Australia great Pat Cash took a dig at 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer’s inferior head-to-head record against famous opponents Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
Federer is seen by pundits as the greatest male player to have stepped on a tennis court, having won more Majors than the rest. Nadal with 19 and Djokovic with 17 are not far behind. Cash weighed in on the debate over the current best player. Against Nadal, Federer has won only 16 out of 40 games while Djokovic had a slender 27-23 advantage against the Swiss ace.
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“Everybody says Federer is the greatest player of all time, but he’s not even the second greatest player of all time,” Cash told UBI Tennis during a video chat. “That’s hard to believe. Like, if you are the best of all time, you should at least have a head-to-head record against your number one rival or number two rival. Surely, that would be the very first factor, I would say.”
Cash, though, had words of praise for Federer’s artistry but highlighted his weakness with heavy balls. “As a shotmaker I would say [Federer is] the greatest player I have even seen,” Cash added. “In shotmaking and movement and everything else. But in court surface and in many ways, he has been little old school. He has developed a more attacking game. And slow surfaces and heavy balls really don’t suit him.
Djokovic is widely tipped to finish with the most number of Grand Slams, being younger than his two nearest rivals. “It’s phenomenal for that record he has, but Djokovic has the best record of them all and is closing in,” Cash said.