A GOAT list giving each era its due

[John123]

After spending a few years thinking about this, I finally feel ready to express a fully formed opinion on the GOAT debate. The following is a gigantic post that explains much of what I think about this much-discussed issue. Let me start, though, with a few explanatory points.

A. GOAT rankings involve, of course, subjective criteria. My criteria are how dominant a player was during his prime, how long his prime lasted, and how his results compare to those of his contemporaries and to those of champions of nearby eras. Thus, I don't care as much about non-prime longevity. For example, imagine two fictional players named Rob and Kevin who are exact contemporaries. Rob is #1 and Kevin is #2 for the five years of their primes, during which Rob is clearly the superior player throughout. But Rob accomplishes nothing outside those five years, whereas Kevin is ranked about #3 in the world for five years before their primes and for five years after, occasionally but rarely winning the biggest events. My approach dictates that Rob is the greater player.

B. These rankings are not about who would beat whom if you transported each player into another’s era in a time machine. Personally, I think that if you plucked William Renshaw out of 1883 and plopped him down on a court today, he’d probably lose to a good college player. But that doesn’t mean the college player is “greater” than a guy who won Wimbledon seven times. My GOAT rankings aren’t measuring quality of play in some absolute sense, but rather quality relative to one’s time. The question is how well an athlete does within the constraints of his era, and how well he does relative to the other competitors in and around his era.

C. I have not included Rafael Nadal, because his prime years aren’t over yet and thus there is no way to know how high he will end up. If he stopped playing today, he would be in Honorable Mention 1. Roger Federer is included because his prime is over, so it’s much easier to compare him to the rest of the players whose careers are behind them.

With no further ado, here are the rankings, followed by detailed explanations.

1. Laurie Doherty
2. Roger Federer
3. Rod Laver
4. Bill Tilden
5. Pancho Gonzales
6. Bjorn Borg
7. Pete Sampras
8. William Renshaw
9. Jack Kramer

Honorable Mention, Level 1 (listed chronologically): Reggie Doherty, Anthony Wilding, Henri Cochet, Fred Perry, Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, Ken Rosewall, Ivan Lendl

Honorable Mention, Level 2 (listed chronologically): Wilfred Baddeley, Joshua Pim, Bill Larned, Norman Brookes, Rene Lacoste, Roy Emerson, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi


One feature of these rankings is that they strive to give every era its due without privileging one over another. In the top 9, there are 3 players from 1880-1930, 3 players from 1930-1970, and 3 players from 1970-2010. The top 4 players come from widely disparate times: the 1900s, the 1920s, the 1960s, and the 2000s. Nearly every decade is represented in the top 9, and no decade is overrepresented: 1880s (Renshaw), 1900s (Doherty), 1920s (Tilden), 1940s (Kramer), 1950s (Gonzales), 1960s (Laver), 1970s (Borg), 1990s (Sampras), and 2000s (Federer).

The decades that are unrepresented in the top 9 all appear in Honorable Mention 1: 1890s (Reggie Doherty), 1910s (Wilding), 1930s (Perry, Vines, Budge), and 1980s (Lendl).

My goal is not to sacrifice accuracy in order to achieve fair inclusion of all eras, which would reduce my rankings to a meaningless exercise in political correctness. On the contrary, I believe that an accurate picture can be portrayed only if we remove the distortions that occur from relying on any measure that privileges one era over others. Once we do that, it stands to reason that the top players would come from across the spectrum of time.

Before I discuss each of the top nine players in detail to explain the rankings, let me mention why two players who are often mentioned in GOAT threads — Don Budge and Ken Rosewall — didn’t make it into my top 9.

Don Budge was the greatest amateur of the pro/amateur era (roughly 1931-1967), winning six straight majors and 92 straight matches. When he turned pro in 1939, he was immediately the world’s best player. But World War II deprived Budge of the opportunity to dominate the pro game for any meaningful length of time. It seems very likely that he would have dominated in 1940 and beyond. Maybe he would have amassed a set of accomplishments that landed him all the way at the top of the GOAT debate. At the very least, I’d be shocked if he hadn’t ended up in the top 9. But without a real pro circuit to dominate, all he really had were his great amateur years (when he may or may not have been the world’s best, but in any event didn’t get a chance to prove himself against the other best players) and his one full pro year of 1939. That’s not enough to make this list of 9. Everyone else on the list demonstrated superiority over the world’s best players for at least three years, and in some cases much longer.

Ken Rosewall is an interesting case. Very knowledgeable and reasonable people in this forum have suggested that he may be the greatest player of all time. But there are four reasons that I see things differently. First, during Rosewall’s time, he was widely considered to be less great than his semi-contemporaries Rod Laver and Pancho Gonzales. From 1954 (beginning of Pancho’s prime) to 1969 (end of Laver’s prime), Rosewall was the third-best player of the era. If you’re the third-best player during a 15-year span, then you’re probably not one of the top nine players of a 130-year span. Otherwise, that 15-year span would be overrated relative to other eras, which I’ll discuss in more detail when I write about Laver below. Sometimes people talk so much about a player being underrated that he becomes overrated. This has happened with Rosewall. The way people thought of him in his own time is the way he’s ranked here. Forty years after his prime, people in this forum have reexamined his results and argued to revise his place in history. I think that the original opinion got it right.

Second, Rosewall was clearly and dominantly the best player in the world for only two years, 1962 and 1963. Can you say the same about anyone I’ve ranked above him? Maybe Borg, whose prime years resemble Rosewall’s in some respects but are more impressive because (i) they occurred during the Open Era, which had much bigger fields and provided no shelter from top amateur players, and (ii) Borg’s results compare more favorably to those of his near-contemporaries than Rosewall’s results compare to those of his respective near-contemporaries.

Third, I value prime performance, including length of prime, far more than general longevity. My criteria are the duration of a player’s prime (typically but not exclusively meaning his time at #1), how dominant he was during that prime, and how his results compare to those of his contemporaries and to those of champions of nearby eras. So Rosewall’s great longevity doesn’t help him so much in my rankings. It gets him close to the top 9, but it can’t overcome the brevity of his tenure at the very top. (Incidentally, I’d rank Rosewall #1 in 1961, but not a dominant #1. And I’d give him the status of co-#1 in 1964, but not 1960.)

Fourth and perhaps most important, Rosewall’s era is overvalued in this forum. I will discuss this more when I get to Laver.

 

[John123]

1. Laurie Doherty

During the five consecutive calendar years of 1902-1906, this man lost a grand total of one match. (I’m not counting the exhibition against Brookes in 1905.) And it wasn’t even a super-important match (not Wimbledon or the Davis Cup), and he barely lost it (6-4 in the fifth set). He won Wimbledon five years in a row, won the Davis Cup four years in a row (every year he played), won on clay at Nice seven years in a row, and won the indoor wood tournament at Queens seven out of the eight times he played in it during his prime. He beat the best Americans (5-0 against Larned; one match was awfully close, but that’s a pretty weak criticism) and the best Europeans.

A nitpicker could say that he lacked longevity, but even that is debatable because his career wasn’t confined to his invincible five-year peak. In 1900 he won the biggest clay-court tournament of the era, the Olympics at Roland Garros. In 1901 he lost only one match all year — in an early round at Wimbledon — and might already have been the world’s best player.

An argument could be made that he is the greatest clay-courter ever, greater even than Wilding or Borg or Nadal. He lost zero matches on clay for seven straight years, 1900-1906, while playing the best competition the world had to offer (except, perhaps, for his brother Reggie, since the two competed against each other only on the rarest of occasions).

On grass, he lost zero matches for five straight years (1902-1906), while playing Wimbledon every year and the Davis Cup every year he was chosen, among other prominent tournaments.

On indoor wood, he lost one close five-setter in 1904 but was otherwise undefeated from 1902-1906 — making him unquestionably and by far the best player of his era on that, his worst, surface.

Given these results, you’d almost have to ask how he could possibly not be the GOAT. The generic argument, made by people who want the GOAT to be someone they’ve seen and rooted for, is that “the quality of play was lower back then, so it was easier to dominate, and thus Doherty’s dominance should be discounted.” If that were true, though, then other champions from early eras would have dominated like Doherty. But they didn’t. Reggie Doherty had one undefeated year, as did Bill Tilden — but Laurie had four. William Renshaw barely lost, but unlike Laurie or Reggie or Tilden, he barely played. If it was so easy to dominate completely for five years in the early days of tennis, then why didn’t anybody else do so?

Another problem with the era-based argument is that it can be used against any era other than the present, because depth increases with time. If Doherty’s achievements don’t mean as much as Laver’s, then Laver’s achievements don’t mean as much as Federer’s. That type of argument excludes certain time periods from the GOAT debate, thereby rendering the words “of all time” inaccurate. Tennis history, as we know it, starts with Wimbledon (1877). If we start counting only at, say, 1920, that’s arbitrary; and it’s probably being proposed as a way to argue for a favored player who wasn’t as successful as Doherty.

