Greatest Volleyer of all-time?

[Ramon]

Originally Posted by kiki

In fact, even being considered a baseliner, Borg came to the net more often during a match than Nadal or Djokovic during a year.

I actually think Nadal is a better volleyer than Borg was, and Djokovic might be also. Borg came to the net more, especially during Wimbledon, but that was during a different time with different equipment. Back then, if you hit a deep approach and made the other guy run, it was actually tough for him to hit a passing shot. Now the pros can pass from almost any position.

[0d1n]

Originally Posted by TheMagicianOfPrecision

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=1u9Mx1YEuUk

Case closed

I'm actually with you with regards to the opinion that Edberg is probably the best volleyer ever...but this example / matchup you are presenting in the clip is not really representative.
Edberg absolutely owned Muster...he was a nightmare matchup for him. Muster was a grinder without great returns and/or passing shots...and he couldn't really take the ball early...giving Edberg way way WAY too much time to execute his game plan.
Somebody like Korda...for example was a much tougher opponent for a guy like Edberg...because he was able to return aggressively and hit screaming passing shots by taking the ball early / robbing the net rusher of time. Same with a guy like A. Agassi.
That youtube clip was just...unfair.

Originally Posted by 6-2/6-4/6-0

In my way of thinking it is hard to separate greatest volleys from greatest net game. To me at least half of volleying is footwork and positioning. In this regard, I think that Edberg is in a class of his own. But then again, I am unabashedly an enormous Edberg fan.

I grew up as a player who watched and analyzed tennis matches like crime tech going over surveillance videos. I would watch matches over and over trying to get inside what players were doing, how they were doing it, what the variation on technique was that made them great and me average. As a budding serve and volleyer I watched Mac, Edberg, Becker and Sampras like I was watching great sculptors chipping away at stone to reveal what was spectacularly hidden within. I watched pretenders like Lendl trying to make their way to net each June and sought to understand what the inherent difference was between one supremely talented tennis player coming to the net and another while having entirely opposite results.

In all my years of watching, studying, analyzing I have a hard time thinking that there are many players that can give Mac or Edberg a run as better volleyers or net players. Certainly, watching film of players like Newcombe, Rosewall, Laver, Emerson, Hoad, etc. shows a history of brilliant volleyers competing against similarly well-rounded players and crafting scintillating points where offense and defense were fluid positions which could change on a single stroke. But in all the hours that I have poured over, I have never seen two players who could own the net like Edberg and Mac.

From there, I see the designation of Greatest as very much a matter of style.

Mac undeniably had a brilliance about him. He covered the net with the passion of a teen-age boy in the back seat of his dad's car for the first time with his girlfriend. The movements were not necessarily smooth or practiced, but nothing was going to get by him if he could help it - he was was going to make the most of any situation regardless of how prepared or well-positioned he was. He had inspiration and relentlessness, everything else flowed from there.

In great part Mac's brilliance was the entirely unorthodox, almost in-duplicable way that he volleyed: the angles that he created; the way he could drop a ball over the net and make it die; the lunging/flailing volleys that seemed to land in the most perfect and unexpected spot. The volleys that he created are like scientific anomalies, the results unable to replicated in any other setting.

McEnroe was nothing if not thrilling to watch.

Edberg was almost entirely the opposite. He floated on the court. His instincts and ability to always be in position bordered on super-natural. As Tony Trabert once said, "He doesn't take any more steps than anyone else, he just gets there quicker."

If there is a knock against Edberg it would have to be that he made it look too easy. His volleys were not some sort of magical shot that even the gods could not have seen coming, they were a surgical response based on exacting preparation and the sort of precognition that you see in movies like 'The Last Samurai' where a fighter sees an entire battle sequence play out choreographically before the first punch is thrown. There is a sense when watching him play that he is almost like an instrument of destiny and that in the natural world his volley - no matter how difficult or routine - could land no where other than where it did.

Sure, he was able to hit brilliant shots when they were necessary. But he was so fluid, so graceful, so correct in knowing what was going to happen next that those brilliant shots weren't necessary as often.

In the end I see it like this:

John McEnroe fought everything, lines-people, umpires, opponents, and most often physics and probability. At the net he was often victorious in these disputes. There is no one who has played the game that can match him as "The Most Brilliant Volleyer of All Time."

Stefan Edberg was like the Tao on the court, seeming to have the greatest effect while doing the least. His precision and ability to repeatedly make perfect, elegant volleys made the kamikaze act of rushing the net look positively serene. In terms of Greatness, to me Stefan Edberg takes the title with the same aplomb with which he dispatched Lendl/Courier/etc. on the way to the 91 US Open title.

Beautiful post and argumentation. Very much agree with the spirit of that analysis.

