Goat - sort of....

This is a list of the Greatest of All Time from the Tennis Channel programme (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_of_All_Time).

Rather than encourage the usual GOAT debate, which is pretty tiresome and most of us acknowledge is somewhat meaningless because of the difficulties of comparison so that you can only really put players in echelons, I would invite people to identify which player(s) they think are most egregiously misplaced - i.e. too high or too low.

For me Pancho Gonzalez is the greatest victim of the Am/Pro divide at No. 35 and Roy Emerson whose 12 slams were all amateur at No. 17 the greatest beneficiary. Rosewall is another victim at No. 20.

Rank Name Sex Nationality
1 Roger Federer Male SUI
2 Rod Laver Male AUS
3 Steffi Graf Female GER
4 Martina Navratilova Female USA
5 Pete Sampras Male USA
6 Rafael Nadal Male ESP
7 Björn Borg Male SWE
8 Margaret Court Female AUS
9 Chris Evert Female USA
10 Billie Jean King Female USA
11 Don Budge Male USA
12 Andre Agassi Male USA
13 John McEnroe Male USA
14 Serena Williams Female USA
15 Jimmy Connors Male USA
16 Bill Tilden Male USA
17 Roy Emerson Male AUS
18 Ivan Lendl Male CZE
19 Monica Seles Female USA
20 Ken Rosewall Male AUS
21 Boris Becker Male GER
22 Venus Williams Female USA
23 Fred Perry Male GBR
24 Suzanne Lenglen Female FRA
25 Stefan Edberg Male SWE
26 Justine Henin Female BEL
27 Maureen Connolly Brinker Female USA
28 Arthur Ashe Male USA
29 Helen Wills Moody Roark Female USA
30 Martina Hingis Female SUI
31 John Newcombe Male AUS
32 Lew Hoad Male AUS
33 Mats Wilander Male SWE
34 Jack Kramer Male USA
35 Pancho Gonzalez Male USA
36 René Lacoste Male FRA
37 Evonne Goolagong Cawley Female AUS
38 Maria Bueno Female BRA
39 Althea Gibson Female USA
40 Novak Djokovic Male SRB
41 Guillermo Vilas Male ARG
42 Jim Courier Male USA
43 Lindsay Davenport Female USA
44 Arantxa Sánchez Vicario Female ESP
45 Kim Clijsters Female BEL
46 Henri Cochet Male FRA
47 Jean Borotra Male FRA
48 Frank Sedgman Male AUS
49 Ilie Nastase Male ROM
50 Tony Trabert Male USA
51 Doris Hart Female USA
52 Jack Crawford Male AUS
53 Tracy Austin Female USA
54 Manuel Santana Male ESP
55 Gustavo Kuerten Male BRA
56 Stan Smith Male USA
57 Jennifer Capriati Female USA
58 Alice Marble Female USA
59 Margaret Osborne duPont Female USA
60 Virginia Wade Female GBR
61 Neale Fraser Male AUS
62 Hana Mandlikova Female CZE
63 Lleyton Hewitt Male AUS
64 Ellsworth Vines Male USA
65 Pancho Segura Male ECU
66 Bobby Riggs Male USA
67 Fred Stolle Male AUS
68 Helen Hull Jacobs Female USA
69 Louise Brough Female USA
70 Patrick Rafter Male AUS
71 Maria Sharapova Female RUS
72 Gottfried Von Cramm Male GER
73 Jaroslav Drobny Male CZE
74 Tony Roche Male AUS
75 Pauline Betz Addie Female USA
76 William Renshaw Male GBR
77 Molla Mallory Female USA
78 Ashley Cooper Male AUS
79 Gabriela Sabatini Female ARG
80 Marat Safin Male RUS
81 Vic Seixas Male USA
82 Yevgeny Kafelnikov Male RUS
83 Jan Kodeš Male CZE
84 Norman Brookes Male AUS
85 Yannick Noah Male FRA
86 Tony Wilding Male NZL
87 Mary Pierce Female FRA
88 Amélie Mauresmo Female FRA
89 Dorothea Lambert Chambers Female GBR
90 Bill Johnston Male USA
91 Shirley Fry Irvin Female USA
92 Svetlana Kuznetsova Female RUS
93 Nicola Pietrangeli Male ITA
94 Andy Roddick Male USA
95 Thomas Muster Male AUT
96 Manuel Orantes Male ESP
97 Pat Cash Male AUS
98 Henry "Bunny" Austin Male GBR
99 Ann Haydon Jones Female GBR
100 Michael Chang Male USA

Some might argue Steffi should be at the top given 22 slams (31 finals!), 377 weeks #1, 8 x YE #1s, 5 WTFs, etc....

