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Federer pioneered simultaneous elite offensive and defensive play
“He was simultaneously maybe the first person in history, and now he's created, like, a clone who was simultaneously the best offensive and defensive player at the same time during his prime. It was always you excelled at one of the skills, and I think he was maybe one of the first that melted those two together where it's like, can't go through me, can't go around me. What are we doing here?”
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Being neutral against the Big Three meant being behind
“When I got to neutral against Fed, Rafa, Novak, Murray, I was actually behind. So you're trying to play from a place where you're not totally neutral all the time. I tried coming in a ton against him, I tried staying back a bunch. I basically had to take shots at certain points and risk at certain points because if we were neutral, then I was actually behind.”
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Nadal's extreme topspin creates a massive safety margin
“Rafa could bully you with a heavy ball and still clear the net by four feet. So the net didn't even come into play. It would bounce just past the service line, and it's effective as if most people hit it four feet in front of the baseline. Right? So he didn't have to be perfect for it to be insanely heavy and effective. And so you feel that, and maybe you start playing that out over four or five hours, it's death.”
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Djokovic's flexibility is his most underrated physical asset
“The flexibility is like nobody I've ever seen. Right? We talk about power. We talk about Roger's grace, Rafa's power. We don't even say Novak's flexibility. Like, it needs to be in that conversation. There's a reason why you don't get hurt. But just the discipline of and the obsession with—the question I always have with Novak—would he have been as much of a maniac about his diet, about his fitness, if he didn't feel like he was the one chasing?”
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Long-term discipline separates the Big Three from new stars
“It's just the daily discipline. Like, the constant discipline over time over time. And that's the question mark with Jannik and Alcaraz—it's what they're doing currently times four as far as amount of time that they've been doing it. That's the difference between these 20 slam winners and Alcaraz and Sinner right now. It's not just that the tennis is phenomenal; you've got fifteen years to go.”