The best baseliners in history, my top ten

First topic message reminder :

Now these rankings are based only on a narrow set of requirements covering baseline play. Of course serving, returning, volleys, half volleys, overheads, and drop shots are really not taken into account. That would be deemed outside of the criteria herein judged in the following list. What I did look at here is in forehand, backhand, defense, fitness, consistency, and ability to attack from the back of the court. Now please give your opinions really this a list of players I got a chance to watch so the old boys aren't included lets say circa 1980.

1. Djokovic
2. Nadal
3. Federer
4. Borg
5. lendl
6. Agassi
7. Sampras
8. Connors
9. Wilander
10. Murray

You notice quite a few things on Ms. Sharapova don't you julius?

She's very pretty, yes, especially her face. I'm being serious again.

There's prettier IMO.

ivanovic and kirilenko

Goerges

http://www.tennisrulz.com/players/goerges/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marat_Safin

(and please no Wee Keira stuff.... )

lydian wrote:Sampras probably had the best running and DTL FH the game has seen, as well as the running cross court FH which is a very hard shot to play.

Just the other day I have been thinking about just how fantastic his running forehand was - it was truly a sight to behold. Fed has been missing many of those lately, which keeps reminding me of Pete's running forehand even more. Agree that I do not remember anyone playing it as well or as beautifully as Pete did.

summerblues wrote:

lydian wrote:Sampras probably had the best running and DTL FH the game has seen, as well as the running cross court FH which is a very hard shot to play.

Just the other day I have been thinking about just how fantastic his running forehand was - it was truly a sight to behold. Fed has been missing many of those lately, which keeps reminding me of Pete's running forehand even more. Agree that I do not remember anyone playing it as well or as beautifully as Pete did.

That is why I am shocked that they would even question Sampras' ability from the back of the court. He was an extremely athletic player in some ways federer's superior, to this day nobody has hit the overhead with the sheer explosive ness leaping into the air. And the running forehand, he just had so much easy power much bigger shots than Fed from the serve and I feel pretty close to federer in terms of the forehand, with luxis i am frightened at the idea of how good Pete's serve and forehand would be.

Forehands...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz47_0dMCME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhaMRGKczVQ
I like this comment under the video "The forehand at 7:34 shows how tennis has changed fast courts or slower courts or whatever the reason. There was no reason for Sampras to go so close to the line with that shot, real precision. Djokovic or Murray will simply never envisage a shot like that from that position of the court, tennis is so conservative now. But hey! It's a golden era."

Also,
"The other thing the study showed from 1998 was that Sampras put more topspin on his strokes than Andre Agassi and Jim Courier on average. One forehand had 3600 rpms. That is something Cliff Drysdale mentioned in 1990 when Sampras was starting out as well which is interesting.
One thing to note about Sampras' groundstrokes is that he didn't shank much at all, unforced errors? of course like everyone else but hardly ever shanked, a very clean hitter of a tennis ball."

"There was a great study done at the 1998 US Open which I used for my Sampras article "In depth look at his game" which Pete put on his facebook page back in June. The study showed that some Sampras 1st serves at 120mph had an incredible 4200 rpms, far above any other players. Some 2nd serves had over 5200 rpms! That's why his serve at 128mph is much more devastating than a Roddick serve at 138mph for instance.  Unfortunately the study went offline in August, I wished I took a screenshot." (and they measured speed over the net in those days so add 10-15mph to compare to today's off the racquet measurements)

The point is that Sampras used a lot of spin on all his shots, more so than his contemporaries in just about every department. This is why you'll never get me pinning GOAT on one player, not when I remember Pete's athleticism, ability and all court power game in an era of lower tech (75lb gut strings!), greater diversity of conditions and his own medical condition. Some of those FHs are just ridiculous winners, you never see the ball fly past players like that anymore. That's why I put him in the top10 for the early part of his career, before he moved forward much more.

I think is bad when people keep on posting without knowing the factws well or without doing a little homework before. It seems the Socal contagion effect is taking over on a wider scale......

