Most Impressive Men's Tennis Achivements

M

McEnroeisanartist

Hall of Fame
With Federer now owning the record for most consecutive weeks ranked number one in the world, I wonder where this ranks compared to other great men's tennis achivements. Some to consider:

Federer being the only player in the Open Era to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in three consecutive years.

Lendl reaching at least the finals of the U.S. Open for eight consecutive years.

McEnroe winning both the singles and doubles championship at a Grand Slam on five occasions.

Sampras winning Wimbledon in seven out of eight years.

Borg winning the French Open and Wimbledon in three consecutive years.

Connors reaching at least the semifinals of the U.S. Open for 12 consecutive years.
 
drakulie

drakulie

Talk Tennis Guru
Lavers two calendar slams is very, very impressive.

Agassi's career slam in addition to the Gold Medal.

I would probably go with Borg's French/Wimbledon achievement as the one that impresses me the most.
 
F

fastdunn

Legend
I would add following two:

1. Laver's 2nd calendar slam not necessarily the 1st one.

2. Agassi's career slam on 3 different surfaces in very surface polarized 90's.
He also won the 5th slam (Master's final) on a very quick carpet of 90's.
This is very special record, IMHO.


I would also pick Borg's consecutive wins on French/Wimbledon as the most impressive.
Quite mind-bogling. Unlike today, French was slower and Wimby was quick and sleek, AFAIK.
Against dirt ballers and serve-and-volleyers within 1 month or so for 5 consecutive
years. That's pretty sick..
 
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T

tricky

Hall of Fame
I would also pick Borg's consecutive wins on French/Wimbledon as the most impressive.
Click to expand...

Indeed; I really don't know whether I'd put even one calendar slam above this. In fact, if one could win both surfaces today, a calendar slam would be a likelihood rather than a possibility.
 
Nick Irons

Nick Irons

Semi-Pro
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)

Graf's 22 Grand Slam Singles Titles (the only player, male or female to have won each of the four major singles titles at least 4 times)

Graf's No. 1 ranked Rank spent of a total 377 (non-consecutive) weeks at No. 1, reigning for a record 186 consecutive weeks (August 17, 1987- March 10, 1991) - more than any man or woman.

No Male British player winning Wimby since 1936.

Lendl reaching 19 Slam singles finals

Chris Evert winning at least one major singles for 13 consecutive years, a record

Martina Navrátilová winning the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at all four Grand Slam events.

Margaret Smith Court having a combined 62 total Grand Slam titles
 
F

fastdunn

Legend
tricky said:
Indeed; I really don't know whether I'd put even one calendar slam above this. In fact, if one could win both surfaces today, a calendar slam would be a likelihood rather than a possibility.
Click to expand...

Hmm, this reminds me of 2006 when we had same finalists for
both Wimbledon and French....
 
jjames

jjames

Banned
chris evert won 125 straight matches on clay before losing once. then she won 72 more straight on clay before losing again. now whose gonna top that?


evert also had a career .900 winning percentage.

connors had a top 5 ranking for 13 straight years or so. connors also had an atp computer ranking for 24 years.
 
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BeckerFan

BeckerFan

Rookie
McEnroeisanartist said:
Lendl reaching at least the finals of the U.S. Open for eight consecutive years.
Click to expand...

Tilden pulled off the same feat, with a few crucial differences ...

Lendl won only three times in his eight final appearances. Tilden won SIX out of eight straight finals, and he later added a seventh title AND another final! I would say that his, by far, is the more impressive record.
 
C

chiru

Professional
winning a major in your teens, 20s, and 30s, demonstrates a prodigous player whose potential turned into longevity at the top. I think only pete and was it tilden who accomplished this?
 
breakfast_of_champions

breakfast_of_champions

Banned
Since were adding women too, how bout Chris Evert winning the 1976 U.S. Open while losing just 12 games the entire tournament.


These womens records are significant cause federer may break those too.
 
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A

avmoghe

Semi-Pro
Laver's two grand slams are the greatest accomplishments in our sport.

I don't think Federer (or anyone else for that matter) will ever match the two grand slams, let alone even think about actually surpassing it by having 3 Grand Slams.
 
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noeledmonds

noeledmonds

Professional
Most Impressive Men's Tennis Achivements
Click to expand...

In no particular order:

* Laver's 2 Grand Slams, but most importantly his Open Era Grand Slam

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

* Borgs winning at the French Open followed by Wimbledon on 3 conescutive occasions.

* Borg's 6 of 8 French Opens won, and the fact he lost to just 1 player at the French (this was Panatta)

* Federerer's 22 consecutive final wins. People tend to foget about this, but the previous record was something like 14 conseuctive wins.

* Federer's 7 consecutive Grand Slam finals (still going).

* Lendl's 8 consecutive USO finals, and 9 consecutive end of year championship finals.

* Sampras's 14 Grand Slams in 14 years of pro competition.

* Sampras's 7 Wimbledon titles in 8 years.

* Vilas's 46 conseuctive matches won (7 staight tournaments), should have been more if it had not been for the spaghetti racket (which later became illegal).
 
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A

avmoghe

Semi-Pro
Agassi's Golden Grand Slam, particularly as he won at Wimbledon when it really played differently from the other surfaces.
Click to expand...

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.
 
A

avmoghe

Semi-Pro
noeledmonds said:
You foget the name of this thread:
"Most Impressive Men's Tennis Achivements"
Click to expand...

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.
 
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noeledmonds

noeledmonds

Professional
avmoghe said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

Andres

G.O.A.T.
noeledmonds said:
* Vilas's 44 conseuctive matches won, should have been more if it had not been for the spaghetti racket (which later became illegal).
Click to expand...
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 :mrgreen:
 
Lambsscroll

Lambsscroll

Hall of Fame
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
 
noeledmonds

noeledmonds

Professional
Andres Guazzelli said:
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 :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

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

Andres

G.O.A.T.
noeledmonds said:
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.
Click to expand...
145-15 was the record (official 128-14)
And the streak was 46 (or 50) - loss - 38 - loss :)
 
noeledmonds

noeledmonds

Professional
Andres Guazzelli said:
145-15 was the record (official 128-14)
And the streak was 46 (or 50) - loss - 38 - loss :)
Click to expand...

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.:-D As I said, I don't bother normally, I did say apporimately 115-15 which was not too far off.
 
Andres

Andres

G.O.A.T.
noeledmonds said:
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.:-D As I said, I don't bother normally, I did say apporimately 115-15 which was not too far off.
Click to expand...
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 :p
 
DueSouth

DueSouth

Semi-Pro
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

noeledmonds

Professional
Andres Guazzelli said:
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 :p
Click to expand...

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.
 
M

Moose Malloy

G.O.A.T.
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
Click to expand...

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

federerfanatic

Banned
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.
 
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noeledmonds

noeledmonds

Professional
federerfanatic said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

noeledmonds

Professional
Moose Malloy said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
D

Deleted member 3771

Guest
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

oberyn

Professional
Nick Irons said:
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)
Click to expand...

(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.

Nick Irons said:
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)
Click to expand...

Not to nitpick, but . . .

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

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

Andres

G.O.A.T.
federerfanatic said:
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.
Click to expand...
The difference between Vilas, and Kafelnikov, and Pat, and Rafa, is that Vilas played 8 GS finals (plus all the already mentioned feats)
 
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