far more pronounced if you go back further to the Borg days. Many, many top Spanish and South American players would routinely give Wimbledon a miss, for the very reason you give.

Borg's ability to switch between what were two VERY distinct surfaces - and within such a short period - was truly remarkable, and is I feel often forgotten as the years go by. None of his rivals came remotely close to having such success across these two Slams.

I will never denigrate the amazing achievements of the current generation, but for me, Bjorn Borg will forever remain "the main man"

Maybe the fact that Sampras dominated at Wimbledon but was unable to play well on clay made it LOOK as if the contrast between the two surfaces was so much greater back then? Someone had to win RG if the dominant player of the time wasn't capable hence the different players taking advantage.

Same with Nadal and Federer. Because they have been versatile enough to be able to play well on both surfaces they make the surfaces LOOK more similar. Borg was also able to do this.

I'm sure there are plenty of players today who are only too aware of the difference. Davydenko, Roddick, Murray, Ferrer, Almagro....

Maybe not enough credit is given to players who are able to adapt? After all just a few weeks ago Cincy was described as the fastest of American hard courts. I suppose the only explanation for what happened is that it's now playing like slow clay

I have just remembered that Roddick is no longer a player of today

Yes of course he is. For me personally at any rate. Sampras killed my love of the game and I was glad to see the back of him. Roger has never been my favourite by any means but I would watch Fed any day to Sampras. Hate watching paint dry: :

On clay he was, but I doubt Nadal would have any hope of beating Pete anywhere off clay. Sadly the rest of the tour just wants to kiss Nadal's rectum and be on the same court as we've seen most of his career.

Haddie-nuff wrote:Yes of course he is. For me personally at any rate. Sampras killed my love of the game and I was glad to see the back of him. Roger has never been my favourite by any means but I would watch Fed any day to Sampras. Hate watching paint dry: :

But you seem to be answering a wrong question.  The question is not about who you find more entertaining.  If a player kills your love of the game, that does not make him any worse.

OK Ill answer it by saying take away his big serve and to me thats what Sampras was. mainly due to a huge serve he had the success he did without it he would never have won as much as he did.In the main I think he will be remembered for that rather than his game.. Rafa is more of a complete player imo
AND it makes him more entertaining.

hawkeye wrote:Maybe the fact that Sampras dominated at Wimbledon but was unable to play well on clay made it LOOK as if the contrast between the two surfaces was so much greater back then? Someone had to win RG if the dominant player of the time wasn't capable hence the different players taking advantage.

Sometimes you write serious posts; at other times your posts are more "ideological".  I am not sure which one this is.

Look, if you decide to stand your ground, it is probably impossible for me to outright prove that the surfaces now play much more similar than they used to.  On the other hand, it is just so obvious - everything points in that direction.  In the 90s, the game style dominating RG was totally different from the style dominating Wimbledon.  Wimbledon was all about S&V, RG not so.  It was not just Sampras - pretty much nobody was able to do well at both.  On the other hand, these days pretty much everyone can succeed on both.  Even your favorite Andy was able to make SF at the French.

One comparison I looked at a while ago was the number of players that were able to make QF in both Wimbledon and RG in the same year.  For the last 10 years, the numbers are:

2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 2, 5, 4, 5, 2 - average of 2.9 per year

For the 10 years prior to that, they were:

2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 0 - average of 1 per year.

It was not uncommon for the quarter finalists to not overlap between the two tournaments at all.  These days, on the other hand, we can have 4-5 players making QF in both tournaments.

If your article was meant more as an ideological than a serious post, then I suggest a couple of alternative - and I would say better - lines of attack:

1.  If you want to "prove" that Rafa is better than Sampras:  Instead of trying to argue that doing the RG/Wimby double is equally hard now as it was then, you may be better off pointing out that because of the extreme specialization in the 1990s, you effectively competed only against a subset of top players at any given tournament - so it was maybe easier to win one of them 7 times then than it is now, when everyone is proficient everywhere.

2.  If you want to prove that Andy sucks:  Instead of listing him among the players that have not succeeded at both RG and Wimby, why not point out that the list is ever shrinking and that it is to Andy's discredit that he cannot succeed at both tournaments even in the era where it is not so hard to do.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:On clay he was, but I doubt Nadal would have any hope of beating Pete anywhere off clay. Sadly the rest of the tour just wants to kiss Nadal's rectum and be on the same court as we've seen most of his career.