The bottom line is this: Laurie Doherty could not have had a better career, at least in terms of his peak years, which is my main criterion for greatness. He played all of the biggest tournaments on every surface, and he never lost. Some people say that Tilden, Laver, or Federer have had perfect careers, and by normal human standards, they have: they each won all of the biggest tournaments at some point, on every surface, and they stayed at the very top for five years or so. But as great as they were, they weren’t literally perfect: they all lost matches throughout their primes; Tilden didn’t fully cement his dominance because he didn’t trek overseas from 1922-1925; Laver lost plenty of important matches during his peak years (French Pro and U.S. Pro in 1965, French Pro in 1966, French Open and U.S. Open in 1968, etc.); and Federer lost to Nadal at Roland Garros from 2005-2008.

But Laurie’s career was perfect by the literal standard. He won everything and lost nothing. True, he crossed the Atlantic to play the Americans only twice. But his 5-0 career record against Larned, his general invincibility against Americans, and the unconvincing performances of Americans on foreign soil are evidence that it didn’t matter much. By an accident of geography, Tilden may not have played the world’s best opponents throughout his prime on every surface, but Laurie did.


2. Roger Federer

Most people overrate the present in just about any historical ranking of anything, so ranking a present player very high should automatically raise suspicion. But I believe that we actually happen to be witnessing something extraordinary — the career of the second-greatest player of all time, unfolding as this is written. Here’s why I see it that way.

No one has achieved success like Federer’s for at least the past 40 years — a statement that cannot be made about any other player in history:

a) There weren’t 40 years of tennis before Laurie Doherty’s prime.

b) Rod Laver’s professional achievements were equaled by Ken Rosewall a mere five years before Laver’s prime and exceeded by Pancho Gonzales a mere ten years before Laver’s prime. Laver’s amateur achievements, not that they are particularly important anyway in the context of this GOAT accounting, were nearly equaled by several of Laver’s contemporaries and were exceeded by Budge. (Obviously, no one before Laver had the opportunity to show what level of success they might have had in the Open Era, because that era began during Laver’s prime.)

c) Bill Tilden was dominant, but less so than Laurie Doherty, who played only about 15 years before Tilden.

d) Pancho Gonzales dominated as well, but his success arguably wasn’t head and shoulders above Jack Kramer’s success a few years earlier. And in any event, Gonzales fell short of Tilden.

So Federer was better relative to champions of nearby eras than any other player has ever been. This is why he ranks so high here.

A quick rundown of Federer’s superiority over the very best of nearby eras is as follows. As great as Sampras was, he doesn’t compare for two reasons: clay results and consistent dominance. The clay speaks for itself. As for consistent dominance, Sampras lost plenty of really big matches even on non-clay surfaces during his absolute prime: U.S. Open 1994, Australian Open 1995 and 1996, Wimbledon 1996, and the year-end championship in 1993 and 1995. Not Federer: off of clay, he won all four of the most important tournaments (AO, USO, Wimbledon, year-end championship) in 2004, 2006, and 2007. His only losses were two matches in 2005: the final of the Australian Open (9-7 in the fifth) and the final of the year-end championship (7-6 in the fifth).

Federer’s haul of 11 slams in four years, his 23 consecutive slam semis, and his 18 out of 19 consecutive slam finals tower over the accomplishments of Sampras or anyone else in the past 30 years. Another way to look at it is that Federer’s fifth-best year was better than the best year of Sampras or Agassi. (That year was 2009, when he won the French-Wimbledon double and lost in the fifth set of the finals of the AO and USO.)

To find anyone whose results across the board are in Federer’s ballpark, you’d have to go all the way back to Borg. And as great as Borg was, the gap between Federer and him may be bigger than the gap between Laver and Gonzales (or even the gap between Laver and Rosewall, with respect to pro results before the open era). Borg dominated tennis for only two years (1979-1980; he was also the best in 1978, but not by as wide a margin), whereas Federer dominated for four (2004-2007). Borg retired after having his Wimbledon streak snapped by a great young challenger, whereas Federer took back the title the next year. Borg never broke through to victory at the U.S. Open, whereas Federer finally did so at the French. And although Borg’s streaks of success at majors are awesome, they’re not as awesome as those of Federer (i.e., the streaks that are mentioned in the previous paragraph).

 

[John123]

3. Rod Laver

Laver achieved the greatest one-year feat in the history of tennis, the open-era grand slam in 1969. In addition to that, he was the world’s best player for at least five years (1965-1969), while also being at or very near the top in 1964 and 1970-1971. I don’t value his amateur slam in 1962 too highly for GOAT purposes because Laver wasn’t the world’s best player, nor did he have to beat the best, when he achieved it. But the fact that he was the second-best amateur (to Budge) in the era from 1931-1967 is still impressive.

Five straight years as the clear #1, plus the amateur slam as the cherry on top of the sundae, would probably have been enough to put Laver into the top 9. When you add the greatest single-year achievement of all-time in 1969, that moves him all the way up to #3 on my list. There’s no doubt that he is colossally great.

But why doesn’t he rank even higher? Many people in this forum believe that Laver is greater than Federer, so I will explain in detail my decision to rank Laver “only” #3.

I focus on a player’s achievements in his prime, typically (though not exclusively) when he’s the #1 player in the world. So Laver’s amateur slam doesn’t count much in this assessment of his greatness. That leaves us with two things: Laver’s pro career (1963-1967) and his open career (1968-1972; after 1972, he was clearly past his prime).

Laver’s five-year pro career (1963-1967) was terrific, but no more terrific than Rosewall’s five years from 1960-1964. This comparison has been made in microscopic detail in other threads, and anyone who would like to perform his or her own analysis can find much of the relevant data in Joe McCauley’s book The History of Professional Tennis. For my purposes the important thing isn’t to decide who had a better pro career, but just to note that it was close. The fact that Laver didn’t even have the best pro career of the 1960s by any clear margin (if at all) counts against him, because my approach to rankings is to analyze how much each player stands out from his contemporaries and from champions of nearby eras.

In addition, Laver’s pro career in the 1960s is less impressive in my opinion than Pancho Gonzales’s pro career in the 1950s. Laver was great in 1967, but he never put together three years of dominance like Gonzales’s 1954-1956. And Gonzales also remained the world’s best player for longer than Laver did.

What Laver has over Rosewall and Gonzales is 1969, the greatest year ever, and that’s why Laver ranks above them. But Rosewall and Gonzales never had the opportunity that Laver did to have such a year (i.e., to win the open grand slam), because the open era began during Laver’s prime rather than during theirs. Since they achieved as much as or more than Laver did in the pro era, it seems entirely possible that they too might have duplicated or exceeded Laver’s open era success if they’d had the chance (if the open era had begun in, say, 1954 or 1962). Let me be clear: I’m not giving Rosewall and Gonzales credit for anything that might have occurred but didn’t. Laver got a chance that they didn’t get, and he made the most of it, so he justly ranks ahead of them. My point is simply that Laver doesn’t stand out from his contemporaries as much as certain other players (e.g., Federer) do.

Laver, like Sampras, lost crucial matches on every surface during the heart of his prime. In 1965, he lost at the French Pro (wood) and U.S. Pro (grass); in 1966, he lost at the French Pro (wood); and in 1968, he lost at the French Open (clay) and U.S. Open (grass). Like Federer, Tilden, and Laurie Doherty, Laver won one great clay court event in his career (French Open 1969; the French Pro of 1968 was not a great event but a typical pro major). True, circumstances kept him out of great clay court events throughout much of his prime, but no more so than Tilden or Doherty. And Laver’s results, unlike Tilden’s or Doherty’s, provide reason to question or even doubt whether Laver would have won more French Opens if he’d played in them. His failures in every major after 1969, never getting past the quarters even on his best surface of grass, suggest that it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d played at the French Open in those years. And in 1964-1966, he couldn’t overcome Rosewall at the French Pro, which was much more favorable to Laver (wood vs. clay, three rounds vs. seven) than the French Open would have been. Maybe Laver would have won the French Open had it been available in 1967, or maybe he would have lost, as he did in 1968.

Laver’s grand slam in 1969 is the greatest year in tennis history (his 16 match losses notwithstanding). It’s better than Federer’s 2006 or Tilden’s 1921. But it’s not better by all that much. In 1921, Tilden did many of the same things that Laver did in 1969: he won the four biggest tournaments (Wimbledon, U.S. Open, World [Clay] Court Championship, and Davis Cup), three on grass and one on clay, all against the world’s best competition. Yes, Tilden’s Wimbledon win in 1921 involved only one match, and that match was dicey — but it was a win nonetheless. Federer’s exploits in 2006 were about as close to a slam as anyone has gotten since 1969, and Federer had similar results in 2004 and 2007 and another great year in 2005. Whereas Laver’s best year (1969) is supreme, and Laver’s second-best year (1967) is great too, Federer’s and Tilden’s third, fourth, and fifth best years are superior to Laver’s third, fourth, and fifth best years. Indeed, even Laver’s second-best year (1967, when he may actually have been playing at a higher level than in 1969) doesn’t stand out from its era (i.e., equaled by Rosewall in 1963) the way that Federer’s or Tilden’s second-best years (say, 2007 and 1924, respectively) do.

