Great stuff. Watching the Knicks in these playoffs might be akin to what you experienced with the Joker those many years ago.....as a Boston native and diehard Celtics fan, it's borderline criminal for me to root for the Knicks--and I'm not quite there yet. But after that Game 2 win last night, and witnessing their indomitable will and ability to do so many little things to keep winning, I've graduated from the grudging respect phase and about to enroll in a probationary period of a conditional grudging-good-for-them outlook.
“get some perspective” - Perspective isn't usually a good thing in athlete's or coaches and it's rarely an entertaining thing. Most fans feel like the e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e̶s̶ athletes and coaches should be more emotionally invested than they are.
I liked Novak more over the years because his game got more inspired and less robotic. It's impressive to be one of the best in the world and improve year-to-year. The game would be better if he stuck around as long as he could get through the first few rounds.
Terrific as for so many years he was a villain, yet a great performer at the top of his sport. The human side bonds us together no matter the desire to win. Thank you
I've noticed that in so many sports recently, we're getting quite a few discussions of athletes being the "GOAT" in their sport. Can we really consider someone to be the GOAT when we can pretty much tell there's going to be a new one in a year or so? The term is getting overused.....
Perhaps someone can do a bit of research and see how many people in one sport have been called the "GOAT" over the past five or ten years.
Personally, I'd prefer to wait until they retire before we start giving them that accolade.
I would say that Tom Brady has pretty definitively ended all GOAT discussions in football. I don't think anyone is making a different argument. (I don't personally agree with that one, BTW; it's just that I don't think I'm really hearing any argument on that score.)
The GOAT debate in tennis has circled the Big Three since at least the early '10s.
I don't think there's been any real discussion in the NBA outside of LeBron-Jordan, which is at least a 10-year-old discussion at this point. Sure, there are people excited about Wemby, but that's just a hope, not a debate.
Yes, Shohei is a generally new entrant into the debate in baseball. But when's the last time baseball even HAD a GOAT discussion? Barry Bonds, maybe? And there are too many anti-PED folks out there for that discussion to have any interest to it.
Mondo Duplantis is the GOAT of pole vaulting. Likewise Ryan Crouser in the shotput. The Olympics ALWAYS stir up these discussions, because people are always literally becoming the GOAT by time/distance/score/whatever. But I don't think that was any truer in this last Olympic cycle than many others before. (I would consider the '08 Olympics in Beijing, with Phelps and Bolt fever, the highpoint of such discussions.)
The GOAT debate in golf has not had any new points of discussion in over a decade.
I really think you're exaggerating the frequency of this discussion. I'd say once a generation or so (basically every 25 years), this discussion gets activated in a given sport. But the phrase "GOAT" I don't think was in popular usage before the Muhammad Ali book by that title came out... and that books isn't even 25 years old yet. So maybe I'm off-base here, but I really don't think these discussions have been any more prevalent than they were at any time in the last 75 years, honestly. Just a change in terminology.
Joe- what's gotten into you - these last 2 articles - reality vs. doubt, transformation, switching sides etc. Good, thought proviking writing .... no less.. (or Novak-less)!
I’ll never forget the 2006 World Cup with Englands Penalty Shootout after years of foolish hope in lost shootouts I went into that with zero hope and as Lampard started his walk from the halfway line I looked at his face and just knew there was zero chance he was scoring, I left the bar and didn’t even see the end of the shootout, I was that certain, before Lampard even put the ball down to take his shot I was outside the bar waiting for my friends who had stayed behind to watch the inevitable
I have so much respect for your opinions that if I disagree, I double and triple check mine. I never rooted for Djokovic and rooted against him after his anti-vax nonsense. You have made me see that he is clearly the best ever and has so many good qualities. I always respected his talent but you point out how truly amazing that he is. I completely missed the "good loser" thing. No small item when you have that much drive and talent.
As a Red Sox fan, I "sports hated" Derek Jeter, but you can't root against a great talent for so long and not respect how good they are. Yankees fans know and love Jeter. Red Sox fans saw him beat us so many times that we are second in line in the respect level. I gave him a standing ovation for his last game at Fenway. I was in my living room.
If I remember correctly after Novak lost in the French last year, Joe’s post the next day indicated that he was pretty sure that Novak would not come back next year- to this year’s French. He takes a much less strong opinion on it this year. Lesson learned?
And I have to smile at the phrase “a drop shot too good to even chase”. I have that experience at least a couple of times 5 days a week. Only 5 days because I’m now taking the weekends off from tennis. And you can substitute lob and wicked angle shot for drop shot. I’ve learned when it makes sense to just say great shot and get ready for the next point. I chase unsuccessfully at times. More times than I’d like. And every once in a while, I even surprise myself with a successful chase, happy even if I don’t end up winning the point.