Or maybe they just can't handle him? If the rest of the tour want to kiss Nadal's rectum, you have to ask "why"? It's probably not because he's not a fantastic all time great

Haddie-nuff wrote:OK Ill answer it by saying take away his big serve and to me thats what  Sampras was. mainly due to a huge serve he had the success he did  without it he would never have won as much as he did.In the main I think he will be remembered for that  rather than his game..  Rafa is more of a complete player imo
AND it makes him more entertaining.

I think Sampras had way more than just a big serve but - more importantly - that is beside the point.  If a game rewards big serve, then having a big serve makes you very good.  If a big serve is enough to win everything, then you may become the best player ever by having that and nothing else.

The argument you are making could perhaps be used to argue that "if Sampras did not have a big serve, then Nadal would be a better player".  But if the question is a straight-up question of who is a better player, then you cannot remove their biggest weapon and compare them without it.  That way, your argument will be biased towards players whose weapons are more uniformly distributed.

SB I have watched ALL the greats over the years.. watched them.. not read about them on Wikapaedia ... and when i think of them all Sampras seldom, if ever comes into my thinking. Now I wonder why that should be seeing as, according to you he obviously was the greatest and one I should remember,. Yes I do but for all the wrong reasons. Now I wont bother to argue or debate this question further. IT IS MY OPINION that Rafa is better than Sampras. And I dont think I am on my own with this opinion however biased you may want to believe I am. It is of course necessary to judge a player on his biggest weapon.. What would Isner be? Karlovic? Raonic ? SERVE
Rafa has risen to his dizzy heights without the benefit of a huge serve which to me makes him a better all round player. Roger has a good serve but again a far more talented all round player than Sampras
I have answered the OP´s question and my answer is most definitely YES and I dont need to enlarge on it further  

Haddie-nuff wrote:watched them.. not read about them on Wikapaedia ...

I was not suggesting you read about Sampras on Wikipedia.

Haddie-nuff wrote:It is of course necessary to judge a player on his biggest weapon..

But not to take it away from them

Haddie-nuff wrote:Rafa has risen to his dizzy heights without the benefit of a huge serve which to me makes him a better all round player.

You say it as if winning without a great serve was somehow more worthy than winning with a serve, i.e., as if you are not willing to give serve its due as an integral part of the game.  Everything else being equal, having a weaker serve makes you a worse tennis player.  If player B has a weaker serve than player A but he still wants to be as good a player, he needs to be better than player A elsewhere to compensate.  You cannot then turn around, remove serve from both of them, and say "but without serve, player B is better than player A".

 

The question was "Is Nadal Better Than Sampras?"

So Haddies point about Nadal being better to watch is a valid one. I agree with her and I would go further than that and say that as far as entertainment goes not only is Nadal better than Sampras but they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Nadal is one of the most entertaining players to watch and Sampras the least. Sampras may have lots of trophies but how many turned off rather than watch. I certainly did! Zzzzzzz...

Looking at the trophies they have won it would be difficult to make an argument for Sampras being better than Nadal unless you just looked at raw slam count. But even then Nadal is 27 and still playing and he only needs one more to equal him. I wonder what the odds are for Nadal never winning another slam are. But judging who is the best just based on counting trophies won't convince everyone. I happen to think Seles was a better player than Graff no matter what the trophy count was.

You can then try and judge who would have been the best if they were both in the same era. For reasons I've explained before I think Nadal would have got the better of Sampras. Sampras had a great serve but other than that was a bit one dimensional. Nadal has proved that he's good enough to get the ball in play against even the most tricky of serves and once the ball was in play the points would have been his to lose. If the way to beat Rafa was to out serve him there would be more evidence that this sort of play would work against him and there isn't.

summerblues. It's possible to be ideological, serious, humorous (or attempt to be... ), tongue in cheek etc in an attempt to make a valid point. If you take out Nadal and Federer from your quarter final stats. And for the sake of argument why not as these are the two players who have proved their adaptability then the two era's look much the same. I think there is more than one way to argue (not prove because as you have said that would be impossible) that Nadal is better than Sampras. Nadal has done a little bit more than just complete the tricky RG/Wimbledon double. My points about both Andy's (and other players) was that they were relatively and consistently poor on one surface compared to the other. That surely shows there is a difference between surfaces and a significant one for players who have less adaptable games.

lol. so you ignore the 285 weeks at no1, 5 wtf wins, 6 ye no1's?

^ Of course it's not ignored without them Nadal would be better than Sampras by a greater distance  You mentioned Sampras's number one credentials twice by the way.

yes because they are different things.....