I still put Laver ahead of Tilden for reasons I’ll explain below in the Tilden section, but I don’t put Laver ahead of Federer. One year — 1969 — isn’t enough to overcome Federer’s four-year run of dominance or his catalog of streaks that separate him from everyone else of the past 40 years.

One more point on the subject of Laver is important. Pancho Gonzales’s prime started in 1954, and Rod Laver’s prime ended in 1969. This 15-year span, a blip in the 130-year history of tennis, also includes Rosewall’s prime. Many knowledgeable people on this forum rate three different players from this tiny era as among the handful of greatest players of all time. Why? In the pro/amateur era, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, there were very many pro tournaments and very few pro players competing in them. The handful of top guys played one another constantly. One result of this is that winning percentages were much lower then: Laver lost 26 matches in 1967, at his absolute peak. If people focused on winning percentage when ranking the greatest players of all time, then the pro era would be unfairly underrated relative to other eras.

But instead, people focus on the number of “major” tournaments a player has won. And the players of the 1950s and 1960s — Gonzales, Rosewall, and Laver — won more “major” tournaments than anyone else of any era. Is it because they were better than the champions of earlier and later times? No, just as their low winning percentages don’t mean they were worse. Winning a “major” in the 1960s meant a lot less than in other eras. For one thing, the majors of the pro era were very small, typically with 12 players in the field rather than the 128 players of today. For another thing, from 1963-1967, all of the majors were on fast surfaces. Rosewall swept these “majors” in 1963, and Laver did it in 1967, whereas no one has swept the top tournaments in the past 40 years. This is because it wasn’t nearly as difficult a feat in the 1960s as it was thereafter. Also, not all of the best players competed in the pro majors. Roy Emerson, along with other less elite but still good players, skipped them all by staying in the amateur ranks. And not even all of the top pros, few though there were, played all of the pro majors.

Due to the overvaluing of pro majors, the pro era is often overrated. Just as Rosewall is ranked lower on my list than on some other lists, Laver’s position relative to Federer is different.

 

[John123]

4. Bill Tilden

The Babe Ruth of tennis is hard to rank, and he has a case for being placed as high as #1. If one wanted to argue for him over Laurie Doherty, here’s how the argument could go. Each of them dominated their continent’s major tournament, with both tournaments featuring the world’s best players: Tilden won the U.S. Championship 6 straight times (1920-1925), and Doherty won Wimbledon 5 straight times (1902-1906). Each of them had a dominant run in the Davis Cup, with Tilden going undefeated on Cup-winning teams for 6 straight years (1920-1925), while Doherty did the same for 4 straight years. Each won one clay-court world championship (the Olympics in 1900 for Doherty, and the WHCC in 1921 for Tilden), and each dominated a less prominent annual clay court event for many years without losing (Nice for Doherty, and the U.S. Clay Court Championships for Tilden). Tilden crossed the pond to win Wimbledon twice in his prime (not to mention a third time later on), whereas Doherty crossed it to win the U.S. Championships in 1903.

The argument for Tilden is that their careers are similar, but Tilden’s is slightly better, as follows.

a) Davis Cup: Tilden won 6, whereas Doherty won 4.

b) Home major: Tilden won 6 straight U.S. Championships playing all the way through the draw, whereas Doherty won 5 straight Wimbledons with the challenge round.

c) Away major: Tilden won Wimbledon more than Doherty won the U.S. Championship.

Why am I not persuaded by such a line of reasoning? Before I give the main reason, it’s worthwhile to get some details on the table.

First, the fact that Doherty won “only” 4 straight Davis Cups and 1 U.S. Championship means less than one might suppose. Had Doherty been selected to play the Davis Cup in 1902, and had it been held at all in 1901, he probably would have won it. After all, he lost zero matches in the calendar year of 1902 and only one match in 1901. And the smart money would have been on Doherty to win the U.S. Championship in 1902 (again, a year in which he was undefeated) if he hadn’t given a walkover to his brother. And second, the challenge round doesn’t detract much if at all from Doherty’s achievements at Wimbledon. He wanted to play through the draw, and if he had done so, there’s every reason to think he still would have won because he won at every other tournament where he was playing through the draw.

But the really important thing is this: Doherty played the world’s best competition constantly, and Tilden didn’t. In Doherty’s time, the best players were primarily in England and Europe. Yes, a pre-prime Larned was playing in America, but England was the center of the tennis universe. Doherty played a full schedule throughout his prime, and the world’s best players were at those tournaments that he uniformly won for five straight years.

The same can’t be said for Tilden. He played the world’s best opponents each year at the U.S. Championships, and he played two matches against top players (though he was shielded of course from playing his teammate and arguably biggest threat, Bill Johnston) each year at the Davis Cup. These were great, great achievements. But week in and week out, he wasn’t playing against the world’s best because he was in America and they weren’t. This prevented Tilden from having the type of perfectly impressive prime that Doherty did. Tilden definitely proved himself, but he did so less often than did Doherty.

In addition, Tilden lost matches throughout his prime, whereas Doherty didn’t. And unlike Doherty, Tilden doesn’t have such a great excuse for staying home. Players from all over the world traveled to England for Wimbledon and to America for the Davis Cup in the early 1920s. Tilden certainly could have crossed the Atlantic from 1922-1925 to prove himself more often against the world’s best opponents on the biggest stages. But he didn’t, so in part he has himself to blame for being ranked “only” #4 here.

Given that Tilden won every important match he played for six years — 6 U.S. Championships, 6 Davis Cups, 2 Wimbledons, and 1 clay-court world championship — it’s a bit scary to think about what he might have achieved if he’d played a fuller schedule in Europe (including Wimbledon and the major French tournament) throughout each year of his prime. He might well have ended up at #1 on this list, just as Don Budge might have done so if not for WWII and Pancho Gonzales might have done so if the Open Era had begun in 1954. But instead, history played out the way it did.

 

[John123]

5. Pancho Gonzales

He was virtually invincible from 1954-1956, and he was as good as or better than any challenger from 1954-1960, which gives him arguably the longest run ever at #1 in the world. I believe that he was indeed the best for those seven straight years and that no one else has been the best for so long.

So he had the peak dominance that Sampras didn’t quite match, as well as the length of supremacy that Borg didn’t match. Why, then, doesn’t he rank even higher?

The answer is a sad one: he didn’t get the chance to achieve the feats that would have been necessary to move higher on this list. The pro circuit was just starting to come together during the 1950s, so Gonzales ruled over an era that was at times a bit depleted and disorganized. For example, he couldn’t prove himself on clay because the French Pro at Roland Garros wasn’t held in many years when he might have won it: 1952-1955, as well as 1957. He lost a really close five-setter to Trabert there in 1956, then lost another tough match in the final there to Rosewall in 1961.

If he had gotten more chances throughout his prime on a fully formed circuit that included a major clay championship, he might well have had a career equal to Tilden’s, Laver’s, and Federer’s. But it wasn’t to be.


6. Bjorn Borg

Apart from the huge difference in non-peak longevity, Borg is a bit like Rosewall in that his dominance was relatively brief but his exploits on all surfaces were pretty amazing. Five straight Wimbledons and six French Opens are much greater accomplishments than Rosewall’s streaks at Wembley and the French Pro, due to the relative size of the fields and to the fact that all of the best players were eligible to compete in the open tournaments.

More on Borg in the Sampras entry below.


7. Pete Sampras

Unlike Borg and Rosewall, Sampras wasn’t a man for all surfaces. But like Pancho and Renshaw, he was fearsome on the fast stuff and #1 in the world for six straight years.

I put him a bit behind Pancho because of all the losses: he wasn’t comprehensively dominant in his prime, even on fast surfaces. And Pancho got closer to being the best on clay than Sampras did, even though Pancho (unlike Sampras) was denied many chances to notch clay-court wins in his prime because the tournaments weren’t held.

Why is Sampras below Borg? I preferred Borg’s dominance of two slams to Sampras’s dominance of one (yes, Sampras won five U.S. Opens, but he lost a slew of matches amid those five wins — unlike Borg at Wimbledon or RG), and Borg came much closer at the U.S. Open (four finals) than Sampras did at the French (one semi).

Sampras was #1 for much longer than Borg, but Borg’s best two or three years were considerably more dominant than Sampras’s (just look at their respective match records, for example).

That said, Pete is the greatest Wimbledon player of all time. There’s no doubt he belongs on this GOAT list among the other legends. An argument could be made for putting him as high as #5.


8. William Renshaw

He’s very hard to rank because, unlike everyone else, he barely played any matches.

