Agassi vs. The Big 3. Are they on the same tier of ATGs?

Is Agassi on the same tier as the Big 3?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 11 17.7%
  • No.

    Votes: 51 82.3%

  • Total voters
    62
Man why do you defend these super old uncles like Borg ? I dont get it. You go to extreme lengths to defend Borg. He could not win anything in a few attempts on HC and yet you wanna compare him with Sampras who is as good as Federer and Djokovic on HCs. Why this urge to defend Borg? You havent seen Borg play live, right? Were you even alive when he won his last slam ? Federer surely wasn't even alive when Borg won his last slam, see Borg is that ancient and primitive. That fellow doesn't stand a chance against Sampras or anyone. Why to defend him?
I was born in 86, so not alive when Borg won his slams. I fail to see how this is relevant though. If everyone here can only talk about players who played when he was alive the discussions would be quite pointless. Stats, videos, people who watched Borg, all this is available, so what exactly is your point? If you wanna argue Pete > Borg bring your arguments, but stop with those ever-repeating, over-hackneyed generic statements and insults like "ran away", "ancient and primitive" blabla.
 
There is the hard to compare era's argument by perhaps Agassi still needed more than 8 slams because that's well away from 20+

Sampras with 14 looks better with this argument because it's a lot closer.
 
I was born in 86, so not alive when Borg won his slams. I fail to see how this is relevant though. If everyone here can only talk about players who played when he was alive the discussions would be quite pointless. Stats, videos, people who watched Borg, all this is available, so what exactly is your point? If you wanna argue Pete > Borg bring your arguments, but stop with those ever-repeating, over-hackneyed generic statements and insults like "ran away", "ancient and primitive" blabla.

Maybe we should only dicuss players during whose reigns we were t least alive and had a glimpse of them, otherwise it is purely mythology tht we are involved in. Even videos from distant past will never do justice to compare players unless we've seen them in realtime. See if a gentleman aged in his mid 60s has seen borg play in 1970s then maybe he can make a comparison with Big 3 since he has a proper frame of reference in terms of memory to compare with, when that person revisits those memories with videotapes of the past then he can make a proper comparison, but how can we sit here and call Borg the GOAT ? Some fed fans here call Pancho the GOAT and those ppl are 90s born or 80s born people, I fail to understand how they take these names like Pancho with such confidence and compare players across eras ? See in real life most people don't do this. I am sure Federer himself does not know much or care for Pancho but some of his fans are so excited about Pancho/Tilden, that is so weird, LOL. .... by the way, reg Borg the consensus on whether he retired fearing Mcenroe or not is divided, some say he did because Mac closed the gap between them and surged ahead, some say no...
 
I was born in 86, so not alive when Borg won his slams. I fail to see how this is relevant though. If everyone here can only talk about players who played when he was alive the discussions would be quite pointless. Stats, videos, people who watched Borg, all this is available, so what exactly is your point? If you wanna argue Pete > Borg bring your arguments, but stop with those ever-repeating, over-hackneyed generic statements and insults like "ran away", "ancient and primitive" blabla.

I put that guy on ignore month ago. Didn't see good reasons to continue discussions with him.
 
Excerpt from this article dated 1986 suggests that majority people believed Borg to be a guy who ran away from the fear of John Mcenroe.


John McEnroe didn’t leave tennis. Not really. Rather, he left the tennis profession. But it universely is agreed that Bjorn Borg, who took a break and never returned, left the game. Many believe Borg was forced into early retirement because he was unable to hold onto his No. 1 ranking with young John McEnroe on the rise.


In this article his coach Lennert Bergelin says that Borg was mentally not interested in tennis anymore after Mcenroe has risen, but the tennis authorities excuse is not mentioned here. Why didn't Borg's coach mention this in 1986 if the authorities were so bad ?

Borg after turning 30 started to regret his decision, so you want us to give this man the benefit of doubt by blaming ITF ?
 
There is the hard to compare era's argument by perhaps Agassi still needed more than 8 slams because that's well away from 20+

Sampras with 14 looks better with this argument because it's a lot closer.
What we do know about Andre is that he would've adapted just fine to the modern era. His baseline game was still potent in 2003-2005.
 