It works both ways. As nadal doesn't anywhere close to these numbers, that puts sampras ahead by a greater distance :O

Sampras, in his early years had a lot more than his serve, despite being his biggest asset. People end to typecast him as just a serve because of the way he relied on it soo much more as he got old. If you watch say 1995 sampras, it wasnt like that, he had the most fearsome running forehand, more so than maybe Federer

If it assumed that Fed is he GOAT, as is a latent assumption of this discussion, then the fact that Nadal played most of his career with a firing Fed dominant on grass and HC and in the no 1 spot has to be taken into account. Sampras did not have a GOAT contender in his era, the comparison cannot be made directly

Well put. That is why the goat term is nonsensical.

hawkeye wrote:The question was "Is Nadal Better Than Sampras?"
So Haddies point about Nadal being better to watch is a valid one.

That is a bit of a stretch though.  I find Haas better to watch than Djokovic but if the question was "Is Haas Better Than Djokovic" I would not use that to argue that the answer was "yes".

hawkeye wrote:Looking at the trophies they have won it would be difficult to make an argument for Sampras being better than Nadal unless you just looked at raw slam count.

Yes, Rafa gets extra points for winning more smaller tourneys.  The question is how many extra points; and that is where subjectivity kicks in.  Also, there are offsetting areas where Pete gets extra points.  Obviously, as you say, Rafa still has time to make the comparisons swing his way.

hawkeye wrote:For reasons I've explained before I think Nadal would have got the better of Sampras.

Here is where it becomes even more difficult to be objective.  Maybe he would, or maybe Sampras would have got the better of him; we will never know.  It is hard enough to predict a match between two players in the here and now, even if we may see them play under the same conditions day in day out. It is very hard (impossible) to take all paramaters into account and come up with a reliable answer as to how two greats across eras would match up.  It is easy to make such statements though

falzy21 wrote:he had the most fearsome running forehand, more so than maybe Federer

Oh, he definitely had a better running forehand than Federer.

In fact, as great as Fed's forehand is, I would not rate his running forehand as being at the very top.  I would say Rafa's running forehand is better than Roger's, but still nowhere near Pete's.

...and speaking of watchability, Pete's running forehand was not only great, it was also beautiful to watch.

summerblues. Just checked and Sampras won 64 tour level trophies including his 14 slams. Nadal at present has won 60 including his 13 slams. Nadal also has 26? 27? Masters titles (I've lost count now no one mentions it maybe because he is so far ahead of the pack...). I think I read somewhere that the rest of his titles are nearly all 500 events so not many "smaller" titles make up his haul. You appear to know more about Sampras than me Zzzzzzz.. what are his titles made up of?

I wonder how many more masters sampras and feds would have won with a grass court masters or two.

^ I wonder how many more slams and masters Nadal would have won if they hadn't dug up all the grass and clay courts and replaced them with knee damaging hard courts?

hawkeye wrote:so not many "smaller" titles make up his haul.

Hehe, as I said, it becomes all subjective - I would say 1000 level masters titles look pretty small when comparing all-time greats.  How often do you hear people count the old Grand Prix Championship (or whatever it was called) titles when comparing Borgs, McEnroes, Lendls, Wilanders?

Anyway, you seem to be switching into your "ideological" mode right now where arguments get picked or shelved depending on their usefulness.  In principle, I am happy to consider the possibility that I am wrong and that Masters titles should be assigned bigger weight, but not if I know the other side is only doing so because they want to arrive at a predetermined destination.

summerblues. I'm not sure what you mean about "modes" but I feel there are lot's of strong arguments for Nadal being better than Sampras. To add to the discussion I just thought I'd throw a few in. But IMO it is obvious who is the better player. I have already arrived at the predetermined destination  

Did I say anything about doubles?...

I think Sampras was more dominant, Rafa more adaptable. I can imagine Pete being so up for matches against Rafa

hawkeye wrote:but I feel there are lot's of strong arguments for Nadal being better than Sampras.

Well, if put like this, then yes, certainly.  But there are also many strong arguments for Sampras being better than Nadal.  To me, on balance, the arguments still favor Sampras - with some margin to spare (though obviously it can be very different by the time Rafa is done).  I recognize a lot of it is subjective and there will be those for whom Nadal looks to be the better of the two already.

