Budge vs. Borg/McEnroe

[corners]

I remember reading (somewhere) that an old Don Budge remarked that he could have whupped Borg and McEnroe during their period of dominance.

First of all, does anyone know where I could have read that?

Second, what do you think? I've only seen snippets of old film of Budge playing, so there is little to go on aside from what others have written about him. But I've been watching Borg and McEnroe matches from early 80s recently and feel that a taller, more powerful player could have handled those guys in their prime.

Of course, Lendl and Becker exposed McEnroe with their power later on, but that was aided with larger graphite racquets.

With wood, could prime Budge have consistently overpowered Borg and McEnroe at the top of their games?


For those with tennisplayer.net subscriptions, check out this clip of Budge hitting a running backhand: http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tlevelSide.mov

His balance and grace hitting the shot, and the explosive elasticity of his recovery step is very impressive. One of my favorite clips of the golden greats.

[urban]

From the clips i have seen, Budge reminded me of Lendl with his heavy clean groundstrokes, but less mechanic, more fluent. His backhand return would be a major weapon against a lefty serve a la McEnroe. On the other hand, Budge had problems with Bobby Riggs, a player who disturbed his clean strokes with spinny, wristy, unpredictable shots. Mac and Riggs are a bit comparable, playing more with finesse than with heavy artillery.
Budge by the way helped Mac to beat Lendl in Philadelphia 1983, after a long spell of defeat against him. He told him, to attack the backhand.

[kiki]

Budge is an all time great and he certainly could own Borg,Mac and many more players on a given day

[Mick]

it's hard to say if he could beat borg and mcenroe at their prime but he probably would be competitive against them.