Who is the most important male player ever.

krosero said:

* * * Seriously, this is the first time that I've seen someone point to the French Musketeers -- one of the greatest national teams ever, and a unique concentration of talent -- and call it a weak era.

* * *

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The universally acknowledged greatness of the French Musketeers, alone, forecloses any argument that Tilden played in a weak era. I have never, ever, read any such assessment of the 20's tennis era in my life. And I am sure I never will again, unless Dan Lobb persists with this preposterous, utterly unsupported, premise.

Limpinhitter said:

The universally acknowledged greatness of the French Musketeers, alone, forecloses any argument that Tilden played in a weak era. I have never, ever, read any such assessment of the 20's tennis era in my life. And I am sure I never will again, unless Dan Lobb persists with this preposterous, utterly unsupported, premise.

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Limp. this "preposterous" notion was believed by Jack Kramer, who lived much closer to the scene than you or I.

krosero said:

No that does not follow at all. Lacoste retired early, at 26, but one thing to keep in mind is how early he matured as a player (he was 22 when he reached #1). Also, HL Doherty had retired early too, reaching #1 at age 27 and retiring by age 31, while still #1. And he retired due to sickness as well -- tuberculosis, again, which was such a great problem back then.

If you think that the Lacoste era was weak because Lacoste had health problems, then certainly you have to say the same for the era in which Doherty was #1.

You seem to be judging these eras according to later standards, not just when it comes to sickness but also height. People were smaller back then, and that has to be taken into consideration when considering Bill Johnston. It should not be a surprise that the smallest champion of all time (if that's what Johnston was) played almost a century ago, because people were smaller then.

In all the contemporary reports from the Tilden era, Johnston is recognized as a small man but no one implies that they're living in a weak era simply because Johnston is a top player. To the contrary Johnston is compared favorably with the greatest champions of the past, and there is only admiration for just how well he hit the ball -- and particularly how hard he hit his forehand. He was not a player who waited for his opponent's errors; he went for powerful shots and winners. One report after another observes how he manages to use his relatively small frame to maximum effect -- which if you recall was something routinely said about Justine Henin.

At Forest Hills in 1915, Johnston defeated Maurice McLoughlin by putting him on the defensive, despite all the power of "the Comet." Read this appraisal of Johnston's forehand in the New York Times and tell me if they were dismissing Johnston as a small man:

"Probably never in all the years of the historic All Comers has a player displayed such phenomenal command of the ball with a forehand stroke. There were many competent judges present yesterday who declared that its equal was not to be found on the courts anywhere, and it is likely that a representative number of players, including R. Norris Williams, 2d, the playing through title holder who lost to it in the semifinal, Karl H. Behr and Harold H. Hackett, would willingly indorse [sic] the statement...."​

And after the 1919 final in which Johnston defeated Tilden:

"The forehand drive of William M. Johnston is unquestionably the greatest single tennis shot in the world, bar none. He seems able to use it with every possible degree of speed, with an accuracy that baffles the fastest court covering, and with a steadiness which has discouraged every opponent he has ever faced. No stroke has ever been developed by any other player to equal its efficiency and general dependability."​

And their appraisal of Johnston's volleying ability, after his five-set loss to Tilden in 1920:

"Here he was distinctly Tilden’s superior. Not only was he able to volley balls that would have knocked down an ordinary player, and to reach low, well-placed passing shots that could scarcely be seen in their flight, but he turned a majority of these extraordinary gets into actual factors in his attack, either scoring outright or forcing a defensive position which ultimately brought him the point."​

I think the problem you're facing here is that no one who observed Tilden's tennis back then, to my knowledge, felt that they were looking at a step backward in the game, or at an inferior champion. Quite to the contrary. And Johnston, for a #2 player, was held in the highest regard. I think the burden of proof is on the argument that Tilden's brand of tennis was inferior to what had come before. Merely pointing to one of Tilden's rivals who was a short man and another who became infirm does not show this, particularly in the context of that time period when people were smaller and were more often ill or infirm.

Seriously, this is the first time that I've seen someone point to the French Musketeers -- one of the greatest national teams ever, and a unique concentration of talent -- and call it a weak era.

I don't know if this is true about maturation at a younger age; I'd need to see statistical proof. However, if it is true, then that means that you are judging Tilden's maturation as a tennis player according to later standards. And that would contradict your earlier argument that Tilden's maturation at age 27 is something uniquely out of step with the course of tennis history. Maybe it was, in the context of its era, not nearly as unique as you think.

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Krosero, if players were generally small and sick in those days, it certainly was not true of the players in the early 1930's or later, and therefore this adds to the view that the 1920's were a weak era.
Yes, Lacoste matured relatively early for that era, about age 21, but he retired a mere five years later at 26! And from physical weariness! That, I believe, is the point!
Johnston was , by all accounts, a brilliant player, but his small size (and 120 pounds placed him among the smallest players of his own era) meant that he was prone to fade in long matches, such as the US finals in 1916 (against Williams), and 1920 and 1922 against Tilden.
Again, physical fitness and stamina are fundamental components of tennis success.

krosero said:

Something about this does not make sense. You're talking about men who would have been younger than Tilden, and about the right age to challenge him in the early 1920s. Well Tilden was 27 when he became the world's top player, in 1920. You're talking about rivals who would have been significantly younger than Tilden, therefore around 21 to 24 years of age. Such men would have been 19-22 years of age when the war had ended, in late 1918.

Now, the 19-year-olds cannot have been fighting for very long -- presuming they were even present in the trenches, and dying there in very large numbers, in 1918. Those who were 21 or 22 at the end of the war might have seen more fighting, and would have been lost in greater numbers – though how many is open to question. For one thing, a large number of men even in this latter group would not have been fighting from the start of the war in 1914. And we don’t even know what portion of the armed forces was made up of men of this age range. Presumably there were some men of this age on the front lines, but men in their late 20, 30s and even 40s were being conscripted too. (Anthony Wilding, for example, was killed at the age of 31.) You’re talking about a narrow set of men who would have been around 21 or 22 when the war ended. Those are really the only men who theoretically could have seen a lot of fighting, and therefore high casualty rates, while still being potentially young rivals to Tilden in 1920.

