WIMBLEDON 2019

This, from the Ringer, rings (npi) true most of all:

"This is, in essence, the whole tragedy of Djokovic. He arrived either a little too early or a little too late in the Federer-Nadal screenplay—too late to seem like an equal partner in the story, too early for the story to have ended without him—and as a result has always felt weirdly extraneous, even as he’s won 16 majors and been the best player in the world for most of the last 10 years."
― Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, July 15, 2019 8:58 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't follow tennis super duper closely but this feels correct. Honestly I think a lot of the anti-Djokovic sentiment is a function of everyone's love for Fed. Novak is a real threat now to surpass Fed's record for majors and I think the average fan doesn't want to see that happen. Kind of like a low-grade version of Bonds passing Aaron on the HR list (actually maybe a better example is Jimmie Johnson trying to overtake Earnhardt and Petty for NASCAR titles. there are probably other better examples I'm forgetting too).

Any examples that someone outside the US might understand?

well shit, I guess NASCAR isn't the global phenomenon I thought it was.

Federer singles record, since his return from injury at start of 2017 (incl Hopman and Laver Cups): 152-21 (87.9% W/L, 14 titles (18 if you include the SUI/Europe team titles)). Of those 21 defeats, 7 have been from match point up (Donskoy, Haas, Del Potro, Kokkinakis, Anderson, Thiem, Djokovic). You can probably throw another couple of squeakers in there (Djokovic, Paris Masters sf 2018, when he never lost serve; Thiem, Indian Wells f 2019, when he was coasting up a set + break). Maybe not counting the Slam exits vs Millman/Tsitsipas as they didn't go five (though Fed had a bunch of chances). OTOH, I think Fed has got out of jail maybe 12 times in this period (down mp vs Monfils, Kyrgios twice, tight matches vs Coric, Wawrinka, Berdych, that AO final vs Nadal, etc).

My suspicion is that, in the small subset of total matches which really go down to the wire, Novak is rather better than Fed's approx 12-9 recent record. Maybe not.