Clearly Laver was hurt by the ProAm thing too...its likely he would have been 20+ slams in "normal money"....

lydian wrote:Some might argue Steffi should be at the top given 22 slams and 377 weeks #1...

Clearly Laver was hurt by the ProAm thing too...its likely he would have been 20+ slams in "normal money"....

I know that you have to accept the cards as they fall, but for me there's always the slight asterisk against Graf because of the stabbing of Seles.

I take the point about Laver, but he is slightly more ambiguous than Gonzalez because he also benefited in so far as our perception of him depends upon him being winner of 11 slams because he did win 6 in the Amateur era. If you are claiming 20+ for him you've got to take him down to 5 and say he'd have gained another 15 in a pure pro era.

I must admit I take issue with Margaret Court being so high given that most of her AO titles if not all were in a time when most of the top players did not participate in it. By no means am I trying to discredit her legacy, just think sometimes factors need to considered about the field because in the 60's 70's the Australian Open had a rather large Australian feel to it.

Fair point Barry - who knows what Monica Seles could have achieved in those mid-90s years.
Oh - and probably the greatest Serbian player of all time?

If we feel Seles/Graf might have middled out around 15 slams and 250ish #1 weeks each then, what about Martina N?

18 singles slams...31 doubles slams, 331 weeks at #1, calendar year Grand Slam ('84)...167 singles titles...8 WTFs...6 YE #1s...9 consequetive Wimbledon finals (7 won). Won each slam at least twice...5 French Open finals...6 AO finals...12 Wimb finals...8 USO finals.

And all against the careers of Evert then Graf - not in this weak era of women's tennis. Pretty impressive.

Pat Cash shouldn't be on the list at all...

Not when beaten by a 14 year old Nadal

I'm wondering if Sampras should be on the list as well. His page on the ATP Champions Tour site says that "Pete likes watching the TV show 'Desperate Housewives'."

Michael Chang gets on the list, but Carlos Moya doesn't?!

JuliusHMarx wrote:Michael Chang gets on the list, but Carlos Moya doesn't?!

Nor Bruguera

Given 37/100(!) of the list are American and Tennis Channel is American its no wonder Chang is on there...and a few other weird ones too.

I feel sure this list once appeared on the old 606, although that was a fair while back so no harm seeing it again.

I applaud your intention barrystar that this should not be the catalyst for yet another GOAT debate, because as you say that stuff is, ultimately, not only pointless but also tiresome - in fact unbelievably so. But of course that's precisely how things panned out on the old site (IIRC) - not surprisingly given the small but vociferous number of unbalanced, wholly biased and irrational posters there, many/all of whom have, happily, sought pastures new.

One fundamental comment ..... IMVHO it's something of a nonsense to create such a list which combines male & female, and for me that alone gives it dubious credibility to start with.

A specific name that stands out at a quick glance is Pat Cash ..... reckoner & lydian you are so right, what a patently ridiculous inclusion in a Top 100. Just 7 titles throughout his entire career (and yes, I haven't forgotten one was a Slam...) and never ranked higher than 4 in the world. Oh dear .....

I would have Becker in top 15, djokovic at least top 25 given what he has already achieved at age of 25 (5 slams, also has reached French final, won masters cup, davis cup, 11 masters series and record in one year) I would have Graf as number 1, grand slam wins total, number of finals and to win the golden slam in 1988 (all slams and olympic gold) will probably never be repeated. Navratilova could have a claim too for her efforts in both singles and doubles. This is coming from a men's tennis fan but their achievements are extraordinary

I've seen this list before in an article a while back as well. It's a mess, frankly. Hardly know where to start.

Pancho Gonzales at 35 maybe!!??!! This guy is a candidate for no 1, and walks into the top ten, just look at his record.

He was a far superior player to Emerson, who won a bunch of slams in the amatuer era without playing any of the best in the world. Would be like Berdych winning 10 slams because Fedal and Djokovic and Murray had gone to the professional circuit.