Since this might be the last one, I took a look at his French Open history. Clay might be his worst surface.
Joker has won 77.4% of his sets at the French, and 85.3% of his matches. (99-17). 7 of this 17 losses came to the all time greatest clay court player Nadal.
I think Borg has earned the next best spot with 6 titles at RG by the age of 25, including a year that he didn't play due to competing leagues. It's true that full credit must be given to those that play out their career with an actual record, but I think it's reasonable to think that if he had just taken a break for a few months or a season, that he would have won more clay titles including French Open titles. So comparing maybes: without Nadal, Djokovic maybe gets to 6 or 7 FO titles and without the contractual league issue and the sudden retirement Borg maybe gets to 8-10 titles. I wouldn't put too much stock in "Masters" titles because of when they started and how the schedules differ (the big 3/4 have their schedules focused on winning those because they can afford to while back in the day players chased the money from appearance rewards wherever they could find it and they played a lot more tournaments).
I never watch tennis anymore. After reading Joe's post, I looked up the match highlights to watch that final few points Joe describes. Yeah, Novak gave full effort, but was cooked and beaten. The end of the highlight package shows Novak at the net, waiting for Fonseca and then Fonseca meeting Novak there. Only moments after losing a heartbreaker, Novak gave the kid the most classy reception... clear congratulations, encouragement. Talk about a highlight. May Fonseca fully understand that moment 19 years hence and reciprocate to the universe.
Not anymore. Joseph Beth finally got me my pre- order but it wasn't the inscribed version. I emailed and called several times with no follow up to any of my messages. They always had an excuse, though. I won't buy from them again.
Came to post something similar - at the risk of changing the subject…
I know how Joe felt about the Juan Soto deal for the Nationals, and I have to imagine that the fan in him hates this just as much for the Browns, even if the analyst in him understands the logic.
Or Lindor leaving CLE or Freeman leaving ATL or Greatest Living American leaving BOS or ...
Joe is consistent about wanting stars to be on their team long-term, at least in baseball.
And your "even if the analyst ..." assumes that CLE can do well with a lesser version of Garrett, a late 1st round pick and two day two picks years off. Or that the Haslams do well with the extra millions they can use for non-football issues.
I think the experience Joe describes of changing from rooting against Novak to rooting for him is something that there are a lot of parallels to. In the NBA, I remember when Allen Iverson went from evil villain to scrappy underdog; I remember when Kobe went from entitled brat to elder statesman; Kevin Garnett going from overpaid teen to hardnosed veteran. Go read media coverage from those guys' first couple years in the Association... and then go read the over-the-top praise from their veteran seasons. Both were probably out of alignment with who they actually WERE... but the narrative shifted around them.
I think there's something about watching an athlete get older, and watching them hang on to the glory days, just one more shot, one more run, one more leap. It makes all of us younger, too, if only for a moment. And it's a great joy in sports, even when it's someone we used to root against doing it. There's something about watching an athlete for 10+ years; even if you don't LIKE them, at some point, they become a kind of comfort, and you find yourself rooting for them.
On a lighter note: the only thing I can compare to Joe's SPECIFIC feeling of one match changing how he felt about Novak is "Rocky IV," when the Russian crowd starts cheering on Rocky. So there's that.
With the caveat that the last time I watched an entire tennis match, it likely featured Arthur Ashe ... I've always like watching players keep going long, long after they have nothing left to prove and no hope of regaining their younger selves. Julio Franco, Jamie Moyer, Jesse Orosco ... loved 'em all. Greg Maddux on the far side of 40 pitching for the Dodgers and Padres when his fastball could be timed with a sun dial. Rickey Henderson suiting up for the San Diego Sea Dogs and Newark Bears when he was closer to 60 than to 30.
Maybe its different in tennis but Novak has maybe 30-50 years of being retired in front of him. Nothing wrong, from my POV, of playing as "only" the 10th or 20th or 50th best in the world.
Although the end of the end when he went back to the Cardinals for the stretch run and started banging out homers, that was fun. And I felt happy for him.
Before my time, but my go-to has been Ted Williams. At age 40, he was a broken down shell of himself, batting under .260 with an OPS of about 790. Refusing to accept that he had finally lost to Father Time, he came back for one final season at age 41. That ended just as it should have.
Oft-stated caveat about not being a tennis fan applies, but would Jimmy Connors' late career run at the US Open be similar?