And even so we’re only talking about potential rivals challenging Tilden in 1920. If you ask about young rivals challenging him in 1921 or later, you’re increasingly talking about men who would have been mere teenagers during the war. This group would not have seen very much fighting, if they saw any at all. The numbers of those actually killed would be even smaller.

None of this is to say that a war doesn’t thin out a pool of competition. It does, especially in the first few years after the war. But afterwards you have to be careful. The period 1920-25 is already far enough removed from the war that players significantly younger than Tilden would have been mere teenagers during the war, who saw no fighting – or else they would have been very young men who cannot have seen very much fighting and cannot have been lost in overwhelmingly great numbers.

I think you’ve called up a specter, an image of young men lying dead on the battlefields of France and Belgium. There certainly were horrendously great numbers of those. But a very large number of those would have been men already in their mid and late 20s, and even in their 30s, during the war (like Anthony Wilding, for example).

Which basically means that most of the men who died in the war were not candidates for being younger tennis rivals to Tilden in 1920-25.

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No, Krosero, the vast proportion of men who were conscripted and died on the battlefields were young, most of them age 18 to early twenties.
And the average casualty rates at the front in WWI were higher than WWII, and even in the second war the casualty rates among the divisions which landed in Normandy was sometimes over 100%.
American and British armies took very high numbers of deaths, the British alone lost about 3 million dead, about three times the number lost in WWII.
The French and Germans lost much more than this.

Dan Lobb said:

No, Krosero, the vast proportion of men who were conscripted and died on the battlefields were young, most of them age 18 to early twenties.
And the average casualty rates at the front in WWI were higher than WWII, and even in the second war the casualty rates among the divisions which landed in Normandy was sometimes over 100%.
American and British armies took very high numbers of deaths, the British alone lost about 3 million dead, about three times the number lost in WWII.
The French and Germans lost much more than this.

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Unless you can demonstrate that a significant number of them were championship level tennis prospects your contentions are idiotic and irrelevant.

Dan Lobb said:

Johnston was , by all accounts, a brilliant player, but his small size (and 120 pounds placed him among the smallest players of his own era) meant that he was prone to fade in long matches, such as the US finals in 1916 (against Williams), and 1920 and 1922 against Tilden.
Again, physical fitness and stamina are fundamental components of tennis success.

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physical fitness and stamina have nothing to do with the size of a player.

Limpinhitter said:

Unless you can demonstrate that a significant number of them were championship level tennis prospects your contentions are idiotic and irrelevant.

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Where did the young tennis players of this era emerge from? Not from "the working classes" and public courts (like Kramer, Schroeder, Gonzales). They came from upper class families and university students who had access to facilities. Tennis was still a "gentleman's game".
However, many of these gentlemen became officers in both world wars, and the officers took a disproprtionate percentage of casualties (I know this from my family's history). Enemy snipers targetted officer uniforms.
It was the officer ranks where the new generation of tennis players would have emerged from.
The obvious weakness of the young tennis ranks after the war speaks volumes about the effects of the war.
The first important young players to emerge in the twenties were Lacoste and Cochet, two players who were just too young to serve in the trenches.

robow7 said:

Those T-2000's were like a trampoline, I couldn't control one but I sure loved stringing those racquets, you could knock them off real quick.

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I used to always see them in peoples garages - with rust on them btw.

What ever happened top the immortal T3000, T4000 and T5000??

pmerk34 said:

I used to always see them in peoples garages - with rust on them btw.

What ever happened top the immortal T3000, T4000 and T5000??

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Yea, that T4000 that had the bulbous end, something within my heterosexual id didn't even like to grasp that handle.

Dan Lobb said:

Where did the young tennis players of this era emerge from? Not from "the working classes" and public courts (like Kramer, Schroeder, Gonzales). They came from upper class families and university students who had access to facilities. Tennis was still a "gentleman's game".
However, many of these gentlemen became officers in both world wars, and the officers took a disproprtionate percentage of casualties (I know this from my family's history). Enemy snipers targetted officer uniforms.
It was the officer ranks where the new generation of tennis players would have emerged from.
The obvious weakness of the young tennis ranks after the war speaks volumes about the effects of the war.
The first important young players to emerge in the twenties were Lacoste and Cochet, two players who were just too young to serve in the trenches.

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More groundless conjecture! You are full of more BS than anyone I've ever seen on TT. Please list each and every soldier that you contend would have otherwise been a champion tennis player but for being a soldier.

Dan Lobb said:

Krosero, if players were generally small and sick in those days, it certainly was not true of the players in the early 1930's or later, and therefore this adds to the view that the 1920's were a weak era.

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I did not say they were generally small and sick; I said people were smaller than today, and more commonly sick or infirm than today. This gives context: it tells us that you can't point to a small player, or one who retired partly for health reasons, and conclude that their decade was a uniquely weak era. All you can conclude is that the era was typical.

And your new argument that the 1920s were a weak era because people were smaller so long ago, and more often sick than today, is completely different from your previous arguments singling out Tilden's decade as the weak one. Your new argument is nothing more, and nothing less, than pointing out that health standards improve over time. If you want to make the argument that tennis has gradually improved because of this, that's fine -- it's a very common argument. But it does not in any way show that Tilden's era was uniquely weak.

Things did not change overnight. If there was improvement in health standards in the 1930s (which can be questioned), it had to be gradual.

Dan Lobb said:

Yes, Lacoste matured relatively early for that era, about age 21, but he retired a mere five years later at 26! And from physical weariness! That, I believe, is the point!

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Also true of HL Doherty -- retired a mere five years after becoming the world's top player. Not something unique to the Tilden era.