Maybe we should only dicuss players during whose reigns we were t least alive and had a glimpse of them, otherwise it is purely mythology tht we are involved in. Even videos from distant past will never do justice to compare players unless we've seen them in realtime. See if a gentleman aged in his mid 60s has seen borg play in 1970s then maybe he can make a comparison with Big 3 since he has a proper frame of reference in terms of memory to compare with, when that person revisits those memories with videotapes of the past then he can make a proper comparison, but how can we sit here and call Borg the GOAT ? Some fed fans here call Pancho the GOAT and those ppl are 90s born or 80s born people, I fail to understand how they take these names like Pancho with such confidence and compare players across eras ? See in real life most people don't do this. I am sure Federer himself does not know much or care for Pancho but some of his fans are so excited about Pancho/Tilden, that is so weird, LOL. .... by the way, reg Borg the consensus on whether he retired fearing Mcenroe or not is divided, some say he did because Mac closed the gap between them and surged ahead, some say no...
Then please follow your own idea. You were definitely not alive when Borg won his slams nevertheless you are all the time certain he ran away from Mac and so on. You also did not watch tennis when Navratilova was around nevertheless you were going over pages with a lot of confidence that she (and Evert) were better than Graf (did you even watch her?). I have seen you talking and sometimes denigrating countless players here you have not watched live or were not even alive so why are you bringing that up with Borg now?
 
He played four HC slams in his life reacing three finals losing to USO GOAT candidates. Pete played 25 HC slams winning 7. Borg won 6/8 FO he played while Pete did not even reach a final in 13 attempts. If you do not see that they are way closer on HC than on clay I cannot help you.
My comment was more in the spirit of you making excuses for his lack of a HC slam title. It is his fault he only played 4. Had he hung around longer he might have played more. Pete's Thalassemia isn't his fault, yet historians don't give him a break for not winning RG.
 
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My comment was more in the spirit of you making excuses for his lack of a HC slam title. It is his fault he only played 4. Had he hung around longer he might have played more. Pete's Thalassemia isn't his fault, yet historians don't Tice him a break for not winning RG.
It is not an excuse, it is putting context that you cannot simply compare 7 to 0 at face value. Besides, it was only partly Borg's fault that he played only 4 HC slams. Sure he could have hung around longer but still there would only have been one slam on HC during his playing career and on top, even that one was only on HC for half of it. Even under a normal career length he could maybe have played 10 HC slams still far away from 25 of Pete.
 
It is not an excuse, it is putting context that you cannot simply compare 7 to 0 at face value. Besides, it was only partly Borg's fault that he played only 4 HC slams. Sure he could have hung around longer but still there would only have been one slam on HC during his playing career and on top, even that one was only on HC for half of it. Even under a normal career length he could maybe have played 10 HC slams still far away from 25 of Pete.
If he had hung around longer, and won some HC slam titles your argument would have more merit. He played 4 because he stopped in his mid 20s and that's on him. For all we know, he never makes another final if he keeps going. Mythologizing him is hardly a fair take. Pete had an actual medical condition limiting his success on clay, and no one says "Pete beat the best clay courters of his era at RG, so we can't compare Borg's 6 to his 0 because he had Thalassemia". In fact, if you say this, people think you're making an excuse.Things happened as they did and that's how it is.
 
Then please follow your own idea. You were definitely not alive when Borg won his slams nevertheless you are all the time certain he ran away from Mac and so on. You also did not watch tennis when Navratilova was around nevertheless you were going over pages with a lot of confidence that she (and Evert) were better than Graf (did you even watch her?). I have seen you talking and sometimes denigrating countless players here you have not watched live or were not even alive so why are you bringing that up with Borg now?

I never fight on Lendl/Borg/Mac/Wilander/Connors, they are all from a time before I was born. Graf on the other hand, yes I have not seen her play but what happened to Seles is common knowledge for everyone, so when Graf is compared to Serena then I find it hard to not speak of Graf.
 
Agassi has a goat claim simply because of his golden slam and that he literally got millions of kids in the 80s into Tennis more than anyone else I dare say
 
Borg is 5'11, he is shorter than Pete 6'1, Federer 6'1, Nadal 6'1 and Djokovic 6'2
Those 2 inches less would hurt Borg if he competed today.

Nobody more overrated than Borg, the guy would be a Murray like character today if he competed with Big 3.
Really? I assume you are from USA?. So you might have more bias. I may be wrong about claims i make but I don't think i have bias for Borg since I'm not a fan.
It's clear you dislike Borg and not objective for some things.
Man why do you defend these super old uncles like Borg ? I dont get it. You go to extreme lengths to defend Borg. He could not win anything in a few attempts on HC and yet you wanna compare him with Sampras who is as good as Federer and Djokovic on HCs. Why this urge to defend Borg? You havent seen Borg play live, right? Were you even alive when he won his last slam ? Federer surely wasn't even alive when Borg won his last slam, see Borg is that ancient and primitive. That fellow doesn't stand a chance against Sampras or anyone. Why to defend him?
Atleast you can watch some matches from Borg's era with decent quality. More reasonable than older ones like Laver Gonzales.
There are matches like USO 1980 or many other matches are available. I'm impressed also how big can he serve sometimes in his last years. Also when he hits his FH looks similiar to Federer pace and spin. Not sure if he has any weaknesses. He is one of the best ever movers of the game you can watch many clips. I saw that he sometimes hits short like Nadal but thats it. Even much harder to implement spin with those rackets. Considering his popularity, everything he is ahead of his time imo.