Emerson not beating the best in the world?

What a ridiculous comment.

The guy beat Laver and Ashe in their prime years!

Agree re: the women slasher.

The other oddity is having Cash/Chang on the list but not Goran Ivanisevic given his 4 Wimbledon finals (1 win), 7 Masters finals (2 wins), 22 tour titles overall and ranked high at #2.

Oh and Federer creditted the hitting practice in had with lefty Goran before the 2007 Wimby final as a factor in beating Nadal!

legendkillarV2 wrote:Emerson not beating the best in the world?

What a ridiculous comment.

The guy beat Laver and Ashe in their prime years!

I don't think I can agree with you. This is Emerson's playing record as a pro http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/Players/Em/R/Roy-Emerson.aspx?t=pa&y=0&m=s&e=0. If you check, as a pro vs. Laver he was 1-14 and vs. Ashe he was 1-11.

In Laver's prime years Emerson was an amateur. His wikipedia page shows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Emerson he beat Laver in two slam finals in 1961, then lost x3 in 1962. That was the year of Laver's first Grandslam after which Laver went pro and, like all amateurs who went pro, took a bit of time to up his game to the necessary quality. Laver was a fairly old man by the time the Open Era started - not in his prime, but even so he wiped Emerson.

Emerson beat Ashe as an amateur but once they became pro's Ashe swamped him - Ashe's prime can only have been as a pro when he won his 3 slams and would have to have matched the quality of the other pro's - certainly his playing record as an ATP pro was of an entirely different quality to Emerson's http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/Players/As/A/Arthur-R-Ashe.aspx?t=pa

In short, Emerson's record of winning 12 amateur slams is wholly irrelevant to any assessment of him as a 'great'. He might have made it as a pro had he decided to go pro when Laver did, but he didn't so we'll never know and can't promote him to something he never was.

Emerson was a top doubles player, but we aren't talking about that.

The one thing you haven't taken into account was his age barry. He was 33 when they turned pro and how many Slam winners have been above that age?

And also he retired from the tour at the age of 47!!

Anyone who can play on that long amateur and pro deserves more than a place in the top 100.

I never understand why Rosewall isn't higher on these kind of lists.
He started by winning 4 slams as an amateur. Then he won 15 pro slams (the record), including the 10 in a row he entered from 1960 onwards. He finished by winning 4 more slams in the open era, the last one he won when he was 37!

legendkillarV2 wrote:And also he retired from the tour at the age of 47!!

Anyone who can play on that long amateur and pro deserves more than a place in the top 100.

That needs qualification - he was 31/32 when the open era began and he stopped playing singles in 1977 when he was 40 (one match at Gstaad, his adopted home tournament, in 1983 does not count). Likewise in doubles he played only 6 matches after 1977.

I still think you struggle to fit him into the top 100, but on any view never at No. 20 and not even in the top half of the top 100. It's the old woulda coulda shoulda - and he didn't match himself against the best in his prime so we are left with what we know and maybe's don't help.

Tennis was nothing like as professional in the early days of the ATP as it became and there were plenty of guys plying their trade through their 30's like Emerson.

I am sorry but I disagree there. Easily top 50 and even more top 30. If that were the case and we are down playing the amateur days as anything less than competitive, half the players on that list wouldn't merit a spot.

legendkillarV2 wrote:I am sorry but I disagree there. Easily top 50 and even more top 30. If that were the case and we are down playing the amateur days as anything less than competitive, half the players on that list wouldn't merit a spot.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree big time then - quite apart from what I think, you are against Jack Kramer who didn't put Emerson in the top 20 men writing in the 1970's and knew a thing or two about tennis.

You can't just say "the amateur days" because in the early amateur days when the likes of Tilden, Perry, and Budge were winning the pro game was tiny. During the 1960's the best amateurs were a mile below the best pro's. If you want to counter that you'll have to stop debating from the hip and come up with some evidence.

Swap Laver and Federer.
Then swap Nadal with Laver.

Bingo.

barrystar wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:I am sorry but I disagree there. Easily top 50 and even more top 30. If that were the case and we are down playing the amateur days as anything less than competitive, half the players on that list wouldn't merit a spot.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree big time then - quite apart from what I think, you are against Jack Kramer who didn't put Emerson in the top 20 men writing in the 1970's and knew a thing or two about tennis.