On the other hand, six straight Wimbledons is six straight Wimbledons, challenge round or not. No one else ever did it, and plenty tried (with and without the challenge round system). Perhaps his game was crude rather than seamless, but results are what matter. How many players were the best in the world for six or seven years? Maybe Tilden, Gonzales, and Sampras. All of them are on this list. Willie belongs here too. His accomplishments occurred long ago, but they did occur.


9. Jack Kramer

If the pro tour of the 1950s (Gonzales’s prime) wasn’t yet the fully formed institution it would become in the 1960s (Rosewall’s and Laver’s prime), it was still a well-oiled machine compared to the tour of the 1940s (Kramer’s prime). Kramer didn’t have the chance that others did to show what he might have been able to do (e.g., the chance he’d have had if he’d played during the open era).

However, Kramer was the best player in the world for five straight years (1947-1951). No one listed in Honorable Mention 1 can say that.

 

[John123]

There you have it — my humble opinion.

It probably won’t satisfy fans of the Gonzales/Rosewall/Laver era of 1954-1969, even though that mini-era does very well on the list, relative to its brief duration.

And it won’t satisfy fans of the present, even though Federer is #2 and the post-1970 era fares quite well with three members of the top 7.

Not too many people will be thrilled to see pre-WWII players at #1, #4, and #8. No one alive to read this saw or rooted for those guys, and people want their favorites to be the best. But I tried hard to treat every era fairly, including the pro/amateur era and the open era, but also the earlier eras who have very few supporters.

The list might be good or it might be bad, but it’s the best I can do.

 

[rosenstar]

Definitely an interesting outlook. Props for thinking outside the box and justifying each argument.

Never understood the Borg GOAT argument... Never saw him play, but less slams than Samp/Fed and less surfaces than Fed. I think the fact that he lost 4 US Open finals is a huge knock. I feel like he's a top 10 player, not top 3, just as you said.

I also think McEnroe is a top 10 all time player often left of the list. I think the fact that he held the number 1 ranking in both doubles and singles at the same time was incredibly impressive. I also think his 3 loss season was one of the most impressive things tennis has season.

 

[John123]

Definitely an interesting outlook. Props for thinking outside the box and justifying each argument.

Very kind of you to say!

 

[Limpinhitter]

This is a fair and thoughtful approach to a ranking of the best career's in tennis. But, not necessarily the best players. I prefer to base my opinions of the greatest players of all time on their level of play.

Certainly their relative success within their own eras is part of that analysis. But, a big part of it is more subjective by necessity. Because all time greats from different era's didn't play each other, their relative levels of play can only be analysed from such things as personal observation and memory, the written observations of others, and video recordings.

I've written about this many times on TT. Without rehashing it all again, I will simply say that based on those criteria - their records and their levels of play, my personal choices for the greatest players of all time are Laver, Sampras, Federer, Borg and Gonzales. Of those, the only one I didn't have the privilege to see play live was Gonzales. For him, I can only rely on what I've read, what I've been told by others who did see him play, and by what little video recording I've seen. From these 5 players, I personally think that Laver's, Sampras' and Federer's levels of play was/is slightly higher than Borg's and Gonzales'.

From among those three, I can't say with certainty who was the best, at there best. Federer's forehand is the best shot I've ever seen. But, what I can say is that I have never seen a tennis player play with the intensity that Laver played at. Laver was a force of nature unlike anyone I've ever seen on a tennis court. He was brutally relentless. I equate Laver's intensity with that athletes such as Walter Payton, Michael Jordan or Dan Gable. It was written that Laver in his prime was the best conditioned athlete of any sport, that he was the quickest and most athletic player in tennis, and that he was the most powerful hitter in the history of the game with a wood racquet, and that he had no weaknesses. IMO, Laver's game was the most complete of any player who ever played. It was also written that when watching Laver play it was easy to forget that he was human. To that I personally attest. And, I can't say that about anyone else.

 

[TMF]

That's a lot of good info.

The OP reminds me of a former member name Chao. He knows his tennis.

 

[The Hermit]

Very good info, OP, Federer really deserve that high, imagine without Nadal, he could be the absolute GOAT, winning 3 calendar slams, at least 4 slams in each major..etc

 

[CyBorg]

I'm fine with just designating a list of "GOATs". It's usually a list of about 8 or 9 players. Or maybe more, depending on how far back one goes. These players are typically the ones who dominate their respective eras or decades. Sometimes two coexist in the same era.

Ranking them is ultimately pretty subjective, although one can stick to a particular model of thinking and then make very elegant and persuasive points. But as we all know from talking to one another here, people will disagree.

Just as I will disagree about Rosewall with the OP. I will disagree that Rosewall's peak was short. And I will probably point to the fact that Rosewall's nearest rivals, Laver and Gonzales, were tougher than the respective rivals of some other GOATs. But that further goes to show that one can argue until turning blue in the face.

 

[morten]

great read, thanks

 

[newmark401]

Nice thread. Some comments re Laurie Doherty and re the 1900 Olympic Games:

Laurie Doherty won the British Covered Court Championships at the Queen's Club six years in a row, from 1901-06. I'm not sure that he won it a seventh time. I'm talking about the spring tournament.

A second covered court tournament was inaugurated at the Queen's Club in 1902 or 1903, and was held in the autumn; it would become known as the London Covered Court Championships. This new tournament was where Major Ritchie beat Laurie Doherty in five sets in 1904.
--

The 1900 Olympic Games were a farce and appear to have been given official Olympic recognition only in retrospect. The events were played piecemeal from May to September, with several competitors unaware that they had been taking place in an Olympic event. In reality, the sporting events were arranged to coincide with the Tournoi de l'Exposition, or World's Fair, taking place in Paris in 1900.

The lawn tennis events at the 1900 Olympic Games (if such they were) were held at the Societe des Sports Club on the Ile de Puteaux (the Roland Garros venue wasn't built until the late 1920s). The turnout was generally poor, although both Reggie and Laurie Doherty and the Irishman Harold Mahony took part. Reggie gave Laurie a walkover in the semi-finals.

The tennis events at the 1900 Olympics Games also included a men's singles event for professional players only. This was a direct contravention of the Olympic ideal.
--

 

[rosenstar]

This is a fair and thoughtful approach to a ranking of the best career's in tennis. But, not necessarily the best players. I prefer to base my opinions of the greatest players of all time on their level of play.

Certainly their relative success within their own eras is part of that analysis. But, a big part of it is more subjective by necessity. Because all time greats from different era's didn't play each other, their relative levels of play can only be analysed from such things as personal observation and memory, the written observations of others, and video recordings.

I've written about this many times on TT. Without rehashing it all again, I will simply say that based on those criteria - their records and their levels of play, my personal choices for the greatest players of all time are Laver, Sampras, Federer, Borg and Gonzales. Of those, the only one I didn't have the privilege to see play live was Gonzales. For him, I can only rely on what I've read, what I've been told by others who did see him play, and by what little video recording I've seen. From these 5 players, I personally think that Laver's, Sampras' and Federer's levels of play was/is slightly higher than Borg's and Gonzales'.

From among those three, I can't say with certainty who was the best, at there best. Federer's forehand is the best shot I've ever seen. But, what I can say is that I have never seen a tennis player play with the intensity that Laver played at. Laver was a force of nature unlike anyone I've ever seen on a tennis court. He was brutally relentless. I equate Laver's intensity with that athletes such as Walter Payton, Michael Jordan or Dan Gable. It was written that Laver in his prime was the best conditioned athlete of any sport, that he was the quickest and most athletic player in tennis, and that he was the most powerful hitter in the history of the game with a wood racquet, and that he had no weaknesses. IMO, Laver's game was the most complete of any player who ever played. It was also written that when watching Laver play it was easy to forget that he was human. To that I personally attest. And, I can't say that about anyone else.

Never saw Laver play, a couple highlights, but that's it...

As someone who believes in the 'Evolution of the Athlete,' the idea that athletes now are genetically superior to athletes of 30+ years ago, I have a hard time putting Laver so high, but at the same time his accomplishments are undeniable. I am not familiar with pre-open era tennis, but from what I've heard, counting both Laver's amateur and professional major wins, he'd have over 20 major titles? This is a ridiculous number and impossible to ignore.

Anyways, there are many different ways to go about the GOAT argument. Given everyone involved can be as unbiased as possible, it's quite an enthralling discussion.

 

[Datacipher]

As someone who believes in the 'Evolution of the Athlete,' the idea that athletes now are genetically superior to athletes of 30+ years ago,

Out of curiosity, why do you believe they are genetically superior?

 

[Limpinhitter]

Never saw Laver play, a couple highlights, but that's it...

As someone who believes in the 'Evolution of the Athlete,' the idea that athletes now are genetically superior to athletes of 30+ years ago, I have a hard time putting Laver so high, but at the same time his accomplishments are undeniable. I am not familiar with pre-open era tennis, but from what I've heard, counting both Laver's amateur and professional major wins, he'd have over 20 major titles? This is a ridiculous number and impossible to ignore.

