Was Roger Federer's competition easier during the 'Weak Era' than now?

Quora

Was Roger Federer's competition easier during the 'Weak Era' than now? image

Does the "Weak Era" theory, which suggests that Roger Federer had it easy, have credence? originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on TwitterFacebook and Google+.

Answer by Dayasagar VS

I am a bigger fan of Roger Federer than any of you can imagine. But I would like to think that the Weak-Era argument does have some credence to it. These "Weak Era" players (Safin, Roddick, Ferrero, Hewitt, Nalbandian, Davydenko, Ferrer, Gonzalez) regularly got beaten by the post-Weak Era players (Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and many others), that were in their prime and when the post-"Weak Era" guys were just maturing (just look into their respective H2H records for proof). Would the Big Four command the same respect, if players like Raonic and Dimitrov beat these guys regularly? Nope. But these guys are 23 and when Novak was 23, he was beating Roger and Nadal regularly. So clearly then, the post-"Weak Era" generation is clearly much better and therefore Roger Federer could not have won what he did if the post-"Weak Era" guys were around earlier. Or could he?

The way I would counter the "Weak Era" argument is like this: The Federer of today is a vastly different player than the one 7-8 years ago. In fact, he is different from one match to another. Recently, as Roger himself, and even Gilles Simon attests, observed, Federer now has a willingness to change and adapt and actually adopt strategies based on the opponent instead of stylishly winning matches on his own terms. This has happened only because the competition demanded more of him and he had to reply by retro fitting his own game or outright change his game such as using a larger racquet head frame or making his serve better or introducing the drop shot or coming forward to the net like nobody has in the past 10 years, whatever it may be. Basically, because of the weak competition he had in his peak years, he did not have to improve himself which he is being forced now. In fact, I will go on to say that he is now a better player than he used to be in 2004-2007. Credit the post-"Weak Era" players for that.

Now imagine, if Djokovic had emerged in 2004? Then Roger would have adapted, because there is no tennis player more talented than this legend of a man. Any challenge you throw at him (not named Nadal), he can take care of it. It is entirely possible that he could have developed a more powerful backhand or changed his racquet much earlier than he has. To provide some contrast, imagine if the only competition Djokovic had when he was 21 years old was a Jurgen Melzer and a Fernando Verdasco, would he have turned out into the player he is now? Impossible. 

This brings me to the most important point: tennis is an evolutionary sport. Every generation is successively better than the preceding one. To illustrate this, I just call upon the memories of the 2000 and 2001 US Open Finals where Safin and Hewitt destroyed Sampras on the fast, hard courts of the U.S. Open when Sampras was only 29-30 years old. So does that mean Sampras won titles in a weak era and therefore discredited his achievements? It does, according to the logic of the "Weak Era" theorists, and that is flawed. His contemporaries were Pioline, Ivanisevic, Agassi, Chang, Stitch, Becker, Krajicek, Corretja, Kafelnikov, Rafter, etc., who seem like big names but only in retrospect. Now when Davydenko retired, everyone made him seem like a legend (which he is if you are following the narrative here) where as when he played on the tour actively, people did not perceive him the same way.

So in tennis, you are the change and by definition, you make the players below you mold their games just so that they can beat you. And the best of the rest among them manage to do just that, some more than others (like Djokovic more than Murray). So it is a matter of how long a pioneering champion can keep off that inevitable decline. Roger Federer managed it for an improbable 302 weeks. As I write this answer, he is in the quarter finals of Bercy 2014 and just 3 matches away from becoming the oldest No. 1 in tennis history. Along the way, he has beaten Weak Era, post-Weak Era and two generations of players after that. And that is what makes him the greatest of all time. Period.

Quora