Whose career is more impressive?

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by pc1

As I wrote before the ATP has the great Pancho Gonzalez at three total tournament victories.

LOL at the ATP. Gonzales won 113 titles in his career, and during Gonzales' prime in the 1950s, professional tournaments usually weren't as important as the professional tours. Even in the open era, when Gonzales was in his 40s, I think he managed to win 11 tournaments, beating guys like Laver, Emerson, Ashe, Olmedo and Connors in those tournament finals.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by Mustard

LOL at the ATP. Gonzales won 113 titles in his career, and during Gonzales' prime in the 1950s, professional tournaments usually weren't as important as the professional tours. Even in the open era, when Gonzales was in his 40s, I think he managed to win 11 tournaments, beating guys like Laver, Emerson, Ashe, Olmedo and Connors in those tournament finals.

If you look at the Gonzalez career it is comparable or better than any player ever. I don't know how some can look at the ATP stats and make assumptions about all the great players in history from them if you know how incomplete the information is. I can't blame the ATP but you have to realize that in looking at the information you have to take it with a grain of salt.

[1477aces]

Originally Posted by urban

A scientific ranking last year ranked Connors Nr. 1 among all open era players. That's a fact, no conjecture. Some may disagree, but no one can deny the fact. It was based on the strong competition, Connors played. So long the mickey mouse argument, which is simply silly. Its also a fact, that the 109 wins are pure incomplete ATP stats for open events. This doesn't cover anything going on before 1968 (and many events which were not sanctioned by the ATP since 196. The ATP is constantly changing its own list (thanks to posters as Q and M). The percentage of Connors over his career in more than 1200 matches played is also a fact, and imo one of the most impressive records of the open era.

Well, that ranking only ranked wins against top ten players, not losses. It also gave you the same number of points for a win against a future top ten player or a long-past top ten player as it did for a current top ten player, which is also very flawed.

[abmk]

Originally Posted by 1477aces

Well, that ranking only ranked wins against top ten players, not losses. It also gave you the same number of points for a win against a future top ten player or a long-past top ten player as it did for a current top ten player, which is also very flawed.

well, of course, its easy to overlook the flaws when it helps your argument ...

[abmk]

Originally Posted by pc1

Excellent points Mustard.

I think that some of us have to realize that it's not set in stone that Federer is the GOAT as some seem to think. It's good to put Federer up there because it does help the tennis coverage for the media but it's not a FACT that his career is the most impressive. There have been a lot of impressive careers in tennis history. Connors is one of them.

The career records of many like Tilden, Gonzalez, Borg, Rosewall, Laver, Connors, Lendl, Kramer among others are fantastic.

forget about the GOAT argument for a moment ... consider just federer vs connors ...

the one and only argument connors has is longevity ...

even if consider the Masters/Dallas for Jimmy, his major tournaments win count still doesn't come close to fed's ...

fed has the better dominance, surface versatility, better in the majors .....there isn't a single surface that both played on where you could say jimmy was clearly better ( decoturf II comes close, but I'd say fed is better ) .....federer was/is better on grass, clay, indoors, HC ... everywhere ...

coming back to the GOAT argument

gonzalez, borg, rosewall, laver , Tilden have records closer to that of federer, but not connors,lendl and Kramer ... they are by some distance behind and it is very clear cut IMO ...

[krosero]

Originally Posted by abmk

fed has the better dominance, surface versatility, better in the majors .....there isn't a single surface that both played on where you could say jimmy was clearly better ( decoturf II comes close, but I'd say fed is better ) .....federer was/is better on grass, clay, indoors, HC ... everywhere ...

I'll take Federer on red clay (and okay, blue clay, if I must) .... but I'm really not sure Federer would have beaten Connors on Har-Tru clay, as he played in the '76 USO final. If Connors could beat Borg there, and Borg was already twice a winner at RG (still a level below the claycourter he would become, but obviously already at a Slam-winning level) ... I'm not sure Federer is better. That one looks close.

[abmk]

Originally Posted by krosero

I'll take Federer on red clay (and okay, blue clay, if I must) .... but I'm really not sure Federer would have beaten Connors on Har-Tru clay, as he played in the '76 USO final. If Connors could beat Borg there, and Borg was already twice a winner at RG (still a level below the claycourter he would become, but obviously a Slam-winning level) ... I'm not sure Federer is better. That one looks close.

it would probably be close on har-tru ... But connors did lose to orantes the year before he beat borg and to vilas the year after

but has fed even played on har-tru ? I don't think so ..

I did mention "surface that both played on" ...