Anyways, there are many different ways to go about the GOAT argument. Given everyone involved can be as unbiased as possible, it's quite an enthralling discussion.

Laver's accomplishments, alone, don't justify my opinion of him as, possibly, the greatest tennis player of all time. Comparing what he did - the level he played at - with a wood racquet, not only to what others could do with a wood racquet, but, what others have done with modern racquets, is primarily what I base my opinions on. Obviously, I have to make a subjective judgment about what Laver could have done with a modern racquet in order to compare him to Federer and Sampras. Having witnessed the gradual change from wood to graphite over the course of about a decade, I think I am in a position to make a reasonable adjustment for the difference in equipment. Despite all of the questions that have been raised about whether Laver would be able to handle the power of today's game with today's racquets, knowing that Laver's contemporaries were regularly unable to handle Laver's power with a wood racquet, my question is, would today's players be able to handle Laver's power with a modern racquet. The prospect is fascinating.

Concerning the evolution of athletes, I submit that the only material difference between today's players and players of the past is their size, which has nothing to do with genetic polymorphism and natural selection, which operates a bit slower than decades or even centuries. Rather, economics - more money - has attracted bigger players from diverse economic backgrounds, who would have played other sports. Certainly, the depth of World class players in the game today is much greater than it was in Laver's day because of the potential money to be made in tennis compared to the amature and early pro eras. But, the talent and skill at the top, among the most gifted and devoted athletes in the game, has not changed much, if at all.

I further submit that, based on my observations and what I've heard and read from others, Laver's natural athletic gifts and talent (a combination of speed, timing, balance, coordination and brute strength), are unsurpassed in tennis, and, Laver's conditioning and training is unsurpassed in tennis, despite protestations of the superiority of "modern training methods," as were his fellow Davis Cup team mates. Combine that with Laver's unrelenting aggressiveness and crushing power, and you have, IMO, a timeless candidate for the greatest player of all time.

 

[ibbi]

First of all, tremendous work. Really great read

NOW...to be abrasive:razz:

You said about giving each era its due, well I don't think you have in some respects. You mention about the present being overrated, and I think that's true, the racquets are one reason for that, the surfaces are another.

11 slams in 4 years is amazing, but it also the kind of think that can be accomplished during a 4 year window when the standard of opposition is mightily low.

You say Sampras doesn't compare because of clay results and consistent dominance, well Sampras won slams across 12 years, that's at least 3 generations of players, I can't see Federer doing that, he ended the year as number 1 for 7 straight years, Federer isn't going to do that.

As for Sampras' clay results, he had the misfortune of playing tennis in an era where clay and grass didn't play virtually the same, and he had the misfortune of playing in an era where actual clay court specialists still existed, Federer has neither of these two issues to deal with. It's easier to be better on clay and grass now than it used to be.

Then we come on to Borg, you say he only dominated for 2 years, well I say between 1978 and 1981, he played the final at 11 out of the 12 grand slam finals he played. Hell, between 1975 and 1981 he only fell once before the quarter final stage, when he had to retire injured. Only three other times did he fail to make the semi finals, and on 3 occasions it took nothing less than a grand slam winning player to knock him out.

Yes, Federer took his title back the next year at Wimbledon in the way Borg did not, when the man that beat him was absent, a luxury not afforded to Borg, yes, Federer finally broke through at the French in a way Borg never did in New York, but again, it happened for Federer when the cat was away, Borg never had that luxury, if it wasn't McEnroe, it was Connors. Yes, Federer's streaks are more impressive, but I put less stock in records and streaks, and more in who they're accomplished against.

 

[fed_rulz]

First of all, tremendous work. Really great read

NOW...to be abrasive:razz:

You said about giving each era its due, well I don't think you have in some respects. You mention about the present being overrated, and I think that's true, the racquets are one reason for that, the surfaces are another.

11 slams in 4 years is amazing, but it also the kind of think that can be accomplished during a 4 year window when the standard of opposition is mightily low.

You say Sampras doesn't compare because of clay results and consistent dominance, well Sampras won slams across 12 years, that's at least 3 generations of players, I can't see Federer doing that, he ended the year as number 1 for 7 straight years, Federer isn't going to do that.

As for Sampras' clay results, he had the misfortune of playing tennis in an era where clay and grass didn't play virtually the same, and he had the misfortune of playing in an era where actual clay court specialists still existed, Federer has neither of these two issues to deal with. It's easier to be better on clay and grass now than it used to be.

Then we come on to Borg, you say he only dominated for 2 years, well I say between 1978 and 1981, he played the final at 11 out of the 12 grand slam finals he played. Hell, between 1975 and 1981 he only fell once before the quarter final stage, when he had to retire injured. Only three other times did he fail to make the semi finals, and on 3 occasions it took nothing less than a grand slam winning player to knock him out.

Yes, Federer took his title back the next year at Wimbledon in the way Borg did not, when the man that beat him was absent, a luxury not afforded to Borg, yes, Federer finally broke through at the French in a way Borg never did in New York, but again, it happened for Federer when the cat was away, Borg never had that luxury, if it wasn't McEnroe, it was Connors. Yes, Federer's streaks are more impressive, but I put less stock in records and streaks, and more in who they're accomplished against.

hey look, it's another weak-era theorist who has nothing new to offer. The OP clearly stated he valued dominance over longeivity and gave his list.

your post is full of excuses in a lame attempt to rationalize why those ranked below Federer could not match Federer's achievements.

Borg didn't have the "luxury"?? wtf.. he quit at 25 -- if he had stuck around long enough, may be he'd had the opportunity for the "cat to be away". what about Borg's 1978 FO triumph? did he have to defeat Panatta on his way?

If grass and clay played similarly, would Sampras have won the FO? It's grass that's playing differently now (still, not to the extent that you claim), so how would that have helped Sampras? Face it, Pete would not win the FO in any era... btw, sampras ended #1 for 6 years. Should tell you something -- was a non-entity in 1/3 of the tennis tour in a given year, yet ended world #1 for 6 yrs in a row. How seriously was he challenged? Somehow, i refuse to believe Roman Delgado or Jaime Yzaga offer stiffer competition than Soderling or Delpotro.

To the OP: great read!! Also, I think Nadal deserves a place in your list. I understand where you're coming from about primes, but I think even if you make the assumption that Nadal's prime just ended, you can make a case for him in the top 10.

 

[ibbi]

If grass and clay played similarly, would Sampras have won the FO?

I don't think I ever suggested Sampras would have won the French Open,:neutral: I said he played in an era where because of the differences between the two surfaces, and the higher volume of players who specialized on one surface or the other, it was a far harder thing for people to excel on both surfaces.

How seriously was he challenged?

Umm, there were numerous players who played through Sampras' era who favoured the fast surfaces just as he did, giant servers, skilled volleyers, terrific returners, and he still remained the king of the mountain.

Somehow, i refuse to believe Roman Delgado or Jaime Yzaga offer stiffer competition than Soderling or Delpotro.

Alright, you refuse to believe. Fact remains that they were clay court specialists who spent an incredible amount of time playing on the surface compared to guys like Soderling or Del Potro.

 

[John123]

I really appreciate the positive feedback from everyone. It means a lot.

Newmark: Great contributions on the 1900 Olympics — really helpful and fascinating. Regarding Queen’s Club in the early 1900s, I put the two tournaments together for shorthand in my post, as you probably surmised. Thanks for explaining the details.

Limpinhitter and CyBorg: Your points are very well-taken. There are different ways to look at these things, and they yield different results. Limpinhitter is right that qualitative assessments can be hugely valuable, and CyBorg is right that some eras certainly might have been better than others. Personally, I’ve always thought that one of the hardest things in making these rankings is to avoid the desire to reach any particular conclusion. It’s really hard to do (for me, anyway), and I don’t claim to have succeeded, but I tried. And the only way I could even try was to eliminate qualitative assessments and to assume that all eras were created equal. Those two choices have their drawbacks, no doubt. I just feel that the alternative has even bigger drawbacks, but I acknowledge that this is nothing more than a personal opinion and that each different approach has much to recommend it.

Fed-rulz: You’re right that there’s a case to be made for Nadal in the top nine, but Honorable Mention 1 is far from a slight: those guys were really great. In most cases (though not quite all), one of the significant things that distinguishes them from the top nine is the length of time they spent at #1. Anyway, there will be plenty of opportunities to assess Nadal’s career once we know more about the body of work we’re assessing.

 

[Limpinhitter]

. . . Somehow, i refuse to believe Roman Delgado or Jaime Yzaga offer stiffer competition than Soderling or Delpotro. . . .

What about Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera, Andres Gomez, Carlos Moya, Alberto Costa, Gustavo Kuerten, Alex Corretja, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Emilio Sanchez, etc. . . ?

 

[pc1]

John123,

Interesting work and a nice perspective on this.