Fonseca, Jodar, Mensik, Fils, Tien, Blockx, Landaluce, Prizmic -- the kids are arriving. With Sinner, Alcaraz and now Djokovic out, this has been the most fun major I have watched in a long, long time. Totally wide open. So many amazing matches and so many intriguing questions, including whether Alexander Zverev, the best player in tennis history to have not won a major, will finally win one.
I agree with the argument of having a few upsets early in the NCAA tournament but having great teams at the end is the best outcome. Coming into this tennis tournament, it felt like Sinner vs the field with the Djokovic question hanging out there - it wasn't compelling to me at all. After the third round, I found myself energized by going through the 16 remaining players in my head - who will win their first Grand Slam title?
I didn't see this one, but Fonseca-Joker was so freaking good, especially for a 3rd Round match. That is the level of tennis you usually see in the Semis or Final.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that an ethnic Serbian, born and raised in Belgrade, who was an adolescent in the midst of the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia including the NATO/US bombing in Kosovo, and has lived nearly his entire life in Europe is not "1000000% Make America Great Again." Not everything in the world is focused on party-politics of the United States.
Which is, of course, fine for a US resident. We are at a pivot point as great as any since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the aftermath thereof. But I choose to divide my attention. Work, family, friends, entertainment and public policy issues all in their place and time. Not 100% and especially not 1000000% on any portion. And for **me**, a sports related message board is ill suited for politics.
I don't think it is fine, and I agree this site is no place for politics. I tire of having people splashing political commentary on threads that have nothing to do with politics, and that goes for either political spectrum. At least we mostly have a higher level of commenter here. On any other thread, just a comment like this would have set off some sort of name calling waterfall.
I think all those things are big deals. But so is Novak's humanity. And that's what I saw at the end based on his behavior in that moment and his graciousness to Fonseca. We can appreciate that without endorsing anything else, right?
Great stuff. Watching the Knicks in these playoffs might be akin to what you experienced with the Joker those many years ago.....as a Boston native and diehard Celtics fan, it's borderline criminal for me to root for the Knicks--and I'm not quite there yet. But after that Game 2 win last night, and witnessing their indomitable will and ability to do so many little things to keep winning, I've graduated from the grudging respect phase and about to enroll in a probationary period of a conditional grudging-good-for-them outlook.
“get some perspective” - Perspective isn't usually a good thing in athlete's or coaches and it's rarely an entertaining thing. Most fans feel like the e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶e̶e̶s̶ athletes and coaches should be more emotionally invested than they are.
I liked Novak more over the years because his game got more inspired and less robotic. It's impressive to be one of the best in the world and improve year-to-year. The game would be better if he stuck around as long as he could get through the first few rounds.
Terrific as for so many years he was a villain, yet a great performer at the top of his sport. The human side bonds us together no matter the desire to win. Thank you
I've noticed that in so many sports recently, we're getting quite a few discussions of athletes being the "GOAT" in their sport. Can we really consider someone to be the GOAT when we can pretty much tell there's going to be a new one in a year or so? The term is getting overused.....
Perhaps someone can do a bit of research and see how many people in one sport have been called the "GOAT" over the past five or ten years.
Personally, I'd prefer to wait until they retire before we start giving them that accolade.
I would say that Tom Brady has pretty definitively ended all GOAT discussions in football. I don't think anyone is making a different argument. (I don't personally agree with that one, BTW; it's just that I don't think I'm really hearing any argument on that score.)
The GOAT debate in tennis has circled the Big Three since at least the early '10s.
I don't think there's been any real discussion in the NBA outside of LeBron-Jordan, which is at least a 10-year-old discussion at this point. Sure, there are people excited about Wemby, but that's just a hope, not a debate.
Yes, Shohei is a generally new entrant into the debate in baseball. But when's the last time baseball even HAD a GOAT discussion? Barry Bonds, maybe? And there are too many anti-PED folks out there for that discussion to have any interest to it.
Mondo Duplantis is the GOAT of pole vaulting. Likewise Ryan Crouser in the shotput. The Olympics ALWAYS stir up these discussions, because people are always literally becoming the GOAT by time/distance/score/whatever. But I don't think that was any truer in this last Olympic cycle than many others before. (I would consider the '08 Olympics in Beijing, with Phelps and Bolt fever, the highpoint of such discussions.)
The GOAT debate in golf has not had any new points of discussion in over a decade.
I really think you're exaggerating the frequency of this discussion. I'd say once a generation or so (basically every 25 years), this discussion gets activated in a given sport. But the phrase "GOAT" I don't think was in popular usage before the Muhammad Ali book by that title came out... and that books isn't even 25 years old yet. So maybe I'm off-base here, but I really don't think these discussions have been any more prevalent than they were at any time in the last 75 years, honestly. Just a change in terminology.
