[DinnerWarrior]

Federer might have had the highest peak level ever relative to the back-then field or to the recent past. It's true for Maradona or Michael Jordan as well. However, today's average level of play on the NBA or top-level football is much higher than during Maradona's/Jordan's time.
With tennis, it's the same. I'm watching some lower-ranked guys every now and then. They had fewer holes in their games than top-100 guys even 10 years ago. Modern tennis players might have less raw talent (e.g., touch) than guys from previous generations. However, they maximize their skills through superior diets, fitness, medicine, attitude, etc. The good indication is what happened to Kyrgios. The guy is as talented as anyone (raw skill), but he doesn't belong to this era because of his poor attitude, conditioning, diet, etc.

Your thinking that you can reliably analyse the game based on visual footage seems to not be well-substantiated though...

Kyrgios never had elite game apart from the serve, some superior 'raw skill'. He just had above average touch for a big server so people went ooh and aah over his highlights, disregarding the lack of reliable quality in the rest of his strokes. You may be surprised but all strokes require skill and touch alone does not equal the totality of one's skill, not even close.

 

[Subliminal]

Well, 2024 Djokovic has worse movement and reflexes, but I think the sheer quality of his static shots — whether it's groundstrokes or serves — is better than in 2011 or 2015. The way he hit the ball vs Alcaraz at AO25 or Munar at Shanghai (3rd set), that's something that he didn't even need to do in 2011 or 2015, because the intensity was not as high as today.

Also, take a look at the 2013 RG SF again when you have time. Djokovic and Nadal were destroying the ball and hitting their forehands in the 97-100 mph range regularly. So what you're seeing today has been done before, and I would say overall outside of Sinner and Alcaraz the quality of ballstriking in the game today is lower than it was in 2013.

 

[Darth Alcaraz]

Tennis never had (and will never have) that many people to work with data as in the mentioned sports.
It's undeniable, however, when you watch matches and compare them. Even in 2011, Djokovic could hit multiple short balls during a rally and get away with it. Nadal could hit slow, high slice and get away with it. Federer could hit another weak backhand and get away with it.
Now, someone hits a short ball, it's basically the end of the rally.
The same goes for weak second serves. Now, it's absolutely unimaginable to have top-10 players with second serves of Tsonga or Murray from 2008-2012.
Here are some stats on serve speed (RPM is also very important, but no data for that).

GRAND SLAM STATISTICS

Serve speed – Heavy Topspin

De minaur is ranked number 7 and musetti is 8. I don't think either of them, especially de minaur, have strong second serves

 

[Darth Alcaraz]

Also, take a look at the 2013 RG SF again when you have time. Djokovic and Nadal were destroying the ball and hitting their forehands in the 97-100 mph range regularly. So what you're seeing today has been done before, and I would say overall outside of Sinner and Alcaraz the quality of ballstriking in the game today is lower than it was in 2013.

Nadal was still winning with a racket from the 2000's in the 2020's... what I say to these arguments is that the overall depth has increased. Like a journeyman in today's field is better than a journeyman 10-15 years ago and is more likely to cause an actual upset, but the top 5-10 players were stronger back then. It is probably harder to break through from the challenger tour to the atp tour and climb your way up today than back then

 

[Subliminal]

Nadal was still winning with a racket from the 2000's in the 2020's... what I say to these arguments is that the overall depth has increased. Like a journeyman in today's field is better than a journeyman 10-15 years ago and is more likely to cause an actual upset, but the top 5-10 players were strong back then. It is probably harder to break through from the challenger tour to the atp tour and climb your way up today than back then

Not only was Nadal playing with an older racket, so was Djokovic. Until 2018, he was playing with a mold based off of the Head Ti/iRadical from the early 2000s. His racket has been tweaked after the elbow injury but it's still based on the older Liquimetal Radical Tour model from the early 2000s. So they could dominate with rackets 15 years old when they were at their best and shows there's not a ton of difference in technology in that kind of time frame. Imo, the overall quality in the game today has actually decreased from 10-12 years ago.

 

[DinnerWarrior]

Not only was Nadal playing with an older racket, so was Djokovic. Until 2018, he was playing with a mold based off of the Head Ti/iRadical from the early 2000s. His racket has been tweaked after the elbow injury but it's still based on the older Liquimetal Radical Tour model from the early 2000s. So they could dominate with rackets 15 years old when they were at their best and shows there's not a ton of difference in technology in that kind of time frame. Imo, the overall quality in the game today has actually decreased from 10-12 years ago.

Even in absolute terms the modern tour is surely the worst in the poly era (since circa 2003). In relative terms, it has to be the worst of the whole OE.

 

[Subliminal]

Even in absolute terms the modern tour is surely the worst in the poly era (since circa 2003). In relative terms, it has to be the worst of the whole OE.

I don't know if it's worst of the Open Era because the early 70s was quite bad and that time frame from the late 90s until 2003 or so, but it's definitely one of the weakest.

 

[DinnerWarrior]

I don't know if it's worst of the Open Era because the early 70s was quite bad and that time frame from the late 90s until 2003 or so, but it's definitely one of the weakest.

Early seventies certainly weren't bad, the "slams" just look worse because of a turbulent tour / rival tours whose structure constantly changed; overall the tennis shown in top tournaments [whatever they were each year] was quite good and varied.
Late 90s / early 00s was weak at times but not uniformly, although its worst was quite bad. It did give way quickly enough to a new era with the ascension of Federer... right now there doesn't appear anyone with such capabilities on the horizon.

 

[Lancelot]

There's no way Djokovic's backhand was better or more potent in 2024 than it was in 2011 and 2015-2016 so this already shows the data is flawed.

There's a valid reason for that, which I can see why it would show results like that - For 2024, you have a lot more charted matches (R64, R32 are charted, compared to only QF/SF/F in 2011-16). In 2024, you see matches like vs Popyrin R3 at Wimbledon or Djere R2 at US Open, etc. getting charted and Novak doing very well in the metrics, while such matches wouldn't be charted in 2011-16. I didn't want to filter for rounds because I was worried it would mean an even lower sample size (and therefore, more variance).