In a fantasy open era from 1946, clay court giants included Parker, Patty, Drobny, Rosewall, Hoad, Trabert, Davidson, Ayala, Pietrangeli, Gimeno, Santana, Laver, Emerson, Mulligan, all of whom were possible RG winners.
I think if we use the women side which didn't have an amateur/pro divide and if plane travel was the same as it is today that the majors record could be in the twenty range much like Margaret Court with a majors total of 24. Wills for example had an incredible 19 in her day despite only playing 24 majors. Tilden could very well have the record today.
Did you include the 4 for 1967, and another 4 for 1969?
Done (at least for the Open era):
Great work. It's seems a shame that two players like Lendl and Connors, who were as dominant as almost anyone are knocked down because they didn't have as many majors as some. This moves them up to about where they may belong.
I get a lot of criticism from the 'Slams are everything' crowd because of where those 2 stand on my list. But as I say in the thread....it isn't a list about 'Greatness' (a subjective term) - it is merely an objective list of what they have achieved at 500 tournament winning level and above weighted at current ATP weightings.
The greatest player wins the big matches.
I think that the best way to determine number one is to look at some identification of the biggest matches of the respective year.
What's your list Dan?
Maybe, but at the same time we don't want a system that gives players more credit for losing slam semi finals over players who win them eg saying that Connors 8-7 record is better than Lendl's 8-11 record even though if you look at the 1985 FO semi which Connors easily lost to Lendl (Lendl went onto lose to Wilander in the final). If Connors had won that and the. Went onto lose to Wilander - then he would be 8-8 (supposedly a 'worse' record) and Lendl 8-10 (supposedly an improvement). It is a kind of strange thinking that says it is better to lose before a final than reach a final
Happy to oblige.
But if a player fails to even MAKE the final of the biggest events, that should count against. I would suggest looking only at the most important event of each year.
Yes, I was making the point about those who somehow view a final loss as bad but don't count losses earlier in the event.
I get it.
One of the examples of this coming up is where some have insisted that Sampras record at Wimbledon is superior to Federer's. They say that 7 wins out of 7 final appearances is better than 7 wins out of 10 final appearances. But they fail to consider that slams are 7 matches not 1. What you actually have is 7 wins for Sampras and 7 wins for Federer and a semi-final, quarter final and 4th round (Sampras' 8th, 9th and 10th best showings at Wimbledon) and 3 runner-ups for Federer (Federer's 8th, 9th and 10th best showings at Wimbledon). By anyone's standards 3 runner-ups is better than a semi, quarter and 4th round.
Sorry, I really should have included the classic 1942 US Pro final featuring Budge defeating Riggs in the final, Budge still at his peak and overwhelming. Observe the large crowd of fans at Forest Hills, not like Laver/Rosewall drew in 1963.
In 1942, the top amateur for the year was the US champion, Schroeder...doubtful that he could have beaten Budge that year.
I believe in practice matches in the later 1940s Schroeder didn't even win one set from Budge. Against a peak Budge, well I think it would have been a slaughter.
Of course. By the way you didn't include Kramer, Segura, Sedgman and Gonzalez. Who is to say that in an all Open Field that some of these players you mentioned (especially Laver, Trabert and Hoad) wouldn't have risen up to the level of their competition earlier. Who knows, maybe Trabert or someone else would have dominated all of them in an all open era.
They did have a lot of great clay court players in those days however they do have a fella named Rafael Nadal in the last decade who is pretty good I would say. I frankly think he would be terrifying for a small player like Rosewall to face. Players like Pancho Gonzalez, Laver (powerful left arm would enable him to hit the heavy topspin from Nadal better), Trabert and Hoad would have far better chances imo.