[krosero]

Originally Posted by abmk

it would probably be close on har-tru ... But connors did lose to orantes the year before he beat borg and to vilas the year after

but has fed even played on har-tru ? I don't think so ..

I did mention "surface that both played on" ...

I missed that qualification, yes ... I doubt Federer has ever played on har-tru.

Connors lost comprehensively to Orantes, but Orantes slowed down the pace like no one I've ever seen, and that worked against Connors more than any single tactic. Not easy to do. Federer can change the pace and it would help him against Connors, but he's not the slowball touch artist that Orantes was (or I should say: the slowball artist that Orantes could be; he didn't always play that way, and was capable of quite a lot of different things; he beat Vilas in their famous match on Har-Tru with some surprising SV play, for example).

Even Orantes couldn't pull off the slowball strategy again when they met in the '77 quarters... Connors blasted him away then.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by abmk

forget about the GOAT argument for a moment ... consider just federer vs connors ...

the one and only argument connors has is longevity ...

even if consider the Masters/Dallas for Jimmy, his major tournaments win count still doesn't come close to fed's ...

fed has the better dominance, surface versatility, better in the majors .....there isn't a single surface that both played on where you could say jimmy was clearly better ( decoturf II comes close, but I'd say fed is better ) .....federer was/is better on grass, clay, indoors, HC ... everywhere ...

coming back to the GOAT argument

gonzalez, borg, rosewall, laver , Tilden have records closer to that of federer, but not connors,lendl and Kramer ... they are by some distance behind and it is very clear cut IMO ...

I will give you that statistically Federer is better in the majors but the better dominance comment doesn't pan out. If Federer is more dominant, why is his lifetime winning percentage slightly lower than Connors at 81.55 to 81.76? If Federer is more dominant he certainly doesn't prove it on the court? And Connors' career was longer and he had his big decline period already.

Everything you're mentioned about surface dominance is subjective. If this was true Federer would be winning far more than Connors by percentage and he doesn't.

It's not as though Connors played awful players on hard courts. He played Borg, Vilas, Lendl, Edberg, McEnroe, Panatta, Nastase. On har tru he played Borg, Vilas, Orantes, McEnroe, Solomon, Dibbs among others and more than once for many of them. He played virtually all of these names indoors and some others like Rod Laver. He played Newcombe, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Rosewall, Tanner, Ashe, Stan Smith on grass.

At their peaks both were winning over 90% of their matches. Connors didn't play many majors at his peak and Federer did.

Kramer is tougher to examine. Kramer was the best player in the world for years and he was winning all those head to head tours. And he did win a number of amateur and pro majors. At his best Kramer was clearly comparable to Federer. Over his career it's tougher because of the tours. Overall I would go with Federer over Kramer for career.

I'm not saying Connors is better than Federer but I am saying it's not the easy choice some would think it would be because of the ASSUMPTION that Federer is the de facto GOAT.

Here's a question I'll ask--Whose career is more impressive, Bill Tilden's or Roger Federer? The reason I'm mentioning this is to point out that we can state opinions that one or another is the de facto GOAT but we also have to examine the information before we accept the judgment. I used to think Don Budge was by everything I've read, virtually unbeatable. I was surprised when he wasn't close to virtually unbeatable. He was excellent but I realized many of the so called information I read on Budge was just plain wrong. So I reevaluated my opinion on Budge due to the information. So in comparing Federer and Tilden I want everyone to examine and give information on both players. Opinion of course is welcome but hopefully it can be backed with logic. I don't need stuff like Federer's backhand always hit winners and is much better than Djokovic's. None of this about the competition because that can't be controlled. Some may say Tilden's competition was bad and some may say Federer's was bad. We'll assume it's equal. So on accomplishments and just objectively evaluating the career, which career is better. I think I may start a thread on this. No nonsense about the physical nature being tougher today because any era that complains about blue clay isn't that tough. I'll give the stats later because I'm off to play tennis.

Edit-Back from tennis

Some stats of Tilden versus Federer. Some of this is estimates I've gotten from some tennis experts who have much of the information.

Total tournaments won
Tilden-161-est.
Federer-74

Total majors won (including Pro Majors)
Tilden-14. Tilden won 15 majors if you include the World Hard Court that Tilden won that was really the major clay court championship. The French was not open to foreigners like Tilden.
Federer-16
We have to take into account that airplane travel was not available during Tilden's time so Big Bill did not go overseas that often. It would take many weeks to travel to England, France or Australian. In his prime Tilden may have won a Grand Slam or so.

