Alot of people compare the way Agassi and Connors played as extremely similar and talk about them as very alike in their playing styles. Which one of the 2 do you rate as the greater player?
Agassi for his career golden grand slam (the only male in hostory to achive this). Agassi also the only man to win the 4 slams on their 4 different surfaces. Agassi has less tournmanets than Connors, but Agassi has more significant tournmanets. Connors was renound for playing even the smallest of tournaments. Agassi holds 17 MS which is more than anyone else in Men's tennis history. Agassi has losing H2H with Sampras, but Sampras is probabely the best player of all time (We will see about Fed at the end of this career). Many people seem to foget that Agassi still won 14 matches agaginst Sampras, including a GS final, many other finals, and some GS semis to.
you can't rank Agassi ahead of past greats by this criterion, b/c this criterion didn't exist in their time.
The only title, Agassi has the favor of winning, is RG, when he had the advantage, not to face clay king Kuerten.
Alot of people compare the way Agassi and Connors played as extremely similar and talk about them as very alike in their playing styles. Which one of the 2 do you rate as the greater player?
Game wise alone:
Backhand-Connors
Connors by far. Agassi is a great player but he isnt top 10 all time, Connors is easily top 10, and maybe top 5. Connors is so underrated by tennis fans who only hype the most recent. Game wise he and Agassi matched up pretty closely maybe but even there I give Connors the slight edge overall, the difference is Connors mantained a peak level of mental and physical dedication to playing his best for 20 years, not the last 7 years of his career with maybe 1 or 2 years out of the 12 before that like Agassi.
Game wise alone:
First Serve-Agassi
Second Serve-Agassi
Return of Serve off first serve-Connors
Return of Serve off second serve-Agassi
Forehand-Agassi
Backhand-Connors
Movement-Connors
Net Game-Connors
Mental Toughness-Connors
Court Smarts-even
Passing Shots-even
Approach Shots-Connors
I honestly think Connors had the slightly better game, but he certainly had the way more consistent career at the highest level. As for competition, Agassi faced Sampras people say but Agassi won only 2 slams during Sampras's prime that he played or that wasnt a French Open. 92 Wimbledon he won before Pete's prime, 99 French Open he won, 99 U.S Open he won when Pete didnt play, then he won 3 Australian Opens over Kafelnikov, Clement, and Schuettler in finals. Who else was there besides Pete, Chang, Kafelnikov, 1 trick pony Ivanisevic, those players make Fed's competition look great by comparision. Connors faced multiple all time greats like Borg, Lendl, McEnroe in their primes and took them all down to win his 8 slams. So competition argument is far in Connors favor too.
Agassi, on the other hand, probably had higher peaks than Connors.
I'm a bit confused, what's your definition of "peaks?" Nothing in Agassi's career came remotely close to Connors' peak-winning 3 of the 4 slams in one year. And Connors had longer streaks ranked at 1,2,3,4,5, than Agassi.
The truth about Connors record:
1. He had losing records against Borg, Lendl and Mac. He also lost to Borg 4 times in a row in Wimbledon.
3. 3 of 8 major wins were were against Phil Dent(journeyman) and aging Ken Rosewall (age 39).
4. From 1979-81, when Borg and McEnroe were winning the majors , where was Connors? He was losing to these guys in SFs.
5. When Jimbo came back to RG in 79 why didn't he win it ? How come he could not stop Borg or WIlander or Lendl from winning?
6. Jimbo won only 1 year-end Masters Cup. Lendl has won 5. McEnroe 2. Borg 2.
Conclusion: no doubt he was remarkably consistent. But he was never the
dominant guy. When Borg took over his #1 position Connors had to wait until Borg quit and Mac dropped form to regain his #1 ranking and he still did not hold on it for long.
Connors was undoubtably consistant and thats what gave him his number 1 ranking for so long (and his many minor tournaments), but look what happens win he plays the great players.
Head2Heads
Connors vs. Agassi, 0-2
Connors vs. Mcenroe, 14-20
Connors vs. Lendl, 13-22
Connors vs. Sampras, 0-2
Agassi vs. Mcenroe, 2-2*
Agassi vs. Lendl, 2-6
Agassi vs. Sampras, 14-20
*Agassi retired in 1 of Macenroe's victory after winning the 1st set 6-4, traling 3-0 in the 2nd set.
As you can see Agassi performed better against the great players and himself held a 2-0 victory over Connors.
Then look what happens when Connors plays "lesser great players"
Connors vs. Becker, 0-6
Connors vs. Edberg, 6-6
Connors vs. Courier, 0-3
Agassi vs. Becker, 10-4
Agassi vs. Edberg, 6-3
Agassi vs. Courier, 5-7
Connors continues to fail to impress, without a single winning Head2Head. Agassi has convincing leads over 2 of the 3 players.
OK then, what about players with about just few slams each. There was not much overlap here
I'm not disputing your overall conclusion (I don't agree with it, but that's not really the point), but don't you think that a lot of your head-to-heads don't really provide a lot of useful information to the discussion?
I mean, Connors' head to head record against Agassi, Sampras, and Courier?
Connors won 3 majors in 1974. At the time he won the 1974 U.S. Open, he was 22 years old. Agassi and Courier were 4 year old, and Sampras had just turned 3. Is he supposed to be beating guys who were 18-19 years younger than he was? He only had a decade-and-a-half on Becker and Edberg. Come on.
