Who is your pick Borg, Lendl, Connors or Mcenroe?

Starting with
Connors,
won 8 slams,
held the record for 160 weeks at number 1,
won a staggering of 149 titles

Mcenroe
won a total of 7 slams out of the 11 finals

Lendl
19 slam finals but 8 slams and no Wimbledon

Borg
11 slams but no US open or Aussie open

The amazing thing is that despite winning 5 SW19's on grass, Borg never bothered entering Aussie Open...GOATdom wasnt a priority back then otherwise he would have surely racked up another 4-5 slams...

Guys, are there any reasons for choosing Borg over the other three? Why not Lendl who was no. 1 for record 270 weeks and reached one grand slam final at least for 11 years ?

Lydian, Borg never managed to win USO as well. Do you know why?

JP McEnroe for sure. 7 Single Grand Slam titles. 9 Doubles Grand Slam Titles. Former World no.1 and Doubles World no.1. Over 80% win ratio on both forms.

He got to 4 USO finals losing to Connors and McEnroe.

He was a bit unlucky though - and everyone needs some luck to win a slam. He had a near miss in 1976 when still not at his peak, he was injured in 1977 when was probably the favourite to win and had to pull out, had that severe thumb blister for the 1978 final (although he did not offer this as an excuse) and had some bad calls in the fifth set in 1980 may have cost him victory (Borg apparently said so privately)?

And because he never won USO he therefore didnt make the trip down under because he only wanted to do that to complete the slam!

My brain says Borg, but my heart Mac....

I read on Wikipedia that Borg received threats after beating Mc in one of the semis and subsequently he withdrew against Connors in the final. I am not sure as to what extent this has been true. TBf I never saw Borg playing.

For me, Borg is the probably the best player I've seen - just winning 5 slams on the fastest surface (and it was fast back then) and 6 on the slowest is amazing...amazing he never won USO which he clearly should have done. I used to watch him as a kid and be amazed by his mental strength, skill and approach to the game. To think he retired at Nadal's age...shame.

Got to go with connors. Here was a guy who played against Laver and Rosewall and also played against Agassi and Sampras. The all time record holder for most tournament victories with over 100 tournaments won. Borg in my mind loses a bit of luster in that he was the last great wood racquet champion and he was never able to transition effectively to the graphite racquets, and because he left the game in his youth. To a certain extent Mac had sussed him out on grass, and connors was better on a hardcourt to begin with. If I was doing the list I would put connors on top, followed by Lendl, then Borg, and finally Mac. Again I don't think you can just rank a player based on grandslams alone. That is the most important but not only factor.

With Lendl I think that people always wanted him to lose only. I dont remember when crowd was cheering for him.

Wow

He was one of the most disliked players on tour (tennis clinically brilliant) but quite a dislikeable person... as I understood it he was not the flavour of the month in the locker room also.

I personally intensely disliked him

I went for Jimmy Connors as well. Very tenacious and loved the way he used to go berserk and pump himself up during his matches. It just showed how much the game meant to him. Perhaps Borg had more talent but surely the love for the game wasn't so intense for the Swede or else why retire when still in his prime? McEnroe (at the time) did himself no favours with his behaviour but seeing him as a pundit you see him in a different light and comes across really well.

haddie I disliked him as well, but I have to say he was a dominant number #1 in an era that had the most depth of talent with players like Mac, Connors, Becker, Edberg, and Wilander. In fact I would like to revise my list and put Jimmy and Lendl at #1 in a tie. The thing that hurts Ivan is he never won wimby and lost most of the grandslam finals he played. But Lendl maybe the games most influential player. He was the first great power baseliner who used heavy spin and combination of big groundies and big serve to totally dominate his opposition. Lendl is kind of the first great modern power baseliner, and now everyone for the most part kind of plays like him.

