Agassi - greatest returner in history?

Orion3 · Jul 19, 2012

Interesting debate I started!

At least I've got one thing right this week

Lots of valid comments, not least the AA quotes. For me though, nobody has ever hit returns like AA. Regularly hitting winners off big first serve and even more winners off 2nd serves. Who does that/is capable of doing that now?
Today, you just don't see the likes of these returns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDzh...feature=g-vrec

Djoker and even Murray probably hit a higher percentage of more telling returns but IMHO, the servers/surfaces make for a more predictable combination and yet they still don't reach the highs (given, they aren't aced as much) as AA.

In the end, I guess its all a matter of opinion.

ctromano · Jul 20, 2012

federer is the best returner of serve

BobbyOne · Jul 23, 2012

kiki,

I agree with your list of the all-time best returners.

I would rank Rosewall, Connors, Laver, Borg. Budge and Agassi.

Maybe Connors made more forehand return errors than Rosewall.

pc1 · Jul 23, 2012

kiki said:
Laver,Connors,Rosewall,Borg,Budge on the ocassion,Segura were just as good returners as AA ( which is an all time rgeat in that department, no doubt)

Agassi said it himself recently. He (Agassi) doesn't have as much range to return serves as some players. Rosewall for example was a smaller man than Agassi but his reactions in getting to the ball were so quick in my opinion that he was rarely aced so he would get more balls back than just about anyone. The same is true for Laver, Borg, Connors. They have said Segura returned served brilliantly, especially on his awesome forehand side.

Praetorian · Jul 23, 2012

5555 said:
McEnroe is an tennis expert. Are you a tennis expert?

This is a Forum. </sarcasm on>This means everyone is an expert in everything. </sarcasm off>

pc1 · Jul 23, 2012

Jack Kramer's opinions

Jack Kramer thought Don Budge was the best returner he had ever seen. Budge, along with Frank Kovacs and John Bromwich were the only ones who could keep him from serving and volleying regularly.

THUNDERVOLLEY · Jul 23, 2012

5555 said:
Has your opinion on issue who is the greatest returner of all time ever

Are you recognized as a tennis expert? McEnroe is widely recognized as a tennis expert

He does not have to be a recognized tennis expert on this subject for one good reason: McEnroe--your source--has flip-flpped on many "top" lists over the years, and the best returner matter is one of his flip flopping greatest hits. Moreover, as others have pointed ut, Djokovic's return stats are not exactly legendary, and its not like he has a boatload of difficult serves to return.

Look, we get you want to pump up your guy, but let's not get crazy with the sweeping praise.

BauerAlmeida · Jul 23, 2012

Djokovic has a great return, but Agassi was just superb. Not mentioning he played some of the greatest servers ever in surfaces a lot faster than today's.

TMF · Jul 23, 2012

THUNDERVOLLEY said:
He does not have to be a recognized tennis expert on this subject for one good reason: McEnroe--your source--has flip-flpped on many "top" lists over the years, and the best returner matter is one of his flip flopping greatest hits. Moreover, as others have pointed ut, Djokovic's return stats are not exactly legendary, and its not like he has a boatload of difficult serves to return.

Look, we get you want to pump up your guy, but let's not get crazy with the sweeping praise.

JMac share the same opinion with Agassi. Sure you can't ignore Agassi's OWN words now.

"When Lleyton Hewitt came along I remember thinking, 'How does Hewitt's return game compare?' Because Hewitt has so much lateral coverage and he puts so many balls back in play," Agassi said. "The same with Federer—he gets so many balls back in play. Well, if you can take the best of me, the best of Hewitt, and the best of Federer and then you stick it in one guy, that's Djokovic. Because the truth is Djokovic can stay right up on the baseline and hurt you with the return if he chooses to, or he can stand back and defend if he needs to.

"See, Hewitt really didn't have the ability to hurt you off the first serve. He could hurt you occasionally off the second serve. I had the ability to always hurt you, but I got aced a lot because I took educated chances. Djokovic has the ability to do both and his pocket is bigger than mine and the ball above his shoulder—he handles that better than I did."

McLovin · Jul 23, 2012

TMF said:
"See, Hewitt really didn't have the ability to hurt you off the first serve. He could hurt you occasionally off the second serve. I had the ability to always hurt you, but I got aced a lot because I took educated chances. Djokovic has the ability to do both and his pocket is bigger than mine and the ball above his shoulder—he handles that better than I did."

Huh, that sounds familiar. Where have I heard before? Oh yeah...

McLovin said:
...
Agassi [also] guessed a lot. In fact, he admitted to just that when returning against big servers such as Sampras, Becker & Ivanisevic.