Joe- what's gotten into you - these last 2 articles - reality vs. doubt, transformation, switching sides etc. Good, thought proviking writing .... no less.. (or Novak-less)!
On fandom giving u prescience
I’ll never forget the 2006 World Cup with Englands Penalty Shootout after years of foolish hope in lost shootouts I went into that with zero hope and as Lampard started his walk from the halfway line I looked at his face and just knew there was zero chance he was scoring, I left the bar and didn’t even see the end of the shootout, I was that certain, before Lampard even put the ball down to take his shot I was outside the bar waiting for my friends who had stayed behind to watch the inevitable
I have so much respect for your opinions that if I disagree, I double and triple check mine. I never rooted for Djokovic and rooted against him after his anti-vax nonsense. You have made me see that he is clearly the best ever and has so many good qualities. I always respected his talent but you point out how truly amazing that he is. I completely missed the "good loser" thing. No small item when you have that much drive and talent.
As a Red Sox fan, I "sports hated" Derek Jeter, but you can't root against a great talent for so long and not respect how good they are. Yankees fans know and love Jeter. Red Sox fans saw him beat us so many times that we are second in line in the respect level. I gave him a standing ovation for his last game at Fenway. I was in my living room.
If I remember correctly after Novak lost in the French last year, Joe’s post the next day indicated that he was pretty sure that Novak would not come back next year- to this year’s French. He takes a much less strong opinion on it this year. Lesson learned?
And I have to smile at the phrase “a drop shot too good to even chase”. I have that experience at least a couple of times 5 days a week. Only 5 days because I’m now taking the weekends off from tennis. And you can substitute lob and wicked angle shot for drop shot. I’ve learned when it makes sense to just say great shot and get ready for the next point. I chase unsuccessfully at times. More times than I’d like. And every once in a while, I even surprise myself with a successful chase, happy even if I don’t end up winning the point.
Since this might be the last one, I took a look at his French Open history. Clay might be his worst surface.
Joker has won 77.4% of his sets at the French, and 85.3% of his matches. (99-17). 7 of this 17 losses came to the all time greatest clay court player Nadal.
I don’t think it’s ridiculous to argue that Djokovic may be the second best clay court player of all time.
Nadal is the best that will ever be seen on clay. Does Djokovic win 6-7 French Opens if they don’t share those prime years?
I think Borg has earned the next best spot with 6 titles at RG by the age of 25, including a year that he didn't play due to competing leagues. It's true that full credit must be given to those that play out their career with an actual record, but I think it's reasonable to think that if he had just taken a break for a few months or a season, that he would have won more clay titles including French Open titles. So comparing maybes: without Nadal, Djokovic maybe gets to 6 or 7 FO titles and without the contractual league issue and the sudden retirement Borg maybe gets to 8-10 titles. I wouldn't put too much stock in "Masters" titles because of when they started and how the schedules differ (the big 3/4 have their schedules focused on winning those because they can afford to while back in the day players chased the money from appearance rewards wherever they could find it and they played a lot more tournaments).
I never watch tennis anymore. After reading Joe's post, I looked up the match highlights to watch that final few points Joe describes. Yeah, Novak gave full effort, but was cooked and beaten. The end of the highlight package shows Novak at the net, waiting for Fonseca and then Fonseca meeting Novak there. Only moments after losing a heartbreaker, Novak gave the kid the most classy reception... clear congratulations, encouragement. Talk about a highlight. May Fonseca fully understand that moment 19 years hence and reciprocate to the universe.
Sorry to be off topic - but is anybody else who preordered Big Fan still waiting for their book with no updates?
Update: Book was on my porch when I got home last night.
I received my copy from J.Beth late last week. And have already finished reading it.
Not anymore. Joseph Beth finally got me my pre- order but it wasn't the inscribed version. I emailed and called several times with no follow up to any of my messages. They always had an excuse, though. I won't buy from them again.
It ruined my excitement for the book. I haven't started reading it yet
I am anxiously awaiting JoeP's post tomorrow on the trade of Myles Garrett.
Came to post something similar - at the risk of changing the subject…
I know how Joe felt about the Juan Soto deal for the Nationals, and I have to imagine that the fan in him hates this just as much for the Browns, even if the analyst in him understands the logic.
Or Lindor leaving CLE or Freeman leaving ATL or Greatest Living American leaving BOS or ...
Joe is consistent about wanting stars to be on their team long-term, at least in baseball.
And your "even if the analyst ..." assumes that CLE can do well with a lesser version of Garrett, a late 1st round pick and two day two picks years off. Or that the Haslams do well with the extra millions they can use for non-football issues.