CC

It still amazes me that people believe that Borg retired PURELY because of his tennis.. his lack of drive and because Mac was beating him. Borg was also caught up in an acrimonious divorce.. his ex took him for almost if not all he had.. There were external pressures on Borg that was unrelated to tennis which coupled with his tennis pressures assisted in making him quit. The wrong move we all know and one he came to regret

Mac was definitely an entertainer. It was fun to watch him.

Caledonian I kind of give connors a nod over players with about equal standing because of his longevity. Can you imagine a guy whose career went from the early 70s till the mid 90s and he played and beat literally everyone from Rosewall, Ashe, Laver, Newcombe, Vilas, Nastase, Borg, Mac, Edberg, Courier, Becker, Sampras, Agassi, and Wilander. The guy is like the kevin bacon of tennis, you can draw a straight line from him back to Bill Tilden probably.

Socal .. I also think that Borg too helped develop and mould todays powerful base-line game. I remember when he first hit the scene his unorthodox two handed base-line game made the pundits raise their eyebrows and say " this is not tennis". However he along with Lendl made that their bread and butter game albeit that Borg soon learned to come into the net and volley along with the best. But Lendl for me was so clinical I nicknamed him the Surgeon .. totally without charisma never saw him smile. I know how clever he was but I still didnt like him

McEnroe for me - purely for the *drama* he brought onto court
with him - and that hairband

Haddie the tennis had something to do with it though he lost three straight grandslam finals and he never really adjusted to modern racquet. He was definetly burned out both by pressure from inside and outside of the tennis world, but I don't think it is a coincidence that after he lost to mac in the 82 US open that he just upped and never played tennis again. I agree Borg was also very influential both in terms of bringing speed and fitness to the game and that two handed backhand of his was remarkable. But as you pointed out borg was actually a better server and volleyer than people give him credit for, he played S and V at wimbeldon. Even players in the past that were great baseliners like connors and borg had to be competent at net and be able to finish the point there because you just couldn't finish points that easily from the back of the court. While Lendl was the first guy to dominate the game almost completely from the back of the court and would finish the points from the back with winners.

Mac - and if he was playing today would love to see him arguing with Hawkeye!

Yes I agree with you Socal.. and no it wasn´t a coincidence that he upped and left after his loss to McEnroe.. but frankly I think it was "the last straw" Borg mentally wasn´t giving his game 100 per cent with what was also going on off court.. We saw this quite plainly with Rafa when his parents were separating and divorcing .. it was a distraction for Borg that he couln´t cope with at the time he was feeling the pressures on court. You must remember Borg has been married three times... he was a woman´s man without a doubt.. but his first wife was I think more interested in his money.
I took more than a keen interest Socal... I was a Borg "fan girl"

SL

If you have not read Johnny Mac´s autobiography.. I urge you to do so..Its a real eye opener and a funny read.... A lot of those tantrums on court were deliberate... to get himself banned for a couple of matches so he could nip home and spend time with his kids... honest !!!!

Also with Jimmy Connors who was one (if not the) first to start grunting when he served.. It was said he did it deliberately to annoy Mac..
Certainly the grunt got louder and louder during a match with Mac which was done obviously to wind him up... it was hillarious and of course Jimbo played to the crowd because they were on his side against "The Brat".... theatrical entertainment... wonderful

sportslover, they showed an exhibition in Doha or Dubai and Mac was playing borg and they had the hawkeye this was just a few months ago. And mac challenged every single close call and was wrong on everyone and he yells out the machine is wrong! it was ofcourse a lot of schtick but I think even hawkeye wouldn't keep mac from arguing.

Even today Borg looks like a rockstar, frankly if I looked like Borg and was famous like Borg I just wouldn't get married till the end of my career. The life of a tennis player is not exactly suited to marriage and family.

I loved how Jimmy and Mac were so similar in terms of personality but couldn't stand each other even though they were from the same country. Connors was not a very nice person on the court or in the lockeroom, his mother instilled that in him, she was one of those over bearing super competitive parents who pushed and pulled their child prodigy to the top.

To beat connors you knew that he was going to bend the rules, to come at you psychologically, physically, and technically and that it was going to be a street fight win or lose.

