Eras of Tennis

First topic message reminder :

I saw a comment by Tenez and social1976 on another thread where there was a little banter and misunderstanding over strengths of various era. One point made was that we cannot judge the strength of the 2005 top 10 by todays tops ten unless we wait a few years to see how respective careers pan out. This seems reasonable. So with that in mind, below is the YE top ten every 5 years back to 1980, ignoring 2010. My question is - even with 20/20 hindsight can we say are all these eras equal, or do any stand out as strong/weak?

1980 - Men
1 Bjorn Borg 10 slams
2 John McEnroe 2 slams
3 Jimmy Connors 5 slams
4 Gene Mayer
5 Guillermo Vilas 4 slams
6 Ivan Lendl
7 Harold Solomon
8 Jose-Luis Clerc
9 Vitas Gerulaitis 1 slam
10 Eliot Teltscher

1985 - Men
1 Ivan Lendl 2 slams
2 John McEnroe 7 slams
3 Mats Wilander 4 slams
4 Jimmy Connors 8 slams
5 Stefan Edberg 1 slam
6 Boris Becker 1 slam
7 Yannick Noah 1 slam
8 Anders Jarryd
9 Miloslav Mecir
10 Kevin Curren

1990 - Men
1 Stefan Edberg 4 slams
2 Boris Becker 4 slams
3 Ivan Lendl 8 slams
4 Andre Agassi
5 Pete Sampras 1 slam
6 Andres Gomez 1 slam
7 Thomas Muster
8 Emilio Sanchez 3 slams
9 Goran Ivanisevic
10 Brad Gilbert

1995 - Men
1 Pete Sampras 7 slams
2 Andre Agassi 3 slams
3 Thomas Muster 1 slam
4 Boris Becker 5 slams
5 Michael Chang 1 slam
6 Yevgeny Kafelnikov
7 Thomas Enqvist
8 Jim Courier 4 slams
9 Wayne Ferreira
10 Goran Ivanisevic

2000 - Men
1 Gustavo Kuerten 2 slams
2 Marat Safin 1 slam
3 Pete Sampras 12 slams
4 Magnus Norman
5 Yevgeny Kafelnikov 2 slams
6 Andre Agassi 6 slams
7 Lleyton Hewitt
8 Alex Corretja
9 Thomas Enqvist
10 Tim Henman

2005 - Men
1 Roger Federer 6 slams
2 Rafael Nadal 1 slam
3 Andy Roddick 1 slam
4 Lleyton Hewitt 2 slams
5 Nikolay Davydenko
6 David Nalbandian
7 Andre Agassi 8 slams
8 Guillermo Coria
9 Ivan Ljubicic
10 Gaston Gaudio 1 slam



Some comments from me:

Very close generally, but 1985 looks like a daddy to me and 1990-1995 also look very strong. 2000 - not so good and 2005 bar the immense top two and and aging Agassi does look (marginally) light.

Agassi appears here 4 times - quite amazing for some one with such inconsistent ranking[img][/img]

Just added the graph of slam numbers. Its seems these back up even more clearly the 1985 argument, with the most slams held, the highest number of players with slams and the highest slam count even if you discount the most sucessful/aging player. 1980 is very high, but a lot of that is from Borgs dominance at that time, 1990 and 1995 are as strong (1 slam behind)

Fast forward to 2000 and it looks ok until you take out Pete and behind him theres a very low number of slams (Blue line), same in 2005 behind Agassi - 2005 has the lowest score in total slams (sudden dip) and total slams minus leader - it had been worse than that from 2003 forward after Sampras retired.

Bogbrush what if roger's competition was weaker you assume that Roger was so much better than his competition and therefore that is why he won so many slams. But the fact remains Murray, Nadal, and Djoko all had more success against Roger than any of his contemporaries. And they beat Roger more often when they were teenagers and Roger was at his absolute peak, than players like Safin, Roddick, and hewitt did. Nalby excepted he always played roger tough. I mean Murray and Novak beat Roger in his prime when they weren't even close to their primes. Roddick is what 2 for 296 against Roger? Frankly, I think it is a combination of both factors Roger is a certainly a seminal talent, but he also benefitted from a class of contemporaries that either suffered injuries, weren't dedicated or talented enough. Why didn't Ivan Ljubicic ever even reach a grandslam semi, when ranked #3 in the world, did Roger knock him out every time?

