Most Impressive Men's Tennis Achivements

[avmoghe]

Agassi's Golden Grand Slam, particularly as he won at Wimbledon when it really played differently from the other surfaces.

You forgot the most important part: *career* Golden slam - a massive difference from a real Golden Slam.

Steffi Graf has the only real Golden Slam IIRC.

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by avmoghe

You forgot the most important part: *career* Golden slam - a massive difference from a real Golden Slam.

Steffi Graf has the only real Golden Slam IIRC.

You foget the name of this thread:
"Most Impressive Men's Tennis Achivements"

[avmoghe]

Originally Posted by noeledmonds

You foget the name of this thread:
"Most Impressive Men's Tennis Achivements"

Did you see me post "Golden Slam" in my first post? I was only correcting you and pointing out that Agassi did not have a Golden slam. I wasn't nominating Steffi Graf's acheivement for consideration in this thread.

Agassi did not have a golden slam, which is why your post was wrong.

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by avmoghe

Did you see me post "Golden Slam" in my first post? I was only correcting you and pointing out that Agassi did not have a Golden slam. I wasn't nominating Steffi Graf's acheivement for consideration in this thread.

Agassi did not have a golden slam, which is why your post was wrong.

Alright point accepted and correction made. I just foget the word "career".

[Andres]

Originally Posted by noeledmonds

* Vilas's 44 conseuctive matches won, should have been more if it had not been for the spaghetti racket (which later became illegal).

It's 50, but 46 if we don't count official tourneys. And the record is by Borg, with 49, so why are the 44 wins impressing you?

And IMO, it's the Chicago Bulls' 72-10 season with the 15-3 playoffs

[mdhubert]

Nadal's 3,569 ***-picks in 2006, propably nobody will break this one...

[Lambsscroll]

3 STRAIGHT YEARS AS #1

............... Record..........Titles..........Slams


Federer___ 246-15........33..............8
Sampras__ 234-44........23..............6
Lendl_____ 232-20.........28.............5
J. McEnroe 216-23..........25............3
Conners___ 226-24.........30.............2

[Fedexeon]

Originally Posted by mdhubert

Nadal's 3,569 ***-picks in 2006, propably nobody will break this one...

Who have record of most *** pick in a year after Nadal? Seems to be a tough record for players to beat.

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by Andres Guazzelli

It's 50, but 46 if we don't count official tourneys. And the record is by Borg, with 49, so why are the 44 wins impressing you?

And IMO, it's the Chicago Bulls' 72-10 season with the 15-3 playoffs

hmm, you are right here. I seem to have muddled my facts a little here. I do not tend to bother checking them. I guess Vilas's streak was less then Borg's. Vilas still won 7 straight tournaments though. However a really think that Natase's spaghetti string racket can almost be ignored as a loss, given the racket was later banned from the game. Vilas had another sizeable streak after his loss to Natase, it was at least 20 matches. Vilas defenitly deserves some recognition for his 1977 year. He also won 16 tournaments, with a win-loss of about 115-15.

[Andres]

Originally Posted by noeledmonds

hmm, you are right here. I seem to have muddled my facts a little here. I do not tend to bother checking them. I guess Vilas's streak was less then Borg's. Vilas still won 7 straight tournaments though. However a really think that Natase's spaghetti string racket can almost be ignored as a loss, given the racket was later banned from the game. Vilas had another sizeable streak after his loss to Natase, it was at least 20 matches. Vilas defenitly deserves some recognition for his 1977 year. He also won 16 tournaments, with a win-loss of about 115-15.

145-15 was the record (official 128-14)
And the streak was 46 (or 50) - loss - 38 - loss

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by Andres Guazzelli

145-15 was the record (official 128-14)
And the streak was 46 (or 50) - loss - 38 - loss

Wow, 46-loss-38 is even better than I remember. This defenitly puts Vilas's streak above Borg's IMO. Thanks for the exact facts. Don't try and pretend that you are not looking them up though. As I said, I don't bother normally, I did say apporimately 115-15 which was not too far off.

[Andres]

Originally Posted by noeledmonds

Wow, 46-loss-38 is even better than I remember. This defenitly puts Vilas's streak above Borg's IMO. Thanks for the exact facts. Don't try and pretend that you are not looking them up though. As I said, I don't bother normally, I did say apporimately 115-15 which was not too far off.

Actually, I didn't. But I did looked them up once back then, and now I remember it!
And come on! It's Vilas! Everyone here knows about him

[DueSouth]

I dont know how long it took other players e.g. sampras to win all their grand slams but i think Federer's 10 grand slam titles out of 15(since the first title- wimby 03) is pretty impressive. The 5 he hasnt won since then are: Australian Open '05; French Open '04,'05,'06 and US Open '03
And last years win/loss ratio of 92/5

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by Andres Guazzelli

Actually, I didn't. But I did looked them up once back then, and now I remember it!
And come on! It's Vilas! Everyone here knows about him

Impresive memory. I wish everyone did know about Vilas, but I suspect most people on this board could not even tell you how many Grand Slams he won (it was 4 for anyone reading this who falls into that catergory ). I greatly admire Vilas's game, partiularly his backhand, and always thought 1 FO was not any justice for him. He has more clay court titles than any other player. He was just unfortunate enough to be playing against Borg I guess.