Player: No. of Forehands: RPM Range: Avg RPM:
Sergi Bruguera 9 2941-3751rpm 3331rpm
Tomas Muster 22 1500-3750rpm 2882rpm
Marcelo Rios 13 1875-3750rpm 2647rpm
Mark Philippousis 8 2143-2727rpm 2546rpm
Jim Courier 12 938-3264rpm 2527rpm
Michael Chang 17 1271-3192rpm 2334rpm
Pete Sampras 17 1000-3409rpm 1842rpm
Andre Agassi 19 1154-3333rpm 1718rpm
Todd Martin 5 1154-2308rpm 1659rpm
Tim Henman 7 833-2000rpm 1288rpm
Petr Korda 15 968-2500rpm 1333rpm

Bruguera's fh had the same average rpm than Nadal. Sampras and Agassi were close. Courier far above. Is the average rpm the best critera to evaluate an era?

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:It seems the Socal contagion effect is taking over on a wider scale......

Very well said, JK. I mean the SoCal effect, not the RPM discussion.

I'm sure different rpm analyses give different averages. That list above has Sampras on a higher peak rpm than Courier or Agassi which is still surprising
Yes RPM isn't the be all, end all of quality. Movement, etc counts too. Also there is weight of shot as well as the RPM, for example Nadal has a far heavier FH than Bruguera plus all that spin. Likewise Sampras had weight and spin...its all about the amount of timing and energy going into the ball.

laverfan wrote:

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:It seems the Socal contagion effect is taking over on a wider scale......

Very well said, JK. I mean the SoCal effect, not the RPM discussion.

The socal maxim, now the socal effect and socal contagion, if you want to protect against the socal contagion or effect I suggest you lock up your women folk ranging from 18-60, that is the only defense to force as irressistible as gravity itself.

Jeremy stop argueing with people who watched the man play and telling us that Sampras' wasn't great from the baseline. I don't think frankly you can do a top ten list an leave out a guy with on of the top 5 forehands in the history of the tour, I rooted against the man in almost every match, and I wouldn't deny him his due. Despite being forced to play on faster and unhomogenized surfaces unlike federer who could win on all surfaces because they are the same. Isn't that the argument we hear often from a certain player's fans?

Instead I was a big fan of Pete. I just don't think his main streght was his baseline game. He was good there, very good if you like, just not as good asa Bruguera or a Muster. Otherwise he'd have won boatloads on clay as well.

He would blast both those guys off the baseline on any of the outdoor or indoor hardcourts, so is clay now the principal measure of baseline play. Unless you are good on 1/4 of the surfaces the fact that you would dominate brugera and muster on the other 3/4 of the surfaces somehow results in Sampras being inferior to those two. Brugera and muster wouldn't stand a chance from the baseline against Pete when he was clicking on any medium to fast surface that was not clay.

socal1976 wrote:Jeremy stop argueing with people who watched the man play and telling us that Sampras' wasn't great from the baseline. I don't think frankly you can do a top ten list an leave out a guy with on of the top 5 forehands in the history of the tour, I rooted against the man in almost every match, and I wouldn't deny him his due. Despite being forced to play on faster and unhomogenized surfaces unlike federer who could win on all surfaces because they are the same. Isn't that the argument we hear often from a certain player's fans?

You do, but only because those players really do depend on homogenisation, unlike Federer. We know his range of play took in fast court serve & volley as a very young player, right through to clay or some of the super slow 'hard' courts we see today.

socal1976 wrote:He would blast both those guys off the baseline on any of the outdoor or indoor hardcourts, so is clay now the principal measure of baseline play.

Usually great baseliners are very good on clay. Fact.