Bogbrush what if roger's competition was weaker
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I think even Tom agrees that the more recent players are better than the past players. SO the 2004-7 players were simply "better" and I don;t mean more talented or else, but simply better than past players. Agassi who played long enough to talk about the 90s and 00s will tell you just that. There is no point saying that they were weak compared to today's players. As mentioned those coming up in a couple of years will make Nadal and Djoko look "weaker".

But if you don't want to acknowlege it, then what can we do?

Tom_____ wrote:Bog,
Please tell me where i have said anything about spread meaning a strong era - all i said was several champion quality players.

How do you prove that without reference to their titles?

And in any case your earlier posts rattle on about nothing else than the number of Slam titles amongst the top players. You appear to be all over the place on this debate.

Tom

You should have added in the 2010 top 10:
Nadal
Fed
Djoko
Murray
Soderling
Berdych
Ferrer
Roddick
Verdasco
Youzny.

Between Y/E 2005 and Y/E 2010, there were 20 slams played, of which Federer won 10 and Nadal 8. Djokovic had 1 (and one since) and Del Potro, who is absent from the top 10 because he was injured all year, the other - Roddick is the only other slam winner in that list, and that came before 05. The question though is does this show a weak era behind the top 2, or just highlight how outstanding Federer and Nadal were during that period?

I think most of us acknowledge there is good strength in depth to the current top 10 (probably moreso than in the early 2000s), but using the slam totals as an indicator of this would suggest otherwise - indeed, you'd have the highest number of slams held by the top 10, at 27, highest number held if you exclude the #1 ranked (18) but the lowest number of winners (4) and a low number if you exclude the player with most slams.

If you exclude the two most successful players (in terms of slam wins) from each top 10, you get:
1980 - 7 slams amongst 3 players
1985 - 9 slams amongst 5 players
1990 - 9 slams amongst 4 players
1995 - 9 slams amongst 4 players
2000 - 5 slams amongst 3 players
2005 - 5 slams amongst 4 players
2010 - 2 slams amongst 2 players.

What does it prove? Mostly the dominance of a pair of players between about 95 and the present (Sampras/Agassi then Federer/Nadal), and that perhaps there was more longevity of the very top players in the game up to about 2000 (Agassi being top 10 from 1990 to 2005, Lendl, Sampras and Becker all being top 10 for a decade). Not sure what this all means for the analysis

socal1976 wrote:Bogbrush what if roger's competition was weaker you assume that Roger was so much better than his competition and therefore that is why he won so many slams. But the fact remains Murray, Nadal, and Djoko all had more success against Roger than any of his contemporaries. And they beat Roger more often when they were teenagers and Roger was at his absolute peak, than players like Safin, Roddick, and hewitt did. Nalby excepted he always played roger tough. I mean Murray and Novak beat Roger in his prime when they weren't even close to their primes. Roddick is what 2 for 296 against Roger? Frankly, I think it is a combination of both factors Roger is a certainly a seminal talent, but he also benefitted from a class of contemporaries that either suffered injuries, weren't dedicated or talented enough. Why didn't Ivan Ljubicic ever even reach a grandslam semi, when ranked #3 in the world, did Roger knock him out every time?

OK, so he's rubbish and it's proved by the fact nobody else won titles. Or else he's brilliant because he stopped them all winning stuff.

Ljubicic was also a poor #3 because there were so many players who could beat him; that proves it was weak (or does it prove depth?..... I forget where the rules of this stupid debate takes us).

"Frankly I think...." is about as scientific as this debate can ever get; the whole thing is a joke, and the OPs table is uterly meaningless as a guide to whether one or other era is stronger or weaker.

Here's the answer: standards will always rise as players receive superior training, equipment, and as techniques advance, just as science is further ahead than Isaac Newton despite needing Newtons shoulders to stand upon. But is Bert Entwistle, manning the accelerator in CERN a superior mathematician and genius than Newton? I think not.
It's the same in all sport. I have only seen three such players - Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Roger Federer. The rest just capitalise on what is available and the game goes along, until another mega-great emerges.

Bogbrush

Wasn't it Einstein that originally said something along the lines of 'by standing on the shoulders of giants I can see further...'

