GOAT Discussions

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by Dan Lobb

Lakewood, Cleveland was on clay.
What year was this clay tour against Segura?

I have read it was in 1952 but I can err.

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by Dan Lobb

No, but the pros looked for cheapest locales, that would mean indoor.
The Cannes was indoor.
Look at 1961. Here we have the Scandinavian Pro INDOOR. Is Scandinavia in Europe?
The "Milan Pro", with Gonzales and Cooper in the final. Sounds like indoor.
The Austrian Pro INDOOR, with Gonzales and MacKay in the final, MacKay beating Rosewall in the semifinal. Sounds like not clay.
The Inter-Country Pro Challenge in Turin, with the usual indoor guys coming through. Sounds like indoor.
Etc. etc.
We need some hard evidence to show that a clay venue was rented (these cost more to rent than a cold, claustrophobic gym or arena).
It still looks like 7 to 2 for Hoad over Rosewall on clay, in recognized major tournaments.

Dan, I accept some of your points. Generally in summer months in Continental Europe the surface was usually clay, not in winter months.

You again have omitted the 1958 4:1 clay balance of Rosewall against Hoad (Perrier Cup). This was not a minor event!

1959 Rome (GP) was maybe played on clay. Rosewall d Hoad 5-7,6-4,6-1

The same year in GP at Vienna Rosewall beat Hoad on clay 6-3,6-1.

In the same event, by the way, Rosewall beat Trabert 3-6,6-0,6-2, that meaning a strong revenge for Trabert's clear win at the French Pro...

Your 7:2 balance of Hoad vs. Rosewall is wrong!

[Dan Lobb]

Originally Posted by BobbyOne

Dan, I accept some of your points. Generally in summer months in Continental Europe the surface was usually clay, not in winter months.

You again have omitted the 1958 4:1 clay balance of Rosewall against Hoad (Perrier Cup). This was not a minor event!

1959 Rome (GP) was maybe played on clay. Rosewall d Hoad 5-7,6-4,6-1

The same year in GP Rosewall beat Hoad on Viennese clay 6-3,6-1.

In the same event, by the way, Rosewall beat Trabert 3-6,6-0,6-2, that meaning a strong revenge for Trabert's clear win at the French Pro...

You 7:2 balance of Hoad vs. Rosewall is wrong!

I also omitted the 1957 clay tour, which Hoad apparently won 6 to3.
Neither this nor the 1958 Perrier are specified in any detail.
"Maybe"'s do not count.

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by Dan Lobb

I also omitted the 1957 clay tour, which Hoad apparently won 6 to3.
Neither this nor the 1958 Perrier are specified in any detail.
"Maybe"'s do not count.

Dan, The Perrier Trophy is yet specified in detail.

As long as it was played on clay, Rosewall was 16:1 and Hoad was 3:14. (Tennis de France).

Dan, It's still better to write "maybe" than to claim for sure "facts" which you cannot prove...

[Dan Lobb]

Originally Posted by BobbyOne

Dan, The Perrier Trophy is yet specified in detail.

As long as it was played on clay, Rosewall was 16:1 and Hoad was 3:14. (Tennis de France).

Dan, It's still better to write "maybe" than to claim for sure "facts" which you cannot prove...

I only counted verified results. Guesses do not count.

[pc1]

Guys,

Perhaps you both should continue this discussion in the Lew Hoad thread.

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by pc1

Guys,

Perhaps you both should continue this discussion in the Lew Hoad thread.

pc1; Okay, I will switch to the Hoad thread. But I don't expect that Dan will change his style of discussion in any thread...

[borg number one]

Originally Posted by pc1

Nice link Borg number one.

Thanks PC1, glad you liked it!

