Roger Federer

Easily the GOAT

I'd put him at 1. He can pretty much do it all, from serve and volley to baseline rallies.

GOAT.

He's made it to 23 straight semifinals and 18 of the last 19 finals. Those are unbelievable records

I think Fed's dominance on clay separates him from Sampras if the rest of his records don't. Federer has been by far the second best clay courter of this era, and the only person better than him is the greatest clay courter of all time.

People are forgetting Rod Laver. I think it's between the two.

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I think federer is the goat, but I think Sampras had better overall competition.

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I agree. Better players competed with Sampras.

Also, the game was more demanding when Sampras played. Sampras had to be able to beat baseliners and serve and volleyers.

Sampras played before the new rackets and stringing took serve and volley out of the game --which is too bad. To watch a baseliner against a server and volleyer was one of the most intriguing aspects of the game, which is missing now.

But, I agree with another poster that Federer's clay court performance puts him on top of the list.

I think he poses the greatest challenge to opponents of any tennis player ever.

I think Sampras had the greatest weapon of all time in his second serve. He had to develop that since Agassi was snooping around at most grand slams he won.

Nadal is revolutionizing tennis in a way that I have to believe has never happened due to one man. That's a huge compliment to him, almost like inventing something in an old sport. Racket head speed will change everything. The kids growing up now playing with small grips and, if it's even possible, with their off hand - aiming to create the most racket head speed possible will be an incredible generation.

Federer created the notion of insanely balanced tennis players designed to attack from any position, but none who came up in his shadow have his vision. I do think the mobility of Davydenko and Murray, to some extent Monfils has taken taken it up a notch.

Federers ability to absorb pace off of the serve definitely short circuited the dreams of the Becker/Ivanisovic/Roddick/Karlovic style giant servers that were coming up.

Copious amounts of spin is something he hasn't shown to be king over, and for that the next level is yet to be seen. Nadal has shown the way, but it's obviously not easy to time the ball that well.

Roger = GOAT.

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Federer created the notion of insanely balanced tennis players designed to attack from any position,

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I agree. But one of the things that drives me crazy about Federer is his relunctance to go to the net. He used to go to the net way more than he does now. He has fallen into the trap that other players with way lesser net games have -- saying back and trying to hit winners from the baseline.