This is one of the reasons even technical sports advance - the new generation see all that the past players have done, and can master those skills, then add a few extra (especially the case if you have an exceptional talent such as Borg or Fed...). To use a football example, the 'Cruyff turn' was a major highlight of the 1974 World Cup, but now even 8 year olds can do it (OK, not as well as Cruyff did), because they have seen how it is done and can replicate the skill.

'Pure' athleticism advances anyway because of improvements in sports science, which probably do follow a near-linear trend, because results can be seen in a short timescale.

Tom_____ wrote:Bog,
Please tell me where i have said anything about spread meaning a strong era - all i said was several champion quality players.

Ive long said a spread of slam winners can indicate weakness - but truthfully it could indicate both. For instance the womens game right now i think is quite weak, but it does have a big spread of slam winners. The men in 85 were clearly very high quality - same thing, different result

I presented data 3 ways, so certainly am not fixated upon any of them - in fact the spread appears to be the poorest indicator of the 3 as the line is nearly horizontal.

Clearly though theres a drop off after 2000 looking at the other indicators. Please try to find and indicator that statistically shows 2005 to be strong compared to other years, that isn't related to equipment such as speed of shots - i'll add it to my chart if applicable

Your chart is meaningless. It's measuring something to do with the distribution of Slam titles, which is irrelevent when it comes to assessing the strength of an era of tennis, because all it indicates is the relative capability of the players of that time against each other. It has nothing at all to do with how they match up against players of another era, because they didn't play each other in these events.

It's a fair guide to the competitiveness within an era, but that's an entirely different subject. A better one might be stability of players ranking (where the immense periods of time Federer has been at #1, Nadal at #2 and Djokovic at #3 suggest there have been substantial differences in achievement between the #1, #2 and #3 in that period (and Murray has spent a long time at #4 too), with barely anyone else getting a look in for a long time. This is borne out by their Slam totals.

In 10 years time, when people see that Soderling, Berdych, Monfils, Melzer and Fish were part of the top 10 they would have a good case to make a mockery of this current era too. ...If we wanted to think along the lines of Tom and Socal.

Tenez wrote:In 10 years time, when people see that Soderling, Berdych, Monfils, Melzer and Fish were part of the top 10 they would have a good case to make a mockery of this current era too. ...If we wanted to think along the lines of Tom and Socal.

Don't agree with that, they are top players. Problem is for them that the top 4 are so much better in terms of skill and shot-making.

Jubbahey wrote:

Tenez wrote:In 10 years time, when people see that Soderling, Berdych, Monfils, Melzer and Fish were part of the top 10 they would have a good case to make a mockery of this current era too. ...If we wanted to think along the lines of Tom and Socal.

Don't agree with that, they are top players. Problem is for them that the top 4 are so much better in terms of skill and shot-making.

Sure Nicolas Lapentti was excellent and a top player too.

Top marks Tom___ for at least giving it a go. However, this is the old compare-era game and it just cant be done. All you can do is discuss who is the strongest of each era - I always called it GOTEs (greatest of their era) vs GOATS on 606.

The other problem is then defining what an era is. To go 80-85, 86-90, etc, is just using artificial boundaries of time - you could equally go 82-87, 88-92, etc. Era's in tennis tend to be defined by the leading player of the time not decades or half-decades. Personally I think the 80s in general was a tough era to compete, but other periods have very tough periods on specific surfaces, for example their were many great claycourters in the 90s.

Tenez has a very transparent agenda against Nadal as anyone who frequented 606 will know and goes for the physical angle all the time to try to explain whats wrong with the game right now, i.e. Nadal is what's wrong with the game right now. I think the physicality, and his physicality, of the game right now is overstated too much. At the end of the day the fittest player does not become no.1 by that alone. The top very players need skill, strategy, mental strength, etc. Just because Nadal plays a different game to Federer doesnt make him less skillful given the success he's had.
Pro tennis is about winning and Nadal knows how to win, bu using all the elements of his game to full effect. Sure stamina is important (always was relatively), and you can point to many players who have high stamina today - Federer, Djokovic, Murray and of course Nadal. Anyway, I'm sorry to further detract the thread with this talk of physicality.