You can't just say "the amateur days" because in the early amateur days when the likes of Tilden, Perry, and Budge were winning the pro game was tiny. During the 1960's the best amateurs were a mile below the best pro's. If you want to counter that you'll have to stop debating from the hip and come up with some evidence.

Players past and present rate Emerson one of the greatest ever. Even Sampras rated him as one of the greats and I think his CV eclipses that of Kramer!

You then ask for evidence to counter that statement. Can I ask where your evidence is to prove that case?

Wilander should be higher than Ashe

Kramer was the promoter who got the pro game going almost single-handed. As well as being a very fine player himself he was of necessity a very careful (and knowledgable) observer of the game. He would want to persuade the top amateurs to join him, and he had a financial as well as academic interest in who was best and who'd cut it in the pro game. Sampras was 6 when Emerson stopped playing seriously. I have not seen the quote, but imagine he went on about how wonderful Emerson was because it was he who overhauled the (numeric) slam record and it was politic to say something about joining the greats of the game and all that - Sampras's idol was Laver.


As far as evidence is concerned - I guess I was making two points:

(a) I was asking you not to say things like Emerson left the tour aged 47 or Emerson beat Laver and Ashe in their prime when such statements don't bear up to scrutiny.

(b) As for the differential - it's there in the results. Before the Open Era and after WWII, when the top amateurs joined the pro circuit they would invariably start by being thrashed by the top existing pro's until they got their game to the level required to survive - it would usually take months to get up to puff, Laver was similar but got going quicker than most. We can see it from the other angle at the beginning of the Open Era. Emerson ws able to win an amateur slam in the last amateur year, 1967, but never got anywhere near a pro slam. In Emerson's first pro slam at RG 1968 he was beaten by old pro Gonzalez, who was 8 years Emerson's senior and years past his own prime. All the evidence points to the fact that the top Amateurs did not have to play to such a high level as the top pro's to get to the top.

Ashe and Laver were in their 20's when Emerson beat them. So does that not stack? Also if we were to go by results and H2H's then there is a massive blot on the Federer CV.

I didn't say Emerson was Sampras's idol but merely pointing out how highly he rated Emerson. Also his victories may not have been 7 matches like today and how it shaped to be, but he also won matches before the tie-breaker system was in force. He won on Clay and Grass which nowadays is a hard thing to do.

All the evidence points to the fact that the top Amateurs did not have to play to such a high level as the top pro's to get to the top

Over time yes. It didn't change the fact that players still objected to playing in Australia. You have to go about 1973 onwards that the standards of professionalism started to improve and grow. In any sport once they turn professional the standards and technology change and evolve.

I think one thing we can all agree on here is that a top 100 is way too ambitious. A top 10 for both the men's and women's game would be more interesting to debate.

Taking the above list, the top 10 men are:
1 Roger Federer Male SUI
2 Rod Laver Male AUS
5 Pete Sampras Male USA
6 Rafael Nadal Male ESP
7 Björn Borg Male SWE
11 Don Budge Male USA
12 Andre Agassi Male USA
13 John McEnroe Male USA
15 Jimmy Connors Male USA
16 Bill Tilden Male USA

Top 5 looks good, although with some debate about the order (personally, I'd have Borg ahead of Nadal overall). Below that you are getting into players who are much more debateable - as already mentioned, some on here would put Pancho Gonzalez and Ken Rosewall well into the top 10, and clearly a case can be made for Lendl, Emerson and Becker

Women
3 Steffi Graf Female GER
4 Martina Navratilova Female USA
8 Margaret Court Female AUS
9 Chris Evert Female USA
10 Billie Jean King Female USA
14 Serena Williams Female USA
19 Monica Seles Female USA
22 Venus Williams Female USA
24 Suzanne Lenglen Female FRA
26 Justine Henin Female BEL

Even more debateable - I certainly wouldn't have Venus Williams in the top 10 of all time. The big question though is the one about Seles and what might have been without the stabbing, both with regard to her performance and how it would have reduced Steffi's status.

As others have pointed out, it is a list from a US publication, and clearly has some national bias - get the French to make the list and you can be sure that the likes of Rene Lacoste and Suzanne Lenglen would be pushed up the rankings

She had a very short career but I would have thought Maureen Connolly should be somewhat higher - certainly above Venus. First woman to do the calendar grand slam and won the last 9 grand slams she entered before her career was tragically ended. I'd have said she should probably sit just above Seles.