When I am talking about you being "ideological" I mean that you often end up cherry picking the arguments going in one direction only.  And when I talk about your "modes" I mean that you do not always do that.

interesting question.
the thing is, sampras best surface meant 75% of slams and 66% of masters, and the WTF is always on hard courts and nadal´s best surface is just 25% of slams and 33% of masters

and despite this, nadal managed to win all 4 slams, and sampras didnt even reach a roland garros final.
nadal has won 5 slams and 8 masters in his least favourite surface, whilst sampras only won 1 masters1000 on clay

on the other hand sampras won 5 wtf and nadal none.

the other point is the rivals. nadal has made a curriculum against federer, djokovic, murray, berdych, soderling...
sampras won his titles against the likes of agassi, courier, becker, chang, moya and rafter

overall sampras was a more solid number 1 over the years than nadal who has been mostly a number two behind federer or djokovic despite having a positive h2h with them both

I think nadal has had a bigger impact in the game than sampras, but anyway he has like 3 more good seasons in him I would say, so lets see what else he does in order to compare

I was talking about Nadal being a better player than Sampras NOW not at the end of his career. The end of career add on is only needed to potentially out do Federer. But anyway touche!

I was never a great fan of Sampras, and not a great fan of Rafa, so the answer to the question (if one is even possible) doesn't really matter to me.
But summerblues' arguments are to me hugely more logical and convincing. Choosing the better player rarely comes down to logic though, once you're a committed fan of one or the other. It's simply a matter of personal preference.
Which is why I think Henman is better than both of them and you'll never convince me otherwise.

88Chris05 wrote:I'd move Nadal ahead of Pete now, much as I loved Sampras and his style as a kid. Appreciate that Rafa 'only' (!) having 102 weeks at number one compared to Pete's 286 is a striking stat, but I'd wager that Pete would be having a hard time cracking three figures if his peak years coincided with those of Djokovic and a still 85% or more (2008-2012) Federer.

Some good points both ways regarding the year-end championships, and I'll admit I can see both sides of the coin.

But Nadal's career Slam is massive when comparing him directly to Pete. Slowed courts or no, he's still shown the ability to adapt and adjust his game in a way that Sampras couldn't quite manage. What Nadal has achieved on his weakest surface compared to what Sampras did on his makes for pretty hard reading if you're a Sampras fanatic.

And what, more than twice as many TMS / 1000s as Pistol Pete managed? Sure, Sampras' weeks at number one and year-end championships might have given him an early lead, but surely Nadal's record at that level eats in to it? Total Slam count is a bit of a red herring in some ways, as Nadal is virtually guaranteed to surpass Sampras' total in any case. I'd rather have 13 across all four Slams than 14 across three of them, but that's just me.

Put it this way - Nadal was able to remove a nigh-on peak Federer from the top of the rankings. I don't think Sampras would have been able to. Sampras, in his peak years, conceded the top spot while uninjured to the likes of Muster and Moya; again, I don't think this would have happened with Nadal.

Pete got knocked out of the discussion on who is THE greatest a few years back, for me (although he's still one of the greatest), whereas Nadal is still very much in the hunt. Fine margins but I'd have to give it to Rafa.

Great Post, well summed up.  

hawkeye wrote:^ Fed can beat Novak... but probably not Rafa.

Agreed, who can forget the 2011 FO ?  

If Rafa not playing FO and Fed to meet Djoko in the semis and Murray in the Finals, Fed would take it with both hands . 

hawkeye wrote:I reckon Nadal would have a good shot of beating Sampras on a fast surface. But Sampras might find it a little tricky to get a win over Nadal on a slower surface and virtually impossible on clay (join the club).

I wouldn't be surprised if Rafa humiliates Pete 6-0 6-0 6-0 in one of FO matches, if Pete doesn't bring his A-game and feel a bit tinged and Rafa brings his A-game then certainly this might be the case, on the contemporary even if Pete brings his A-game and Slighty off Rafa will not go down easy even on the fastest surface.  

ChequeredJersey wrote:

LuvSports! wrote:With current day tech on a fast surface? Sure.
With 90's tech on the proper fast surfaces of the 90's, i don't think so.

Impossible to tell as both players developed their games according to the surfaces of their eras. I'm sure Sampras would have developed differently on slower grass/HC and Nadal differently on faster grass/HC

Agreed to this point as well, both are champions and if Sampras would have played this era he might have modded his game accordingly and so the case for Rafa in 90's.  

Trying to figure out who would win Sampras vs. Rafa is a bit like trying to figure out who would win in Perry vs Fed. The game has moved too far to make a realistic judgement.

hawkeye wrote:^ But if he gets to number one having not played a full year therefore giving everyone a head start... doesn't that count for something?

will he hold the #1 through all 52 weeks next year?. he's never been able to defend his points consistently enough for a really long stretch at #1... that's a flaw in the argument for him when comparing against someone like Sampras.

summerblues wrote:

hawkeye wrote:Maybe the fact that Sampras dominated at Wimbledon but was unable to play well on clay made it LOOK as if the contrast between the two surfaces was so much greater back then? Someone had to win RG if the dominant player of the time wasn't capable hence the different players taking advantage.