I cant remember what match it was .. all I know it was an indoor hard court match... An argument broke out between the two of them and Jimbo went round the net and put his fist right up to Mac´s nose I really thought he was going to hit him... how he got away with that Ill never know... but such was the animosity between the two. I think its only been in the last 2/3 years they have actually spoken to one another.

Having also read Agassi´s autobiography he did not have a lot of love for Jimbo either .. hey ho!!!!

Agree about Lendl's personality but his achievements were remarkable. I once wrote a thread on 606 in 2008 about Lendl - The Forgotten Great of Tennis.
Some of his records stand to this day and are still amazing:
- He got to the most USO finals - almost every year in the 80s (82 to 89 straight!). Winning 3 titles.
- He also won as many World Tour Championships as Sampras and Federer (5 titles). Plus he won a stack of other hardcourt titles.
- He holds the record for winning ATP titles for the most consequetive years (14) - stands alone
- Hardcourt win/loss: career match win percentage (hard courts) 82.59% (477/394) - stands alone
- US Open, 1985–87, win/loss (sets) overall 95.5% (63/3) - stands alone
- 5 years consecutive match win percentage 90% (419/36) - stands alone
- Remains the only male tennis player with at least 90% match wins in five different years (1982 was the first, 1989 the last).
- And this one: ATP World Tour Finals, 1980–88 - 9 consecutive finals - stands alone. Wow!
- Top 10 ranking for 13 straight years (top 3 for 10 years straight...)

So he is actually arguably the hardcourt GOAT. When you think as others have said that he had to compete in what I think was the toughest era of all, his achievements in the 80s (and into the 90s against the new era of players) were remarkable.

Of course his achilles heel was grass, always the bridesmaid at Wimbledon due to his poor volleying skills which he worked on his whole career - but he did beat McEnroe in the final of Queens one year so he could do it.
But if you watch vidoes of him his forehand was brutal, even back then - and would probably stand up today. So with his high fitness levels and strong groundstrokes he really was the usherer in of the new wave of tennis (if you discount Borg and wooden racquets). This is why the GOAT argument is always so tough because you wonder how many slams all the greats would have won if they had different eras...sometimes I think many of the legends would have topped out around 10-12 slams in an "average" era but thats just a wild thought really...the question is which ones would have gone on to do much more than that in an "average" era (which cant be defined!)...who knows!!

To quote other sources - Lendl's professional attitude, modern playing style, scientific training methods, and unprecedented long-term success have had a considerable impact on today's tennis world.
Lendl's mantra was: "If I don't practice the way I should, then I won't play the way that I know I can."

I wonder if Nadal/Uncle T was inspired by that because you can imagine Rafa saying exactly the same thing - infact I think he has!

Perhaps another reason he was unpopular was that he was from the Eastern Block at a time when there was still deep suspicion between East and West so I am sure that made him less endearing as well.

Lydian
The one glaring weakness in Lendl's claim to be the HC GOAT is the one you highlight first - a 3 win, 5 loss record in the USO final.

You are right though that he was essentially the prototype modern player - power serve, power groundstrokes and no particular desire to move up the court. I've little doubt that if you transplanted a 25 year old Lendl to the current era he'd be easily in the top 10, even though the current players would be more familiar with how to deal with his game.

It is interesting to see Socal's rating of Connors and Lendl as the best, with Borg and Mac as inferior. By comparison, most of us in the UK would probably place them the other way round (an argument as to whether Borg or Mac was better, with JC and Lendl below) because of how they played and what they achieved at Wimbledon. Obviously a large part of this is because of what we actually saw of these players having influenced our perspective.

One thing I would say is of the 4, Johnny Mac was almost certainly the most naturally gifted player - very few if any through tennis history have had better hands around the net (or uglier groundstrokes). For career record though, you have to place him a bit below the other three, not just based on slams, but on how dominant he was in the game (basically, Mac was the best player in 84, but other than that was mostly a fast court specialist).