Dan Lobb said:

Johnston was , by all accounts, a brilliant player, but his small size (and 120 pounds placed him among the smallest players of his own era) meant that he was prone to fade in long matches, such as the US finals in 1916 (against Williams), and 1920 and 1922 against Tilden.

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I wouldn't be so sure it was his size, per se, that made his endurance poor. Bitsy Grant from the 1930s was about 120 pounds (and only 5'4"), and he seems to have had a good record in five-setters. He also had an excellent record overall on clay; all of which shows at least decent endurance. He had more of a retrieving style than Johnston, and yet seems to have done fine with that demanding style, despite being, if anything, smaller than Johnston. Little Bill's poorer stamina may have more to do with his health than it does with his size.

Dan Lobb said:

No, Krosero, the vast proportion of men who were conscripted and died on the battlefields were young, most of them age 18 to early twenties.
And the average casualty rates at the front in WWI were higher than WWII, and even in the second war the casualty rates among the divisions which landed in Normandy was sometimes over 100%.
American and British armies took very high numbers of deaths, the British alone lost about 3 million dead, about three times the number lost in WWII.
The French and Germans lost much more than this.

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First off: the British did not lose 3 million dead. The British Empire as a whole lost nearly 1 million dead, with about 2 million more wounded. Great Britain's share of those numbers was of course smaller.

http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html

American losses were far smaller than those of the British: 116,000 dead, another 200,000 wounded.

Of course these numbers are horrendous, but there is no need to exaggerate them.

And I cannot agree with you that "the vast proportion of men who were conscripted and died on the battlefields were young, most of them age 18 to early twenties" -- if by that you mean soldiers who were aged 22 or younger in 1918. (Again I'm specifying that group because it is really the only group that could have been significantly younger than Tilden in 1920).

Just taking a relatively quick look around the web, it seems that there's a lot of uncertainty about the exact ages of men killed in the war.

There seems to be somewhat better certainty about World War II. I found one reference to the median age of British servicemen being 25-26, meaning that half of all British servicemen were 25-26 or older: http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/36702-average-age-ww2-infantry-killed-action.html#post405658

Of course that is not an official source, and it can't be taken at face value. But it is similar to the average age of American soldiers in WW2, which is well-known (26).

In the First World War, the U.S. draft of 1917 required all men 21 to 30 to register (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_Act_of_1917#Effects).

So in that group, only the very youngest (men who were 21 years old in 1917) would be significantly younger than Tilden in 1920.

We do know that Little Bill Johnston was 23, and Norris Williams was 26, when they joined the armed forces (presuming that was in 1917).

Google turned up a few studies of small groups of British servicemen in the First World War, posted at forums discussing that war.

In this group the median age was 24: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=119258&view=findpost&p=1143001

In this group about 20% of the fatalities were men aged 18 or 19, and therefore potentially candidates for being younger rivals to Tilden. Yet about 75% of all the fatalities in the regiment were men 21 or older: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=119258&view=findpost&p=1143248

__________________

Okay, all that out of the way, let me acknowledge, of course great numbers of young men, who would still have been young in 1920, died in the war, or were seriously wounded. I'm throwing in this data as a response to the way you've invoked the war in broad strokes, calling up the image of millions of very young men lying dead on the battlefield as if all, or even most, were young enough to be a young challenger to Tilden. Only a narrow age group belongs to that category, and though that group suffered heavy losses, there is no certain way to know just how heavily tennis in the 1920s was impacted by those losses. Presumably there was some loss. Enough loss to say that Tilden's era was weak? I don't think we know enough to say that.

That's especially true because you can look directly at the sport in the 1920s, and assess how Tilden and Johnston's level of play was regarded. This is the main point that you have not yet addressed: people of that time period were deeply impressed by Tilden's level of play and often proclaimed it as the best of all time. Far from thinking that they lived in a weak era, they thought they were living in a golden era for the sport.

Kramer pronounced it a weak era -- no doubt for his own reasons. And he did it at a remove of decades from the period in question.

Here is A. Wallis Myers comparing the 1920s to the 1930s.

At the end of '36 he wrote:

F J Perry is at the top of the men's list for the third successive year. He has not escaped defeat and has revealed a disposition, which all leaders betray as habit stales success, of relying more on defence than defiance; yet he has repeated his feat of 1934 and won the British and American championships in the same year. Each has now been taken three times.

No other player in the annals of the game, except Tilden, has that record, and Tilden did not win Wimbledon for three years in sequence, playing through each year.

I do not think Perry, for all his glittering success, is as yet Tilden's equal as a master.

Those who differ may be reminded that for six years in succession, in a field incomparably richer than Wimbledon's was at the time or since, Tilden was unbeaten in the American championship, and that he defeated conclusively players who have or would have challenged Perry's supremacy.

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krosero said:

First off: the British did not lose 3 million dead. The British Empire as a whole lost nearly 1 million dead, with about 2 million more wounded. Great Britain's share of those numbers was of course smaller.

http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html

American losses were far smaller than those of the British: 116,000 dead, another 200,000 wounded.

Of course these numbers are horrendous, but there is no need to exaggerate them.

And I cannot agree with you that "the vast proportion of men who were conscripted and died on the battlefields were young, most of them age 18 to early twenties" -- if by that you mean soldiers who were aged 22 or younger in 1918. (Again I'm specifying that group because it is really the only group that could have been significantly younger than Tilden in 1920).

Just taking a relatively quick look around the web, it seems that there's a lot of uncertainty about the exact ages of men killed in the war.

There seems to be somewhat better certainty about World War II. I found one reference to the median age of British servicemen being 25-26, meaning that half of all British servicemen were 25-26 or older: http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/36702-average-age-ww2-infantry-killed-action.html#post405658

Of course that is not an official source, and it can't be taken at face value. But it is similar to the average age of American soldiers in WW2, which is well-known (26).