I think the experience Joe describes of changing from rooting against Novak to rooting for him is something that there are a lot of parallels to. In the NBA, I remember when Allen Iverson went from evil villain to scrappy underdog; I remember when Kobe went from entitled brat to elder statesman; Kevin Garnett going from overpaid teen to hardnosed veteran. Go read media coverage from those guys' first couple years in the Association... and then go read the over-the-top praise from their veteran seasons. Both were probably out of alignment with who they actually WERE... but the narrative shifted around them.
I think there's something about watching an athlete get older, and watching them hang on to the glory days, just one more shot, one more run, one more leap. It makes all of us younger, too, if only for a moment. And it's a great joy in sports, even when it's someone we used to root against doing it. There's something about watching an athlete for 10+ years; even if you don't LIKE them, at some point, they become a kind of comfort, and you find yourself rooting for them.
On a lighter note: the only thing I can compare to Joe's SPECIFIC feeling of one match changing how he felt about Novak is "Rocky IV," when the Russian crowd starts cheering on Rocky. So there's that.
With the caveat that the last time I watched an entire tennis match, it likely featured Arthur Ashe ... I've always like watching players keep going long, long after they have nothing left to prove and no hope of regaining their younger selves. Julio Franco, Jamie Moyer, Jesse Orosco ... loved 'em all. Greg Maddux on the far side of 40 pitching for the Dodgers and Padres when his fastball could be timed with a sun dial. Rickey Henderson suiting up for the San Diego Sea Dogs and Newark Bears when he was closer to 60 than to 30.
Maybe its different in tennis but Novak has maybe 30-50 years of being retired in front of him. Nothing wrong, from my POV, of playing as "only" the 10th or 20th or 50th best in the world.
And every once in a great while, you get an end like Albert Pujols.
Although the end of the end when he went back to the Cardinals for the stretch run and started banging out homers, that was fun. And I felt happy for him.
Or Muhammad Ali.
Before my time, but my go-to has been Ted Williams. At age 40, he was a broken down shell of himself, batting under .260 with an OPS of about 790. Refusing to accept that he had finally lost to Father Time, he came back for one final season at age 41. That ended just as it should have.
Oft-stated caveat about not being a tennis fan applies, but would Jimmy Connors' late career run at the US Open be similar?
... And with that, I see that GOAT Serena Williams has announced that she'll return to the WTA to play doubles. Good for her!
Fonseca, Jodar, Mensik, Fils, Tien, Blockx, Landaluce, Prizmic -- the kids are arriving. With Sinner, Alcaraz and now Djokovic out, this has been the most fun major I have watched in a long, long time. Totally wide open. So many amazing matches and so many intriguing questions, including whether Alexander Zverev, the best player in tennis history to have not won a major, will finally win one.
I agree with the argument of having a few upsets early in the NCAA tournament but having great teams at the end is the best outcome. Coming into this tennis tournament, it felt like Sinner vs the field with the Djokovic question hanging out there - it wasn't compelling to me at all. After the third round, I found myself energized by going through the 16 remaining players in my head - who will win their first Grand Slam title?
Agree 100%. And the quality of the tennis has been unbelievable (e.g. Fonseca v. Ruud yesterday).
I didn't see this one, but Fonseca-Joker was so freaking good, especially for a 3rd Round match. That is the level of tennis you usually see in the Semis or Final.
I hate him so much - he is always playing the victim and that the crowd is against him
and that vaccine thing? that is a big deal
Plus he is 1000000% a MAGA
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that an ethnic Serbian, born and raised in Belgrade, who was an adolescent in the midst of the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia including the NATO/US bombing in Kosovo, and has lived nearly his entire life in Europe is not "1000000% Make America Great Again." Not everything in the world is focused on party-politics of the United States.
But apparently Mark is.
Which is, of course, fine for a US resident. We are at a pivot point as great as any since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the aftermath thereof. But I choose to divide my attention. Work, family, friends, entertainment and public policy issues all in their place and time. Not 100% and especially not 1000000% on any portion. And for **me**, a sports related message board is ill suited for politics.
I don't think it is fine, and I agree this site is no place for politics. I tire of having people splashing political commentary on threads that have nothing to do with politics, and that goes for either political spectrum. At least we mostly have a higher level of commenter here. On any other thread, just a comment like this would have set off some sort of name calling waterfall.
I think all those things are big deals. But so is Novak's humanity. And that's what I saw at the end based on his behavior in that moment and his graciousness to Fonseca. We can appreciate that without endorsing anything else, right?
You seem fun.