FedEx ATP Head 2 Head: Pete Sampras 2 - 3 Sergi Bruguera

Year Tournament & City Surface Round Winner & Score
1997 ATP Masters Series Miami
FL, U.S.A. Hard S Bruguera, Sergi
5-7, 7-6(2), 6-4

1996 Roland Garros
France Clay R64 Sampras, Pete
6-3, 6-4, 6-7(2), 2-6, 6-3

1993 ATP Tour World Championship
Germany Carpet RR Sampras, Pete
6-3, 1-6, 6-3

1993 Roland Garros
France Clay Q Bruguera, Sergi
6-3, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4

1993 World Team Cup
Germany Clay RR Bruguera, Sergi
6-3, 6-1

Ironic that you highlight that win (which was in very hot & humid conditions which Sampras was never comfortable in with his thalassemia), but not the 5 set win over clay king Bruguera in his own backyard slam in '96...where there will have been an awful lot of rallying.

Speaking of thalassemia, one match report of that HC loss said "Today, Sampras's performance was so anemic that even from the service line, a spot where he usually feels competent, he succumbed on all four break points allotted the Spaniard; adding insult to injury, the 26-year-old Bruguera also out-aced him, 10-8."

Ironic that they didn't know he had that condition (thalassemia - mild anemia) at the time. He wore a baseball cap in the match to try and keep the heat off which Sampras never did...the report went on

"The day was steamy and soupy, and the stadium court at the Lipton Championships felt enough like a hot kitchen to Pete Sampras that he plunked an oversized white cap on his head to ward off the tropical sun. But Sampras couldn't handle the heat and surrendered today's semifinal match to the bare-headed, bold-minded Sergi Bruguera of Spain.

Sampras, the top-seeded player, was off to a career-best 20-1 start in 1997, a season he commenced by capturing his ninth Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, but this afternoon's 2-hour-8-minute stumble made his bright start seem immaterial.

''It's a match I should have won 9 times out of 10,'' said Sampras, who had been counting on making restitution here for his opening-round loss to Bohdan Ulihrach two weeks ago at Indian Wells, Calif.

After skulking away from the court today, Sampras settled into an overstuffed plaid chair in the interview room like an old-timer; his head lolled back, and had the chair boasted a recliner option, he would have availed himself of it.

''I just played a bad match, really disappointing,'' said Sampras, who rated his performance a 4 on a 10-point scale and was especially annoyed by his timidity in the second set's tie breaker.

''He played well and served well, but I kind of let him. And he hit the ball pretty heavy and strong to my backhand.''

After being discombobulated by the desert conditions in Indian Wells, Sampras, twice a Lipton champion, let the humidity here turn his game soggy.

''I could have set up the points a little better and not risked as much,'' said Sampras, a patsy for Bruguera's passing shots whenever he rushed to the net behind a less-than-impeccable approach.

Sampras from the baseline on anything other than clay would beat brugera and muster from the back of the court on a majority of encounters. The man was lethal from the back on a medium or fast paced court, forget about indoors those guys would be lucky to win a set if he was playing near his potential.

I love all these people who tell us h2h between fed and nadal don't matter always picking out a loose match here and there to put forward really bizarre theories that on a medium to fast non-clay court brugera and muster would best Sampras from the back of the court. I bet the majority 3-8 shot rallies go sampras' way in those conditions.

socal1976 wrote:I love all these people who tell us h2h between fed and nadal don't matter always picking out a loose match here and there to put forward really bizarre theories that on a medium to fast non-clay court brugera and muster would best Sampras from the back of the court. I bet the majority 3-8 shot rallies go sampras' way in those conditions.

Fedal to Muster/Bruguera vs Sampras.

The best baseliner ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwU8QeW4ofU

Rolling Stone magazine disagree LK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=594WLzzb3JI

He might be from a weaker era though

They say John Taylor from Duran Duran was a very under-rated bass-liner

Do number 1 albums = Slams?

In terms of ground strokes, thought you guys might find this interesting...

A study of speed and spin across 2009 and 2010 hard court events during ralley points, i.e. proper ralleying groundstrokes not approaches, etc, using high-speed video footage and custom video analysis software found the following average FH ralleying speeds and spins across that period:

Andy Murray - 69.8mph - 2562rpm
Roger Federer - 75.8mph - 2350rpm
Novak Djokovic - 78.2mph - 2550rpm
Rafael Nadal - 88.5mph - 2688rpm

Surprising hey? Nadal is hitting the FH harder, and putting more spin on it at the same time. Just as I theorise Sampras did in the 90s with his FH (high speed/high spin) to make the dominating ground stroke of the period.