Percentage of majors won
Tilden-14/42=.333
Federer-16/52=.308

Lifetime winning percentage
Tilden-.660-est
Federer-.8157
Note-Tilden, according to Bud Collins book won from 1912 to 1930 in his amateur career (which essentially was the top level because he faced all the top competition) won 138 of 192 tournaments, lost 28 finals with a 907-62 match record. The winning percentage was .936! Tilden turn pro in the early 1930's and kept playing. The losses he had as an older player lowed his career winning percentage. He lost a good percentage on one night stands to players like Don Budge, Fred Perry, Ellsworth Vines. For example he lost to Budge with a probable score of 7-46-1. He lost to Vines by 26-47. He played both of these tours in his early to late forties. He lost regularly to Fred Perry (at least according to Perry) and he even played long enough to lose to Pancho Gonzalez!

Grand Slams won
Tilden-0
Federer-0

Percentage of tournaments won
Tilden-.520
Federer-.289

Winning percentage in best five years
Tilden-.980
Federer-.907

Look at the information and discuss.

Federer is acclaimed by many to be the GOAT today. Tilden was named in a poll in the late 1960's to be the GOAT at that point.

[kiki]

On clay, Kodes clearly surpasses Federer, at least in the majors.On grass, we can´t compare, since grass was much different then from the current turf...

[pc1]

Originally Posted by kiki

On clay, Kodes clearly surpasses Federer, at least in the majors.On grass, we can´t compare, since grass was much different then from the current turf...

I don't know how Kodes slipped into this thread.

Yes the grass is different but that's not Federer's fault. Sorry but I would go with Federer over Kodes for grass achievements by a huge margin.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by pc1

I don't know how Kodes slipped into this thread.

Yes the grass is different but that's not Federer's fault. Sorry but I would go with Federer over Kodes for grass achievements by a huge margin.

Kodes won a memorable Roland Garros final over one of the decade´s toughest guys, a certain Ilie Nastase.The year before, he had beaten a great clay specialist named Zeljko Franulovic.Federer won once the FO, beating handily surprise ( and deservingly so) finalsit Soderling, who had ousted Nadal in the former rounds.

Kodes also reached 2 IO and won the very prestigious German and Spanish Open.Federer, I think, has 2 Madrids and 1 Hamburg titles as far as second tier cc events are rated, so, they may be evened there.But the FO is, by far, the measure of clay court greatness...

I agree that old grass was not comparable to current rgass.So, it should be said "Sampras is the best old grass player ever" and " Federer is the best current grass greatest player ".Kodes, not only beat Metrevali and won a Wimbly title, he also beat two all time grass ( old grass) greats en route to the USO finals in 71 ( beat Newcombe) and 73 ( beat Smith).That record far exceedes Djokovic on grass, FI, even if we considered that both grass were comparable ( which, as you said very well, are not )

[TMF]

Well it's nice to talk about the players winning many titles in the past but I don't think you can take them seriously when compare to the ATP titles. Pancho was competing against the amateur and then the pro, which was divided into 2 circuits. That alone doesn't have as much weight as the atp events which comprise all all the players. Factor in the number of draws and number of matches needed to win per event. Didn't Pancho won many events which only required to win 1 or 2 matches? I don't care if Pancho won 50 mini events like Los Angeles Metropolitan, it's not worth equal to Roger's one grand slam title.

Link from PC1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_...eer_statistics
If you look at January in 1954, Pancho won 9 titles, winning some titles only 2 days apart. It's ridiculous...he must only have to win one match. Today's player can only managed to compete 2 events per month, and winning atleast 4 matches quadruple his chance to win the event. In fact, Nadal/Nole/Fed each only participated in 19 or 20 events per year.

Anyway, comparing players like Pancho's total titles to the players competing from the atp standard is flaw. You can list all of their single titles, but the experts will always have Connors as the record holder(109). You can fool some of the posters in here, but not me.

[TMF]

Originally Posted by pc1

I will give you that statistically Federer is better in the majors but the better dominance comment doesn't pan out. If Federer is more dominant, why is his lifetime winning percentage slightly lower than Connors at 81.55 to 81.76? If Federer is more dominant he certainly doesn't prove it on the court? And Connors' career was longer and he had his big decline period already.

You also have to factor in which type of event they played. Suppose a player A is equally gifted as a player B, but player A plays on all ATP250 while player B plays on all Master Series. Guess who's is likey have a better winning percentage? More likely player A since small events aren't competitive as the bigger events(MS) where all the top players compete. Connors played a lot of small events and many are in the states, so it makes it easier for him.