[pc1]

Originally Posted by jeffreyneave

Just because a player wins the world tour does not automatically make you number one. Gonzales won every world tour played between 1954 and 1961, but that does not mean he was necessarily number one every year. Other play namely tournaments count as well. I rate sedgman as number 1 in 1958 and Rosewall as number one in 1961. The same is true in 1964. All active play counts towards world rankings not just the activity on the world tour. In 1964 19 tournaments made up the world tour but in all play there were 31 tournaments plus numerous one night stands. On the world tour Rosewall won 7 tournaments and Laver 6. But on overall play Laver won 11 tornaments and Rosewall 10. That's point why the world tour should be ignored because it does not cover all play. The world tour also failed to give extra points to the 3 pro majors. The world tour is not representative of overall play which showed that Laver had an edge in tournaments won, won 2 majors to one for rosewall and had huge 15-4 edge in their head to head results. Laver's win loss percentage was also superior at 74.8% to Rosewall's 69.5%.

I am very confident that the world tour consisted of 19 tournaments. I have added up Rosewall's 78 points, Laver's 70 points and Hoad's 29 points from these tournaments. These tournaments are all the events with 8 or more players except the Port Elizabeth tournament. That gives 18 events. The 19th event is the 4 man golden Racquet at Wembley where Gonzales and and hoad earned extra points.

jeffrey

Originally Posted by pc1

Jeffrey,

You have excellent points but we also must take into consideration the rules and how the players valued things during their time. To give an example, let us say that in 1979 player X won the Australian and player Y won Wimbledon. The rest of the year they had an equal record. Well by today's standards it is even but by the standards of 1979 it's not close, Wimbledon is by FAR a bigger tournament. I would venture to say that the Australian was below several other tournaments aside from majors in 1979.

If you look at 1960 for example Rosewall won the French Pro and Wembley. That's two of three majors and Olmedo won the US Pro. Pancho Gonzalez did not win a major that year but he very well had a great right to be called World Champion because he crushed Rosewall on a multi player tour along with Segura and Olmedo winning an incredible 49 of 57 matches!! Gonzalez's main focus were the tours and it is definitely true that these tours were MORE important than any major to the top pro at the time. Whoever wins it is considered the World Champion and it put money on Gonzalez's wallet. Lose the tour and he was no longer World Champion and a has been. There is no ifs ands or buts about it. The tours were BIGGER than a major.

So the same thing applies for 1964, by the standards of that time and that tour Rosewall was number one. Now in this case it's so close you can give an excellent argument for Laver as World Champion but I have no problems with calling Rosewall co-number one with Laver. You cannot just apply the standards of today to this.

By this logic Federer is the GOAT easily despite the fact guys like Tilden were more dominant in their respective times but didn't play the majors because of the travel problems among other things. Laver, Gonzalez, Kramer, Sedgman, Segura, Hoad, Budge, Nusslein and Trabert couldn't play the majors for a good portion of their careers. Do you penalize them for not winning as many majors as Roy Emerson because all in my opinion were superior to him? By applying the standards of today you can make an argument Emerson is the third best player ever and that would be wrong.

Originally Posted by BobbyOne

jeffrey, Omitting the world tour is as wrong as considering it alone. Thus I give tied No.1 places. Also for 1959, 1960, 1961.

Originally Posted by BobbyOne

pc1, You have explained the matter better than I could do. Very convincing to me.

Originally Posted by urban

Good points and discussion here. Indeed we have the problem of applying todays standards. On the other hand, the standards of the pro tour were not always that clear for the pros themselves. Especially in transition years the pros leaned towards holding on the old king, in a way that a boxing champion had to be dethroned, even if he didn't defend his title. Dempsey for instance was the world champ in the 20s without even boxing for more than 3 years.
So Kramer was seen as the world pro champ until 1953 inclusive, although he played only sporadically 1951-1953, and was in my estimation overhauled by Gonzalez or Sedgman, if you consider the full seasons of tennis. Rosewall was imo the true pro Nr. 1 since 1961, but in that year most people still thought of Gonzalez as the real champ. In years like 1959 the pro ranking was a real mess, with all kinds of promoters and players giving ranking lists, which heavily differed from each other. Sometimes the pros didn't seem to know, what the reigning standard was. Since McCauley' book we have at least a solid statistical basis for reconsideration. We do this also in open years like 1975 or 1978, when the computer system was in its infancy. McCauley himself follows the old system of favoring the older champ as explained above - in his paragraph titles, but in the text he makes modifications.