Sometimes you write serious posts; at other times your posts are more "ideological".  I am not sure which one this is.

Look, if you decide to stand your ground, it is probably impossible for me to outright prove that the surfaces now play much more similar than they used to.  On the other hand, it is just so obvious - everything points in that direction.  In the 90s, the game style dominating RG was totally different from the style dominating Wimbledon.  Wimbledon was all about S&V, RG not so.  It was not just Sampras - pretty much nobody was able to do well at both.  On the other hand, these days pretty much everyone can succeed on both.  Even your favorite Andy was able to make SF at the French.

One comparison I looked at a while ago was the number of players that were able to make QF in both Wimbledon and RG in the same year.  For the last 10 years, the numbers are:

2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 2, 5, 4, 5, 2 - average of 2.9 per year

For the 10 years prior to that, they were:

2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 0 - average of 1 per year.

It was not uncommon for the quarter finalists to not overlap between the two tournaments at all.  These days, on the other hand, we can have 4-5 players making QF in both tournaments.

If your article was meant more as an ideological than a serious post, then I suggest a couple of alternative - and I would say better - lines of attack:

1.  If you want to "prove" that Rafa is better than Sampras:  Instead of trying to argue that doing the RG/Wimby double is equally hard now as it was then, you may be better off pointing out that because of the extreme specialization in the 1990s, you effectively competed only against a subset of top players at any given tournament - so it was maybe easier to win one of them 7 times then than it is now, when everyone is proficient everywhere.

2.  If you want to prove that Andy sucks:  Instead of listing him among the players that have not succeeded at both RG and Wimby, why not point out that the list is ever shrinking and that it is to Andy's discredit that he cannot succeed at both tournaments even in the era where it is not so hard to do.

Some great arguments by both SB and HE  , I see sense in both arguments and this what makes a debate more interesting, HE raised a great point which for some reason not been brought forward by many or thought by many that angle, he/she may be right, it could be Sampras the reason as well, Sampras being so good on grass never gave any other clay courters a chance to succeed in grass on the other side he was so poor [when compared with Clay court giants lik Rafa,Borg, Kuerten, Brugera and co,.] in clay that he struggled to make an impact on it and hence we thought it was too different sport . 

While I see SB's point of view as well, which again makes a lot of sense, it could have been an more difference in surface speed that coz champions to falter on their weaker surface, but lets be practical here Rafa won Cincy which was considered as one of the fastest courts, I found USO quite quicker as well and he proved comfortably he was the champ, I would not be surprised if he ends up winning 02 as well which again is one of the fastest on tour where Rafa himself was humiliated with scores of 6-3 6-0, so if Rafa wins it its not coz it was slower it coz he is more versatile.

However great points SB and HE.  

ChequeredJersey wrote:If it assumed that Fed is he GOAT, as is a latent assumption of this discussion, then the fact that Nadal played most of his career with a firing Fed dominant on grass and HC and in the no 1 spot has to be taken into account. Sampras did not have a GOAT contender in his era, the comparison cannot be made directly

Great argument  

Wow I am loving my thread now, so many great yet diverse arguments and the best of all they are all in well civilized and documented manner.  

hawkeye wrote:^ I wonder how many more slams and masters Nadal would have won if they hadn't dug up all the grass and clay courts and replaced them with knee damaging hard courts?

Now here HE is at his full flow  , Knee Damaging hard courts   

The knee-damaging hard courts are why we don't see many older players doing well on the tour these days. Er, no, hang on...

TRuffin wrote:

hawkeye wrote:^ But if he gets to number one having not played a full year therefore giving everyone a head start... doesn't that count for something?

will he hold the #1 through all 52 weeks next year?. he's never been able to defend his points consistently enough for a really long stretch at #1... that's a flaw in the argument for him when comparing against someone like Sampras.

Another great argument, Rafa always played well when played as a hunter and always suffered when being hunted, Rafa's mental abilities to handle stress somehow flawed in this argument every time, Rafa unable to defend 1 GS off clay, 1 year end no.1 ranking etc,.. knowing Rafa will hold no.1 for most part of 2014 [atleast till Wimbledon] do Rafa fans still believe he will finish as the year end no.1 in 2014?  , I am sorry to say I guess he will crumble and if not I would even tilt Rafa towards the GOAT title.