I’m glad the Dude subscribed to the opportunity thesis. It was never writ more clearly than that moment. And if we think in these terms it makes for an interesting context dissection of every record.
Hold your horses a bit there, my Irish friend. I do think it is an important factor to keep in mind, but in the end a player only can play against the guy who happens to be across the net. Added to this, just as a player cannot control the quality of competition, we don't know how they'd fare against better competition.
And this applies to Rafa. Sure, 14 French Opens can be seen as inflated, but it isn't his fault that he didn't face a Borg or even Lendl or Vilas. Actually, Novak might have won six or seven French Opens without Rafa, and Roger three or four. Rafa was just so damn good, and beat everyone, year-in, year-out.
Or that age-old fun one: Roger's early peak. It is hard to be impressed with a Slam final win over Philippoussis or Baghdatis, but those are the guys who were across the net. I've heard arguments that Roger's level dropped in 2008 solely because Nadal and Djokovic took another step forward, but the record doesn't support this as he started losing to lesser opponents as well, even as early as 2007 (check out his losses - he was losing to more and lesser players in 2007 than he had in 2004-06). In other words, Roger's overall level dropped a tiny bit from 2006 to 2007, and then more substantially in 2008...and it never came back to his peak level.
The correlary of this is that if Rafa and Novak hadn't jumped forward like they did, Roger still would never have returned to 2004-07 level...he might have had more seasons like 2009, when he was great, but not like 2004-07 great. He was just on a different level in 2004-06...in 2007, he was still close enough to that level to win almost everything, but the cracks were showing if you look deep into the numbers (I've looked a bit into this, and I think it mostly has to do with his return getting worse. His overall serving and hold numbers were just as good pretty much through 2019, but his defense got worse, so presumably he lost a half step in movement from 2006 to 2008).
Really, it applies to
every player. If I remember correctly, you've also said that not only do the greats find a way, but part of their greatness is due to seizing the opportunity. We can look at Roger's lone Roland Garros title. He could never beat Rafa there in four finals, but in the one final he didn't face Rafa, he seized the opportunity. He was a damn good clay court player - not Rafa/Borg great, or probably even Novak/Lendl great, but in the next tier.
The Big Three all have opportunistic Slam titles - as do most greats with 6+ Slams. Really, this is what makes Wawrinka's three Slams titles so impressive: all were hard-fought and among the most difficult Slams in Open Era history.
We can also mess around with hypotheticals having to do with surfaces or other elements of context. For instance, how many Masters would Sampras have won if they were as emphasized as today? He won a measly 11, six fewer than Agassi, but had 14 to Agassi's 8 Slams, and five year-end finals to Agassi's one. How many more Slams would Laver have won if not for his contract situation? This extends to pretty much all of the Open Era before the last couple decades. Players played a more random assortment of tournaments, with not as clear distinctions between levels - especially before 1989 when the ATP system was more standardized. You also had Connors (and Vilas) winning dozens of tournaments which would be more comparable to today's Challengers. Another: How many more Masters would Roger have won if one or two were held on grass? What if there was a fifth carpet Slam? (Becker would have loved this). Etc etc.
Ultimate Tennis Statistics tries to systematize the Open Era, but it isn't perfect. For instance, they count 1979 Dorado Beach as an ATP 250, but to win it Connors had to beat six top 20 guys, so it was as hard as most ATP 1000s today. And of course there's the infamous pre-1983 Australian Open - Kriek's two titles in 1981-82 were about equivalent to today's ATP 500s. The very hardest tournament in Open Era history wasn't even a Slam: it was the 1971 Tennis Champions Classic in which Rod Laver won 13 matches against other top 10 guys. It was almost like a double or even triple ATP Finals. In my systems, I tend to count this as twice an ATP final - so about the same as a Slam.
So in the end, I think records equalize - for the most part. We can quibble just about anything, but in the end, history is written as it is and things even out. In my attempts to create a Grand Stat of Everything, the biggest challenge has been comparing pre-Open Era to Open Era - especially weighing amateur and pro Slams, and most especially pro tours.