I'd also say Ashe is a bit high. Both Hoad and Newcombe seem to have records which were superior, as do the next four or five men.

I'd also say that Murray should probably sneak in ahead of Austin, if a non slam winner is to be included.

This list is clearly flawed, where is bogdanovic??

legendkillarV2 wrote:Ashe and Laver were in their 20's when Emerson beat them. So does that not stack? Also if we were to go by results and H2H's then there is a massive blot on the Federer CV.

I didn't say Emerson was Sampras's idol but merely pointing out how highly he rated Emerson. Also his victories may not have been 7 matches like today and how it shaped to be, but he also won matches before the tie-breaker system was in force. He won on Clay and Grass which nowadays is a hard thing to do.

All the evidence points to the fact that the top Amateurs did not have to play to such a high level as the top pro's to get to the top

Over time yes. It didn't change the fact that players still objected to playing in Australia. You have to go about 1973 onwards that the standards of professionalism started to improve and grow. In any sport once they turn professional the standards and technology change and evolve.

You said Emerson beat Ashe and Laver in their prime - he beat them once each in the ATP era as part of hugely lop-sided h2h's (Rosol beat Nadal once..., Federer lost to Isner this year) and he also beat them in the amateur eras when they were clearly not in their prime. For it to be relevant to the point you were trying to make the gist of what you were saying was that Emerson stood toe-to-toe with them in their prime - the evidence shows he did not.

Federer's H2H doesn't enter into it, I wasn't discussing him.

If all that Sampras said was that he rated Emerson that's not exactly the same as saying he was in Sampras's top 10 or whatever - as I say I suspect it was in the context of getting to 13 and respecting the man behind him in the list.

It's not the differnet matches or surfaces that count it's the opposition, and for amateurs it was weaker than for pro's.

I cannot fathom your last paragraph. I don't see how Australia enters into it. My point is that the pros in the 1960's were better than the amateurs, as is shown by the facts that (i) amateurs who turned pro had to improve fast to avoid thrashings (ii) when the Open era began it was the players who had been pro's who won the first big tournaments, not the former amateurs. Clearly the gap would have evened out over time for those amateurs who improved like Ashe, but they did not include Emerson.

I do have a sense of shifting goalposts in your responses to me I have to say.

barrystar wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:Ashe and Laver were in their 20's when Emerson beat them. So does that not stack? Also if we were to go by results and H2H's then there is a massive blot on the Federer CV.

I didn't say Emerson was Sampras's idol but merely pointing out how highly he rated Emerson. Also his victories may not have been 7 matches like today and how it shaped to be, but he also won matches before the tie-breaker system was in force. He won on Clay and Grass which nowadays is a hard thing to do.

All the evidence points to the fact that the top Amateurs did not have to play to such a high level as the top pro's to get to the top

Over time yes. It didn't change the fact that players still objected to playing in Australia. You have to go about 1973 onwards that the standards of professionalism started to improve and grow. In any sport once they turn professional the standards and technology change and evolve.

You said Emerson beat Ashe and Laver in their prime - he beat them once each in the ATP era as part of hugely lop-sided h2h's (Rosol beat Nadal once..., Federer lost to Isner this year) and he also beat them in the amateur eras when they were clearly not in their prime. For it to be relevant to the point you were trying to make the gist of what you were saying was that Emerson stood toe-to-toe with them in their prime - the evidence shows he did not.

Federer's H2H doesn't enter into it, I wasn't discussing him.

If all that Sampras said was that he rated Emerson that's not exactly the same as saying he was in Sampras's top 10 or whatever - as I say I suspect it was in the context of getting to 13 and respecting the man behind him in the list.

It's not the differnet matches or surfaces that count it's the opposition, and for amateurs it was weaker than for pro's.

I cannot fathom your last paragraph. I don't see how Australia enters into it. My point is that the pros in the 1960's were better than the amateurs, as is shown by the facts that (i) amateurs who turned pro had to improve fast to avoid thrashings (ii) when the Open era began it was the players who had been pro's who won the first big tournaments, not the former amateurs. Clearly the gap would have evened out over time for those amateurs who improved like Ashe, but they did not include Emerson.

I do have a sense of shifting goalposts in your responses to me I have to say.