With regards to some other posts in this thread...I find it mildly amusing but also disturbing that people are introduced in this artificial "top" based on newspaper articles.
I'm all for supporting older guys from the 60's or 70's where we have video and people actually saw them play live. I'm a great admirer of Laver...and agree that him and many of his contemporaries were great volleyers and great PLAYERS.
However...like previously stated...this is where my sympathy for the "old style" ends...bringing up people from the early 19xx into discussion based on books and articles from the time...well...let's just say those writing those books/articles never saw a guy like Edberg...or yes...Laver play...otherwise they would have "redefined" their notion of great tennis and/or great volleying.
Puh-leeze...

Edit.
Other comments I've seen related to Sampras when compared with other great volleyers like Cash/Rafter/Henman ... etc are also puzzling to me. Because he was clearly a much better/more efficient/accomplished player than those listed ... that automatically means that he must have had better volleys. Really ??
He DIDN'T...but he was so much better at everything else that it didn't matter in the end.
Yeh...even a guy like Henman had better volleys than Sampras...if we're to talk STRICTLY about volleying. Obviously ... Sampras was better at everything else related to tennis (ok...his 1 handed drive was also weaker than Henman's...) ... serve, ground strokes, movement, athletic ability, confidence/mental aspect...etc etc etc.
Even a guy like Stich had better volleys than Sampras in my book. Too bad he was a mental case and is probably the biggest waste of talent/potential in the open era (honorable mention to guys like Pioline, Korda, Nalbandian and others...from the "waste of talent" point of view).

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by TheMagicianOfPrecision

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=1u9Mx1YEuUk

Case closed

Case re-opened . . . again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHaN2h21ANs

I sure wish there were more clips of the great 60's grass court players available on Youtube!

[kiki]

Originally Posted by Ramon

I actually think Nadal is a better volleyer than Borg was, and Djokovic might be also. Borg came to the net more, especially during Wimbledon, but that was during a different time with different equipment. Back then, if you hit a deep approach and made the other guy run, it was actually tough for him to hit a passing shot. Now the pros can pass from almost any position.

I can´t think you can say nadal or Djoko are volleyers unless they make a minimum number of volleys....even Shaq O Neal was able to hit the three pointers...

[CDestroyer]

Originally Posted by Manus Domini

Personally, I believe Rosewall is one of the GOATs (if not the GOAT), but I would be mad to include him in the top 5 volleyers (though maybe top 5 net game, thanks for Limpin to pointing out there is a difference).

My list:

1. Edberg
2. McEnroe
3. Rafter
4. Cash (at his best)/Sedgeman
5. Laver
6. Rosewall
7. Newcomb
8. Ashe
9. Nastase
10. Pancho Gonzales
11. Kramer
12. Sampras
13. Stitch
14. Cara Black
15. Borg (he didn't win those W by grinding for two weeks)
    

Mine might be a little weak, but it's just based on who I've seen clips of. I don't have the knowledge of Limpin.

And yes, Borg is on the list, more due to my own ignorance of other great volleyers than the fact that I think he is undeniably top 20 volleyer of all time

I like your list. There is a guy on YouTube who has hundreds of killer Edberg matches. So cool of him to post of that great footage of the best volleyer there will ever be.

Here is his Youtube channel

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ysdwdy

[kiki]

Connors was a better volleyer than Borg, just that grass was a great equalizer.

A guy that knew Borg pretty well, Vitas Gerulaitis, said that " fast and wet grass made up a lot for Bjorn stop volleys", while those same volleys, on hard courts, rebounded clearly and let him be passed ( look at the 1980-81 US Open finals vs John Mc Enroe)

[borg number one]

Originally Posted by kiki

Connors was a better volleyer than Borg, just that grass was a great equalizer.

A guy that knew Borg pretty well, Vitas Gerulaitis, said that " fast and wet grass made up a lot for Bjorn stop volleys", while those same volleys, on hard courts, rebounded clearly and let him be passed ( look at the 1980-81 US Open finals vs John Mc Enroe)

Connors wasn't a great volleyer either, but he liked to take his opportunities. Against Borg, at times he felt that it was his only shot, as Borg could prevail on the majority of baseline rallies and Borg developed into a better server. I'd give Borg the edge as a volleyer on clay only. Overall, I wouldn't put either Borg or Connors in a top 25 list for volleyers.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by borg number one

Connors wasn't a great volleyer either, but he liked to take his opportunities. Against Borg, at times he felt that it was his only shot, as Borg could prevail on the majority of baseline rallies and Borg developed into a better server. I'd give Borg the edge as a volleyer on clay only. Overall, I wouldn't put either Borg or Connors in a top 25 list for volleyers.

Both were competent volleyers who knew how to finish points at the net. I think Connors came in more often because his brutal groundies drew weak shots and he was naturally more aggressive than Borg. Borg, typically, was content to allow his opponent to be aggressive and to come in where Borg would pass them with the best arsenal of passing shots ever seen.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by borg number one

Connors wasn't a great volleyer either, but he liked to take his opportunities. Against Borg, at times he felt that it was his only shot, as Borg could prevail on the majority of baseline rallies and Borg developed into a better server. I'd give Borg the edge as a volleyer on clay only. Overall, I wouldn't put either Borg or Connors in a top 25 list for volleyers.