My final comment on eras, is that generally a players lifecycle in tennis in prime is about 7 years today but was longer in the 80s due to the game being a little slower and players on average played less matches due to the ranking system. So the question is do you make an era 5, 7 or 10 yrs and then when do you start the era? I dont think that can be answered unless you pin it to when the dominant player of that era started to dominate - but then you'll end up with era's of different lengths, etc. Nightmare!

Tenez has a very transparent agenda against Nadal as anyone who frequented 606
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Anybody who knows you from 606 knows your agenda in trying to dismantle Federer whether it is v Nadal or v Sampras.

I could provide many links about it with many serious posters confirming this.

I don;t have an agenda regarding Federer! He is teh best player out there. The most talented that is. It's as simple as that. The day a better player, more talented will come up, I'll be the happiest tennis fan.

That's the difference between you and me. I am not a basic fan nor do I dislike a player in particular. It's all based on tennis and style alone.

Jubbahey wrote:

Tenez wrote:In 10 years time, when people see that Soderling, Berdych, Monfils, Melzer and Fish were part of the top 10 they would have a good case to make a mockery of this current era too. ...If we wanted to think along the lines of Tom and Socal.

Don't agree with that, they are top players. Problem is for them that the top 4 are so much better in terms of skill and shot-making.

I think it's clear that Tenez wasn't saying they were rubbish, he was highlighting that using the OPs method they would be classified as rubbish, or mentally weak, lacking the "x-factor". See the highlighted bit.

Tenez, you're being altruistic. You were banned from 606 for your views about Nadal right?

I have no agenda against Federer or any other player. What I did do was provide reasons why I didnt think he was the best player of all time for those who tried to ram it down my throat all the time. I appreciate qualities of all players, including Federer - who I look forward to watching in the semis, and like anyone I have my favourites from the 80s/90s/00s.

I also take exception to you defining me as a "basic" fan. You have no idea about my love of tennis which dates back to the early 80s, to my involvement in the game outside of tennis forums (tennis club chairman, Mens 1st team captain, county league player, etc, etc). I was quite happy to join this forum but have to admit to having then been somewhat dismayed in seeing your name on here as I know you will continue to discredit Nadal's abilities and achievements as you did before on 606.

You were banned from 606 for your views about Nadal right?
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No. Not my views on Nadal. Just my views on his physical tennis.

What I did do was provide reasons why I didnt think he was the best player of all time for those who tried to ram it down my throat all the time.

I am afraid you'd need a big and detailed agenda to prove Fed is not the GOAT, cause not many question it nowadays.

Not that it matters anyway.

I'm going to leave this now but again you're being altruistic. We both know your extreme and potentially libellous views about what Nadal was doing, not just his tennis game per se, led to many neutral members of 606 expressing their strong disapproval - these views got you banned by 606.

I dont need any agenda, just my own views that other pro players share. As you say it doesnt matter, because defining GOATs is meaningless when the game has changed so much and players like Laver werent able to compete fully in the 60s. Federer was the best of 2002-2007 but I dont accept any player is the best of all eras because I dont buy into comparing eras, and even find defining eras spurious.

On one hand Tenez says today's players are better and would beat players in the past because of their physical superiority. On the other hand goes out there and tries to argue how Federer's era was the strongest featuring world beating (never even played in a grandslam final or semifinal) Ivan Ljubicic as the world #3. The argument goes that Federer was so good that the prodigious talent of Ljubicic couldn't shine. I mean did Federer knock ljubicic out of every slam in the 4th and quarterfinals?

I think talent wise Federer's era was certainly one of the strongest, if ever we coudl talk about strong era. It is the era where people had enough talent to overcome Hewitt who was the epitome of fitness at that time.

Coria was a huge talent. Extremely weak mentally but a huge talent. Nalbandian is easily the second most talented player of the last decade. Inflicting Federer and Nadal some good thrashing. Ljubijic is also one of the cleanest ball striker. You might only remember his losses cause I am not sure you can appreciate talent in players. But remember when he inflicted Nadal a thrashing for 2 sets and a half on Nadal's home in Madrid and was only overcome by the crowd turning crazy and, again, Nadal's fitness who finally got the better of him in 5 sets. This match again summarises the difference between the 2005 era and now. Davydenko, well ask Nadal how good he is! Pound for pound isn't he more talented than the muscly spaniard? And Safin would very well fit in that list of players able to handle the supreme talent that was Federer then.

