Pancho did poorly in the 1963 US Pro after his retirement...no way could he win Wimbledon.
I wonder about Kramer winning Wimbledon in 1952. Sedgman was a very strong contender on grass and it was not clear that the top pros were better than Sedgeman in 1952 (wiki World number 1.) Gonzalez was clearly number one in 1952 so just one slam seems a bit slim. You have Sedgeman with Australia in 1952, so maybe Gonzalez for Wimbledon or flip them. I don't see 1950 Wimbledon for Gonzalez. He turned pro at a young age. Perhaps if he was treated more fairly he would have done more in this time period. Things would have been fair in this Open era and the slams would have paid the most.
I think Hoad is under counted. He had the bad back, but he did have periods when he could play at a high level. I had him witn 1962 US Open and 1963 Australia, but I was stretching to give Hoad as much as I could because he was so great when healthy. That back would have been a real issue over a whole two week slam plus the tennis required to be in top form in an open era.
Its a valid view/argument, but your reasoning seems sound for Gonzales.
Excellent and you do have Sedgeman at 1952 Australia so he gets his due.
I had Gonzales winning one on clay. Quite a few contend he was excellent on clay so would have done quite well. I myself was originally quite skeptical of Gonzales in Europe, but I've been repeatedly schooled on this. So two is a lot of FOs for Gonzo. The rabid Gonzales fan loves to point to his performances at the Howard Hughes. A strong case can be made that he was significantly better than Laver in his prime. And I've seen people spit out that his year end number ones and other wins was the equivalent of 30 slams. Its nice to have a skeptic and other than NatF I don't see anyone championing Gonzales and we need someone with specifics. What do you think of peak Hoad? (some think that is a pinnacle and Gonzales did have to retool his game to deal with Hoad; who then had back issues.)
Wonderful.
So why no Rosewall at 1959 Auz? Was Hoad equalling Rosewall by that point?
I agree. If some judicous upsets are not postulated then these slam totals must be deflated by 5 or 10% when trying to compared versus players with more solid modern accomplishments.I agree that it would be too difficult to account for surprise finalists and victors. A list of favourites and probable winners is obviously the easiest road to take without descending into complete speculation. I do think someone like Emerson, Gimeno and others would potentially win more than one - as well as a young Newcombe etc...But again such a list would become increasingly speculative. My point is only that IMO the final tallies of everyone would likely be a bit lower than as you have them. Not every one of those dozens or outsiders would have broken through, but a few probably would have.
I consider winning Open Majors harder than Pro Majors so while the streak of Rosewall/Laver is certainly more than enough to put them as strong favourites for every slam I don't think they'd necessarily be as dominant - though it is possible. Federer/Nadal had similar dominance in Open Majors in the mid 00's so maybe it is possible
Unfortunately that is a very valid point. I supppose comparing Tilden to Federer or Djkovic is a stretch given all of the changes to the game.
Someone else could give you the info about the different grass. I know in the 60's the AO (IIRC) was said to have a poorer quality court with more bad bounces etc...
I'll be honest, I did mentally count up how many extra slams I think Federer could have won if there 3 grass slams
I've played on grass in Australia and it was really low bouncing.
Trabert was hot in the early fifties...why did he not win at Roland Garros in 1952 and 1953? A little matter called the Korean War where he was busily engaged.
Gonzales had a serious injury in that match.
Gonzales whipped Kramer in straight sets in the most important pro tournament in 1950, Philadelphia.
Bobby, we cannot unretire Gonzales for no good reason...you have not given us one.
Countless reasons.
He retired in 1961...why would money not keep him unretired?
Whatever those reasons were, Gonzales decided to retire in 1961...we cannot change history.
The very definition of Open era and all those changes would change this. Its the nature of the whole exercise. Very doubtbul Gonzales would have retired. Serious injuries are another matter.
Laver talks about the differences in grass courts at the majors in his book The Education of a Tennis Player.
The whole premise and point of this thread is to rewrite history.
Why would Gonzales and Hoad NOT have semi-retired in the early sixties? They had good reasons to scale back.
Hoad had his back, so its hard seeing him do more given it would have taken more play to compete on tour. Seems like he might have hung it up even earlier due to greater stress and greater rewards allowing him to do so. Does anyone understand what motivated Gonzales? Would he have gotten more money earlier and just retired earlier? Were the rigors of the pro tour more difficult given its survivalist nature where the crowd had to be entertained? Would Gonzales have been so aloof if he did not feel his 7 year contract with Kramer under paid him?
Hoad's back was not a severe handicap, he could work around it, as he showed in 1958-59 when he played 275 matches. He semi-retired after 1959 to spend more time with his family.
In the 1959 tour, there were major tournaments at Kooyong (twice), and White City (once), with Sedgman and Hoad winning at Kooyong and Gonzales winning at White City. Rosewall won two tournaments at Brisbane.
Still his back HAD to have affected him.
It certainly did...in the 1958 best-of-a-hundred tour, he led 21 to 10 over Gonzales when his back froze up, and then he could not win for a long time...skipped the tour twice that year for stretches, and then in September wrenched his back in the Roland Garros final, concluding his year.
The Laver win was impressive but I'm not sure if he was prime Laver quite yet. The Gonzalez tour was to me even more impressive considering Gonzalez was still in his prime.
I believe Bobby is banned. It may be a temporary ban.
That's fine with me. Rosewall is a player to be respected.
Don't know the reason.
I will mimic Kramer and give a list of the "Big Two", assuming that open open tennis arrives in 1946, which is what should have happened. In this case, unlike Kramer, I am referring to my own choice of top seeds, not actual winners.
Seems okay. Naturally some minor disagreement but that's fine.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, PC1.