Originally Posted by Limpinhitter

Both were competent volleyers who knew how to finish points at the net. I think Connors came in more often because his brutal groundies drew weak shots and he was naturally more aggressive than Borg. Borg, typically, was content to allow his opponent to be aggressive and to come in where Borg would pass them with the best arsenal of passing shots ever seen.

I would agree with both of you although I would say they both were above average as volleyers. That's a lot going for them when you consider that both had among the greatest groundstrokes in the history of tennis to set them up.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by Limpinhitter

Both were competent volleyers who knew how to finish points at the net. I think Connors came in more often because his brutal groundies drew weak shots and he was naturally more aggressive than Borg. Borg, typically, was content to allow his opponent to be aggressive and to come in where Borg would pass them with the best arsenal of passing shots ever seen.

I think so, either.While Borg was never afraid to come to the net - oh¡ holly jesus¡ I´m an old timer that never follows up MODERN tennis- , Connors had a more complete net game, even if both were never net players like Vitas, Ashe,Nasty or Mc Enroe, to name a few of their generation

[kiki]

Originally Posted by borg number one

Connors wasn't a great volleyer either, but he liked to take his opportunities. Against Borg, at times he felt that it was his only shot, as Borg could prevail on the majority of baseline rallies and Borg developed into a better server. I'd give Borg the edge as a volleyer on clay only. Overall, I wouldn't put either Borg or Connors in a top 25 list for volleyers.

It´s true that, from 1979 to 1981, Borg owned Connors from the backcourt, while before they were about even and Connors deep approach shots often favoured him ( see US Open 1975 Sf and 1976 F, both on slow clay)

[jnd28]

Originally Posted by borg number one

Absolutely and I give you credit for not buying into the "Borg was a TERRIBLE volleyer" sentiment that some have (many of whom only started watching tennis post 2000 or so, sorry). You made some valid points for sure MD. Thank you. I really like Hoodjem's list overall, as usual. I have a hard time getting away from McEnroe and Edberg too. This video is jaw dropping in many ways. Check it out and visualize playing these points for example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHaN2h21ANs (1969 AO SF, Laver vs. Roche).

I think that this video is clear evidence of what a previous poster said regarding best "net player" versus "best volley". Nadal and some other modern players may have solid volley technique but I cannot think of any who have the instinct and movement at the net that these guys exhibit.
These guys learned to play on courts that you wouldnt want the ball bouncing on. Agree that Edberg was in their class. I also think that Emmo is getting short changed here. In his day he was thought to have the best backhand volley in the game. And that was at a time when all players had great backhand volleys. I remember that when Roche was Feds coach, Fed said that his (Roche) volleys were far better than anyone currently on tour.

[Limpinhitter]

Originally Posted by jnd28

I think that this video is clear evidence of what a previous poster said regarding best "net player" versus "best volley". Nadal and some other modern players may have solid volley technique but I cannot think of any who have the instinct and movement at the net that these guys exhibit.
These guys learned to play on courts that you wouldnt want the ball bouncing on. Agree that Edberg was in their class. I also think that Emmo is getting short changed here. In his day he was thought to have the best backhand volley in the game. And that was at a time when all players had great backhand volleys. I remember that when Roche was Feds coach, Fed said that his (Roche) volleys were far better than anyone currently on tour.

I've tried to get Emmo moved up many times on this and on the greatest backhand and greatest 1 handed backhand list. On Hoodjem's latest list, I think he's got it pretty close. I had the privilege of seeing him play against Laver in a WCT event in which Emmo won the first set 6-1 before Laver came back to win the next two. Amazing tennis!

[kiki]

Originally Posted by Ramon

I actually think Nadal is a better volleyer than Borg was, and Djokovic might be also. Borg came to the net more, especially during Wimbledon, but that was during a different time with different equipment. Back then, if you hit a deep approach and made the other guy run, it was actually tough for him to hit a passing shot. Now the pros can pass from almost any position.

Uauh¡ this is a statement...

[kiki]

Originally Posted by Limpinhitter

I've tried to get Emmo moved up many times on this and on the greatest backhand and greatest 1 handed backhand list. On Hoodjem's latest list, I think he's got it pretty close. I had the privilege of seeing him play against Laver in a WCT event in which Emmo won the first set 6-1 before Laver came back to win the next two. Amazing tennis!

He was so steady¡¡ had no real big shot but all his shots were really competitive, except, may be his forehand.In any case, he was the man always fit and won because he had a great self confidence, that helped through his career.

Roche was a superb net man, a true panther there.I´ve seen Fred Stolle and Owen Davidson and they were really good net men.Stolle was Gerulaitis coach for years and was the perfect net game partner for any winning doubles team.