Best player with only 1 slam

[NadalAgassi]

Originally Posted by Def

Maybe multiple slams, and that is a maybe, but no way would he have been #1 since mid 2010

That is the kind of talk that shows how insanely overrated Del Potro is on this forum. Even staying fully healthy he never would have put together the kind of years or tennis over a whole year that Nadal in 2010 or Djokovic in 2011 did. The guy at his peak didnt even win a freaking Masters title, even with further improvement he would be hard pressed to ever be #1 amongst this group of players, and if he ever did it would be for a blip in a year like this when nobody is dominant (but hugely unlikely even then as the overall years Federer, Djokovic, and Murray have had overall are hard to imagine DP ever reaching even in years he were to win a slam).

[RF20Lennon]

I say Murray or Muster

[veroniquem]

Best clay courter with only 1 slam: Muster. Best hard courter with only 1 slam: Murray (But I suspect Murray will win at least one more, I don't think he will stop at 1, so maybe it will be Chang or Roddick in the end).

[NadalAgassi]

My order:

1. Murray
2. Stich
3. Ivanisevic
4. Roddick
5. Muster
6. Chang
7. Cash
8. Roche
9. Del Potro
10. Gerulatis

Murray on top seems an obvious choice.

I give Stich the edge on the others since he both won the ATP World Championships (over Sampras at his peak in the final) and made a slam final on all 3 surfaces. That is an incredible feat. The guy could play on anything when his brain was screwed on right.

I debated between Ivanisevic and Roddick. Roddick was a contender to win 3 of the 4 slams (Aus, Wim, U.S Open), Ivanisevic really only 1 of the 4 (apart from the 96 U.S Open). Ivanisevic was better than Roddick on 3 of 4 major surfaces (grass, carpet/indoors, clay) with Roddick only better on hard courts. In the end I went with Ivanisevic since if his head was remotedly screwed on straight, which like Stich was infrequent at times, he was just the better player. Overall the better and more dominant serve (and this like Ivanisevic is by far Roddick's forte), better groundies, better movement and athletic ability, better return, better volleys, cant think of any technical thing Roddick did better except the forehand when really firing which was only 20% of his career. Roddick really should be commended in the sense he made the most out of very little, especialy once he lost his forehand. His fighting heart and consistency were well beyond Ivanisevic which is what makes it close.

I also debated between Muster and Chang. I was going to initially go with Chang since Muster is predominantly just based on clay court greatness. However come to think of it Chang is predominantly just based on hard court greatness too, he is nearly as much a hard court specialist as Muster is a clay court one. Yes I know Chang won a French but on the whole I dont even think he is much better on clay or indoor/carpet than Muster is on hard courts or indoor/carpet, and Muster on clay far eclipses Chang on hard courts. Muster also owns their H2H, regularly beating Chang even on Chang's preferred courts.

Cash and Roche have various slam finals, and lost some tough matches to legends which prevented them from winning an addition slam themselves.

I am giving DP some brownie points for beating Nadal and Federer back to back to win a slam, since his credentials are actually well below someone like Carlos Moya, and even below someone like Tomas Johansson who comes up in worst slam winner debates. Just on credentials alone he would probably be about 20th. However I believe his peak playing level would be amongst the top 4 or 5 amongst this group, so figure he deserves top 10.

[Totai]

Originally Posted by NadalAgassi

That is the kind of talk that shows how insanely overrated Del Potro is on this forum. Even staying fully healthy he never would have put together the kind of years or tennis over a whole year that Nadal in 2010 or Djokovic in 2011 did. The guy at his peak didnt even win a freaking Masters title, even with further improvement he would be hard pressed to ever be #1 amongst this group of players, and if he ever did it would be for a blip in a year like this when nobody is dominant (but hugely unlikely even then as the overall years Federer, Djokovic, and Murray have had overall are hard to imagine DP ever reaching even in years he were to win a slam).

By no means is Delpo overrated. Had he remained healthy, he would have dominated. Nadal had no answer to Delpo's attack, getting beaten 2-2-2, and then Delpo coming back in the finals and beat Fed at the US Open. His power was too much to handle, and he moves really well for a guy so tall.

[ark_28]

I give Roddick a very slight edge over Murray, what shades it for me is the fact he was a year end number one and although Roddick and Murray have and identical win loss ratio in slam finals right now (w1 l4) I think the fact Roddick took Federer to 16-14 in one of those finals loses needs to be considered!

With all that said I don't think Murray will be part of this discussion for long as now he has won a major I expect him to win a few more!

[Fyrepower]

roddick without a doubt.

[NadalAgassi]

Originally Posted by Totai

By no means is Delpo overrated. Had he remained healthy, he would have dominated. Nadal had no answer to Delpo's attack, getting beaten 2-2-2, and then Delpo coming back in the finals and beat Fed at the US Open. His power was too much to handle, and he moves really well for a guy so tall.

