Without re-reading the intro, I don't know. I do remember him saying that there's a subjective element, but not sure if that's just on picking criteria and a formula.
Please explain "accumulative ELO."
I agree with you that Navratilova, Graf and Serena all have an argument for #1. I went in order of age. Call them a 3-headed GOAT. Which I think you have campaigned for amongst the men, and I'm down with that, certainly for this era, and for most. In order of age: Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. Now tell me, taking those 6 names, mix them up and place them in order. It's not possible. IMHO. Going back to your point earlier, he would have been better served to split the men and women, in the first place. I'll be curious where he lands, though.
It isn't an official phrase, but what I mean is adding up ELO ratings for each year. So for instance, let's say one player has five years at 2000 ELO, and another four years at 2400. The former adds up to more (10,000 vs 9,600), but most would think the latter was a better player because 2400 is truly great, while 2000 is merely garden variety elite - roughly a top 10 player (e.g. Casper Ruud has a 2,012 ELO right now, 10th in the ATP).
Yep. I wish he'd share his formula.
As an aside, one thing that really differentiates the female 3-headed GOAT from the male is the era gap. Navratilova was born in 1956, Graf in 1969, Serena in 1981 - that's a span of 25 years, which each separated by 12 or 13 years. Now of course Martina had Evert just two years older, though Evert peaked earlier, and Steffi had Seles born four years later, but then her tragic attack shortened her peak. So they weren't just all on their lonesome without other inner circle greats - except for Serena. She played alongside a bunch of lesser greats, but no one in the same vicinity.
That was helpful. Though I see it even confuses YOU how ol' Jeff's numbers eventually got him where they did. I'm also surprised that Ferrer has the highest peak. What does that really tell us? I'll offer this about Stan, based on memory only. He beat Rafa in the 2014 AO final. Then, at RG, on arguably his best surface, he lost in the first round. We all remember that Stan was wildly inconsistent. I always thought that Magnus Norman helped him a lot, and should get real credit for his 3 Majors. Sort of like Peter Lundgren helped tame Marat Safin long enough to get HIM one more Major. Anyway, maybe the inconsistencies account for the weird ELO rating. Ferrer was nothing if not consistent. And Kei, well, with injuries, not consistent. Still doesn't explain his ranking on this man's system. And, even if you say that there is some bell-curve involved, wouldn't you, if you were Jeff, rethink your system, if you had Stan that low, Kei so high, and Dementieva up there above Wawrinka and Barty? I would have thought: "Back to the drawing board." But no, he plowed forward. At a certain point, IMO, he's falling in love with his own formula, common sense be damned. And, yeah, whatever the formula is.
I don't think that does matter, if we're going to try to identify Greatest(s) of All Time. Because when we say GOAT, we are not saying "of their era," which is a distinction some would make. (Which is where I incline.) It's handy that Fedalovic happened to play in basically the same era AND eclipse most other records, but it doesn't mean that the GOAT conversation doesn't include all eras on the men's side, too. You do get credit for trying to shoehorn Laver in there, sometimes. But if there IS to be a GOAT debate, it doesn't matter that Martina, Steffi and Serena are much more from different eras. Right? Certainly this guy Jeff's accounting for greatness has no respect for era or even Open Era.
Yeah, that last is why I ended up abandoning the ranking formula project...I always ended up with rather disconcerting things, like GOAT Points ranking Connors and Lendl above Sampras. I understand the logic - both were very consistent and played a ton of matches, winning a lot more titles than Sampras, but literally no one ranks them higher than Sampras.
I don't think it matters either - just pointing out that the context of their co-GOATness was different.
I paused when I wrote "only lesser greats," especially when I considered Venus, Clijsters, and Henin. But what I meant was that she didn't play alongside another GOAT-esque player, like Navratilova and Evert, and adding Graf in towards the end, or Graf with Seles. And fair point about comparing it to Roger's gen, as I think there is some similarity, even if their dominance followed a different pattern. It does seem like there have been several "almost next top dog" on the WTA that didn't quite pan out...Azarenka comes to mind, as well as Osaka.
All greats, but exactly.