In the First World War, the U.S. draft of 1917 required all men 21 to 30 to register (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_Act_of_1917#Effects).

So in that group, only the very youngest (men who were 21 years old in 1917) would be significantly younger than Tilden in 1920.

We do know that Little Bill Johnston was 23, and Norris Williams was 26, when they joined the armed forces (presuming that was in 1917).

Google turned up a few studies of small groups of British servicemen in the First World War, posted at forums discussing that war.

In this group the median age was 24: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=119258&view=findpost&p=1143001

In this group about 20% of the fatalities were men aged 18 or 19, and therefore potentially candidates for being younger rivals to Tilden. Yet about 75% of all the fatalities in the regiment were men 21 or older: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=119258&view=findpost&p=1143248

__________________

Okay, all that out of the way, let me acknowledge, of course great numbers of young men, who would still have been young in 1920, died in the war, or were seriously wounded. I'm throwing in this data as a response to the way you've invoked the war in broad strokes, calling up the image of millions of very young men lying dead on the battlefield as if all, or even most, were young enough to be a young challenger to Tilden. Only a narrow age group belongs to that category, and though that group suffered heavy losses, there is no certain way to know just how heavily tennis in the 1920s was impacted by those losses. Presumably there was some loss. Enough loss to say that Tilden's era was weak? I don't think we know enough to say that.

That's especially true because you can look directly at the sport in the 1920s, and assess how Tilden and Johnston's level of play was regarded. This is the main point that you have not yet addressed: people of that time period were deeply impressed by Tilden's level of play and often proclaimed it as the best of all time. Far from thinking that they lived in a weak era, they thought they were living in a golden era for the sport.

Kramer pronounced it a weak era -- no doubt for his own reasons. And he did it at a remove of decades from the period in question.

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The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating.
Again, we keep hearing about Tilden and Johnston (and Williams), players who emerged from an earlier, pre-war era.
Where were the young players emerging in the early 1920's? The first one was Lacoste in 1924, who was at 21 years of age just too young to have served in combat.
There was a deep vacuum in the early 1920's where there should have been a new generation of younger players.
Again, in the sport as it existed, these men would have been upper class gentlemen, who would have been trained as officers in WWI, and suffered disproportionate casualties, as they did in the second world war.

Dan Lobb said:

Again, in the sport as it existed, these men would have been upper class gentlemen, who would have been trained as officers in WWI, and suffered disproportionate casualties, as they did in the second world war.

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i find that astonishing. i always thought that most soldiers dying in the trenches in WWI where common soldiers not officers.

treblings said:

i find that astonishing. i always thought that most soldiers dying in the trenches in WWI where common soldiers not officers.

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Even more astounding is the evidence that Dan Lobb has presented of all of the potential championship level tennis players that died in the trenches in WWI.

Dan Lobb said:

Again, in the sport as it existed, these men would have been upper class gentlemen, who would have been trained as officers in WWI, and suffered disproportionate casualties, as they did in the second world war.

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How many men aged 22 or younger do you think would have been made officers?

Again, that's the only group that could have been significantly younger than Tilden in 1920.

Dan Lobb said:

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating.
Again, we keep hearing about Tilden and Johnston (and Williams), players who emerged from an earlier, pre-war era.

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Why would you assign Tilden to the prewar era? Obviously all his best tennis was postwar; and a player’s peak, or best tennis, is what we should be looking for. You’re suggesting that young tennis players in their early 20s lost their lives; well, they “emerged” before the war, too, in the same sense that Tilden did. If they were potential challengers to Tilden then they would have started playing the sport years before the war.

The men who were lost, you’re proposing, would have peaked in the early 1920s. That’s what we need to look for when assigning players to prewar or postwar periods: when they peaked.

Dan Lobb said:

Where were the young players emerging in the early 1920's?

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In 1920:

Richards was 17, Norton 21, Patterson 24. All of those qualify as significantly younger than Tilden, who was 27.

Johnston, Washer and Hunter were each 26 that year. Not much younger than Tilden, but all of these men (yes, including Johnston) peaked after the war and were essentially postwar players.

Murray was 27, Shimidzu and O’Hara Wood each 29, Wallace Johnson 31, Kingscote 32. All these players were older than Tilden but they all peaked after the war, with the possible exception of Johnson.

You’re asking for players younger than Tilden, but as I argued above, 27 is not necessarily when players start going down. If certain players who challenged Tilden peaked after the age of 27, that should not matter: they still essentially belong to the postwar generation of players.

Dick Williams and Norman Brookes did peak before the war and, though they remained to challenge Tilden, I don’t count them as part of the new generation.

Dan Lobb said:

The first one was Lacoste in 1924, who was at 21 years of age just too young to have served in combat.

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You’re arguing that Lacoste and Cochet came up in the second half of the 1920s essentially because they were too young to have served in the war. But this is far too much to claim. If those men had been born a little earlier and had served in the war, there is a good chance that they would have survived the war and challenged Tilden in the early 1920s. The list of tennis stars who served in the war and survived is long: Tilden, Johnston, Williams, Borotra, McLoughlin, Patterson, Brookes, Wallace Johnson, Howard Voshell (maybe Jean Washer?)

Of course many tennis players were lost in the war. But how many players comparable to the caliber of a Tilden or a Lacoste were lost? I can only name Anthony Wilding.

That is among tennis players who had already made a name for themselves – who were known already to be great. You’re proposing that there was a group of unknown, up-and-coming players who lost their lives in the war.

But something about this is not right, because if the KNOWN set of great players lost only one man of the quality that could have challenged Tilden for the biggest titles, then how can it be presumed that the UNKNOWN group lost a whole generation of such stars?

If the loss of Wilding in the known group is an indication, then it might be reasonable to suggest that in the unknown group of very young players there was one who would have been capable of challenging for the biggest titles but was lost in the war. I don’t think we can presume more than that – and of course we can’t know with certainty even whether that one theoretical lost champion existed.

