Tennis.com's "50 Greatest Players of Open Era" - who are your top 25?

[Federberg]

I like the props Haelfix gives to Jimbo. I too was surprised to see him at number 10 when Lendl and McEnroe and Borg remain. I know they will place Borg higher than him, but the other two give me pause. I mostly beg to differ with McEnroe because his light was bright and burned brightly for a few years but then he precipitously dropped in quality of game and was unable to play to his old level as the technology and style of play evolved; Ivan the terrible just blew him off of the court, as did others. His touch was only so good against the pace and heaviness of shot that was getting bigger as the game changed. I guess many here are correct--Lendl was the beginning of modern power tennis, followed by Becker and Sampras. (Safin too! LOL)

Lol! I said the same right at the start of this thread mate. Anyway I'm swearing off these types of discussions. They're absurd

 

[El Dude]

Lol! I said the same right at the start of this thread mate. Anyway I'm swearing off these types of discussions. They're absurd

Thanks for letting us know again. And again. And again.

 

[Federberg]

Thanks for letting us know again. And again. And again.

You're welcome

 

[shawnbm]

So, the Angelic Assassin is ranked sixth on the list. Interesting. This tells me Sampras, Federer and nadal are top four. I assume Laver will round that out. Nole number five?

 

[El Dude]

Yes, probably. Their list is actually pretty good, in my opinion.

 

[Haelfix]

Laver will be the big unknown. He could be ranked anywhere from 1 to 4.. It’s just very difficult to place him given that he wasn’t as dominant as he is frequently made out to be based on stats alone, but that nevertheless if you give him full credit for his early career non atp wins he really does have a compelling case.
The problem with Laver is that when he retired he wasn’t even viewed as the best player of all time by his own peers. Most of them would talk about Tilden or Gonzalez.

I don’t really like including Rosewall and him in these lists bc of how different things were back then. They straddle eras...

 

[Ricardo]

I respectfully disagree. Until the late 1990s the clay major was won mostly by Europeans and mostly Europeans played in it—not many North Americans or Australian players.it was largely that way in the seventies and early eighties. Connors was barred from and then rarely played there, by way of example. I think the importance of playing well on all surfaces has really only come to the fore since the rise of Federer—Nadal. Now it is a necessity to excel on all the surfaces. Borg did that, but so did Connors (at least on HarTru). So, the guys from way back then should get cut a little slack as should Pistol Pete.

Yeah well I can’t really respectfully agree with this delusion. All surface excellence is only a recent thing? Ever since there was tennis, the holy grail was winning all four....done on different surfaces. The grail was not winning one event or surface 10 times, I am sure you are aware of that but somehow you got to make it up with typical American ignorance, so that you can cut someone some slack for not being good on clay. Now how is clay major less important because less Americans won it? Who gives a shit why you Ignorant bone head thinks is important? You just keep making it up as if we don’t know history here, fact remains that if you suck at RG you don’t belong to the top group of elites.....and I don’t care who that is. Any more bs you make up, I’ll be onto it.

 

[britbox]

^ Not really, 3 used to be played on grass.

 

[Federberg]

^ Not really, 3 used to be played on grass.

glad you spotted the glaring error. I couldn't be arsed to say it. I just chuckled at the irony of @shawnbm being accused of ignorance when the accuser was clearly that

 

[shawnbm]

^ odd being attacked like that. Sorry Ricardo—just made an observation. I’m glad the players are making the trip to Melbourne and Paris regularly these days. It’s a good thing.

 

[El Dude]

Laver will be the big unknown. He could be ranked anywhere from 1 to 4.. It’s just very difficult to place him given that he wasn’t as dominant as he is frequently made out to be based on stats alone, but that nevertheless if you give him full credit for his early career non atp wins he really does have a compelling case.
The problem with Laver is that when he retired he wasn’t even viewed as the best player of all time by his own peers. Most of them would talk about Tilden or Gonzalez.

I don’t really like including Rosewall and him in these lists bc of how different things were back then. They straddle eras...

Glad you mentioned Tilden and Gonzales who I've often said are probably the two greatest players pre-Laver/Rosewall and are true GOAT candidates.

Anyhow, I hear you about the problem of straddling eras, but I just don't think there's a good solution. As I see it, in terms of ranking of players we can take one of the following routes:

1) Open Era only, and only look at stats in the Open Era
2) Open Era, but including entire careers for straddling players
3) Tennis History, from 1877 (first Wimbledon) to the present

The Tennis.com list is taking approach #2, which is the approach that I've taken as well. But it seems that some of the protests--such as yours--come from wanting to take approach #1, but the problem there is you short-change straddling players like Laver, Rosewall, as well as Newcombe and even Ashe.

This isn't exact science and all approaches have down-sides, but I'd rather take the down-sides of 2 and than 1.

I've dabbled with 3, but it is even more problematic. If I ever try to assemble a list of all-time greatest players, I probably wouldn't rank them.