Yes DH re: USO but he only lost to guys who won at least 6 slams themselves so no real disgrace (Becker, Wilander, Mac, Connors).

Also agree that despite being gifted at the net. McEnroe groundies often looked agricultural, but they were highly effective. I never personally warmed to him as a player, and its only his latter punditry that has made a lot of people appreciate him more. But clearly he was a great player, a fact shown by him competing well with the younger guys on the Senior Tour in recent years.

I still have Borg above them though, for those years he was active he absolutely dominated 2 slams, and got to all those USO finals, plus never went to Australia but would have dominated that for sure...I think as others have said he had too many outside influences that destroyed his love of the game which was a real shame. Borg was the original Iceman long before that Tom Cruise film...lol!

As I understand it Bjorn Borg found it difficult to deal with all the young hysterical fanbase that followed him everywhere along with problems in his personal life. Understandable that he perhaps found tennis as secondary at that time and a great shame. As has been said Brits (brought up thinking Wimbledon was where the tennis season began and ended) will feel Borg was greatest of that era.

Craig
Lendl, at least for the first half of his career was the Tennis equivalent of the Russian guy in Rocky (3?) - big, powerful, very impressive but simply a machine lacking heart and soul (at least in the public perception).

Yes, some of that was a cultural stereotype (noting that the Eastern Bloc was also dominant in much of track and field athletics with similarly machine-like athletes, and it is only after the fact that we discovered quite how much 'manufacturing' went into them...), but I think Lendl was also something of that sort of character.

Borg may also have been emotionless on court, but because he was a good looking Scandinavian, he was cool rather than cold.

Obviously both JC and Mac were the opposite - loud, brash, argumentative. Turns out both also had a real sense of humour.

Lydian I did a thread here where I called lendl the most influential player in the history of tennis he is definetly the first great modern champion. Both with is style of play and his approach to fitness. Lendl also was the first player to change racquets with each new set of balls to get absolute consistency.

Borg may also have been emotionless on court, but because he was a good looking Scandinavian, he was cool rather than cold

...............................

Dont let that exterior fool you it was manufactured... he had a vile temper. So much so his parents were called to the Tennis School where he was being coached .. he was around 12 /14 yrs of age and was told that if Bjorn did not conduct himself properly and curtail his outbursts he would be expelled. He had a fire burning withing did Bjorn but from his composure on court who would have believed it. One of the reasons I so admired him.. mental strength and control.. rather like Rafa..And it payed off

Good points socal and Haddie. I also remember that Lendl would play with new tennis shoes for each match and a new t-shirt for each set. The guy had such a rigorous clinical approach to the game - which set the trend for others to follow.

Haddie-nuff wrote:SL

If you have not read Johnny Mac´s autobiography.. I urge you to do so..Its a real eye opener and a funny read.... A lot of those tantrums on court were deliberate... to get himself banned for a couple of matches so he could nip home and spend time with his kids... honest !!!!

Read it Haddie - Just finished Agassi's autobiography which I thought was also very good.

Haddie

I'd heard before about Borg's reputation as having a fiery temperament as a young man. It's interesting that he found it better for his performance on court to control and suppress this, while both Connors and particularly Mac really made use of their anger to get themselves fired up. Just shows that different things work for different players.

My point re Borg and Lendl was more about the public perception of their on court personas - obviously totally unfair because we didn't really know them, and there's a difference between how someone appears on court and how they are in real life. For example, Murray comes across as a grumpy git on court but by most accounts is quite a laid back and funny guy away from it.

sportslover wrote:

Haddie-nuff wrote:SL




If you have not read Johnny Mac´s autobiography.. I urge you to do so..Its a real eye opener and a funny read.... A lot of those tantrums on court were deliberate... to get himself banned for a couple of matches so he could nip home and spend time with his kids... honest !!!!

Read it Haddie - Just finished Agassi's autobiography which I thought was also very good.