I find that rather cheeky given you keep trying to theory dump.

I am painting a picture of what the days were like before the pro era and you keep doing is trying to compare it to the modern ATP.

You mistake is thining that in 1969 we saw such a massive shift performance levels and prestige that swept away the amateur days, when it was far from it.

No tie breaks, lack of participation in the Australian Open is very relevent.

To suggest otherwise is rather ignorant.

For me Sampras is too high and should be a couple of places above Agassi. I jsut think that pistol exploited the tail end of the careers of Lendl, Becker, Edberg etc and exploited the early almost non-interest of Agassi

Maybe it's just that whilst i admired his acheivements, he never gave me a buzz as a player

Steffi Graf should certainly be above Laver, should she above Fed? may be yes considering 5 slam difference and a Olympic Gold to her name. May be if Fed wins few more slams and an Olympic he can rightly hold the top spot.

Nadal above Borg? do that mean he is already ahead of Borg in every aspect? i don't think so, Borg 5 Wimbledon title deserve lot more respect and he deserves a position ahead of Rafa unless Rafa gets few more slams.

Not sure about that...Nadal has won all slams, Borg didnt win AO or USO.
OK, Borg won 5 Wimby's but Nadal has got to the final of 5 as well.
I'd say Nadal has achieved more in the game in terms of overall results.
He'll probably add to the legacy anyway and may be in contention for comparison with Sampras by the time he's finished.

For me top 5 will probably end up in no order of ranking....Graf, Federer, Navratilova, Sampras, Laver....whether Nadal can get in there depends on the next 12 slams or so but he's not far off.

No way can i see Nadal > Borg on current achievement. 5 Wimbledons, numerous FO / W doubles when they were so different, and he still has the records for most dominant French Open campaigns (least games dropped).

Yes, he failed at the USO but I don't count AO as he isn't even bother going. The Wimbledons trump one USO imho.

Rosewall is harshly treated.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

barrystar wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:Ashe and Laver were in their 20's when Emerson beat them. So does that not stack? Also if we were to go by results and H2H's then there is a massive blot on the Federer CV.

I didn't say Emerson was Sampras's idol but merely pointing out how highly he rated Emerson. Also his victories may not have been 7 matches like today and how it shaped to be, but he also won matches before the tie-breaker system was in force. He won on Clay and Grass which nowadays is a hard thing to do.

All the evidence points to the fact that the top Amateurs did not have to play to such a high level as the top pro's to get to the top

Over time yes. It didn't change the fact that players still objected to playing in Australia. You have to go about 1973 onwards that the standards of professionalism started to improve and grow. In any sport once they turn professional the standards and technology change and evolve.

You said Emerson beat Ashe and Laver in their prime - he beat them once each in the ATP era as part of hugely lop-sided h2h's (Rosol beat Nadal once..., Federer lost to Isner this year) and he also beat them in the amateur eras when they were clearly not in their prime. For it to be relevant to the point you were trying to make the gist of what you were saying was that Emerson stood toe-to-toe with them in their prime - the evidence shows he did not.

Federer's H2H doesn't enter into it, I wasn't discussing him.

If all that Sampras said was that he rated Emerson that's not exactly the same as saying he was in Sampras's top 10 or whatever - as I say I suspect it was in the context of getting to 13 and respecting the man behind him in the list.

It's not the differnet matches or surfaces that count it's the opposition, and for amateurs it was weaker than for pro's.

I cannot fathom your last paragraph. I don't see how Australia enters into it. My point is that the pros in the 1960's were better than the amateurs, as is shown by the facts that (i) amateurs who turned pro had to improve fast to avoid thrashings (ii) when the Open era began it was the players who had been pro's who won the first big tournaments, not the former amateurs. Clearly the gap would have evened out over time for those amateurs who improved like Ashe, but they did not include Emerson.

I do have a sense of shifting goalposts in your responses to me I have to say.

I find that rather cheeky given you keep trying to theory dump.

I am painting a picture of what the days were like before the pro era and you keep doing is trying to compare it to the modern ATP.

You mistake is thining that in 1969 we saw such a massive shift performance levels and prestige that swept away the amateur days, when it was far from it.

No tie breaks, lack of participation in the Australian Open is very relevent.

To suggest otherwise is rather ignorant.