Furthermore, the known group of stars encompasses players aged from their early 20s to their early 40s. It’s a very large group – and they lost only one player who was of the caliber to challenge Tilden for the biggest titles. The group you’re talking about is narrow: it consists of players who would have been 22 or younger in 1918. Only they could have been significantly younger than Tilden in 1920.

Champions like Wilding, Johnston, Tilden, Lacoste are relatively rare. This idea that the war cut down a whole set of great champions – some theoretical earlier group of Musketeers, who would otherwise have matured in the early 1920s -- is presuming a lot.

Can you, for example, name these up-and-coming champions? I know that very young players will not have made deep marks in the record books; but they should have made SOME mark in the tennis world by the time they died in the war. If young men aged 20, 21, 22 went off to war around 1917 and were killed, at that age they should already have done something recognizable in the tennis world, whether on a college team or in some other kind of championship.

Can you name them?

Wow, this thread has really degenerated. So, who was/is the most important male player ever?

What place does Willie Renshaw have in history? would tennis have evolved into a different sport than cricket if the Renshaw, first and Doherty´s later, didn´t play it?

Winners or Errors said:

Wow, this thread has really degenerated. So, who was/is the most important male player ever?

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Tilden or Kramer! Pick one!

Limpinhitter said:

Even more astounding is the evidence that Dan Lobb has presented of all of the potential championship level tennis players that died in the trenches in WWI.

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Is that like demonstrating how many nuclear physicists were aborted before birth?
Or how many bubbles are in a bar of soap?
Great question, Limp.

krosero said:

How many men aged 22 or younger do you think would have been made officers?

Again, that's the only group that could have been significantly younger than Tilden in 1920.

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It was quite common for men under 22 to become officers. I know of some in my own family.
What army did you become familiar with?

treblings said:

i find that astonishing. i always thought that most soldiers dying in the trenches in WWI where common soldiers not officers.

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The officers' uniforms were targetted by German and other snipers, for obvious reasons.
Some enlisted men refused promotions to avoid becoming targets (I know of one famous soldier who did this in the Normandy campaign).

krosero said:

Why would you assign Tilden to the prewar era? Obviously all his best tennis was postwar; and a player’s peak, or best tennis, is what we should be looking for. You’re suggesting that young tennis players in their early 20s lost their lives; well, they “emerged” before the war, too, in the same sense that Tilden did. If they were potential challengers to Tilden then they would have started playing the sport years before the war.

The men who were lost, you’re proposing, would have peaked in the early 1920s. That’s what we need to look for when assigning players to prewar or postwar periods: when they peaked.

In 1920:

Richards was 17, Norton 21, Patterson 24. All of those qualify as significantly younger than Tilden, who was 27.

Johnston, Washer and Hunter were each 26 that year. Not much younger than Tilden, but all of these men (yes, including Johnston) peaked after the war and were essentially postwar players.

Murray was 27, Shimidzu and O’Hara Wood each 29, Wallace Johnson 31, Kingscote 32. All these players were older than Tilden but they all peaked after the war, with the possible exception of Johnson.

You’re asking for players younger than Tilden, but as I argued above, 27 is not necessarily when players start going down. If certain players who challenged Tilden peaked after the age of 27, that should not matter: they still essentially belong to the postwar generation of players.

Dick Williams and Norman Brookes did peak before the war and, though they remained to challenge Tilden, I don’t count them as part of the new generation.


You’re arguing that Lacoste and Cochet came up in the second half of the 1920s essentially because they were too young to have served in the war. But this is far too much to claim. If those men had been born a little earlier and had served in the war, there is a good chance that they would have survived the war and challenged Tilden in the early 1920s. The list of tennis stars who served in the war and survived is long: Tilden, Johnston, Williams, Borotra, McLoughlin, Patterson, Brookes, Wallace Johnson, Howard Voshell (maybe Jean Washer?)

Of course many tennis players were lost in the war. But how many players comparable to the caliber of a Tilden or a Lacoste were lost? I can only name Anthony Wilding.

That is among tennis players who had already made a name for themselves – who were known already to be great. You’re proposing that there was a group of unknown, up-and-coming players who lost their lives in the war.

But something about this is not right, because if the KNOWN set of great players lost only one man of the quality that could have challenged Tilden for the biggest titles, then how can it be presumed that the UNKNOWN group lost a whole generation of such stars?

If the loss of Wilding in the known group is an indication, then it might be reasonable to suggest that in the unknown group of very young players there was one who would have been capable of challenging for the biggest titles but was lost in the war. I don’t think we can presume more than that – and of course we can’t know with certainty even whether that one theoretical lost champion existed.

Furthermore, the known group of stars encompasses players aged from their early 20s to their early 40s. It’s a very large group – and they lost only one player who was of the caliber to challenge Tilden for the biggest titles. The group you’re talking about is narrow: it consists of players who would have been 22 or younger in 1918. Only they could have been significantly younger than Tilden in 1920.

Champions like Wilding, Johnston, Tilden, Lacoste are relatively rare. This idea that the war cut down a whole set of great champions – some theoretical earlier group of Musketeers, who would otherwise have matured in the early 1920s -- is presuming a lot.

Can you, for example, name these up-and-coming champions? I know that very young players will not have made deep marks in the record books; but they should have made SOME mark in the tennis world by the time they died in the war. If young men aged 20, 21, 22 went off to war around 1917 and were killed, at that age they should already have done something recognizable in the tennis world, whether on a college team or in some other kind of championship.

Can you name them?

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You make a good point that by the time they entered military service, this lost generation should have made some mark, although I am not sure that college championships were well developed at that time. More likely, at private clubs and courts.
The young men would have gone to war in large numbers in 1914, and would have been mid-twenties by 1919. (I don't see how you get your numbers here.)
From the list you provide, only Patterson was an emerging star, that's not much.