What is amazing with Nadal's stats is that he doesn't have a heavy swingweight racquet, nor uses Luxilon like the others.

Lydian kind of throws a little bit of salt on your own theory that djokovic doesn't hit heavy on that shot with a lot of rpms. I have always scratched my head a bit when you talk about how federer's forehand is heavier in terms of spin. I have always thought Novak to get the superior RPMs on the forehand to federer especially if you look at that heavy spinning cross court forehand that opens the court. Nadal has a later strike point and taking the ball earlier gives the shot more penetration, in that respects advantage to the other three players over Nadal.

I can't find the original data Lydian is referring to. However, apparently Roddick was recorded at more or less the same speed and spin as Nadal, which kind of casts doubt on the whole analysis.

Yes I wonder about these stats that are so precise I mean how detailed and accurate are they?

The numbers are always subject to error...it depends on how the guys measured, etc...
Socal, I'd always seen stats that had Djokovic much lower on spin but perhaps they were incorrect.
This analysis sounds pretty thorough in its application.

Here's the link I had where its mentioned, but to be fair to Roddick he plays with an extreme Western grip so will get loads of spin, he also plays with a light Babolat racquet using pro-spin strings. The data was measured on HCs and Roddick does thump the ball well there...he was also arguably playing some of his best tennis around 2009, maybe into 2010 so perhaps was getting more pop.

http://blog.tennisspeed.com/2011/01/forehand-speed-and-spin-rates-of-atp.html

Yes Lydian I am not disputting your honesty but sometimes I question some of the statistical work they put out there if they sound a bit fishy. More evidence the best roddic we have ever seen was in 2009 not 2003.

I don't see it like that...he was v.good in 2003, then the courts slowing process sent him out of whack (relatively) for a while...then he decided to reapply himself, so he retrained, got fitter, adapted his strokes...added more spin...and came back stronger in 2009.

As to Djoko's forehand I feel like he hits it with more spin than federer but federer takes it on average earlier and hits it a bit flatter. Djoko actually hits a pretty safe base forehand with a lot of margin. He will flatten out often but I would think he hits higher RPMs than fed he is really western on his grip.

Yes Djokovic has Western grip...more excessive than either Federer or Nadal, both being semi-western that side. I would agree Novak hits with a lot of spin, and the stats seem fair enough...they both seem to hit a similar weight shot. The stats revelation is Nadal in terms of mph, we knew the spin was high. But then he puts so much dynamic energy on the ball with that unique FH that its not a surprise. I showed a link of him hitting a FH vs Ancic timed at 115 mph...that is truly huge. It rather dispels all this crap about him being some feathery moon baller. For me the Nadal FH is the shot of this more recent generation (2004 onwards). We saw the damage it did to Delbonis yesterday too even after months away, not many can live with it when he's rusty never mind in full flow.

I agree on Nadal on the miles per hour, some of the fastest shots that I have ever seen hit off the ground are nadal forehands. When he flattens it out he still has rotation on the ball just less spin and a tighter rotation. A player who hits with too little spin will also be limited in miles per hour, because without spin there is only so hard you can hit a ball flat, have it clear the net, and bouce in.

It Must Be Love wrote:InvisibleCoolers, I think that's a very good list

I'd have Djokovic in their though, that's one of the place where we differ. Also I'm not sure I'd include Sampras.

Sorry IMBL I just see Socal over hypes his hero, there are so many better players than Djoko when it comes to baseline, to put Djoko ahead of Nadal, Federer, Lendll, Borg, Agassi, Connors, Sampras , Guga, is just a plain joke.

socal1976 wrote:

Born Slippy wrote:I'm not going to try going back beyond what I can remember watching plus I think trying to compare Borg's old school backhand would make it very tricky. Since the end 80s/start of the 90s I would say:

1. Agassi
2. Djokovic
3. Nadal
4. Lendl
5. Federer
6. Connors
7. Kuerten
8. Murray
9. Courier
10. Rios

Well I think people are wrong to not put sampras there simply because my criteria is to look at how good they played from the back not necessarily in labelling the player as one type or another. Otherwise a very fair list BS, can't say the contenders aren't strong.