Above is a discussion in the Alan Trengove on Rod Laver thread. I thought it would be interesting to quote some of the posts and put them in this thread.

Essentially the discussion was about the changing value on what is important in tennis accomplishments during a tennis year and how it varies depending on the year or decade. For example the Australian while always technically a major was not really considering that important for a while in the seventies and eighties. Many top players skipped the tournament.

One thing that has been not discussed is the head to head tours the top pros use to play for the World Championships. These were not technically tournaments but whoever won them was considered to be World Champion and it was really MORE IMPORTANT than any major. This adds to the resume of the great Pancho Gonzalez in that he won more of these tours than anyone in history. Most of them for the World title.

Gonzalez defeated on tour greats like Trabert, Rosewall, Hoad, Segura, Gimeno, Cooper, Anderson. Some of them were beaten on several tours. You combine this with all his Pro Majors and his tournaments won and it is arguably a record without parallel.

Do I personally think Gonzalez had the greatest record in the history of tennis? I think he's in the mix with greats like Laver, Rosewall, Tilden and Borg among others. But the tour record is incredible.

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by pc1

Above is a discussion in the Alan Trengove on Rod Laver thread. I thought it would be interesting to quote some of the posts and put them in this thread.

Essentially the discussion was about the changing value on what is important in tennis accomplishments during a tennis year and how it varies depending on the year or decade. For example the Australian while always technically a major was not really considering that important for a while in the seventies and eighties. Many top players skipped the tournament.

One thing that has been not discussed is the head to head tours the top pros use to play for the World Championships. These were not technically tournaments but whoever won them was considered to be World Champion and it was really MORE IMPORTANT than any major. This adds to the resume of the great Pancho Gonzalez in that he won more of these tours than anyone in history. Most of them for the World title.

Gonzalez defeated on tour greats like Trabert, Rosewall, Hoad, Segura, Gimeno, Cooper, Anderson. Some of them were beaten on several tours. You combine this with all his Pro Majors and his tournaments won and it is arguably a record without parallel.

Do I personally think Gonzalez had the greatest record in the history of tennis? I think he's in the mix with greats like Laver, Rosewall, Tilden and Borg among others. But the tour record is incredible.

pc1, I agree that the big world tours of Pancho Gonzalez and others were more important that the pro majors.

Gonzalez also beat Sedgman in the 1954 tour thus beating all strong players from 1954 to 1961.

Pancho is one of my top four players.

[kiki]

some people developed a thread discussing great all time matches - that never took place-.

In the view of this discussion, I´d like to add to my colection a Hoad or Gonzales vs Nadal, or vs Borg which would pitt the most formidable offensive force against the most perfect defensive machines.

[Dan Lobb]

Originally Posted by kiki

some people developed a thread discussing great all time matches - that never took place-.

In the view of this discussion, I´d like to add to my colection a Hoad or Gonzales vs Nadal, or vs Borg which would pitt the most formidable offensive force against the most perfect defensive machines.

This would be a composite match, consisting of elements of actual matches. But who can say what would happen on a given day? Just about anything COULD happen.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by BobbyOne

Dan, I accept some of your points. Generally in summer months in Continental Europe the surface was usually clay, not in winter months.

You again have omitted the 1958 4:1 clay balance of Rosewall against Hoad (Perrier Cup). This was not a minor event!

1959 Rome (GP) was maybe played on clay. Rosewall d Hoad 5-7,6-4,6-1

The same year in GP at Vienna Rosewall beat Hoad on clay 6-3,6-1.

