Bjorn Borg vs Rafael Nadal

I would actually intend to write A Player from 70s vs A Player from 2010s as the title but it wouldn't be as catchy. The very same question arises nearly in all sports. Who is the best? Is the best player or team of today can beat the best one in bla bla? US built an incredibly strong basketball team for the Olympic games. When I first saw it, I was like 'It won't be fun for the opponents and it won't be fun either to watch US' games aside from seeing some spectacular moves and dunks." But then, what happened? On the very same day, I saw people comparing Dream Team of 92 Olympics to these guys! I understand the urge to compare the then best with the 'arguably' best in the history. But having some common sense can satisfy this urge.


To be honest, I am against drawing comparisons between players of different eras, because basically it is like comparing oranges harvested 100 years ago with the contemporary genetically modified oranges that grow with the help of numerous pesticides, herbicides. Both oranges have the same seed but there is a big industry working to improve its taste and nutrition level. As in the orange case, there are big industries trying to develop new equipment like rackets, strings, shoes, socks even these blue kinesio tapes, the benefit of which is argued nowadays, new training equipment, new diets and hence the science of sport is advancing. What I mean with sport science, is like mixture of knowledge and technology. People may implement some minor technical changes in the game play and shot making departments or could invent new training equipment which render stronger and healthier muscles or make new very specific diets considering the metabolic activities or deficiencies of the players. It is maybe exaggerated a bit, but Djokovic's gluten-free diet was one of the constituents of his rise to World no.1. 

Modern racquets (combination of fiberglass and graphite and titanium alloys) weigh around 200 g in contrast Borg's era racquets (wood) which are around 400 g. But new ones still provide  a larger swingweight, heavier shots and less vibration and inconsistency.

There is also another debate going on. The question is 'Did the courts slow down?' There is a serious concern of current and old professional players that the slowing down of the courts transforms today's tennis and renders the serve-and-volley game basically more ineffective. It is also very crucial firstly to mention that I couldn't find any real 'scientific evidence' supporting or refuting this theory. The only source is the claims of players and officials who are responsible of the grass surfaces in Wimbledon. However, the alleged changes have an ad hoc basis. As of 90s, with the help of technological developments in the racquet and string technology guys with big serves started to dominate the game with their serves and volleys. So, to protect the balance between different game types, the federation decided to take some measures and especially the grass courts lost pace. There is still a debate going on, so I'll stress on this topic in another post. But what I wanted to say is, there is arguably another variable, the court conditions, which makes our comparison of old and contemporary players arguably harder. 


After 40 years of continual development and research for the better, how can we treat two individuals from different times as competitors on the same scale? They had different styles, played with different strings, rackets and balls on arguably differently paced courts. Even now it is hard to tell and decide, which player is better. For example, Nadal leads Federer in head-to-head 18-10, but this is not the sole indicator people say, and they also tell us to look at their accomplishments, their trophies. Federer having 17 Grand Slam and nearly 290 week of no.1 clearly is ahead of Nadal who has 11 Grand Slams only(!) 102 weeks. But how would it have been, if Nadal were 4 years older than Federer and he started to dominate tennis before and faced with young Federer in mid 2000s? Interesting question right? So, it is better to appreciate these players successes and talents and hesitate to compare them quickly and claim that someone is the best in history.