As for
@El Dude saying I might be Rafa-centric, that’s slightly like saying I’m happy I’m Irish: but in fairness I’m also the only one here who ever moaned that even Rafa’s record is inflated, that winning 14 FO’s is both spectacular and ludicrous, that the age of the 3 might be seen in future as a dubious luxury. Anomalous. Like a great heavyweight era of 3 giants challenged only by lightweight contenders. Set ‘em up, Joe, knock ‘em down, set ‘em up again, Joe. 10 AO titles for Novak. 8 Wimbledon titles for Roger, and seven for
Novak, who wouldn’t take a set off Sampras at Wimbledon back in those days of great distinction.
Maybe? Hard to say. For me, I would have loved to see prime Roger and Pete battle it out at Wimbledon, and one of my favorite imaginary match-ups would have been Sampras and Nadal, due to their comparable fighting spirits. Obviously Sampras would have dominated on grass (and carpet)--and I don't think would have lost to Rafa, like Roger did; Rafa would have demolished Pete on clay, but what about hards? I imagine some epic matches, battle of wills with neither willing to break.
But one thing I don't think you give Novak credit for is his all-around greatness. He was great everywhere, every surface, every speed, every situation (except lobs!). And more often than not, he would force his opponent to dismantle himself. I do think he would have struggled with a peak Roger - that Roger in 2004-07 was likely better than peak Novak on grass and maybe hards; their meetings later on when Roger wasn't as good as he once was and Novak in his prime were often won by Novak by slim margins...that 2019 Wimbledon final was so close, and Roger lost more than Novak won. Meaning, if Roger and Novak were very, very close in 2019, I imagine Roger in 2006 would have had the edge over any version of Novak. But we'll never know.
A thought came to me when I read Tilden’s name on a list, about the difficulty of making comparisons across eras. We’ve discussed this and reached agreement, but still it’s both interesting to compare - and also interesting to discuss why comparison is difficult, even with eras less distant to each other than Big Bill Tilden’s and Rafa’s. Bill Tilden didn’t master top spin, because far as I know, it didn’t exist. I’m not sure if it was Rosewall or somebody from that era who began to use it, but course Tilden deserved to be on the list from another side of the argument, which is that he was one of the best of his era. And of course, we can’t tell how Novak might fare if he grew up at the same time as Tilden and similarly couldn’t hit topspin.
In the baseball world, Babe Ruth is--and likely forever will be--considered the GOAT. He was just so enormously dominant over his peers, in a way that no other player has been (except for the roided version of Bonds, who was insane in 2001-04). There have been flashes for a year or three, and Ted Williams was probably the closest -- at least as far as hitting is concerned - and more well-rounded players like Willie Mays. But Ruth not only was so dominant, but he single-handedly changed the nature of the game. But if you transported Aaron Judge back to 1925, it would have been batting practice to him.
Sports tend to evolve. In terms of pure athleticism, this is easy to see - we can see how Olympic athletes eventually break former records. On the other hand, and most importantly, there's a "six degrees of separation" that occurs, when older players hold their own with younger players who inevitably surpass them, if only due to age. Pancho Gonzales and Ken Rosewall held their own and then surpassed the likes of Jack Kramer in the early 50s, then were top 10 players for part of the Open Era. Pancho beat Kramer and Jimmy Connors, and Connors beat Laver and almost beat Agassi, who beat Connors and also Nadal, who beat Agassi and won and lost vs Alcaraz.
I mean, we can trace back to Tilden in just a few players: Alcaraz to Nadal to Agassi to Connors to Gonzales to Kramer to Tilden. It is easy to say that Alcaraz would slaughter Tilden, yet those seven players overlapped and presumably held their own against each other.
In other words, the game evolves but the players evolve with it - and there is continuity throughout.
These are great discussions though, and I really appreciate the Dude’s graphs and lists, it brings a great diving board for all to leap off..
Thanks! I love working on them - sort of like my version of version of crossword puzzles while I'm watching a film.
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That made me laugh.