[Moose Malloy]

I wish everyone did know about Vilas, but I suspect most people on this board could not even tell you how many Grand Slams he won

I doubt most players on tour know how many slams he won either. As much as we like to think of tennis with a great tradition, history etc, its pretty apparent from posts here & by comments by players, commentators, that the current game & its players are all that matters to anyone. You are forgotten a lot more quickly in tennis than other sports. In baseball, basketball the players/fans seem to know quite a bit more about the past greats & their achievements & are very respectful towards them. Maybe it has to do with the fact that pro tennis players start from such a young age & don't really have much of a life outside of hitting a tennis ball since birth.

I read an interview with Vilas in the early 90s, he was working out somewhere & a current top 10 player was there as well. They got to talking, the top 10 player asked Vilas, "did you ever win anything big?"
Somehow I doubt most of the current top 10 have heard of many of the alltime greats as well. I bet the first time some top tenners even heard of Vilas is when his name started getting mentioned by the press when Nadal was getting close to his clay court streak last year. In 20 years, he will be about as well known among current players as Pancho Segura, which is a shame, while the alltime great baseball & basketball players will always live on.

[federerfanatic]

Vilas has only won 2 slams, if you consider the Australian Open not a real grand slam which back then it wasnt, so he is no all time great unless you consider Kafelnikov, Rafter, and Nadal as all time greats too or something. If you consider his Australian Opens he has 4 grand slams which puts him equal in career greatness to Jim Courier who nobody is talking about much even today.

Most impressive tennis achivements are Federer's now most consecutive weeks at #1, Federer winning 3 straight U.S Opens and Wimbledons, Federer having 2 3 slam years in 3 years only guy to do that, Federer winning 7 straight Wimbledons by 2009, Federer winning 6 straight U.S Opens by 2009.

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by federerfanatic

Vilas has only won 2 slams, if you consider the Australian Open not a real grand slam which back then it wasnt, so he is no all time great unless you consider Kafelnikov, Rafter, and Nadal as all time greats too or something. If you consider his Australian Opens he has 4 grand slams which puts him equal in career greatness to Jim Courier who nobody is talking about much even today.

The AO was a lesser slam back then, but a slam none the less. Vilas hardly exploited this. He did not play many AOs, and infact Vilas has the 2nd highest winning percentage at the AO of any open-era male player (behind Agassi). Even if you only count Vilas's other slams he is still suprior to the likes of Rafter and Kafelnikov. Slams are not the only consideration. Vilas's holds the 2nd longest winning streak across all surfaces (should be the first if it was not for the spagehtti racket as discussed eariler). Vilas also holds the 2nd longest winnning streak on clay. Vilas has more clay tournaments than any other player, and over 60 tournaments in total (more than the likes of Agassi and Borg). Vilas's 1977 is one of the great years. He won 16 tournamtents (an achivement only matched by Laver). He also won 7 straight tournaments. I am not arguing that Vilas is the GOAT, but he was a great player. Find a video clip of Vilas owning Connors in the USO final (as it is obvious to me you have seen little [if any]of Vilas playing).

[noeledmonds]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

I doubt most players on tour know how many slams he won either. As much as we like to think of tennis with a great tradition, history etc, its pretty apparent from posts here & by comments by players, commentators, that the current game & its players are all that matters to anyone. You are forgotten a lot more quickly in tennis than other sports. In baseball, basketball the players/fans seem to know quite a bit more about the past greats & their achievements & are very respectful towards them. Maybe it has to do with the fact that pro tennis players start from such a young age & don't really have much of a life outside of hitting a tennis ball since birth.

I read an interview with Vilas in the early 90s, he was working out somewhere & a current top 10 player was there as well. They got to talking, the top 10 player asked Vilas, "did you ever win anything big?"
Somehow I doubt most of the current top 10 have heard of many of the alltime greats as well. I bet the first time some top tenners even heard of Vilas is when his name started getting mentioned by the press when Nadal was getting close to his clay court streak last year. In 20 years, he will be about as well known among current players as Pancho Segura, which is a shame, while the alltime great baseball & basketball players will always live on.

You may be right here. It always suprises me how little professionals seem to know about the current game. I recall that Federer did not know that MS finals were best of 5 sets (and this was until he first played one!). Murray did not know the exact H2H of Federer vs. Nadal in an interview. I remember Blake being asked about the prospects of facing Murray in a British interview (at Queens). Blake did not even know he was due to face Murray. As for Murray he just talked about how great Murray was on grass and that he would be a threat. Blake clearly new very little about him. Murray himself stated that his best chance of winning a slam is the USO. Hard courts are more his strength. I guess you don't need to be a massive fan of the sport to play it, even at a professional level.

[TheNatural]

Not on the big scale of the other records but:

Wayne Arthurs won 111 consecutive service games at Wimbledon - the record of most consecutive service games held. He also has the 2nd highest of 109 but spanning across a few tournaments. 111 in 1 tournament will be tough to beat.

[oberyn]

Originally Posted by Nick Irons

Laver's 2 calendar Slams

Agassi having the only Career Slam (and Gold) in the Open Era (A 43 Year old stretch as of 2007)

(Laver's second Grand Slam (1969) was achieved during the Open Era.)

I think Lendl's making it to 8 consecutive U.S. Open Finals is pretty impressive.

Originally Posted by Nick Irons

Laver's 2 calendar Slams
Agassi having the only Career Slam (and Gold) in the Open Era (A 43 Year old stretch as of 2007)

Not to nitpick, but . . .

Laver's second Grand Slam (1969) was achieved during the Open Era.

Let's give the Rocket his full due . . .