 

[fed_rulz]

What about Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera, Andres Gomez, Carlos Moya, Alberto Costa, Gustavo Kuerten, Alex Corretja, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Emilio Sanchez, etc. . . ?

did sampras lose to them in slams?

 

[rosenstar]

Out of curiosity, why do you believe they are genetically superior?

First of all, I believe that due to research and scientific advances, players can achieve higher levels of fitness. Statistically, if you look at the top 10 now versus 30 years ago, you'll see taller, stronger, better athletes. I don't think a 5' 8" player could dominate (Men's) tennis today.

I counted 7 players in the top 50 who are below 6', the shortest of which is Ferrer at 5' 9". Of these players, only one has reached a major final (Nalbandian).

In general, I believe, in any sport, you have to be bigger, faster and strong to play at the professional level than you had to be 20-30 years ago.

Like I said, in all most every sport, professional athletes are bigger, faster, an stronger than they were 20-30 years ago.

I further submit that, based on my observations and what I've heard and read from others, Laver's natural athletic gifts and talent (a combination of speed, timing, balance, coordination and brute strength), are unsurpassed in tennis, and, Laver's conditioning and training is unsurpassed in tennis, despite protestations of the superiority of "modern training methods," as were his fellow Davis Cup team mates. Combine that with Laver's unrelenting aggressiveness and crushing power, and you have, IMO, a timeless candidate for the greatest player of all time.

Laver might have been the greatest tennis player ever, but I find it hard to believe that he could compete with today's players. The last player under 6' to win a major was Gaudio in the '04 Aussie Open. There have been 3 different players under 6' to win a major in the past 10 years and only 4 different players in the past 20 years.

Now I acknowledge that the game is significantly different now, but I find it hard to believe that Laver could dominate tennis today like he did 40+ years ago, but I do I believe that some players, not all, (Fed, Murray, Tsonga, and some others) could have achieved similar results with wood rackets back in the day.

11 slams in 4 years is amazing, but it also the kind of think that can be accomplished during a 4 year window when the standard of opposition is mightily low.

I hate this argument. How is one to know if an era weak or if the player dominating is just levels above the field?

As for Sampras' clay results, he had the misfortune of playing tennis in an era where clay and grass didn't play virtually the same, and he had the misfortune of playing in an era where actual clay court specialists still existed, Federer has neither of these two issues to deal with. It's easier to be better on clay and grass now than it used to be.

Another argument I don't like... The surfaces are more similar, yes, but Wimbledon is still statistically the hardest tournament to break serve at (thus far this year). Jmac, Pmac, and Cahil have all said that slices and flat balls stay low and penetrate just they do on 'classic' grass courts.

Federer has to play against the best clay court specialist of all time in Nadal. I genuinely believe that strings/rackets have effected the game much more than the surfaces have. I think Fed can play at similar levels on any surface b/c of his equipment, not b/c of the surfaces or b/c of competition.

Borg didn't have the "luxury"?? wtf.. he quit at 25 -- if he had stuck around long enough, may be he'd had the opportunity for the "cat to be away".

I agree with this, I knock Borg big time for leaving the game so early. I like to judge GOAT status based on achievements, and borg has less majors then Fed, Samp and Lavor (counting pre-open era majors) and has won majors on less surfaces than Fed, Lavor, Agassi an Nadal. He's just not top 5 all time material IMO.

 

[rosenstar]

Alright, you refuse to believe. Fact remains that they were clay court specialists who spent an incredible amount of time playing on the surface compared to guys like Soderling or Del Potro.

One could argue that Murray, Djoker, Delpo, Nadal, Ferrer, Monfils, Berdych and Gasquet could beat many of those "clay-court specialists" listed below:

What about Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera, Andres Gomez, Carlos Moya, Alberto Costa, Gustavo Kuerten, Alex Corretja, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Emilio Sanchez, etc. . . ?

In fact, Guga and Sergi are the only two who I'd consider anything thing other than a one-slam-wonder. I guess you could give Muster some slack given his accident. Sure, those are all scary players to see on your side of the draw, but IMO no different than any of the players I listed above.

 

[Moose Malloy]

First of all, I believe that due to research and scientific advances, players can achieve higher levels of fitness. Statistically, if you look at the top 10 now versus 30 years ago, you'll see taller, stronger, better athletes. I don't think a 5' 8" player could dominate (Men's) tennis today.

I counted 7 players in the top 50 who are below 6', the shortest of which is Ferrer at 5' 9". Of these players, only one has reached a major final (Nalbandian).

Someone should do the same research with top 50 of 1969(unfortunately no rankings yet then)
I would bet majority of players then were 6'0 or over. Weird that so many think Laver's height must have been the average height of a player in 1969.

Like I said, in all most every sport, professional athletes are bigger, faster, an stronger than they were 20-30 years ago

I came across a chart that shows '96 or '97 was the tallest average height for the top 50 ATP of the last 20 years. Who knows about faster, stronger, but as far as height goes not much has changed in 20 years on the ATP(don't get fooled by Del Potro, Isner, they are flukes, just like Martin & Rosset in '96)

 

[Limpinhitter]

Someone should do the same research with top 50 of 1969(unfortunately no rankings yet then)
I would bet majority of players then were 6'0 or over. Weird that so many think Laver's height must have been the average height of a player in 1969.


I came across a chart that shows '96 or '97 was the tallest average height for the top 50 ATP of the last 20 years. Who knows about faster, stronger, but as far as height goes not much has changed in 20 years on the ATP(don't get fooled by Del Potro, Isner, they are flukes, just like Martin & Rosset in '96)

A short list of Laver's contemporaries who were top players or contenders, and who were 6' or taller, include: Gonzeles, Emerson, Anderson, Newcombe, Smith, Ashe, Olmedo, Bungert, McKay, Buchholz, Fraser, Stolle, Gimeno, Alexander, Froehling, Graebner, Ralston, Pilic, Amritraj, Riessen and Drysdale. That's all I can think of off the top. I'm sure there were plenty more. Laver and Rosewall were among the smallest players on tour, and yet, they dominated. In fact, it was the success of the smaller players that prompted the oft spoken premise that size was not as much of a factor in tennis as it is in other sports.

 

[CyBorg]

Laver's lack of height didn't hurt him. In fact his build contributed greatly to his success.

He's kind of like tennis's Marty St. Louis or Sidney Crosby. Shorter than average, but stocky, muscle bound, very strong and with a low centre of gravity. He'd be a bit taller in today's game, but still shorter than most and he'd still dominate.

Meanwhile look at some of the really tall guys. The really lanky types are often pretty awkward or slow. Their height affects their coordination and footspeed. So they're often just serve machines and not much more.

 

[The-Champ]

Laver's lack of height didn't hurt him. In fact his build contributed greatly to his success.

He's kind of like tennis's Marty St. Louis or Sidney Crosby. Shorter than average, but stocky, muscle bound, very strong and with a low centre of gravity. He'd be a bit taller in today's game, but still shorter than most and he'd still dominate.

Meanwhile look at some of the really tall guys. The really lanky types are often pretty awkward or slow. Their height affects their coordination and footspeed. So they're often just serve machines and not much more.

I agree. I haven't seen Laver play but Berasategui had a pretty fierce fh for a small guy, same as Grosjean. Plus Grosjean had quite a big first serve for a small guy. What the short guys lack in serving is compensated by their athletic superiority.

 

[NonP]

Not a bad list, though it's not without the usual flaws I see in these GOAT rankings. I'll comment on a couple of them here, as this was obviously a serious effort by the OP.

He's quite right that it's not fair to the old-timers to evaluate them on a scale of absolute quality of play. After all we're talking about players several decades or in some cases even a century apart. But, of course, each player is a product of their time, and there's no way to know how a Doherty or a Renshaw would have fared had they grown up in this era.

Where the OP takes a dubious route is in his discussion of peak performance--not only because this itself is a measure of quality of play (more on this below), but because the relative strength of the GOAT candidate's opposition, not to mention the playing conditions, varies by era.

Now, one might dismiss this as just another one of those fruitless "debates" (read: playground scuffles about who's your daddy) about competition, etc., but here I'm talking something more fundamental, particularly with respect to the pre-WWI eras.

Let me put it this way. Most basketball fans here should know about Wilt Chamberlain's amazing statistical achievements. But as impressive as they are, no serious basketball historian would rank him at the top of the greatest centers in history based on those stats alone, as he played in an era where double-teaming was not allowed and excellent 7-footers were relatively few compared to today (for the record, the latter claim comes from Charley Rosen at FoxSports, a former basketball coach who obviously knows his basketball, and who clearly cannot be accused of hyping the present or denigrating the past).

That's how many of us feel about a Doherty or a Renshaw. Yes, they could play only those across the net at the time, but that's also true of the modern greats who faced stiffer competition. Think of them as two separate leagues as you would the amateur and pro circuits before the Open era, maybe my point becomes clearer that way.

