I know it's a complete waste of time trying to educate most of these jokers, but for the remaining few who actually care to learn:
OE #1 is indeed Pistol. The likes of Karlovic, Isner, Raonic and Kyrgios might be more dangerous day to day, and even as a fan I'd long resisted putting Pete atop Ivo and Goran, but what matters is whether you can bring your best against the strongest competition and that's where
Sampras towers over the rest. Actually forget about Sampras,
Goran at '01 Wimbledon aced his opponents more than Ivo or Isner in their own '15/'18 Wimby runs through corresponding rounds.
Three more things you likely aren't very familiar with:
1) Contrary to received wisdom re: surface "slowdown" service stats across the board have been creeping up, thanks to the extra spin made possible by today's more powerful racquets. That's why, among other things, you don't see many top players average less than 60% on 1st serves these days, whereas the opposite held true in the '90s.
2) Aces are nice but a more accurate barometer of serving prowess is % of serves that aren't returned by the opponent, and while the two stats generally go hand in hand Sampras (or Roddick for that matter) got an unusually higher proportion of the latter than most servers. In fact he had a whopping 50.8% of his serves unreturned in his seven Wimbledon finals, when even a
Karlovic,
Isner or Raonic often fails to clear the 50% mark on grass in non-pressure situations. Suffice it to say it's unlikely any of these servebots matches Pete's % across 7 Wimby finals vs. comparable opponents.
3) The ATP counted aces and DFs twice for most GS matches of the '90s, which has led to some of you regurgitating the howler that Pete friggin' Sampras won a lesser % of 2nd-serve points than the likes of (just to name a few) Delpo, Nishi, Thiem, Gasquet, Coric, Millman, Sock and Monaco. Fortunately a brave soul in
@slice serve ace has completed the herculean task of (mostly) correcting the %s for the top '90s guys:
those not familliar with the issue can read through this thread http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=207411 and this grand slam matches on atp site, for whatever reason, counted aces and double faults twice from 1992 untill US Open 1999...from that tournament on stats are...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
And that's despite Pistol S&Ving on a lot more 2nd serves than any baseliner then and now which almost certainly brought down his average. In short there's no one since Newcombe whose 2nd serve was anywhere near the same weapon as Pistol's. (And before you say Isner, check out his SF vs. Anderson and then try to tell me with a straight face Pete wouldn't have done more damage with his own 2nd serve.)
More in-depth (linked) explanations in the OP here:
I've noticed that among the zillion GOAT threads in this forum there isn't a single comprehensive one ranking the greatest serves ever (for real), and since the serve is this sport's one shot that's least affected by outside variables (including racquets and strings) I've decided to create a new...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
Any of these guys could outserve another on a given day and the list is a perpetual work in progress, but it's definitely a whole lot better than the ATP's bogus "Serve Rating" most of you take as gospel. I suggest you check out some of my dissertations in that OP if you really care to find out more.