Movement is probably the most important thing in tennis so he would be fine had he played this era.
He hits realy big in his time. Alcaraz is also shorter but has powerful strokes and hits bigger than the most. Will see if he reaches 10+ slam in this era.
 
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I never fight on Lendl/Borg/Mac/Wilander/Connors, they are all from a time before I was born. Graf on the other hand, yes I have not seen her play but what happened to Seles is common knowledge for everyone, so when Graf is compared to Serena then I find it hard to not speak of Graf.
??. Me and you alone have fought several times over him. You have posted the video of this dumb race with Pele and Gretzky 3 or 4 times alone.
 
??. Me and you alone have fought several times over him. You have posted the video of this dumb race with Pele and Gretzky 3 or 4 times alone.

That race was amusing. You guys claimed he is an athletic freak, an anomaly and yet when I opened youtube I found Gretsky, Pele beating him and Borg only quicker than Sugar Ray Leonard. Thats why I posted it... If someone is an athletic freak then he should not get smoked like that at age 25-26.
 
Pete had an actual medical condition limiting his success on clay,

Thalassemia minor, his condition, is generally considered to be asymptomatic. It's also kind of silly to see him play many classic best of 5 HC matches and suggested he was impaired physically.

Sampras struggled somewhat on clay because his backhand was weak and his forehand could be erratic. He was vulnerable to losing on anything but a great serve day to most of the top 100 on clay
 
Thalassemia minor, his condition, is generally considered to be asymptomatic. It's also kind of silly to see him play many classic best of 5 HC matches and suggested he was impaired physically.

Sampras struggled somewhat on clay because his backhand was weak and his forehand could be erratic. He was vulnerable to losing on anything but a great serve day to most of the top 100 on clay

Sampras would have been more successful on Clay if he had a modern day racquet at his disposal like Federer or others. Thalassemia was also a valid reason like @Holmes mentioned. It is unfair to expect Pete to win the french in that era.
 
A big part of what made the Big 3 the Big 3 was their ridiculous consistency and dedication to the sport. That’s the biggest thing that separates them from Agassi. That and their level in big matches. I can’t see how Agassi is in the same tier of ability with the Big 3 when he lost to PETE a majority of the time when it mattered most. Granted I think he adds 2-3 more schlems to his tally if he started playing the AO before 95 and doesn’t do meth in 97. There’s a good chance PETE goes AOless *had Andre got his crap together.
 
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Sampras would have been more successful on Clay if he had a modern day racquet at his disposal like Federer or others. Thalassemia was also a valid reason like @Holmes mentioned. It is unfair to expect Pete to win the french in that era.

Nonsense. Modern raquets were available years before Sampras even turned pro, he just didn't feel comfortable with them. He did pretty amazing with the OG Pro Staff which wasn't that much different then most peers of his time, where 85-93 sq inch players frames were more.common then not.

He had some really nice wins on clay the first half of his career, and it's clear he could beat anyone on any surface on any given day when he served well. It was just hard to hide his backhand on longer points and his FH was not the caliber he could dictate play with it.
 
Nonsense. Modern raquets were available years before Sampras even turned pro, he just didn't feel comfortable with them. He did pretty amazing with the OG Pro Staff which wasn't that much different then most peers of his time, where 85-93 sq inch players frames were more.common then not.

He had some really nice wins on clay the first half of his career, and it's clear he could beat anyone on any surface on any given day when he served well. It was just hard to hide his backhand on longer points and his FH was not the caliber he could dictate play with it.

Poly Strings were not available before Sampras turned pro. Kuerten is probably the first pro to use that. Sampras with Poly Strung Racquet would have been more successful at the french open. Kuerten described his strings as a cheat code.
 
Thalassemia minor, his condition, is generally considered to be asymptomatic. It's also kind of silly to see him play many classic best of 5 HC matches and suggested he was impaired physically.