Which then raises the question, was Doherty perhaps too good for his contemporaries? And maybe he would've been as good as Tilden and Kramer a few decades later? Maybe the answer is yes; in fact Rosen and other serious b-ball experts don't doubt that Chamberlain or Russell would be a force to reckon with even today. But then Rosen also says that George Mikan, unlike those two giants (pun intended), would not have fared well one on one against today's bigs. And Mikan is truly a figure from when basketball was still in its infancy, not unlike Doherty or Renshaw in tennis. So are these two tennis greats more like Wilt/Bill or George? Hard for us to say. After all none of us have seen them play.

Some of you might have noticed that this discussion became more and more about quality of play. That was in fact intentional on my part, because I wanted to show that it's impossible to discuss dominance or peak performance without taking that aspect of the sport into account. If you're still not convinced, just ask yourself: what exactly defines an era? Or better yet, is the concept of "era" even valid, given that some of these eras overlap? History has shown that the top players from one era can and have thrived in the next. Is Agassi in '05 from the Sampras or Federer era? It's not like he developed some kind of special technique since Pete left, or that he was fitter in '05 (quite the opposite, actually). Or what era does Connors in '91 belong to, when he had that memorable run at the USO? Or Rosewall in '74, when he reached the final at Wimbledon? Or Gonzales in '70, when he beat Laver in that famous 5-setter at MSG shortly after the Aussie completed his GS?

Again, the point is that one would be hard-pressed to answer these questions without considering some fixed quality of play.

I'll comment on the other issues once I have time.

 

[Datacipher]

First of all, I believe that due to research and scientific advances, players can achieve higher levels of fitness. Statistically, if you look at the top 10 now versus 30 years ago, you'll see taller, stronger, better athletes. I don't think a 5' 8" player could dominate (Men's) tennis today.

I counted 7 players in the top 50 who are below 6', the shortest of which is Ferrer at 5' 9". Of these players, only one has reached a major final (Nalbandian).
.

Well as somebody with decades of experience coaching and fitness training high-level athletes, I strongly disagree with your belief about scientific advances. I freely admit, though it was hard to accept initially, that most of our improved techniques are total BS. In fact, the latest trends are a return to much older methods....the true advances in this area have come from chemical enhancement....in any case, this is not genetic.

ALTHOUGH, and this is where it get's interesting, I do feel that much of what we see in top level athletics today, is a form of genetic selection, but it's no longer, who has talent, but rather, who has the genetics to take well to the enhancement drugs...as they haven't become PART of the game...they ARE the game now.

Basically then, your belief in genetics only hinges on height. Of course, it is debatable how much of a factor height is in terms of inherent tennis talent. Certainly I think it can be an aid, all things being equal (of course they are never equal in real-life).

We do see a gradual creeping upwards of height, though the change has certainly not been very dramatic, and my instinct is that it is simply reflective of general height increases in the populace. Indeed, were height the most important factor, I think we would have long ago, seen a much greater skewing towards height, just as happened very long ago in the NBA. Instead, despite our tendency to cherry-pick at point at tall athletes, we see incremental increases in height.

Our current top 10 is very tall, but then again, it's varied from year to year. While I think it will continue to go up in general, as it seems to be doing in the general populace, again, there doesn't appear to be a very strong selection factor. If we go back 30 years as you suggest, to 1981, the year end top 10 averaged just under 6 feet (5'11.7), jump ahead to 1985 and the average was just over 6'1 (6'1.2), by 1990 the average was still just over 6'1 (6'1.3), though in 2003, the average was back down to just under 6 feet (5'11.9).

Again, I certainly think we will see the trend continue, not due necessarily to taller athletes being selected over smaller ones (we still see examples of very small players at the top level), though I think that can be a factor certainly, but mainly because the pool is getting taller. Even at low level junior ranks, this appears to be true. Quite simply, the kids are big!

 

[Limpinhitter]

I agree. I haven't seen Laver play but Berasategui had a pretty fierce fh for a small guy, same as Grosjean. Plus Grosjean had quite a big first serve for a small guy. What the short guys lack in serving is compensated by their athletic superiority.

I would also point out that there's nothing about being short that prevents a player from serving just as hard as a tall player. The problem arises from being small, serving hard, and getting it in consistently. Obviously, the smaller player has a lower margin for error on serve than a taller player. A smaller player might also have a reach disadvantage of half an inch for every inch differential in height. But, that's a deminimus difference of little consequence, IMO.

 

[timnz]

Peak Performance

Thanks for your list.

If you were going for peak performance rather than longevity - wouldn't you put Lew Hoad above Pancho Gonzales? Even Pancho said that Hoad's best was better than his.

eg Tournament of Champions 1959.

I prefer a mixture of longevity and peak. Hence, McEnroe's peak was above Connors but Connors has longevity all over McEnroe.

 

[CyBorg]

Thanks for your list.

If you were going for peak performance rather than longevity - wouldn't you put Lew Hoad above Pancho Gonzales? Even Pancho said that Hoad's best was better than his.

eg Tournament of Champions 1959.

I prefer a mixture of longevity and peak. Hence, McEnroe's peak was above Connors but Connors has longevity all over McEnroe.

I think that when people spoke of Hoad's "peak" they were referring to a particular match or tournament. But Hoad never really put together a year in which he was a true world #1.

At least I don't think so.

 

[John123]

I think that when people spoke of Hoad's "peak" they were referring to a particular match or tournament. But Hoad never really put together a year in which he was a true world #1.

At least I don't think so.

Timnz: with respect to Hoad, Cyborg gave my answer for me. Despite brief stretches of brilliance, Hoad's total career as a professional was nothing special by GOAT standards. Due to injury and/or indifference, he never sustained the pro success that would even have put him into Honorable Mention 2.

To clarify, I primarily value three things:

1. How dominant a player was during his prime.

2. How long his prime lasted. (This refers typically, but not necessarily always, to his time at #1.)

3. How his results compare to those of his contemporaries and to those of champions of nearby eras.

 

[CyBorg]

Someone should find the SgtJohn thread in which he posted what he perceived (from own research) as the top four tournaments in each year going back long ago. I have it saved on my mac and refer to it on occasion.

Rosewall fares pretty well, actually.

 

[John123]

Someone should find the SgtJohn thread in which he posted what he perceived (from own research) as the top four tournaments in each year going back long ago. I have it saved on my mac and refer to it on occasion.

Rosewall fares pretty well, actually.

It's the 10th, 11th, and 14th entries in this thread:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=167531

But counting up who won the four most important tournaments of each year is deeply misleading, because in some years those tournaments had 12 players without all of the best ones playing, and in other years they had 128 players with all of the best ones playing. Winning Wembley in 1967 meant a lot less than winning Wimbledon in 1968, but that list counts them equally.

I covered this in my original post in the last three paragraphs of the Laver entry. The pro era of Gonzales/Laver/Rosewall was very different from the present in that there were fewer competitors and, in about half of the years, no slow-surface pro major. The result was that winning the pro majors in bunches was far more common then than it has ever been with the Open majors. But just as winning "majors" was artifically inflated, match-win percentages were artificially deflated because there weren't as many early rounds in tournaments.

Focusing on match-win percentages makes it look like everyone from that era was bad, whereas focusing on who won the most "majors" makes it look like everyone from that era was Superman. Neither is true.

 

[CyBorg]

It's the 10th, 11th, and 14th entries in this thread:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=167531

But counting up who won the four most important tournaments of each year is deeply misleading, because in some years those tournaments had 12 players without all of the best ones playing, and in other years they had 128 players with all of the best ones playing. Winning Wembley in 1967 meant a lot less than winning Wimbledon in 1968, but that list counts them equally.

I covered this in my original post in the last three paragraphs of the Laver entry. The pro era of Gonzales/Laver/Rosewall was very different from the present in that there were fewer competitors and, in about half of the years, no slow-surface pro major. The result was that winning the pro majors in bunches was far more common then than it has ever been with the Open majors. But just as winning "majors" was artifically inflated, match-win percentages were artificially deflated because there weren't as many early rounds in tournaments.

Focusing on match-win percentages makes it look like everyone from that era was bad, whereas focusing on who won the most "majors" makes it look like everyone from that era was Superman. Neither is true.

It's a helpful aid. And about as helpful an aid as any, I would say.

Without abstract aids such as these we end up losing ourselves in semantics and long paragraphs. It is true to say that basic abstractions never provide us with the complete picture, but I would never reject the ones that are the closest to being true.

 

[timnz]

I think that when people spoke of Hoad's "peak" they were referring to a particular match or tournament. But Hoad never really put together a year in which he was a true world #1.

At least I don't think so.

But the OP said that he was basing it on peak performance. 1 year is still a matter of duration. Peak performance is what was your level in the best match you played in in your life. Pancho said that hoads peak was greater...hence I rest my point.

Now having said that I don't think basing greatest on peak performance alone is a good measure - but in this thread the discussion is about peak performance.

