Roger Federer told he played the ‘most beautiful tennis’ over Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal

The debate between the big three of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal continues.

Federer, Djokovic and Nadal have dominated men’s tennis in the 21st century, sharing a combined 66 Grand Slam titles.

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As a result, there is often a debate over who is the greatest of all time between ‘The Big Three’.

While many believe that Djokovic is the best due to having the most Grand Slam titles of the three, Federer has been picked as the player with the most beautiful game style.

Carlos Bernardes responds when asked to name the best player he has seen while umpiring

Carlos Bernardes is a legendary chair umpire, having worked on the ATP Tour for over 30 years until he retired in 2024.

After overseeing over 8,000 matches in his career, Bernardes has seen some of the greatest players of all time.

However, when appearing on the Tales from Tennis podcast Bernardes was asked which of these ATP players he enjoyed watching the most.

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While he praised multiple Grand Slam champions, Bernardes suggested that Federer had the best game style.

“For me, I think the most beautiful tennis I saw on court was from Federer,” said Bernardes. “But you could see how Djokovic was playing, how Nadal was playing, or how [Boris] Becker, [Goran] Ivanisevic or [Lleyton] Hewitt, all those guys, they all always have this. Something happened, the door opened a little bit and boom, they enter and that’s it.”

Later on in the episode, Bernardes recalled a match he umpired between Federer and Andy Roddick which really showcased the Swiss’ talent.

“They had some points, especially when Federer was playing,” added Bernardes. “He used to play unbelievable against Roddick, and I remember once…Roddick was playing unbelievable and suddenly Federer broke and made an unbelievable point and he looked at me.

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“Roddick looked at me like he’s going to do it again, because I did many matches between them and it was like yeah he’s going to do it again. It’s amazing, I saw many, many unbelievable points, you cannot imagine.”

https://open.spotify.com/embed?uri=spotify%3Aepisode%3A3qCDAHVHTBjnVXen9fAzIz

Carlos Bernardes explains why he does not think generations should be compared

There is a big debate at the moment about whether Australian Open champion Carlos Alcaraz could reach the same Grand Slam titles as the big three.

While this is likely to continue, Bernardes has explained why he does not actually like the comparisons between different generations.

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“I don’t like people to compare the generations, because they are unique, they are in that period and that’s it,” said Bernardes. “I remember when we look in the matches with Ivanisevic, Becker, [Andre] Agassi, [Pete] Sampras, you see the speed of the ball is different, and then go to Federer, Nadal, Djokovic it’s different again, and now we have Alcaraz and Sinner it’s like table tennis and it’s difficult to compare this.

“‘But they play so fast’, yeah but the other guys have more techniques. The other guys were serve and volleying, those guys are going to the net maybe to shake your hands and coin toss, they don’t have a chance to go to the net, you do one step on and the ball is back already.

“I think these transitions from that generation for the second, for the third one is in every single sport is like this. The techniques and the technology, now with the machines helping. Imagine John McEnroe playing with Hawkeye Live, you’re not being John McEnroe, completely different.”

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