That's like trotting out Agassi's head-to-head records against Federer and Nadal and saying those records mean the same thing as his head-to-head records against Sampras, Courier, Becker, Edberg, Chang, et al.
Connors was undoubtably consistant and thats what gave him his number 1 ranking for so long (and his many minor tournaments)
So the way I see it Connors faced 3 great baseliners in Borg, Lendl, and Vilas; Agassi 3 in Courier, Federer, and Lendl. Considering the points in their careers they were at, Connors fared much better vs Lendl and Vilas then Agassi did vs any of the 3.
I dont think Agassi was in his prime in 1988 and 1989, I agree Agassi was not and Connors was not. However who do you believe was closer to his prime Agassi or Connors? I doubt you will say you honestly believe it was Connors who was closer then Agassi at that point. They also played only 2 matches those 2 years IIRC.
Connors beat an aging Laver if that worth anything to you people.
Connors was crushed by Macenroe
If you deny that Connors played any of these great players when he was at his prime, then you admit that he was at his prime in a weak era where he did not have to play the great players.
Also consider that most of the H2H stated were before Agassi's prime. You keep stating that Agassi played on late, and played better later (no I may not agree with this but if you stick to it, consider this). All the H2H between Agassi and players Connors played were when Agassi was very young. This worked against Agassi you know. Indeed you can hardly say that Agassi's victories against COnnors in 1988 and 1989 were anywhere near Agassi's prime (be that your prime of approx. 2003 or mine of 1995).
If you are discounting great base liners that Connors was old then he played then you have to discout Federer from Agassi's list. However I feel the more relevant issue here is why single out baseliners? Connors faired remarkably poorely against many Seve Vollyers. Agassi has a better record here.
(Indeed I do consider Connors greater than Villas)
Laver was ranked #4 the year Connors first ended #1.
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This was hardly Laver's prime. Laver was the undisputed number 1 in his prime. Laver had not won a GS for 5 years. Laver is the oldest ever no.4 at 36 in 1974. He only played selective events on the tour in 1975 and onwards. He was on the border of retirment.
That happens when greats are dominant. Like today, Federer wins everything so everyone else looks bad, but they aren't, he's just that good. Ditto Connors. And Connors was still able to win majors with a rival like Borg around (& its a really lame argument to say Borg was mentally weak at the US Open. Sounds like your getting a bit desperate in your quest to put down Connors.
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This is true to a certain extent. But Connors was playing Mcenroe (I appologise for all previous typos but spelling is not my prority) while he was still winning GS. Connors won his last GS after Mcenroe had won his 4th. As for Borg, how else do you explain his 4 finals losses if its not mental. Borg had the game as he proved with his total dominance at the FO and SW19.
Yeah, no s sherlock. Agassi wasn't in his in his prime at the 1988/89 US Open. And you think Connors was? His prime was 1974-78. He was a huge underdog vs Agassi in those matches, I was at the 1989 match, nobody gave Connors a shot at all.
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Connors was still top 5 at the begginning of 1974, and still top 10 at the end. I cant have been that huge an underdog.
It is true that I have only seen replays of Connors matches, but that does not make my opnion less valid
I was comparing their records against baseliners since they are both baseliners themselves, so it made sense from my standpoint to compare them and how well each fared vs other greats who were that category of player both fit in. Fine though, if Agassi did better vs serve-volley players then Connors, maybe that is something I wasnt taking into account enough. As for how they did vs serve-volleyer examples though do you consider Agassi did better vs Sampras, then McEnroe-Connors for instance? Agassi has never beaten Sampras at Wimbledon or the U.S Open, even if he has a 2-1 vs him at the Australian Open, and 1-0 at the French . Connors has beaten McEnroe at both Wimbledon and the U.S Open more then once IIRC, they did not play at the French until 1984 IIRC, and they never played at the Australian(which both didnt play often). There are other great serve-volley
players, and other very players who were serve-volleyers to go by, but that would be the first comparision between the respective best of each of their eras.
Agassi has never beaten Sampras at Wimbledon or the U.S Open, even if he has a 2-1 vs him at the Australian Open, and 1-0 at the French .
I've had the privilege of watching both in their primes, well actually nearly their entire careers.
Agassi would like beat Connors simply because athletes now are better conditioned and physically stronger.
But in terms of how they ranked relative to their peers? Connors hands down. Connors absolutely dominated from his start, early '70s, end of the Aussies (Laver, Newcombe) to the late 70's when Borg and McEnroe came on. Even after Borg and McEnroe, Connors continued to win major titles at the US Open and Wimbledon. Remember, back then, the Aussie was not as prestigious as it is today. The Masters paid more and you did not have to fly Down Under. Plus the French Open was a tad bit less prestigious too. Connors and Evert brought huge $$$ to tennis in the '70s. Connors' ability to sustain his peak years was amazing.
Agassi has won a career Grand Slam, which is amazing. But he only had a couple of real peak years, none of which where he won more than one major. He never dominated, not once, like Connors did for his 7-8 year span.
Agassi has won a career Grand Slam, which is amazing. But he only had a couple of real peak years, none of which where he won more than one major. He never dominated, not once, like Connors did for his 7-8 year span.