Yet before his major wrist injury he played the rest of the year and couldnt even win another tournament, and couldnt even beat Murray in the RR or Davydenko in the final of the WTF. Furthermore he retired from 2 tournaments mid match with smaller injuries, he was always going to be physically fragile.

Crushing Nadal once in a hard court slam is not a superhuman task, such icons of tennis like Jo Wilfried Tsonga and Fernando Gonzalez have managed the same feat. Especialy coming in the midst of a period Nadal was something like 2-12 vs top 10 opponents, and would go 0-6 in sets at the WTF. Tsonga did it at the start of Nadal's best ever year of tennis, at a time and in a match Nadal was actually playing twice as well as the 2010 U.S Open, but it was no prelude to World domination.

To be World #1 in this era you have to play all year round, have virtually no periods or slumps caused by minor injuries, win 3 or more Masters usually (Del Potro has not even won one), make semis or better of virtually all slams, winning atleast 1, often more. Sorry there is no way Del Potro with durability issues, mostly specializing on hard courts, not even having won a Masters title at his original peak, and very poor records vs all the top 4 (especialy Djokovic and Murray) was ever going to manage this. Just winning a slam here or there isnt even close to enough to be #1 in this era.

[kiki]

Originally Posted by THUNDERVOLLEY

Flaming members with nonsense does not make a point.



Still not a major, and loses when judging the career/historical importance of titles. For that reason alone, VG's WCT finals are inapplicable here.

Reached FO and USO final and wom twice Rome which was huge then I just see Stich and Murray above him and Chang being his equal but he played in golden age and Muurrey in weak era........

[Mustard]

Muster. Show me a guy who won 21 tournaments in his 25 month peak, which included a major and 6 masters series titles? Show me a guy with 1 major who went 111-5 on his best surface over 2 calendar years? Show me a guy with 1 major who's won 44 career titles in all?

Overall achievement wise it's Murray, having been in 5 major finals, won the same number of masters series titles as Muster (eight), as well as having Olympic gold.

[veroniquem]

Imo, Delpo has no place in this discussion. At all. For now. Right now, he's not even as good as Nalbandian (or Rios for that matter, much less Roddick and Chang) overall despite Nalby having no slam title. Delpo has 0 master, 0 WTF, not even a second slam final. He was never in the top 3 either. He probably is the only player in the history of open era who has 1 big title and absolutely nothing else besides that. Hopefully for his sake, it doesn't remain that way.

[NadalAgassi]

I forgot Ferrero. I wouldnt pick him as the best but would have definitely included him on my poll and he would probably be about #6 or #7 on my list.

[Mustard]

Originally Posted by veroniquem

Imo, Delpo has no place in this discussion. At all. For now. Right now, he's not even as good as Nalbandian (or Rios for that matter, much less Roddick and Chang) overall despite Nalby having no slam title. Delpo has 0 master, 0 WTF, not even a second slam final. He was never in the top 3 either. He probably is the only player in the history of open era who has 1 big title and absolutely nothing else besides that. Hopefully for his sake, it doesn't remain that way.

There's Gaston Gaudio. Gaudio has a French Open, which was the only time he managed even a quarter final at a major in his career. Gaudio never reached a master series final either. He won a 500 event at 2005 Kitzbuhel, while all his other career titles were 250 events. He got as high as number 5 in the world, though.

Some people might mention Thomas Johansson, but Johansson did win a masters series (1999 Montreal).

[AnotherTennisProdigy]

Why would Murray not be the best? The only thing he's missing from his resume is the #1 ranking, but I'm sure all of those masters more than make up for it.

[veroniquem]

You're right Mustard, Gaudio is worse. At least Delpo has a master final... and he made it to #4.

[NadalAgassi]

People have said Johansson is the worst but for me that is pure BS. He has made a Wimbledon semifinal, won a Masters, almost single handedly won them a Davis Cup by outplaying Moya and Corretja at their peaks in their semifinal with Spain. He owns Kafelnikov, a 2 time slam winner, in head to head. Heck in some ways you could even argue he is better than Del Potro, he is way better than Gaudio. The only positive for Gaudio in the comparision is he would probably win if they played on clay.

[Mustard]

Muster had the more formidable aura at his peak, more so than Murray.

[veroniquem]

Incidentally, Muster currently has the same # of master titles as Murray: 8. Even though I have no doubt Murray is gonna win more in the end. What's striking about Muster is his fitness and determination. It was hard coming back from his injury problems but he did and he had his best season at 27, which is quite remarkable.

[forzamilan90]

Murray is he best 1 slam winner, but he'll win multiple slams soon, so he'll be out of this circle.

[BauerAlmeida]

Roddick.

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