Djokovic seems to be able to anticipate the server's direction, as opposed to guessing, in addition to being almost as good as Agassi in the other categories. So, while the returns might not be as devastating, they are damn close, and he gets more of them back.

pc1 · Jul 23, 2012

Miloslav Mecir

One player I thought I'd mention for being a great returner is Miloslav Mecir. The guy had everything. He could hit offensive returners on both sides. He had the great reflexes to get tough serves back. He was incredibly fast and great defensively plus his passing shots were fantastic.

Unfortunately he didn't last long so you can't put him up there up with guys like Connors and Agassi for all time great returners.

krosero · Jul 23, 2012

pc1 said:
Agassi said it himself recently. He (Agassi) doesn't have as much range to return serves as some players. Rosewall for example was a smaller man than Agassi but his reactions in getting to the ball were so quick in my opinion that he was rarely aced so he would get more balls back than just about anyone. The same is true for Laver, Borg, Connors.

Agassi said he got aced a lot because he made a lot of "educated guesses" (was that the phrase?) I think, though, the same may have been true of Connors. Connors had the reflexes to get back serves that were shot into the corners and seemed impossible to return -- when he guessed right. And most of the time he guessed right, but there are a few matches in which he got aced a lot.

Curren had 33 aces against him at Wimbledon in '83, and another 17 in a very short match in '85. Noah put 30 past him at the Lipton in '86. Gerulaitis had 13 aces against him on RG clay in 1980.

I wouldn't say Connors got aced as frequently as Agassi, not with so few stats available. But I also don't regard Connors as someone who got an extraordinarily high percentage of serves back. That might go for someone like Wilander. Connors was more of an aggressive returner, and naturally made some errors that way.

pc1 said:
One player I thought I'd mention for being a great returner is Miloslav Mecir. The guy had everything. He could hit offensive returners on both sides. He had the great reflexes to get tough serves back. He was incredibly fast and great defensively plus his passing shots were fantastic.

Unfortunately he didn't last long so you can't put him up there up with guys like Connors and Agassi for all time great returners.

Moose had Mecir hitting 26 clean return winners against Edberg at Wimbledon in '88 (five-set match).

I thought his return essentially won him that USO semifinal against Becker in '86, as well.

Moose Malloy · Jul 24, 2012

Noah put 30 past him at the Lipton in '86

is that the highest ace count you've seen on Noah? and in a 4 set loss. could you post the article that mentions that?

I also heard Lendl aced Connors 20 times in a 4 set win at '87 Lipton.

what about return errors? how many did players generally get vs him(in matches we've done stats for)?

krosero · Jul 24, 2012

Moose Malloy said:
is that the highest ace count you've seen on Noah? and in a 4 set loss. could you post the article that mentions that?

I also heard Lendl aced Connors 20 times in a 4 set win at '87 Lipton.

what about return errors? how many did players generally get vs him(in matches we've done stats for)?

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bcNaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=blkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5226,1135345

That's the highest I've seen for Noah (and those counts for Curren and Gerulaitis are the highest I've seen for them).

Yes 20 aces by Lendl per ESPN. That's not his career high but it's a lot of aces. Maybe it's his high in their rivalry.

Return errors, I couldn't tell you right now. Too much data to sift through.

I do remember one isolated example though. At '87 Wimby, Cash got only 4 aces past Lendl. In the semis he had put 10 aces past Connors, in an even shorter match. But when Connors and Lendl got their racquets on Cash's serve, Connors was the better returner.

Connors made 15 return errors of all kinds against Cash. Lendl made 36.

jrepac · Jul 25, 2012

krosero said:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bcNaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=blkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5226,1135345

That's the highest I've seen for Noah (and those counts for Curren and Gerulaitis are the highest I've seen for them).

Yes 20 aces by Lendl per ESPN. That's not his career high but it's a lot of aces. Maybe it's his high in their rivalry.

Return errors, I couldn't tell you right now. Too much data to sift through.

I do remember one isolated example though. At '87 Wimby, Cash got only 4 aces past Lendl. In the semis he had put 10 aces past Connors, in an even shorter match. But when Connors and Lendl got their racquets on Cash's serve, Connors was the better returner.

Connors made 15 return errors of all kinds against Cash. Lendl made 36.

Interesting, but maybe not shocking; Connors was far more comfy on grass than Lendl ever was. Cash's net play really earned him that championship.

kiki · Jul 26, 2012

pc1 said:
Jack Kramer thought Don Budge was the best returner he had ever seen. Budge, along with Frank Kovacs and John Bromwich were the only ones who could keep him from serving and volleying regularly.