 

[Haelfix]

I certainly don't have a good or nonbiased approach, unfortunately none will be available. I do however like to isolate things as much as possible to make an apples to apples comparison. The fundamental problem is that titles, slams, years at number 1 and how you perform on various surfaces or even h2hs didn't matter much to those older players. Certainly less than it does to the Sampras generation and so forth.

What actually mattered most, was .... Money! A single televised exhibition match could pay out more for those players than an entire tourney or slam. So if you could control for inflation, and control for popularity, a players net earning was in many ways more important than all of the other stats. Most of these guys had other jobs on the side to pay for their expenses, so when a big money match would come around you can bet they were playing hard and training hard.

 

[El Dude]

I certainly don't have a good or nonbiased approach, unfortunately none will be available. I do however like to isolate things as much as possible to make an apples to apples comparison. The fundamental problem is that titles, slams, years at number 1 and how you perform on various surfaces or even h2hs didn't matter much to those older players. Certainly less than it does to the Sampras generation and so forth.

What actually mattered most, was .... Money! A single televised exhibition match could pay out more for those players than an entire tourney or slam. So if you could control for inflation, and control for popularity, a players net earning was in many ways more important than all of the other stats. Most of these guys had other jobs on the side to pay for their expenses, so when a big money match would come around you can bet they were playing hard and training hard.

Well I think you explain here why Rod Laver barely played any Slams after 1969, even though he remained an elite player into the mid-70s. So yeah, agreed.

And I hear you about comparing apples to apples. Unfortunately it just isn't possible, and gets worse the further back you go.

That said, no harm in trying - and it is fun to compare players across eras.

 

[shawnbm]

Novak at number 5 ahead of Borg, but obviously behind Laver and Sampras. Quite a record he has amassed, isn't it? What a competitor and shotmaker, particularly on return of service.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Novak at number 5 ahead of Borg, but obviously behind Laver and Sampras. Quite a record he has amassed, isn't it? What a competitor and shotmaker, particularly on return of service.

Novak will surely get ahead of Pistol Pete by the time he hangs up his racquet (assuming he does not suffer from Tiger curse).
But, in the minds of many Novak has already surpassed Pete by completing career GS (not mention Noleslam).

 

[shawnbm]

^^^ I can see why you say that and I think it is entirely understandable. I really would have liked to have seen Sampras and his service against Nole and his return. That would have been something.

 

[Moxie]

Novak will surely get ahead of Pistol Pete by the time he hangs up his racquet (assuming he does not suffer from Tiger curse).
But, in the minds of many Novak has already surpassed Pete by completing career GS (not mention Noleslam).

Surely you mean "delPotro Curse," or perhaps that he's not able to come up with 3+ more Majors post-30, which is also possible. But even if he should retire where he is, in terms of Majors (and I don't think he will,) I can see why you say at least that it's a tough call between them. I suspect they avoided the argument for now because Novak is an active player.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Surely you mean "delPotro Curse," or perhaps that he's not able to come up with 3+ more Majors post-30, which is also possible. But even if he should retire where he is, in terms of Majors (and I don't think he will,) I can see why you say at least that it's a tough call between them. I suspect they avoided the argument for now because Novak is an active player.

Surely, if he ties Pete in GSs, Novak will come out ahead (just due to Career Grandslam). I think everyone would agree with that.

Now, there is a difference of two. I think we can give a discount of 1 for the Noleslam.

I would put Novak ahead of Pete as long as he can win at least one more major. But he needs to do that. If he
cannot deliver, I would put Pete ahead of Novak.

Having said that, the chances that Novak can win one more, but not two more is negligible. Either he does not win a major at all in the future or he wins more than one.

 

[Moxie]

Surely, if he ties Pete in GSs, Novak will come out ahead (just due to Career Grandslam). I think everyone would agree with that.

Now, there is a difference of two. I think we can give a discount of 1 for the Noleslam.

I would put Novak ahead of Pete as long as he can win at least one more major. But he needs to do that. If he
cannot deliver, I would put Pete ahead of Novak.

Having said that, the chances that Novak can win one more, but not two more is negligible. Either he does not win a major at all in the future or he wins more than one.

If you give a discount of one for the Nole Slam, I'd also give a discount of one for the career slam. Pete never won RG, and I consider that a knock. I don't completely buy the argument from those who would say he didn't feel he needed to go career-Slam as much as in this era. He didn't, but he also didn't make enough of an effort at his clay game. There were Americans in his era that won RG. (Courier and Chang.)

I don't agree that one more Major guarantees him two. You're presuming that if he gets back to Slam-winning level, there are at least 2 more in him. I see why you would say that, but it's also a lot of presuming. We'll have to see, really.

 

[mrzz]

I think you guys give too little value to weeks as #1 and also for year end #1. Total weeks as #1, IMO, is a pretty important stat, only less important than major count. On that regard Sampras is still firmly ahead of Djokovic.