Exactly thats why Brugera, Borg, Agassi, Lendl, Courier, Chang will all fall above Djoko, have you ever watched M Chang play? he is way better baseliner than Djoko.

socal1976 wrote:
1. Djokovic
2. Nadal
3. Federer
4. Borg
5. lendl
6. Agassi
7. Sampras
8. Connors
9. Wilander
10. Murray

The List clearly exposes Socal's limited knowledge on tennis , how on earth Murray on top 10 and great clay courters like Guga, Brugera, Chang all left out? Socal did you random made the list? or u just started watching tennis from 2011?

invisiblecoolers wrote:

socal1976 wrote:

Born Slippy wrote:I'm not going to try going back beyond what I can remember watching plus I think trying to compare Borg's old school backhand would make it very tricky. Since the end 80s/start of the 90s I would say:

1. Agassi
2. Djokovic
3. Nadal
4. Lendl
5. Federer
6. Connors
7. Kuerten
8. Murray
9. Courier
10. Rios

Well I think people are wrong to not put sampras there simply because my criteria is to look at how good they played from the back not necessarily in labelling the player as one type or another. Otherwise a very fair list BS, can't say the contenders aren't strong.

Exactly thats why Brugera, Borg, Agassi, Lendl, Courier, Chang will all fall above Djoko, have you ever watched M Chang play? he is way better baseliner than Djoko.

Michael Chang a better baseliner than Novak Djokovic, and you have the nerve to laugh at other people's tennis knowledge. Ok IC, I just stop paying attention because anyon who claims chang is a better baseliner than Djokovic and mocks other people's tennis knowledge is beyond my abilities to educate.

I probably ought to go back and watch some of Chang's matches (like that'll ever happen). Over the years I'm sure my opinion of him, which started off as very low, has got worse. He wasn't even the best baseliner in his own living room. When he was by himself.

As a del potro fan I am interested in how your favorite player keeps getting dominated on tour by a poor man's version of micheal chang.

LOL!, chang wasn't that bad Julius by extension he would have been the world #1 if he played today!

Now do you get it? After he carves up the all time clay court king in his third big clay final and takes his 14th master's crown maybe some of the doubters will get it as well. But I forgot he can't compare to the sublime Michael chang, lol!

What next someone is going to tell me that fat dave is the second most super talented player in history done in by all you can eat buffets and slow conditions.

Good grief! Got up early this morning and thought I'd take a look at the latest offerings here. The best baseliners in the history of the universe with Murray at no. 10?! I nearly chocked on my cornflakes. Next you'll be telling me Timmy only just missed the cut.

No newballs I will be telling you that dave nalbandian is #2 and Michael chang clearly ranked above murray and that talentless lung merchant Djokovic.

8 Slams winner Connors at n.8, 7 Slams winners Wilander at n. 9 and 1 slam holder Murray at n. 10.............is it because of the golden era thing that you left out Vilas, Guga & co?

Anyway, naming Sampras, a S&V player who won 7 times Wimbledon and never RG as one of the greatest beseliner in history shows that you really do know your stuff...............

It's a nonsense list; it takes no account of what the technology gives to each player. There are shots possible today that were simply not available in yesteryear, so how do we rate a given player above another in a particular discipline when they don't even have the same game available?

It'd be like giving them bigger balls and slower courts to play on then getting excited over their ability to retrieve. Ooooh err......

The OP is a freaking genius! One guy actually claimed Chang was a better baseliner lol!

You have forgotten Vilas, Muster, Leclerc, Bruguera. Some of the greatest clay players have been amazing baseliners.

You like reviving old threads, SoCal?