Bjorn Rune Borg..as just an example of how much of an impact he had on the "modern game"..you have Federer being compared to Borg at Wimbledon when he was going for five in a row and look who Nadal is compared to constantly. Bjorn Borg. He influenced legions of players that came after him in many ways. Just look at Sweden as another example. They produced so many great players that followed just behind Borg and then really not many after the likes of Wilander and Edberg. Before Borg where was Sweden as a tennis nation? He was the catalyst during the 1970's-1981 for the "tennis boom"..during that "Golden Era" of tennis. He was truly a tennis revolutionary who "copied" no one. No one played quite like Borg before he came along. He "copied" no one and was truly a trailblazer.

Dan Lobb said:

The young men would have gone to war in large numbers in 1914, and would have been mid-twenties by 1919. (I don't see how you get your numbers here.)

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Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought you were asking for men who would be 21-24 in 1920, that is, significantly younger than Tilden. You've been referring to Tilden, who was 27 that year, and even Johnston, who was 26, as part of the prewar generation, so naturally when you referred to a new generation I figured you were talking about men 24 or younger.

But I just think this is framing it wrong, because even the young generation you're looking for, who would have peaked in the early 1920s, presumably played tennis before the war, just like Tilden and Johnston. So clearly we're not talking about when players start playing. What we mean is when they peaked, when they won their biggest titles. By that standard they're all in the same boat, Tilden, Johnston, and the hypothetical lost players. You've now grouped them together yourself: you've said the lost men would have been in their mid-20s by 1919. But that's exactly how old Johnston and Tilden were in that year. Johnston was 25, Tilden 26.

Johnston, then, qualifies by your own definition, as one of the new generation who peaked after the war and challenged Tilden.

Maybe there were others, that were lost. But I doubt there could have been many, considering how many tennis stars survived the war. As dreadful as the war was, most of the greatest tennis stars survived.

Again, the only known star I can name who was of the caliber to challenge Tilden for the biggest championships, but did not live, is Wilding.

Dan Lobb said:

From the list you provide, only Patterson was an emergin star, that's not much.

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Patterson is not the only one. You've referred to men who would have been in their mid-20s by 1919. So Johnston qualifies.

Johnston and Patterson are not a bad pair of challengers (and the rest of the players on my list were fine players). True, they are not Cochet and Lacoste. But the Musketeers, especially with Borotra included, were a unique confluence of talents that would make almost any era appear weak. I hope you're not judging the early 1920s by the standard of the three Musketeers who appeared in the second half of the decade.

probably Arthur Ashe or Rod Laver because they named the stadiums after them

krosero said:

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought you were asking for men who would be 21-24 in 1920, that is, significantly younger than Tilden. You've been referring to Tilden, who was 27 that year, and even Johnston, who was 26, as part of the prewar generation, so naturally when you referred to a new generation I figured you were talking about men 24 or younger.

But I just think this is framing it wrong, because even the young generation you're looking for, who would have peaked in the early 1920s, presumably played tennis before the war, just like Tilden and Johnston. So clearly we're not talking about when players start playing. What we mean is when they peaked, when they won their biggest titles. By that standard they're all in the same boat, Tilden, Johnston, and the hypothetical lost players. You've now grouped them together yourself: you've said the lost men would have been in their mid-20s by 1919. But that's exactly how old Johnston and Tilden were in that year. Johnston was 25, Tilden 26.

Johnston, then, qualifies by your own definition, as one of the new generation who peaked after the war and challenged Tilden.

Maybe there were others, that were lost. But I doubt there could have been many, considering how many tennis stars survived the war. As dreadful as the war was, most of the greatest tennis stars survived.

Again, the only known star I can name who was of the caliber to challenge Tilden for the biggest championships, but did not live, is Wilding.

Patterson is not the only one. You've referred to men who would have been in their mid-20s by 1919. So Johnston qualifies.

Johnston and Patterson are not a bad pair of challengers (and the rest of the players on my list were fine players). True, they are not Cochet and Lacoste. But the Musketeers, especially with Borotra included, were a unique confluence of talents that would make almost any era appear weak. I hope you're not judging the early 1920s by the standard of the three Musketeers who appeared in the second half of the decade.

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In the immediate postwar era, you would expect to see new tennis stars who would have emerged during the war, if not for the war (Johnston emerged in 1914-1915 when he won the US Championship, and because the USA entered the war in 1917, was not forced to leave the game before he had emerged). So you would expect to see about 1920 some players about 25 years old who did not get a chance to emerge during the war years, plus some younger players in their early twenties who had survived a shorter period of war service.
The only name in these groups is Gerald Patterson! That's a very small number of players! Were the rest a bunch of stiffs (pardon the pun)?

Winners or Errors said:

Wow, this thread has really degenerated. So, who was/is the most important male player ever?

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The man who brought tennis into more than ten million American homes and millions of Australian homes by way of TELEVISION, Lew Hoad.

Dan Lobb said:

In the immediate postwar era, you would expect to see new tennis stars who would have emerged during the war, if not for the war (Johnston emerged in 1914-1915 when he won the US Championship, and because the USA entered the war in 1917, was not forced to leave the game before he had emerged). So you would expect to see about 1920 some players about 25 years old who did not get a chance to emerge during the war years, plus some younger players in their early twenties who had survived a shorter period of war service.
The only name in these groups is Gerald Patterson! That's a very small number of players! Were the rest a bunch of stiffs (pardon the pun)?

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This makes little sense, because Johnston was only 13 months older than Patterson. Surely if any two players belong to the same generation, this pair does. You've separated out Johnston because he happened to be precocious enough to win the US title at the age of 21. Yet his peak was probably in 1922; he won 2 of his 3 Slam titles after the war; and his great Davis Cup career was entirely postwar.