Roddick, certainly not that talented but one of the biggest weapon on the tour which would have probably given him 2 or 3 more Wimbedons and maybe another USO if it wasn't for Federer.

Compared to the current era, I see in the top 10 what we call "physical and atheletic" players: Monfils, Ferrer, Murray, Djokovic, Nadal and in a different style Soderling and Berdych. Those players strength is either their aptitude of bringing balls back and force long rallies to blunt the sharpness of talented players or blasting their way to victory (Berdych, Sod).

Can you spot the difference? I will not argue that overall the latter will beat more often than not the former ones, but if in a good day and/or on a fast surface, I woudl peak the 2005 guys anytime cause they were better ball strickers able to take time away from those physical players despite being physically not as fit.

Today's players might be also extrememly talented but they do not work on their talent if they want to be successful. Murray is the perfect example. He can certainly time a ball well and play a la Nalbandian if possible. But he knows that playing like Nalby will more likely than not make him lose cause he will have to produce many risky shots that are going to comeback and that will increase his chances of losing.

Djokovic is the one with the perfect balance at the moment. He was naturally more agressive than Murray and Nadal but can now run as quick and as much making his game much less risky than it was and therefore that increased his mental strength 10 folds.

On a fast surface you would favor Guillermo Coria over Novak or Andy Murray or Berdych? My 18 niece who plays college tennis has a harder and better serve than Guillermo. Ivan Ljubicic has a good serve and good backhand, his forehand is a poor shot technically although when he is hitting it well he gets real nice stick on it. The whole discussion is a hypothetical. Andy Roddick is completely one dimensional and by his mid twenties the players of the current generation all stormed past him when he was still young and a better player than he was in his early twenties. If anything Andy Roddick a player who worked tirelessly to improve his game and who by his mid twenties was no longer a major threat proves that the game has advanced a great deal in the last few years.

On a fast surface you would favor Guillermo Coria over Novak or Andy Murray or Berdych
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On the day? not a single doubt! He inflicted one of the rare 60 to Federer in Shanghai fast surface and Federer said he could not do anything.

See my edited text on Ljubo!

Yes you mean he lost that final in Madrid to Nadal, and that was when Madrid was played on an indoor surface that was maybe the fastest of any of the indoor surfaces due to the altitude. Ljubicic is not a bad player, but he is highly deficient as a world #3. Winning one masters and never even reaching a grandslam final (or semi). Meanwhile lets compare him to the contemporaries. Roger Federer is current #3 he is better at 29 than Ljubi was when he was ranked #3. #4 in the world Andy murray, 3 grandslam finals and 6 masters. #5 Robin (I know he is 4 but soon to be 5) 1 masters 2 grandslam finals. Tomas Berdych #6 (1 masters title, 1 grandslam final). And don't give me this junk about how incredible Fed was that he didn't allow Ljubi to shine, 90 percent of the time he was knocked out of grandslams before the semi stage by someone not named Federer. So ljubicic who is the #3 player in 2006 is not even as good as today's #6 player.

Ljubicic is not a bad player, but he is highly deficient as a world #3.
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Well he beat peak Nadal again on slow IW at the age of 31!

BUt I'll stop discussing with you cause your tennis knowledge is a bit restricted to how good a tennis player's name sounds!

Tenez wrote:Ljubicic is not a bad player, but he is highly deficient as a world #3.
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Well he beat peak Nadal again on slow IW at the age of 31!

BUt I'll stop discussing with you cause your tennis knowledge is a bit restricted to how good a tennis player's name sounds!

I guess since Ljubicic beat Nadal once and that therefore proves how great he is then Nadal's 16 victories against Federer prove he is the goat. You are the one who claims head to head records are meaningless. By the way every dog has his day, Ljubicic played the tournament of his life and served lights out. He is not a horrible player, he can win individual matches on his day. And it has nothing to do with his name it has to do with the fact that he won virtually nothing of value and was a total flop in the grandslams not even making the semis, and yet managed to finish as the #3 ranked player in the world in the socalled incredibly strong Federer era.