[TMF]

Originally Posted by kiki

On clay, Kodes clearly surpasses Federer, at least in the majors.On grass, we can´t compare, since grass was much different then from the current turf...

Why don't you just change your user name to Kodes_King. Your obsession with Kodes is no difference from Joe Pike's obsession with Graf.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by TMF

You also have to factor in which type of event they played. Suppose a player A is equally gifted as a player B, but player A plays on all ATP250 while player B plays on all Master Series. Guess who's is likey have a better winning percentage? More likely player A since small events aren't competitive as the bigger events(MS) where all the top players compete. Connors played a lot of small events and many are in the states, so it makes it easier for him.

Connors also played Borg, McEnroe, Nastase, Laver, Newcombe, Vilas, Dibbs, Solomon, Panatta, Ashe, Smith, Sampras (yes Pete), Agassi, Cash, Edberg, Becker, Wilander, Gonzalez, Roche, Gimeno, Noah, Leconte, Gottfried, Ramirez, Gerulaitis, Lendl, Tanner, Higueras, Gene Mayer, Clerc, Arias, Krickstein, Mecir, Gomez, Curren, Courier, Chang most of which he had a plus record. Many of the ones like Sampras, Courier, Chang and Agassi he played during really late in his decline period and was yet was still fairly competitive even though he did not win. Connors played many of them in majors.

Let's not make it ridiculous here. Federer played a number of easy tournaments too and Connors played plenty of huge super tough events. Yes Connors played the weak Pepsi Grand Slam against weak players like Borg and Gerulaitis. If the Pepsi existed today Federer would probably be playing Nadal on har tru. What would happen? And we still have to factor in the years in which Connors lost much more often by percentage in his later years on the tour. Your theory does not hold water. Just assume the competition was equal. They both played a huge variety of tournaments so just assume they both played the same level of tournaments overall.

People have complained about Federer having no competition at his peak and even now except for Djokovic and Nadal. I don't think there is any proof of that and I reject that. So don't use the Connors played weak competition argument. Connors played everyone.

Connors played to a late age and was still competitive as proven by his result in the 1991 US Open.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by TMF

Why don't you just change your user name to Kodes_King. Your obsession with Kodes is no difference from Joe Pike's obsession with Graf.

Oh¡ I simply used Kodes as an example of the depth of great players/champions in the 70´s.I may leave Jan aside and turn to Ilie Nastase,John Newcombe or Ken Rosewall, if you prefer.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by kiki

Oh¡ I simply used Kodes as an example of the depth of great players/champions in the 70´s.I may leave Jan aside and turn to Ilie Nastase,John Newcombe or Ken Rosewall, if you prefer.

Use Nastase. He was a super talent and a tennis genius. No real major strokes weaknesses and moved like the wind.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by pc1

Use Nastase. He was a super talent and a tennis genius. No real major strokes weaknesses and moved like the wind.

If he had just had Kodes courage and dogginess, he may have been already keyed up at GOAT status.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by pc1

Connors also played Borg, McEnroe, Nastase, Laver, Newcombe, Vilas, Dibbs, Solomon, Panatta, Ashe, Smith, Sampras (yes Pete), Agassi, Cash, Edberg, Becker, Wilander, Gonzalez, Roche, Gimeno, Noah, Leconte, Gottfried, Ramirez, Gerulaitis, Lendl, Tanner, Higueras, Gene Mayer, Clerc, Arias, Krickstein, Mecir, Gomez, Curren, Courier, Chang most of which he had a plus record. Many of the ones like Sampras, Courier, Chang and Agassi he played during really late in his decline period and was yet was still fairly competitive even though he did not win. Connors played many of them in majors.

Let's not make it ridiculous here. Federer played a number of easy tournaments too and Connors played plenty of huge super tough events. Yes Connors played the weak Pepsi Grand Slam against weak players like Borg and Gerulaitis. If the Pepsi existed today Federer would probably be playing Nadal on har tru. What would happen? And we still have to factor in the years in which Connors lost much more often by percentage in his later years on the tour. Your theory does not hold water. Just assume the competition was equal. They both played a huge variety of tournaments so just assume they both played the same level of tournaments overall.

People have complained about Federer having no competition at his peak and even now except for Djokovic and Nadal. I don't think there is any proof of that and I reject that. So don't use the Connors played weak competition argument. Connors played everyone.

Connors played to a late age and was still competitive as proven by his result in the 1991 US Open.

...and he also played Orantes,Rosewall ( on grass and clay) and, of course, Jan Kodes¡¡¡

The level of great players Connors has had to face, I don´t think any other player in tennis history, except maybe Ken Rosewall, can compare.