But here is where the Borg Problem comes in. I agree that part of greatness is longevity and consistency. But the longer you stay, the more your numbers go down. That is natural attrition. Then you have Borg...die young and leave a gorgeous corpse. He messes with everyone's formula, because they also want to place him high. Rightly, IMO. But he had basically a 10 year career. Roger and Rafa have played twice as long. Novak nearly so.
Those are amazing stats. And for everyone I've argued with over the years that Ferrer was more than just some pusher, you just rested my case. Thank you.
Venus, but for Serena?
The "different pattern" was that Serena was more dominant.
I was thinking of Osaka when I wrote this, and good to point about Azarenka, who was really threatening to be a rival to Serena. Remember that Visa lost time on the tour due to custody issues with her baby-daddy. I'm sorry that Osaka is not currently panning out, but she would have been very late competition, anyway. I didn't forget Clijsters, but left her out because she left tennis to have kids. Yes, she came back and won, I think, 2 Majors post-babies, but at least one. Point being, again, you do lose time to competition to have babies, even if you come back. Most don't, though.
That's debatable, but not what I was getting at. I agree that when Serena was on, the gap between her and everyone else was larger than peak Roger (or Rafa or Novak) and everyone else. But Serena never had a four-year period like Roger's 2004-07. In a way, her career is more similar to Rafa's - lots of high peaks, and a nice string here and there, but without the same consistent dominance as Roger, Novak, as well as Martina and Steffi.
Well yes, exactly. That's simply part of the nature of the WTA.
Navratilova winning into Graf's prime is what, in my opinion, puts her ahead on my GOAT list. Had Navratilova won 1994 Wimbledon, I feel there would be no debate. I rank Graf behind because her two main rivals, Seles and Capriati, missed years of what should have been their primes. Seles was never the same and Capriati became an elite player again only after Graf retired. Capriati beating a young Serena on a consistent basis in the early 2000s only proves how talented she was and that she probably would have won several slams in the years that she missed, potentially preventing Graf from winning those slams.
Andy Murray is so complicated, and you lay out most of the reasons why very well. Since it's ELO-based, his competition puts him high, right? He was the 4th Beatle in the crazy-strong era of Big 3. He was the only other man in 13 (?) years to reach #1, besides Roger, Rafa and Novak? First British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years? I know these aren't part of the formula, but they are part of his resume.
Stats and reputation, mostly--especially what other players and high profile historians (e.g. Bud Collins), and the odd video. And of course whatever Jack Kramer had to say is always a good read.
I did love Bud Collins, and he went back a long time. But the amateur era was SO different. It was basically a club game. Are the players from that era plausibly comparable? Did you ever read the book that we tout around here on occasion: A Handful of Summers? @Kieran will remember who wrote it. It is arguably the most poetic book ever written about tennis. It talks about what it was like in the amateur game. Aside from the geometry within the lines, it's not even the same game anymore.
Yeah, though that's true of most sports. But it relates to one of the common questions around ranking greats across different eras. How can you possibly compare Bill Tilden and Roger Federer? Or Babe Ruth and Aaron Judge? Imagine sending Judge back to the 1920s - he'd probably hit 100 HR in a season. Baseball a century ago was very different: Ruth only played seven different teams, only white players, and faced pitchers who not only threw 10+ mph slower, but usually pitched the whole game. Etc, etc. On the other hand, Ruth dominated his context in a way that Judge hasn't - except for one year - and should be considered the greater player because of it. Or we could imagine traveling back to the 1960s and kidnapping prime Rod Laver, then placing him in today's ATP tour. Would he be any better than David Ferrer? And maybe not even that? Yet in the 60s, he was the best player in the world, and relative to his peers he was as dominant as anyone ever has been - and that should be recognized and lauded.
Sackmann does rely heavily on the ELO system, yet he also more or less discards that system when saying of Murray: “Illuminating as they are, these numbers miss much of what makes Murray great. The tactical game begins before anyone steps on court, and that tilts the scale even further in Andy’s favor.” [Emphasis mine.] So it’s not 100% numbers driven, although numbers are a big factor.
I think his placing on the list is in fact entirely driven by the Elo formula. There are a couple of names where he had to abandon the algorithm due to lack of data. Namely Karel Koželuh and Ora Washington, but I think at this point the order of the list is entirely down to what the algorithm spat out. The articles themselves of course contain a combination of statistical and subjective analysis of a player's greatness.