You've also separated him because he happened to come from the United States, which meant that he didn't have to stop playing majors in 1914. You mention that fact yourself. But that's a pure accident of history. Just imagine if he had been from Australia, England or France. All those countries suspended their championships in 1914, so he would not have any prewar majors on his record. Under your criteria, you would then concede to label him part of the postwar generation -- even though he would have been exactly the same player, with only his nationality changed. That makes no sense.

The truth is that Johnston and Patterson, just 13 months apart, were of the same postwar generation. Johnston, being American, had more time to win a big title before wartime duties intervened; and he did win one; but the vast majority of his career, and his best tennis, was postwar.

I really doubt that the supposed lost generation of tennis players included a significant number that would have been good enough to challenge Tilden for titles.

Players of that caliber, by their late teens or early 20s, should have made some impact on the tennis scene already. (Johnston certainly had.) They really should be named, rather than generally supposing that there must have been a bunch of them.

I named 3 top players who were 24 or younger in 1920, and a few more like Johnston who were a little younger than Tilden. That hardly seems like a small number of young players.

I'm sure the war killed off young players, but here's the thing: even with those losses, there was ALWAYS going to be young players after the war. There is simply no way that the war was going to kill off all young tennis players -- or even a majority of them. (Again, look at the known, older stars: most of them survived). For the early 1920s to be mostly lacking in young players -- as you seem to be arguing -- would have required the war to kill off nearly all young tennis players. And that just wasn't going to happen.

So I think looking for young players in the early 1920s is ultimately the wrong approach. In the end the best way to do this has to be to identify top-level young players who were lost.

krosero said:

This makes little sense, because Johnston was only 13 months older than Patterson. Surely if any two players belong to the same generation, this pair does. You've separated out Johnston because he happened to be precocious enough to win the US title at the age of 21. Yet his peak was probably in 1922; he won 2 of his 3 Slam titles after the war; and his great Davis Cup career was entirely postwar.

You've also separated him because he happened to come from the United States, which meant that he didn't have to stop playing majors in 1914. You mention that fact yourself. But that's a pure accident of history. Just imagine if he had been from Australia, England or France. All those countries suspended their championships in 1914, so he would not have any prewar majors on his record. Under your criteria, you would then concede to label him part of the postwar generation -- even though he would have been exactly the same player, with only his nationality changed. That makes no sense.

The truth is that Johnston and Patterson, just 13 months apart, were of the same postwar generation. Johnston, being American, had more time to win a big title before wartime duties intervened; and he did win one; but the vast majority of his career, and his best tennis, was postwar.

I really doubt that the supposed lost generation of tennis players included a significant number that would have been good enough to challenge Tilden for titles.

Players of that caliber, by their late teens or early 20s, should have made some impact on the tennis scene already. (Johnston certainly had.) They really should be named, rather than generally supposing that there must have been a bunch of them.

I named 3 top players who were 24 or younger in 1920, and a few more like Johnston who were a little younger than Tilden. That hardly seems like a small number of young players.

I'm sure the war killed off young players, but here's the thing: even with those losses, there was ALWAYS going to be young players after the war. There is simply no way that the war was going to kill off all young tennis players -- or even a majority of them. (Again, look at the known, older stars: most of them survived). For the early 1920s to be mostly lacking in young players -- as you seem to be arguing -- would have required the war to kill off nearly all young tennis players. And that just wasn't going to happen.

So I think looking for young players in the early 1920s is ultimately the wrong approach. In the end the best way to do this has to be to identify top-level young players who were lost.

Click to expand...

Did Gerald Patterson make an impact before he went off to war? I think not.
Yes, the case of Johnston and Williams was different, not just because the late entry into the war of the USA gave them time to emerge as top players and win their national championship, but because they spent a vastly smaller amount of time in front line action, where the casualty rates were high.
For British, Australian, French, German, and Italian players, there was over four years of intense killing to survive.
American casualty rates at the front were high, but it was a relatively small front of short duration (albeit crucial in the determination of the outcome).
So you would expect that American players would be less impacted by the war, and more dominant after the war, as proved to be the case.
In any event, Tilden undoubtedly helped to popularize the game of tennis, but an even greater contribution was to bring the game into millions of homes by way of mass media and TELEVISION, which was effectively accomplished in 1955 when NBC broadcast the Hoad/Trabert Davis Cup match from Forest Hills in color, attracting over ten million TV sets in America to the broadcast (commentated by Jack Kramer). This was a breakthrough event.

Johnston was a post-war player? Who was the guy who won the US Championship in 1915, and came within a few points of repeating in 1916? The Lone Ranger?
With logic like that you can ignore any truth.

krosero said:

I wouldn't be so sure it was his size, per se, that made his endurance poor. Bitsy Grant from the 1930s was about 120 pounds (and only 5'4"), and he seems to have had a good record in five-setters. He also had an excellent record overall on clay; all of which shows at least decent endurance. He had more of a retrieving style than Johnston, and yet seems to have done fine with that demanding style, despite being, if anything, smaller than Johnston. Little Bill's poorer stamina may have more to do with his health than it does with his size.

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stamina has nothing to do with size. look at the best marathon runners in the world, for example

^ The stamina required for marathon runners is aeorbic. Tennis, OTOH, requires both aerobic and anaerobic fitness.

Mick said:

probably Arthur Ashe or Rod Laver because they named the stadiums after them

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French aviator/fighter pilot, Roland Garros, had a whole tennis complex named after him. Perhaps he is the most important male player (if he was a player).

SystemicAnomaly said:

^ The stamina required for marathon runners is aeorbic. Tennis, OTOH, requires both aerobic and anaerobic fitness.

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you are correct.

do you agree with me, that stamina has nothing to do with size?

^ Not aware of an correlation.

krosero said:

* * * So I think looking for young players in the early 1920s is ultimately the wrong approach. In the end the best way to do this has to be to identify top-level young players who were lost.

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I tried this already. Dan ignored me too.

Limpinhitter said:

I tried this already. Dan ignored me too.