Sampras struggled somewhat on clay because his backhand was weak and his forehand could be erratic. He was vulnerable to losing on anything but a great serve day to most of the top 100 on clay
He was not asympomatic, in his biography he says it was an issue in the humidity of Australia. Pete threw up and collapsed, or lost the immediate next match after some of his longest matches. For example, the Davis Cup win against Kafelnikov on clay, he fell down and had to be rushed off the court. Think it's pretty silly to argue.
 
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He could not win anything in a few attempts on HC and yet you wanna compare him with Sampras who is as good as Federer and Djokovic on HCs. Why this urge to defend Borg? You havent seen Borg play live, right? Were you even alive when he won his last slam ? Federer surely wasn't even alive when Borg won his last slam, see Borg is that ancient and primitive. That fellow doesn't stand a chance against Sampras or anyone. Why to defend him?
I don't think Sampras is as good as Djokovic or Fed on HC. Sure he is better than Djokovic at USO but overall he is bit behind both.

At the age of 32 Sampras has 7 HC slam whereas Djokovic and Federer has 9 HC slam Djokovic is 10 with AO 2019 if you count.
Sampras is way behind at masters though. If he had Agassi type career at masters it would be more close with some normalization. Also you need to consider the fact that they played against each other + with Nadal.
 
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In 70-80's tour was not like it is today. There are less HC tournaments.
I think Connors would be better HC player would win more slams on HC than Sampras with the same conditions. He has more titles and better Win % on surface.
Lendl might have better career on HC too. Had AO played on HC always.
 
Tennis skill wise, yes, everything else, no. But then again, the everything else part is generational. Athletes today are robots from an early age and are crazy about fitness, diet, psychology, routine, rituals, etc. Tennis players in the 80s were partying, eating McDonalds, barely warming up before a match, and their post match ritual was having a beer and popping a couple of advil.

The money was different, the surfaces were different, the equipment was different, the motivations were different. Tennis is one of the most difficult sports to compare generation wise. Baseball is still using wood bats. Basketball courts didn't change from indoor wood to outdoor clay. If tennis made more of an effort to clamp down on tech and forced players to stay with wood, ban Poly strings and didn't change the surfaces, then we'd have something to compare generations.

Money also plays a huge factor. We went from top players in the 80s flying commercial and staying in hotels and eating take-out, to top players in the the 2020s flying private jets, staying in private villas with their own private chefs, physio, doctors, and 100 others on their team. Players in the 80s and 90s didn't even play the AO because it didn't pay enough and the flights sucked. Andre didn't even play Wimbledon for a while because he didn't like grass and their dress code. Imagine anybody doing that today.
 
I don't think Sampras is as good as Djokovic or Fed on HC. Sure he is better than Djokovic at USO but overall he is bit behind both.

At the age of 32 Sampras has 7 HC slam whereas Djokovic and Federer has 9 HC slam Djokovic is 10 with AO 2019 if you count.
Sampras is way behind at masters though. If he had Agassi type career at masters it would be more close with some normalization. Also you need to consider the fact that they played against each other + with Nadal.

Federer did not have an Agassi type rival at AO to stop him from winning AO 4 times before 32 (ohh yes, Djokovic emerged much later) and that is why Federer has 2 Slams extra in Australia. If Federer and Djokovic were of the same age then Federer would also be having like 2 Aus opens or so...

On the other hand, Federer did not have an Agassi type rival at USO and still Federer only has 5 USO which is the same as Sampras.

So Sampras is as good a Hard Courter as Federer, also Sampras had more injuries than Federer... otherwise he would be having more hard court slams.

Reg Masters... thats not relevant in the discussion.... Only Slams matter. If you dig into non slam matches then Sampras has plenty of 5 setters on Carpets which Fed or Novak don't have, so all that compensates for whatever little sh1t masters trophies than Fed or Nole have piled up, LOL.... you guys need to stop talking of masters as if they mean anything, in GOAT conversation across eras only slams matter.
 
Djokovic is not 24/14 = 1.71 times better than Sampras, otherwise Djokovic would not be on lesser Slams than Sampras was on their 30th birthdays, whatever someone wins after 30th birthday depends on Great Age Shift + Strong/Weak next gens, so we can disregard that. Djokovic or Fedal are not better than Sampras,

Tier 1 : Big 3, Sampras, Borg
Tier 2 : Mcenroe, Lendl, Connors
Tier 3 : Agassi, Becker, Edberg, Wilander
Tier 4 : Sir Andrew Murray, Courier, Hewitt, Safin, Kuerten etc etc ... & Roddick too.
Tier 5 : 1 Slam Winners (not Roddick) who were not worth more than that....Medvedev is also in this tier, but I place Roddick above.
Tier 6 : Non Slam Winners who have other Big trophies and Slam Final s
Tier 7 : Non Slam Winners who are just in top 100 but average
Tier 8 ; Rest of the people outside the top 100
Sampras and Borg are not in the same league as Big 3. More like tier 1.5.
Agassi is tier 2, maybe better than some of those guys. He's the only one that won all the big titles, of that crowd.
Roddick definitely not in the multi Slam winning tier. In the big 3 era he would have ended with 0.
 