And it has nothing to do with his name it has to do with the fact that he won virtually nothing of value and was a total flop in the grandslams not even making the semis, and yet managed to finish as the #3 ranked player in the world in the socalled incredibly strong Federer era. .
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Thanks for confirming my point about your tennis knowledge.

WWWWWW= Good
LLLLLLLL= Bad


Anything else to add?

Thats Lydian,

It could be said that you can either argue that its irrelevant or impossible to compare eras, which is a fair enough view; Or you can say statistically the 80s was very tough - thats about it really.

The point for me is if we can't compare era's, we also can't say anyone is the GOAT, only best of a generation etc. It seems odd that some people are happy to stamp GOAT on some one, but then are not happy to compare era's.

P.S i did plan to go on to do similar 5 years step comparisions for 81-86, 82-87,83-88, 84-89 and so on to see how things come out - the reason to do that it you could overlap that data to produce a yearly indicator of era. I'm gonna leave than for another day though as am very busy.

Also for another thread i'm going to write - could people tell me some names i could include for best players/multi slam champs (4+) in the open era, incase i forget any.

E.g Sampras Agassi, Becker, Connors, Mac etc

Personally Tom, and I'm not really into comparing eras, but if I had to stick my neck out I think the period 83-88 was one of the strongest ever - Lendl, Mac, Becker, Wilander, Edberg, even Connors was still in the mix. All true legends of the the game and all tough to beat. One of the arguments that will always go against Fed as GOAT is that he didnt dominate the other strongest player of the 'noughties'. If Djokovic can keep this new level up I can see him winning many slams also given that Fed will likely decline more significantly after this year, Nadal will probably also do so given he's been playing at a high level since he was 16, and Murray will sneak the odd slam (1-3 maybe). If we look at the next 20 slams ahead (thats 5 years worth) taking Nole to 29yo, I can see him winning half of those - if he's only 90% of the level he's now at. If he keeps this up then who knows how many he will win.

For open era players there arent that many 4+ slam winners - Laver, Courier, Lendl, Edberg, Agassi, Becker, Mac, Connors, Wilander, Sampras, Nadal, Federer...thats it I think. And then if you look at guys who won slams on all 3 surfaces its even smaller...Connors (US Open was on clay one year), Wilander (won AO on grass and hard), Nadal, Agassi, Federer.

Cant believe we're arguing the toss about how good Ljubicic is when he hasnt even reached a slam final, and only reached 1 SF and 1 QF. Hardly the stuff of legend. Hewitt filled the twilight years between peak Sampras and peak Federer. The biggest underachievers who should have challenged Federer were Nalby and Safin - Safin particularly underachieved given the hugeness and talent of his game - as anyone who saw him beat Fed at AO in 2005 knows. Probably Phillopousis also. What is interesting is how well older guys like Henman and Agassi did in the early/midish 2000s which to me speaks that the younger talent wasnt all that strong in depth.

Cant believe we're arguing the toss about how good Ljubicic is when he hasnt even reached a slam final, and only reached 1 SF and 1 QF.
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For the very reason I have kept on banging for the last 7 years on those forums. Today tennis is more physical and Ljubo is not fit enough to play gruelling best of 5 setters.

But too bad if you cannot see his talent. Nadal can!

Tenez, no one said he doesn't have talent, what I said was he was a highly deficient top 3 three player. A guy that if he was young today would be a top 10 or top 20 guy and would never reach the top 5. But you keep creating straw men for yourself. And as tom pointed out if you are going to stamp Fed as the Greatest of all time then you have to look and compare eras. That is why I don't really believe in the GOAt title to begin with, as stated before all you can do is measure a man against his contemporaries. you can only beat the competition placed in front of you.

Lydian I don't think you are sticking your neck out at all with 83-88 as being the toughest era if you do want to compare champions. The best players of that era truely were legends of all time when you look at what they accomplished in the game.

Then fitness is Lubers problem - talent on its own is worthless!
However, winning tennis matches is the overall talent we judge players by.
If they are able to maximise their abilities to win slams then they have true talent.
Talent isnt about caressing a ball around the court with the grace of a ballet dancer, its about winning matches! Otherwise, its not talent, just mere 'potential'.