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I have already answered this. Gerald Patterson did what before the war?
There is no necessary correlation between teenage success and adult success in tennis in the pre-WWI era, unlike today. There was no developed junior tournament system, just private clubs and courts.

Dan Lobb said:

I have already answered this. Gerald Patterson did what before the war?
There is no necessary correlation between teenage success and adult success in tennis in the pre-WWI era, unlike today. There was no developed junior tournament system, just private clubs and courts.

Click to expand...

Another non-answer. For the third time, from post 160:

Limpinhitter said:

* * * Please list each and every soldier that you contend would have otherwise been a champion tennis player but for being a soldier.

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The Agassi Sampras rivalry -- so both.

where is nadal and lendl?

Anyways I have put it in this order:

Federer
Nadal
Sampras
Borg
Laver
Lendl
Connors
McEnroe
etc

Dan Lobb said:

I have already answered this. Gerald Patterson did what before the war?

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I asked for young players who were lost.

ZeroSkid said:

where is nadal and lendl?

Anyways I have put it in this order:

Federer
Nadal
Sampras
Borg
Laver
Lendl
Connors
McEnroe
etc

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What was so important about these players?

Because inquiring minds want to know...

Why would any player from prior to the Open Era, when tennis actually became a worldwide sport of interest, be on the list of the most significant?

I'm not saying, necessarily, that I think they shouldn't, but in a discussion of importance I think it should be addressed.

Winners or Errors said:

Because inquiring minds want to know...

Why would any player from prior to the Open Era, when tennis actually became a worldwide sport of interest, be on the list of the most significant?

I'm not saying, necessarily, that I think they shouldn't, but in a discussion of importance I think it should be addressed.

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The truth or falseness of your premises aside, what do you know about Bill Tilden or Jack Kramer?

krosero said:

I asked for young players who were lost.

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You avoided my answer. There were no developed junior tennis circuits before WWI, so how could Gerald Patteson or anyone else become a name?
Answer please! Or admit defeat.

Limpinhitter said:

Another non-answer. For the third time, from post 160:

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Limp, you are one valiant soldier who has already bitten the dust.

Dan Lobb said:

Did Gerald Patterson make an impact before he went off to war? I think not.
Yes, the case of Johnston and Williams was different, not just because the late entry into the war of the USA gave them time to emerge as top players and win their national championship, but because they spent a vastly smaller amount of time in front line action, where the casualty rates were high.
For British, Australian, French, German, and Italian players, there was over four years of intense killing to survive.
American casualty rates at the front were high, but it was a relatively small front of short duration (albeit crucial in the determination of the outcome).
So you would expect that American players would be less impacted by the war, and more dominant after the war, as proved to be the case.
In any event, Tilden undoubtedly helped to popularize the game of tennis, but an even greater contribution was to bring the game into millions of homes by way of mass media and TELEVISION, which was effectively accomplished in 1955 when NBC broadcast the Hoad/Trabert Davis Cup match from Forest Hills in color, attracting over ten million TV sets in America to the broadcast (commentated by Jack Kramer). This was a breakthrough event.

Johnston was a post-war player? Who was the guy who won the US Championship in 1915, and came within a few points of repeating in 1916? The Lone Ranger?
With logic like that you can ignore any truth.

Click to expand...

Let's not continue to ignore the truth.

I think we are not in a war here, but in a (i hope mostly friendly discussion) about long gone eras. The weak era theory on Tilden seems to be in my opinion rather weak, because all astute contemporary observers i know like Danzig, Myers, Maskell, Perry thought otherwise. If this theory stems from Kramer, i doubt it the more, because Kramer at first should look at his own era. After WW II there were really players, who were lost (Henkel, Hunt) or hampered by war injuries (Bromwich, Larsen), and European tennis laid in tatters, as 1946 the Centre Court at Wimbledon, which was plastered with a bomb. Still in 1950, Tilden was named the all time best by a poll of the AP, by a wide margin over Budge, Cochet and Kramer. Even in 1969, an expert poll called him the goat over Budge and Laver (Hoad wasn't even named in the top ten in that poll). Before open tennis began, nobody could match the popularity and publicity of Tilden.

urban said:

I think we are not in a war here, but in a (i hope mostly friendly discussion) about long gone eras. The weak era theory on Tilden seems to be in my opinion rather weak, because all astute contemporary observers i know like Danzig, Myers, Maskell, Perry thought otherwise. If this theory stems from Kramer, i doubt it the more, because Kramer at first should look at his own era. After WW II there were really players, who were lost (Henkel, Hunt) or hampered by war injuries (Bromwich, Larsen), and European tennis laid in tatters, as 1946 the Centre Court at Wimbledon, which was plastered with a bomb. Still in 1950, Tilden was named the all time best by a poll of the AP, by a wide margin over Budge, Cochet and Kramer. Even in 1969, an expert poll called him the goat over Budge and Laver (Hoad wasn't even named in the top ten in that poll). Before open tennis began, nobody could match the popularity and publicity of Tilden.

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There is no doubting his importance in popularizing the game in the 1920's, and bringing it out of the private clubs to the public courts, where the 1930's generation of players from less privileged backgrounds could rise to the top.
However, both Williams and Johnston, his principal challengers after the war, were players who had reached the top at the young age of 21 years, whereas Tilden slowly developed his game until he was 27 years, and there is no denying the impact of the war on the European and Australian ranks.
Kramer's point was that Tilden could not be ranked, because the field was weak. The same, of course, should apply to Kramer himself, although he dominated the marathon head to heads in the early 1950's, against players much younger and more talented than himself.
Both Gonzales and Sedgman appeared to be more talented than Kramer, but Gonzales suffered a knee injury after winning the California portion of his tour with Kramer 8 matches to 4, and the injury weakened his ground strokes the rest of the way.
Sedgman led Kramer 12 matches to 6, when he pulled a shoulder muscle in his serving arm, which took the sting out of his serve, and he eventually lost 51 to 41.