"First it was Agassi-Sampras, then Federer-Nadal, then Djokovic came, now it is Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner" - Juan Martin del Potro

[Razer]

Thanks for the clarification.
Tell Razer that he is surprised that young people like you have knowledge of tennis legends of yesteryear.

First of all, to compare someone who played 100 years ago to someone who played now, you need to actually be 120+ in age because even footages won't do any justice to you. You need to watch them all live with a keen mind to actually do a proper comparison of their playing levels in your mind. The footages on TV make the old players look much slower than they are in real and sometimes the footages are sped up to make them look quicker, all in all totally unrealistic way. Thats why anyone who has not witnessed an era is better off not comparing them. Pretty sure DEL POTRO understands this, even @NeutralFan said this some days ago, but then people who are under 35 think they can read books/ask historians and just put Bill Tilden in the top 15 as @StefanV so often does. Pre open era club guys being there is a gross disrespect to someone (like say Murray) who is not an ATG but still played at a far greater level than someone like Tilden.

Plus asking any number of historians or read any number of books on Bill Tilden won't change the fact that 100 years ago Tennis was a sport where only the rich guys from few countries who had access to clubs played. How many countries even played tennis back ? When talent pool increases in a sport then the champion who emerges out of it is normally better than the one who emerged from a pool of no talent....this is true for any sport.

Even in CRICKET nobody really rates anyone before 1940s with the current guys. reason is number of countries were just 2 (Aus and England) playing the game 80-90+ years ago and the players are much less evolved, wearing trousers and looking goofy overweight. Speed of the so called "fast bowlers" 100+ years ago is no different from slow bowlers who bowl today. Rating those guys with current players and preparing all time lists is not just snooty intellectual masturbation but also making a mockery of common sense. Thats why in cricket no legend before Don Bradman is ever taking serious enough to be rated with current cricketers, Bradman himself played in 1930s and 1940s when except Eng and Aus all the other countries were weak minnows, but at least people do respect his batting average which is weird and thats why they rate him today.

A proper follower of the eras in Cricket knows that really fast bowlers who bowl 150MPH+ frequently started coming to Cricket in 1960s-1970s, the australians and the west indians. So anyone who did not play in the 1970s has never faced that kind of competition which can be remotely compared to the current ones..... SO you see how difficult it is if you go back 100 years in any sports.... ???? ... Be it Tennis or Cricket....all the same, when the sports evolves to a PRO level then the amateurs who played 100 years ago just get canceled from the conversation.

 

[Gary Duane]

Don't know why my age means I can't comment. People comment on all sorts of things from before they born in all sorts of fields. Tennis discourse these days might legitimately be run by some of the most narrow minded and stupid people on the planet. Most sports cherish and celebrate their legends. But apparently there's something wrong with me throwing guys like Pancho, Tilden etc...into the mix, why? I've studied their records, read books and first hand accounts. Spoken with a half dozen actual bonafide tennis historians and writers. I agree that an actual ordered list of these great players is what @Gary Duane would call intellectual masturbation but putting them in the conversation is just giving them their due.

I guess I can't comment about Beethoven because I was not born in 1770.

 

[StefanV]

but then people who are under 35 think they can read books/ask historians and just put Bill Tilden in the top 15 as @StefanV so often does.

I remember the 1929 US Open final where Bill Tilden beat Frank Hunter in 5.

 

[Gary Duane]

Don't know why my age means I can't comment. People comment on all sorts of things from before they born in all sorts of fields. Tennis discourse these days might legitimately be run by some of the most narrow minded and stupid people on the planet. Most sports cherish and celebrate their legends. But apparently there's something wrong with me throwing guys like Pancho, Tilden etc...into the mix, why? I've studied their records, read books and first hand accounts. Spoken with a half dozen actual bonafide tennis historians and writers. I agree that an actual ordered list of these great players is what @Gary Duane would call intellectual masturbation but putting them in the conversation is just giving them their due.

The idea that you can't comment unless you were born at the time of people you're commenting about is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Kralingen]

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

 

[Razer]

I guess I can't comment about Beethoven because I was not born in 1770.

Even people in 2770 will be able to connect with Beethovan since music is music, you dont need to see the person singing/the event live, it can be recreated in your mind by simply hearing it..... can't say the same for sports. Maybe in a time in the future decades from now we will be able to visualize tennis matches in 3D, in that era maybe the significance of players decades later would remain intact? I donno... still players evolve with time so even in a 3D recorded environment the recorded copy would still be inferior to the player who actually would be playing.... So thats that.

 

[Sputnik Bulgorov]

Wonder why Del Potro skipped Dimitrov-Raonic and Medvedev-Tsitsipas?

 

[NatF]

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

If only I could forget about Pancho...

 

[NatF]

I guess I can't comment about Beethoven because I was not born in 1770.

No absolutely not.

 

[Meles]

Ah yes, the first tennis rivalry, Agassi-Sampras.

Probably the most boring one of all time. Was there ever a great match? Seemed like Pete always won easily on faster surfaces and Agassi did well at the slow AO conditions.

Sinner v Alcaraz has the potential to be the greatest rivalry of all time since both are great, great talents who already have the numbers/stats and results to back up those numbers. Alcaraz probably ends up being slightly better, but Sinner has a nice little advantage over him. Nothing like Nadal abusing Fed's backhand, but just enough to balance the playing field nicely. Once Alcaraz hits his prime in a few years it may be too much for Jannik, but we'll see as Sinner seems to have made a quantum leap in level this year.

 

[RS]

I guess I can't comment about Beethoven because I was not born in 1770.

Good one.

 

[NAS]

Tennis is all one sport, with a flowing history, so for anyone, especially such as del Potro--who is a professional in that sport--to not be aware of / recognize the endless great rivalries pre-Sampras/Agassi reveals him to be a narrow-minded, remarkably uneducated man. Age of an event does not remove its value and importance. For example, no one today in their right mind is going to downgrade or forget Jesse Owens' victories at the 1936 Olympics, not only for his actual record-setting performance, but its significant role in a monumentally historic period of world history. That was eighty-eight years ago--nearly a century, but nothing, including other great Olympic performances that followed over the decades.

The truly great is timeless, except to those who view achievements based on their fan calendar, which del Potro is apparently using.

I think this is where problem start, with running you can time the runner, so you know Jeese owen time and can speculate that with modern gear and modern training he will have better time like current runners.
In tennis and cricket because of different ers and different type of instrument it beame very tough to compare, this is why I don't compare at all just try to see who did what in his own era

 

[NAS]

I guess I can't comment about Beethoven because I was not born in 1770.

I think Beethoven example is wrong, you can still hear musician but movie example will be more right as old era movies had different type of technique

 

[Razer]

Good one.

It is not a good one.... it is a very bad example from @Gary Duane

Music is evergreen, it is melody which will not be outdated even after 1000 years.

Unlike those Tildens or Don Budges moving around in their unathletic frames (compared to current guys)

LOL, comparing tennis players to beethovan's music, lol .... a musician is immortal via his sound, not so much for these outdated fellows

 

[mike danny]

The idea that you can't comment unless you were born at the time of people you're commenting about is absolutely ridiculous.

If that were the case, history wouldn't even be a discipline to be taught.