My basic point is that Emerson's slam success in the amateur era does not make him an all-time great because he was not winning against the best players of his time - they were playing pro once they reached a certain standard. Of course there were amateurs playing in the 1960's who quickly bridged the divide and started winning slams in the Open Era - examples would be Ashe and Newcombe, and Roche managed to reach finals. All those guys were younger players coming up into their prime in the late 1960's and they spent their prime in the unified game, Emerson spent his prime in the amateur game playing lesser players than the best pro's. Emerson did not win any more singles slams in the Open Era despite having won two slams in 1967 - his slam record fell off a cliff. I don't want to overstate the position more generally, and I agree that early Open Era slams were not particularly prestigious in the way that they are now for various reasons, but still they were more difficult to win after 1968 for the participation of former pro's - Laver's success in 1969 rather proves my point. I agree that the Australian Open continued to be a poor relation for another 20 years (suggesting that we agree Emerson's 6 wins are largely irrelevant in the great scheme of who is the greatest), but that does not alter the fact that the best pro's during the 1960's were still better than the best amateurs. I still don't get the relevance of tie-breakers to whether Emerson's record as an amateur compares with the best pro's.

BB, yes those 3 double FO-SW19 are amazing.
But then so are some of Nadal's achievements...like the "clay slam" in one year (3 Masters - MC, Rome, Madrid and FO), and whichever we cut he has won slams on 3 surfaces, something Borg couldnt achieve. You mention win rate at French for Borg, but Nadal does have the 7 titles of course and Borg didnt have someone like Federer to overcome nearly every time. Indeed lets not forget Borg in general did not have a Federer to play right across his career, and to beat for many of his slams. ]
McEnroe and Lendl only came much later on, and I dont think Connors was much competition for him off hardcourt in the 70s.
Nadal is also the only player to win 2 slam titles on each surface.

In Borg's favour he won 2 WTFs...and we always have that "what if" with Borg in terms of AO...if only he had played there!!! Surely he'd be on 15 slams or so..and he was very unlucky not to win USO given one year he injured his thumb before the final.

To be honest though I see them very similarly. But for overall I just edge Nadal for the breadth across slams...but there's so little in it. This is probably one of harder "all time greats" discussions to be honest given their similarities/parallels. And Borg is the guy who got me into tennis so he's always a legend to me!

lydian - I can certainly relate to your "if only Borg had maximised his career" comment but even as they stand his overall achievements can never be undervalued.

One of his most impressive stats in my eyes is his total career tour titles of 64 - which places him joint 5th with Sampras in the all-time list (ie since Open era).

But of course Sampras played for around 5/6 years more than Borg to reach the exact same tally (albeit finishing with 3 more Slams). Even Federer aged 31, same 'equivalent' age and about two months away from Pete's effective retirement date only has 11 more titles to his name as of now.

Rafa currently on 50, but has already been playing longer than Borg did.

Yep he packed alot in lags...and thats probably the reason he left so soon too...candles burning brightly and all that

lydian wrote:BB, yes those 3 double FO-SW19 are amazing.
Nadal is also the only player to win 2 slam titles on each surface.

You forgot Wilander.
3x clay: French Open
2x grass: Australian Open
2x hard: Australian Open & US Open

Good spot woestijnrog....the AO changed surfaces of course during his run

Looking at some of those big names, I was looking at some of the head to heads or rivals over the years, still cannot get over how one sided this one was:

Becker played Edberg 36 times:

Becker 26
Edberg 10

I always thought Becker was the better player but just would have figured the head to head was a bit closer. both won 6 slams

This is a ridiculous list for too many reasons for one to quantify. Some obvious ones:

1) Why the hell is it mixed? Surely it would make more sense to have seperate lists for men and women.

2)If you're goint to mix up the genders then you have weigh up the achievements equally, ie one female slam is equivalent to 1 male slam. In which case there is no way that Federer gets ahead of Graf and Navratilova or Rafa gets ahead of Evert I mean she's won far more slams than he has and about a million more titles as well some streaks that make federer's look tame.

3) Way too many Americans.

4) Pat Cash - can someone just shoot him and Wilander.

and so on...

Just a poor, lazy and sensationalist attempt.



emancipator

barrystar wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

barrystar wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:Ashe and Laver were in their 20's when Emerson beat them. So does that not stack? Also if we were to go by results and H2H's then there is a massive blot on the Federer CV.