In the same event, by the way, Rosewall beat Trabert 3-6,6-0,6-2, that meaning a strong revenge for Trabert's clear win at the French Pro...

Your 7:2 balance of Hoad vs. Rosewall is wrong!

Bobby, do you know that Ken Rosewall blamed his daddy for turning him a right handed when he was a natural lefty?
He said he would have had a much tougher serve if he had kept on being lefty...and we all kniw that a Rosewall with a better first ball would have won a Wimbledon title or two

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by kiki

Bobby, do you know that Ken Rosewall blamed his daddy for turning him a right handed when he was a natural lefty?
He said he would have had a much tougher serve if he had kept on being lefty...and we all kniw that a Rosewall with a better first ball would have won a Wimbledon title or two

kiki, As far as I know Rosewall never accused his father for the shift from left to right. But you are right that Muscles mentioned the serve weakness. In fact I agree that Rosewall would have been much stronger with a stronger service.

The shift from left to right was usual in those days, regarding writing and so on, alas!

Regarding Wimbledon I hope you meant that Rosewall would have won one or two out of the four finals he played at Wimbledon. In fact it's common sense among experts that Muscles would have won several Wimbledon titles, regardless if with a strong or "weak" service, if he played at Wimbledon in his peak years, i.e. 1961 to 1964.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by BobbyOne

kiki, As far as I know Rosewall never accused his father for the shift from left to right. But you are right that Muscles mentioned the serve weakness. In fact I agree that Rosewall would have been much stronger with a stronger service.

The shift from left to right was usual in those days, regarding writing and so on, alas!

Regarding Wimbledon I hope you meant that Rosewall would have won one or two out of the four finals he played at Wimbledon. In fact it's common sense among experts that Muscles would have won several Wimbledon titles, regardless if with a strong or "weak" service, if he played at Wimbledon in his peak years, i.e. 1961 to 1964.

I didn´t mean to blame his father as an accusation but he regreted that he had been somewhat forced to turn right handed which, as you said, was usual in those years.

Nobody can prove that he would have won Wimbledon with a better serve although I think he could have been able to surprise John Newcombe or Jaro Drobny in the two finals he lost over 5 sets.

However, I don´t think he could have beaten 1956 Hoad or 1974 Connors, even with a better serve.Of course, in the early 60´s, he would have been the favourite, along Pancho Gonzales and from 1963 till 1967, he could ahve challenged Rod Laver.

[BobbyOne]

Originally Posted by kiki

I didn´t mean to blame his father as an accusation but he regreted that he had been somewhat forced to turn right handed which, as you said, was usual in those years.

Nobody can prove that he would have won Wimbledon with a better serve although I think he could have been able to surprise John Newcombe or Jaro Drobny in the two finals he lost over 5 sets.

However, I don´t think he could have beaten 1956 Hoad or 1974 Connors, even with a better serve.Of course, in the early 60´s, he would have been the favourite, along Pancho Gonzales and from 1963 till 1967, he could ahve challenged Rod Laver.

kiki, Drobny beat Rosewall in four sets but I believe that Rosewall has said that this was his closest defeat. Muscles was ill-advised by Hopman for that final.

[pc1]

Originally Posted by kiki

I didn´t mean to blame his father as an accusation but he regreted that he had been somewhat forced to turn right handed which, as you said, was usual in those years.

Nobody can prove that he would have won Wimbledon with a better serve although I think he could have been able to surprise John Newcombe or Jaro Drobny in the two finals he lost over 5 sets.

However, I don´t think he could have beaten 1956 Hoad or 1974 Connors, even with a better serve.Of course, in the early 60´s, he would have been the favourite, along Pancho Gonzales and from 1963 till 1967, he could ahve challenged Rod Laver.

It was not uncommon to switch from left hander to a right hander in those days. Margaret Court was a natural lefty and she become a right hander. Court had a great serve.

Nadal did it the other way. He switched from being a right hander to a left hander.

I would say that all three were pretty successful.