Great books SL ... I found Agassi´s to be a real eye opener... what a character

Loved AA's too, character's like him are a true loss to the tour. Shame he doesnt do commentary in the UK as I'm sure he'd be great.

Better than Henman!

dummy_half wrote:Haddie

I'd heard before about Borg's reputation as having a fiery temperament as a young man. It's interesting that he found it better for his performance on court to control and suppress this, while both Connors and particularly Mac really made use of their anger to get themselves fired up. Just shows that different things work for different players.

My point re Borg and Lendl was more about the public perception of their on court personas - obviously totally unfair because we didn't really know them, and there's a difference between how someone appears on court and how they are in real life. For example, Murray comes across as a grumpy git on court but by most accounts is quite a laid back and funny guy away from it.

Yes I agree dh.. I dont suppose there are many of us that are/were the same person at work as we are when we kick our shoes off at home.. Our professional persona is quite different isn´t it.
So as you say do we really know these players at all.. but we can only assess them by what we see. Sometimes like SL and I have said you get a different aspect when you read their autobiographies .

Yes, and Sampras's autobiography was a fair bit more open than he was on-court.

Rafa has one coming out in August so Ive heard called "My Story"
I m looking for an early Chrissie Pressie

lol Haddie...

Surprised he's writing and launching one during his career - wonder if it will give insights that help his opponents too. I also wonder if writing it has been a distraction too (obviously he wont write it, but alot of consultation time will have been taken up). What will be interesting is insights into his mental approach, insights about his relationship with Toni and how they work together, how the divorce affected his 2009 performance, and insights into his battles with Federer. He does seem very open these days though...he was almost an open-book during FO with expressions of how he was feeling, etc.

Lydian
Personally I think that is what is so completely compelling about Rafa .. he gives so much of himself.. to his tennis, to his family to his fans.. he strikes me as being so very selfless. He adores his family that is plain to see.. is ready to give most if not all the credit for his success to Uncle T and the support of his family. Is ready to acknowledge Roger´s greatness and he continually maintains he will never be as good.
People doubt his humility and for the life of me I cant understand why.. no person can put themselves under a spotlight and maintain a false humility.. sooner or later the facade would drop.. he would say or do something that would make you doubt him. But nothing.
His parents must be enormously proud of their son not for just his achievements but for being such a thoroughly likeable young man

From my experience with autobiog's is you've gotta wait till the subject's retired before they're willing to open up like you really want them to.

I agree eric ... Im not sure if it was correct what I heard but Ill look out for it anyway

Good points Haddie, he is a very unusual mix (almost unique as a top sporting person) to be so competitive and yet so humble and open. I also dont think its an act although you can never convince the cynics. He's been on tour too long now to keep the act up as you say.

Yes, the book may not give that many insights at this point - surely he would have been advised to say not TOO much?

When it comes to Mc Enroe I think you have to include his doubles career as he played so much. Also I really think it cost him some singles slam titles along the way. He used to play both in the slams and back in those days the doubles were 5 set matches aswell as the singles.

He won 148 titles (77 singles 71 doubles) and 17 Grand Slams titles (7 singles 10 doubles).
He was ranked the World No. 1 in singles for a total of 170 weeks and in doubles for a record 257 weeks.

He has some incredible DC records in both singles and doubles winning it 5 times.

I think he's the one who sparked the need for better and more professional umpires.

He almost single handedly kept the seniors tour going where I think tantrums were part of his contract.

I'd be surprised if anyone didn't have him in their list of the best 3 tennis commentators.

He also had a stint as USA Davis Cup captain.

He briefly came back on the ATP tour in 2006 to win the San Hose 2006 doubles where the singles was won by a certain Mr Andy Murray.

As mentioned he's written a good tennis autobiography which I'd rate 2nd only to Agassi's but both behind Tony Adams's Addicted.

At the time I was a Borg fan I just loved his ice cool persona while chaos seemed to be happenig all around him and I would have voted for him then. Now when I look back at Mc Enroes longevity and overall contributions to the game I just can't vote against him.