Champions and Challengers

[ATPballkid]

7 men more than any others in the 127 years of tennis history will go down as the greatest ambassadors for the sport and for their nations simply because of the way they played the sport and how they dominated the eras in which they were the greatest players on earth:

United States ____ Australia______ Britain________Sweden

Bill Tilden________ Ken Rosewall____Fred Perry____ Bjorn Borg
Don Budge _______ Rod Laver
Pete Sampras


There were some secondary players (challengers) to these great champions .. and some of them will be well known as challengers to the great champions 100 years from now.

Henri Cochet (France), great challenger of Bill Tilden.

Jack Crawford (Australia) and Ellsworth Vines (USA), great challengers of Fred Perry.

Gottfried von Cramm (Germany), great challenger of Don Budge.

Pancho Gonzales (USA), great challenger of Ken Rosewall.

John Newcombe (Australia), great challenger, and conquerer, of Rod Laver.

Jimmy Connors (USA), great challenger of Bjorn Borg.

John McEnroe (USA), great challenger, and conquerer, of Bjorn Borg.

Andre Agassi (USA), great challenger of Sampras.

[urban]

Ha, Ha. I read this kind of post a lot of times on another board under the name of Kaufmann, the Tennis King. Newcombe , the conqueror of Laver, ridicilous. Head to head is something of 3-15. And that Gonzales was the challenger of Rosewall, is reality on its head.

[slice bh compliment]

Lew Hoad is not even on your list?