Don't know if puravida will see it, but I thought I'd carry over this discussion from the beeb: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbfivelive/F21485...629631&latest=1

Im sorry Nick but Federer played all of those 11 times against Agassi who was passed his prime and over 30 years old. It's a fact that McEnroe sent Borg into retirement and Connors was a gladiator who beat Borg many times. You mentioned the depth of the field these days. there is no such depth. This era has many good players but it's lacking special talent to make more interesting the competition for slams. I agree with you that Federer is not finished yet but he is at his prime and only time will tell if another super player rises to the ocasion and challenges federer. Is it so difficult to agree with me when i say that Federer doesn't have another special talent to make a great rivalry to spice up things in Tennis. Roderick and Leyton aren't those special players that im dreamming about seeing in the future. I put Borg ahead of Federer in my all time top ranking. Sorry but Borg won 11 slams in a special era. That's my personal opinion. I would put Laver, Borg and Sampras ahead Federer right now. Laver is to me the greatest player of all time.

I'm sure there are many people who would agree with you, but I still think you're being a bit over-nostalgic about the past. Borg and McEnroe were both great players, but they're careers didn't overlap that much. Borg had already won 8 of his 11 slams, before Mac won his first. Connors, on the other hand, was a rival in the early part of Borg's career, but after '77 or so, it was very one-sided in that rivalry.

I would like to see a consistent rival to Federer in order to "spice things up" as you say, and I still think Nadal may prove to be that great rival.

An earlier post from the same guy argued that Borg's era had tremendous depth because of the number of great names who Borg played against. It is an attractive argument but specious: it implies all these great names were playing at their peak at the same time but of course they were not. McEnroe was Borg's only true rival and that only matured in the last two years of his career. Connors was a great personality and legend but if you analyse their head to head, it shows he was not a rival in the sense we would like: of the first seven encounters, Connors won 6, Borg 1. But after losing to Connors in the 1976 US Open, Borg lost only two further matches, winning twelve, during his prime years. After 1975, Borg never lost to Nastase either.

In truth, Borg really only had one rival and I although I loved that era, I don't believe it was particularly deep in talent. Much richer in terms of personality certainly (Amritraj, Geralitis etc) but there were few who had any realistic chance of beating Borg. On clay Borg had no rivals at all in his prime until Lendl in 1981.

The biggest issue with many of the champions of old is that they were either great on 1 or 2 surfaces or they had someone better than them on 1 or 2 other surfaces.
Borg ran rampant on grass and clay but couldn't get past Conners or McEnroe on the US hardcourt, while Conners had issues on clay.

Personally, I feel that the players of old were better since they gained little extra from their equipment vs today where racquets can make the ball dance and fly without having great skill behind it. But this doesn't take away from what Fed or others are doing now. They would have done well back then too, just not being as dominant.

Borg won tournaments against good opposition on US hard courts, just never succeeded at the US Open. He was also supreme on indoors carpet, in addition to grass and clay. McEnroe and Connors, by contrast, both struggled on European clay, although McEnroe did master it to a degree several years after Borg retired.

Borg was just a tennis machine from what I remember (but this was only exposure to Wimbledon and I was very young), although I never saw how he played on hardcourt of clay courts, but with his record at the French Open I tend to think he played pretty robotic there too. It's odd his game never worked at the US Open but he is still legendary.

It's really tough to compare players of different era's but I'd love to see a Borg Federer peak match, just as much as I'd love to throw a peak McEnroe, Lendl and Sampras into the mix as well. But we just can't do it so like it or lump it we just gotta say each player was great. We will all have our opinions on which era was the best, which player was the best and which player looked most like a goat, mmmm I love those goats...

Totally agree with you. Although had Federer been around in the Borg era, I still think he would have had the talent and skill to be great without modern racquet technology. I feel he is one of few modern players who fits this criteria.

Federer and Borg were two of the few players who could play on all surfaces almost equally well in fact. Borg never actually won the US open, but was in four finals and went to five sets once or twice. One of them was actually on clay to Connors so it obviously wasnt the surface that was the problem.
I do agree with the majority of tennis experts who will tell you that Federer is the most complete and talented player they've ever seen.
Just speculating, but if he was playing with a wooden racquet against Borg, McEnroe he would have been a match for either except maybe for Borg on clay ...

You know Roger recently practised with Björn right?

Fed stopped over in Dubai on his way to Shanghai. There was a senior's exhibition called ‘The legends rock Dubai’ being held. Fed called Borg and asked him if he would like to play and they spent about an hour on court together. That's one practise session which would have been great to watch.

I wonder if JP McEnroe was bothered that he was not asked? I guess we will find out during his next commentary on one of Fed's matches. He's hardly backwards and coming forwards and making his feelings known.

Ooh, that would be a good practice session to watch.

It would be interesting to see how quick Borg is these days !