Bromwich...an all time great returner, no doubt, specially in doubles where he is an all time top 5 great.He was a kind of premodern Frew Mc Millan, a superb returner in doubles play, who also happens to be considered one of the greatest ever double players.Good comment, pc 1.

kiki · Jul 26, 2012

krosero said:
Agassi said he got aced a lot because he made a lot of "educated guesses" (was that the phrase?) I think, though, the same may have been true of Connors. Connors had the reflexes to get back serves that were shot into the corners and seemed impossible to return -- when he guessed right. And most of the time he guessed right, but there are a few matches in which he got aced a lot.

Curren had 33 aces against him at Wimbledon in '83, and another 17 in a very short match in '85. Noah put 30 past him at the Lipton in '86. Gerulaitis had 13 aces against him on RG clay in 1980.

I wouldn't say Connors got aced as frequently as Agassi, not with so few stats available. But I also don't regard Connors as someone who got an extraordinarily high percentage of serves back. That might go for someone like Wilander. Connors was more of an aggressive returner, and naturally made some errors that way.

Moose had Mecir hitting 26 clean return winners against Edberg at Wimbledon in '88 (five-set match).

I thought his return essentially won him that USO semifinal against Becker in '86, as well.

Tanner aced Connors many times, like at their 1976 Wimbly semi, but peak tanner used to ace anybody in front of him.

Still Connors was a superb returner, and I also think Milos Mecir , when he was playing comfortably, had one of the best ROS ever seen.

KG1965 · Feb 11, 2016

1) Agassi
2) Gerulaitis
3) Djokovic
4) Rosewall
5) Connors

BobbyOne · Feb 11, 2016

KG1965 said:
1) Agassi
2) Gerulaitis
3) Djokovic
4) Rosewall
5) Connors

KG,

1) Rosewall
2) Connors
3) Borg
4) Budge
5) Agassi and Djokovic

WCT · Feb 12, 2016

krosero said:
Agassi said he got aced a lot because he made a lot of "educated guesses" (was that the phrase?) I think, though, the same may have been true of Connors. Connors had the reflexes to get back serves that were shot into the corners and seemed impossible to return -- when he guessed right. And most of the time he guessed right, but there are a few matches in which he got aced a lot.

Curren had 33 aces against him at Wimbledon in '83, and another 17 in a very short match in '85. Noah put 30 past him at the Lipton in '86. Gerulaitis had 13 aces against him on RG clay in 1980.

I wouldn't say Connors got aced as frequently as Agassi, not with so few stats available. But I also don't regard Connors as someone who got an extraordinarily high percentage of serves back. That might go for someone like Wilander. Connors was more of an aggressive returner, and naturally made some errors that way.

Yep. Just count how many times you see Connors flat out leaning the wrong way on a ace because he was guessing.
He was not the lost difficult player to ace. But that doesn't negate that he had a fantastic return.

I used to think Connors and Agassi, but Djokovic is at least as good, i think. Fantastic return of serve. And this is without a target. He puts the other player on the defensive so many times, even when hye serves and stays back. It's not with outright winners, either. Not necessarily in the corners either.
It might come straight back, but's a bullet and 2 inches from the baseline.

Did I see Gerulaitis mentioned? There is a name I haven't seen before.

pc1 · Feb 12, 2016

WCT said:
Yep. Just count how many times you see Connors flat out leaning the wrong way on a ace because he was guessing.
He was not the lost difficult player to ace. But that doesn't negate that he had a fantastic return.

I used to think Connors and Agassi, but Djokovic is at least as good, i think. Fantastic return of serve. And this is without a target. He puts the other player on the defensive so many times, even when hye serves and stays back. It's not with outright winners, either. Not necessarily in the corners either.
It might come straight back, but's a bullet and 2 inches from the baseline.

Did I see Gerulaitis mentioned? There is a name I haven't seen before.

I don't think Gerulaitis was the best returner. He was okay.

I thought Connors, while he could be aced got more serves back into play than Agassi. Laver should also be mentioned not only for his ability to hit winners off the return but also just of his ability to get the serve back into play. Laver was rarely aced even by such powerful servers as Roscoe Tanner.

I love Djokovic's return. Actually Andy Murray should be considered also. He has a great return.

KG1965 · Feb 12, 2016

BobbyOne said:
KG,

1) Rosewall
2) Connors
3) Borg
4) Budge
5) Agassi and Djokovic

Don know little but .. I like it.

Gerulaitis is an idol for me but I remember battling vs Tanner , Mac , and other great services ... without owning the service .

His answer was an example for me .

Agassi - greatest returner in history?

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