I didn't say Emerson was Sampras's idol but merely pointing out how highly he rated Emerson. Also his victories may not have been 7 matches like today and how it shaped to be, but he also won matches before the tie-breaker system was in force. He won on Clay and Grass which nowadays is a hard thing to do.

All the evidence points to the fact that the top Amateurs did not have to play to such a high level as the top pro's to get to the top

Over time yes. It didn't change the fact that players still objected to playing in Australia. You have to go about 1973 onwards that the standards of professionalism started to improve and grow. In any sport once they turn professional the standards and technology change and evolve.

You said Emerson beat Ashe and Laver in their prime - he beat them once each in the ATP era as part of hugely lop-sided h2h's (Rosol beat Nadal once..., Federer lost to Isner this year) and he also beat them in the amateur eras when they were clearly not in their prime. For it to be relevant to the point you were trying to make the gist of what you were saying was that Emerson stood toe-to-toe with them in their prime - the evidence shows he did not.

Federer's H2H doesn't enter into it, I wasn't discussing him.

If all that Sampras said was that he rated Emerson that's not exactly the same as saying he was in Sampras's top 10 or whatever - as I say I suspect it was in the context of getting to 13 and respecting the man behind him in the list.

It's not the differnet matches or surfaces that count it's the opposition, and for amateurs it was weaker than for pro's.

I cannot fathom your last paragraph. I don't see how Australia enters into it. My point is that the pros in the 1960's were better than the amateurs, as is shown by the facts that (i) amateurs who turned pro had to improve fast to avoid thrashings (ii) when the Open era began it was the players who had been pro's who won the first big tournaments, not the former amateurs. Clearly the gap would have evened out over time for those amateurs who improved like Ashe, but they did not include Emerson.

I do have a sense of shifting goalposts in your responses to me I have to say.

I find that rather cheeky given you keep trying to theory dump.

I am painting a picture of what the days were like before the pro era and you keep doing is trying to compare it to the modern ATP.

You mistake is thining that in 1969 we saw such a massive shift performance levels and prestige that swept away the amateur days, when it was far from it.

No tie breaks, lack of participation in the Australian Open is very relevent.

To suggest otherwise is rather ignorant.

My basic point is that Emerson's slam success in the amateur era does not make him an all-time great because he was not winning against the best players of his time - they were playing pro once they reached a certain standard. Of course there were amateurs playing in the 1960's who quickly bridged the divide and started winning slams in the Open Era - examples would be Ashe and Newcombe, and Roche managed to reach finals. All those guys were younger players coming up into their prime in the late 1960's and they spent their prime in the unified game, Emerson spent his prime in the amateur game playing lesser players than the best pro's. Emerson did not win any more singles slams in the Open Era despite having won two slams in 1967 - his slam record fell off a cliff. I don't want to overstate the position more generally, and I agree that early Open Era slams were not particularly prestigious in the way that they are now for various reasons, but still they were more difficult to win after 1968 for the participation of former pro's - Laver's success in 1969 rather proves my point. I agree that the Australian Open continued to be a poor relation for another 20 years (suggesting that we agree Emerson's 6 wins are largely irrelevant in the great scheme of who is the greatest), but that does not alter the fact that the best pro's during the 1960's were still better than the best amateurs. I still don't get the relevance of tie-breakers to whether Emerson's record as an amateur compares with the best pro's.

After a few days to take a break because I have actually been tired of this debate.

My point is this. Emerson is a great whether you want to accept or not. He won Slams. The is the cold fact that cannot be ignored no matter how much you want to reduce the achievement in context of what others have.

My point about such things as a 2 surface winner and also playing without tiebreakers actually highlights how difficult the amateur era was when you had set scores like 16-14. Without a shadow of a doubt they were putting the same court time as today's professionals or even more for that matter.

You are trying to label the amateur era as just that without consideration to the environments these players played in. In essence we may as well say that any achievement up to 1969 is none and void. You would have to agree that this is a ridiculous attitude to have. Take Fred Perry. He played 74 matches in his career and yet is rated highly in most quarters. Measuring his achievements against say a Djokovic would be daft given the difference in the era's they played in are so different. It is almost impossible to quantify the athletism and talent required to perform in both era's.

Emerson defeated Laver, Stolle, Ashe to win Slams. That for me is enough to stick him on the list.