All that said, I also dont buy your ongoing obession with player fitness. Luber lost many of his ATP finals in straight sets on fast hardcourts where fitness isnt an issue. He's never beaten Federer or Nadal in a final either.
His year end ranking besides 2006 when he got to #3 isnt that great across the decade if you care to check. His record at slams is shocking for a player with the talent you ascribe him to have. He's lost in the 1st round of slams over 20 times...that 5 straight years worth. Hardly a true giant of the game besides his size - and therein lies the problem if you havent got true talent. Guys of 6'4' and 92kg are not going to cut it against the type of guys who tend to dominate the tours over the years unless they have something extra talentwise. The ones who dominate are usually 5'11' to 6'2', around 80kg - i.e., lighter, faster, more adaptable. They clearly also have more talent for actually winning.

Only big guys like Ivanisevic, Delpo and Safin had the talent to win slams 'despite' their size. Luber is not in the same league as those 3 for a start, never mind many other greats of the game. Big guys tend to have big serves (like Luber) that can take them far but they need to be able to cut it regarding court coverage too. Thats not fitness, its actual mobility and speed - an area that has let Luber down over the years with his more wooden movement. Talent concerns having great physical attributes such as movement and foot-speed too.

Yep Socal, what players they were back then...imagine how many slams Lendl would have won had it not been for the others, or vice-versa with the others too - funny how they all shared between 6-8 slams.

Excellent post, lydian can't disagree with anything you wrote in that piece. The bottom line is that mobility and speed have always, always been a major part of the formula for determining a tennis champion. Look at Borg, even Mac was really fast in his youth something that most people fail to mention or remember. Pete Sampras was also very quick. And Roger federer won numerous titles and his speed was a major part of his championship runs.

Tenez wants to live in a dream world were winning isn't as important as looking good. I suppose we should turn tennis into something akin to figure skating were we rate who hit the prettiest shots.

Lydian the thing that I loved about those 80s champions was not only were they great players but most of them were great personalities. And they played every type of style imaginable. We had the power baseliners, grinders, serve and volley players. And it was that generation of players that with the advent of the graphite or alloy racquets started to use the technology to take power to the next level.

Socal

Perhaps it was this difference in styles between players that meant the slams were more widely distributed amongst the top players, especially as there was also a wider difference between the performance of different court surfaces.

Examples:
Mac only challenged once for the French Open, because the slow courts really nullified the quality of his serve and volley game, otherwise Lendl and Wilander were too good.
Lendl may have challenged for years and worked very hard to modify his game for the fast ciourts at Wimbledon, but could never get past the true serve-volley players like Edberg and Becker (and even Stich one year).

Obviously, modern tennis has been somewhat homogenised - Wimbledon certainly is not as fast as it was, Rolland Garros is little slower than a slowish hard court, and the rackets allow players to take a big swing at almost anything. Hence we have an era where the main competition is between retrievers/ counter attackers and aggressive baseliners, with virtually no-one adopting serve and volley tactics.

Good posts guys, agree that the different styles led to some great match-ups, as we have also had with Nadal v Federer, and Agassi v Sampras.

Its a shame they have sought to homogenise the courts...its led to a more 1-dimensional type of player and hence little variety amongst the players as you dont need surface specialists anymore, you can play the same game across all surfaces without having to change your game much - making it easier to therefore dominate all slams.

Ok everyone, this is a thread wide "suggestion", if you want to make personal remarks about other posters, I will delete them.

The subject is "era's" not past history or a posters tennis knowledge.

If I have to start removing comments because of this, warnings will go out, it does say quite plainly in the rules not to do this, so I "suggest" you all keep your comments cleaner and get on with the topic in hand.

Dummy half, to a certain degree I agree it mainly has to do with modern strings and racquets making it easier to return, pass, and to hit winners from the back of the court. In the era of the wooden racquet you were almost forced to finish the shot at net because it was very difficult to consistently hit through the court from the back. I actually like the modern style of power baseline play. The very best players still use volleying in their arsenal it is just not the basis of their game it is a variation a change of pace. I am not saying that the game couldn't use a few more serve and volleyers for variety's sake. But frankly I don't like serve and volley tennis, I don't enjoy short points that end in 1 or 2 shots I like point construction, and big shots from the back of the court. But to each their own, this is the style I prefer.