 

[rosenstar]

Well as somebody with decades of experience coaching and fitness training high-level athletes, I strongly disagree with your belief about scientific advances. I freely admit, though it was hard to accept initially, that most of our improved techniques are total BS. In fact, the latest trends are a return to much older methods....the true advances in this area have come from chemical enhancement....in any case, this is not genetic.

ALTHOUGH, and this is where it get's interesting, I do feel that much of what we see in top level athletics today, is a form of genetic selection, but it's no longer, who has talent, but rather, who has the genetics to take well to the enhancement drugs...as they haven't become PART of the game...they ARE the game now.

Basically then, your belief in genetics only hinges on height. Of course, it is debatable how much of a factor height is in terms of inherent tennis talent. Certainly I think it can be an aid, all things being equal (of course they are never equal in real-life).

We do see a gradual creeping upwards of height, though the change has certainly not been very dramatic, and my instinct is that it is simply reflective of general height increases in the populace. Indeed, were height the most important factor, I think we would have long ago, seen a much greater skewing towards height, just as happened very long ago in the NBA. Instead, despite our tendency to cherry-pick at point at tall athletes, we see incremental increases in height.

Our current top 10 is very tall, but then again, it's varied from year to year. While I think it will continue to go up in general, as it seems to be doing in the general populace, again, there doesn't appear to be a very strong selection factor. If we go back 30 years as you suggest, to 1981, the year end top 10 averaged just under 6 feet (5'11.7), jump ahead to 1985 and the average was just over 6'1 (6'1.2), by 1990 the average was still just over 6'1 (6'1.3), though in 2003, the average was back down to just under 6 feet (5'11.9).

Again, I certainly think we will see the trend continue, not due necessarily to taller athletes being selected over smaller ones (we still see examples of very small players at the top level), though I think that can be a factor certainly, but mainly because the pool is getting taller. Even at low level junior ranks, this appears to be true. Quite simply, the kids are big!

Interesting outlook... Hearing it from someone with such training experience definitely makes me rethink my initial views.

 

[ibbi]

I hate this argument. How is one to know if an era weak or if the player dominating is just levels above the field?

Because it wasn't like the Roddick's, Hewitt's, Safin's and Nalbandian's were constantly there in semi finals slam after slam after slam pushing him all the way. They were inconsistent, they were headcases, flakes, prone to injury. Nalbandian made 3 semi finals through Federer's so called prime, Safin made 2, Hewitt made 4, Roddick played 5. That's in a 4 year span with a possible 16 semi's to reach, hell discount the French, it's still out of a possible 12.

Another argument I don't like... The surfaces are more similar, yes, but Wimbledon is still statistically the hardest tournament to break serve at (thus far this year). Jmac, Pmac, and Cahil have all said that slices and flat balls stay low and penetrate just they do on 'classic' grass courts.

Federer has to play against the best clay court specialist of all time in Nadal. I genuinely believe that strings/rackets have effected the game much more than the surfaces have. I think Fed can play at similar levels on any surface b/c of his equipment, not b/c of the surfaces or b/c of competition.

Yes, the equipment is very different, so that has to be taken into account as well, but still, the surfaces ARE different than they used to be, and more importantly so are the players. Federer doesn't have to deal with aggressive serve and volleyers coming at him on the speedy, unpredictable grass of the 90s. Nor does he have to deal with players who spend most of the year playing exclusively on clay.

One could argue that Murray, Djoker, Delpo, Nadal, Ferrer, Monfils, Berdych and Gasquet could beat many of those "clay-court specialists" listed below:

How could one argue that? You could say that yes, perhaps they are better players all round, but do they do well on clay because they're amazing on the surface, or do they do well because they're all playing against each other rather than truly honed clay courters?

 

[John123]

But the OP said that he was basing it on peak performance. 1 year is still a matter of duration. Peak performance is what was your level in the best match you played in in your life. Pancho said that hoads peak was greater...hence I rest my point.

Now having said that I don't think basing greatest on peak performance alone is a good measure - but in this thread the discussion is about peak performance.

This is what I wrote in my original post: "I value prime performance, including length of prime, far more than general longevity. My criteria are the duration of a player’s prime (typically but not exclusively meaning his time at #1), how dominant he was during that prime, and how his results compare to those of his contemporaries and to those of champions of nearby eras."

 

[John123]

Wilt Chamberlain . . . played in an era where double-teaming was not allowed

Wilt was double-teamed constantly. That tactic has never been disallowed.

I just wanted to point this out for the record. It has nothing to do with the thread topic, of course.

 

[pc1]

Wilt was double-teamed constantly. That tactic has never been disallowed.

I just wanted to point this out for the record. It has nothing to do with the thread topic, of course.

Wilt was occasionally more than double teamed, triple and quadruple teamed sometimes. I don't think there was an era which double teaming wasn't allowed. How could anyone enforced that if there was a rule like that?

 

[Delano]

Cool post! Just when I thought I was no longer interested in ever reading another GOAT thread, this one comes along. I think it's nearly impossible to compare records across such different eras, but it still makes for interesting discussion.

One complicating factor in comparing records across eras is the relative importance of the Davis cup and the Australian Open. I recently read "A Terrible Splendor" about the Budge-Cramm match, and it really drove it home how big a deal Davis Cup used to be. It really was the equal of a major, maybe even a bigger deal (certainly compared to the AO). Davis cup still matters, of course, but few players would put it on the level of a slam anymore. Similarly, the AO mattered back then, but it doesn't seem to have had the same stature as the davis cup.

One thing that should come up in the Borg vs Fed comparison is that Borg did have huge success in Davis cup play but played the AO all only once (early in his career), whereas Fed often skipped Davis cup but always played the AO. How do you compare this? You have to compare the accomplishments relative to the importance of the events at the time Borg and Fed were playing them. And these events seem to have swapped places - Fed's absence in Davis cup probably isn't much of a blemish on his career considering how (un)important the event has become relative to the slams. But at the same time, Borg's 11 slams came out of 3 attempts per year rather than out of 4 - as a winning percentage in slams, that's almost as good as Fed. Now add in the Davis cup in an era when it was a bigger deal, and Borg may actually have the more impressive record...

 

[John123]

Cool post! Just when I thought I was no longer interested in ever reading another GOAT thread, this one comes along. I think it's nearly impossible to compare records across such different eras, but it still makes for interesting discussion.

Thanks!

One complicating factor in comparing records across eras is the relative importance of the Davis cup and the Australian Open. . . . How do you compare this? You have to compare the accomplishments relative to the importance of the events at the time Borg and Fed were playing them.

Exactly. You asked the right question, and then you gave the right answer.

Now add in the Davis cup in an era when it was a bigger deal, and Borg may actually have the more impressive record...

I've always been hugely impressed by Borg's achievements, which is why I rank him so highly. But he didn't sustain his dominance for long enough to be greater than Federer. Borg was by far the best player in the world for 2 years (1979-1980), whereas Federer was by far the best for 4 years (2004-2007), which is a big difference. (Borg was also the best in 1978, but not by as much -- more like Federer in 2009, perhaps.)

Also important is that Borg, despite trying very hard, never won the U.S. Open -- and Federer finally did win the French. (The results at their respective best two majors are comparable: Fed at Wimbledon resembles Borg at the French, and Fed at the US Open resembles Borg at Wimbledon.)

Finally, Borg's extraordinary streaks at majors were exceeded by Federer's. Borg reached 11 out of 12 straight major finals in which he played, whereas Federer reached 18 out of 19 straight major finals. Borg's best semifinal streak at majors was 14 out of 16, whereas Federer reached 23 straight semis.

I'm not cherry-picking statistics here to support an argument. In 2005 and 2006, when people were already starting to annoint Federer, I thought that everyone was forgetting Borg's greatness far too quickly. But Federer just kept going and going, and I believe he put the argument to rest.

 

[Limpinhitter]

Wilt was occasionally more than double teamed, triple and quadruple teamed sometimes. I don't think there was an era which double teaming wasn't allowed. How could anyone enforced that if there was a rule like that?

Constantly double and triple teamed and cheap-shotted on a regular basis! What else ya gonna do when your opponent is 7'1", with a 7'2" wingspan, and a 46-48" vertical leap?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain

 

[li0scc0]

Constantly double and triple teamed and cheap-shotted on a regular basis! What else ya gonna do when your opponent is 7'1", with a 7'2" wingspan, and a 46-48" vertical leap?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain

Chamberlain did not have a 46-48 inch vertical leap. If he did, he could have dunked on a 13 foot rim.

 

[Limpinhitter]

Chamberlain did not have a 46-48 inch vertical leap. If he did, he could have dunked on a 13 foot rim.

Reputedly he could touch the top of the backboard. Is that 13 feet? Did you look at the link? He states that there was a 12 foot rim at Kansas that he could dunk on. He could also reach 9'6" without jumping. If you'd ever seen him block one of Kareem's sky hooks, you'd be a believer.