Federer did not have an Agassi type rival at AO to stop him from winning AO 4 times before 32 (ohh yes, Djokovic emerged much later) and that is why Federer has 2 Slams extra in Australia. If Federer and Djokovic were of the same age then Federer would also be having like 2 Aus opens or so...

On the other hand, Federer did not have an Agassi type rival at USO and still Federer only has 5 USO which is the same as Sampras.

So Sampras is as good a Hard Courter as Federer, also Sampras had more injuries than Federer... otherwise he would be having more hard court slams.

Reg Masters... thats not relevant in the discussion.... Only Slams matter. If you dig into non slam matches then Sampras has plenty of 5 setters on Carpets which Fed or Novak don't have, so all that compensates for whatever little sh1t masters trophies than Fed or Nole have piled up, LOL.... you guys need to stop talking of masters as if they mean anything, in GOAT conversation across eras only slams matter.
I said 9 to 7 slam as a main argument it should be enough. 2 slam difference and it is with normalization until 32. For me masters are important it measures your capabilities in whole season on every surface. In whole long season are they playing for only 4 Slam, 5 tournament with WTF. But agree that masters are not priority when the gap is more than 1 slam.
I'm saying even there he is behind.

Don't make me defend Djokovic lol. He lose to many different players at USO but also Federer stopped him 3 times 07 to 09.

I wouldn't discuss it if you say Sampras is better at Wimbledon, grass and WTF than both Djokovic and Federer but he is behind overall at HC.
Probably Agassi is more closer to Sampras on HC than Sampras to Fed, Djokovic.
 
Sampras and Borg are not in the same league as Big 3. More like tier 1.5.
Agassi is tier 2, maybe better than some of those guys. He's the only one that won all the big titles, of that crowd.
Roddick definitely not in the multi Slam winning tier. In the big 3 era he would have ended with 0.

Do you think Gone with the Wind, Godfather, Jaws, ET, Jurassic Park, Titanic are less significant than Avatar or Avengers Endgame ????

They are all in the same tier when it comes to the box office since they all held the record for the highest grossing film in their time.

Sampras actually should be in a higher tier than Nadal because Sampras held the record for most slams and has 6 year end 1s while Nadal was under the shadow of Federer all his life and in the end remains below Djokovic.

If Djokovic is Avengers Endgame & Federer is Avatar then Sampras is Titanic
 
A big part of what made the Big 3 the Big 3 was their ridiculous consistency and dedication to the sport.


Yep. Even Sampras who was muuuuch more consistent than Agassi had some stinkers at his peak when it came to losses at slams (outside Wimbledon).

Djokovic and Federer had ridiculous QF/SF streaks that nobody else pretty much had, and Nadal although not quite on the same level in that regard because of skipping some tournaments wasn't too far off overall.

Borg was pretty damn consistent at his peak when it came to losses at slams. He was dominating Wimbledon and RG and his losses at the USO were coming to Connors/Mac. And when he lost at RG it was Panatta. He was in terms of consistency as good as the Big 3 almost, but the total opposite in terms of longevity. He also pales in comparison to Sampras in terms of longevity and the latter was a bit meh in that regard too.
 
fun fact.. one of the mistakes in titanic is when jack, when he first meets rose, remember he talks about some lake where he loved to go, and so, that lake appeared five years after the crash of the titanic in 12
 
fun fact.. one of the mistakes in titanic is when jack, when he first meets rose, remember he talks about some lake where he loved to go, and so, that lake appeared five years after the crash of the titanic in 12
I have never seen Titanic. Is it a good movie?
 
fun fact.. one of the mistakes in titanic is when jack, when he first meets rose, remember he talks about some lake where he loved to go, and so, that lake appeared five years after the crash of the titanic in 12
I have never seen Titanic. Is it a good movie?

Titanic was the absolute GOAT movie when I was a kid, but now 3 films has crossed it in Gross Worldwide Collections.

Same fate as Sampras.
 
I don't think Sampras is as good as Djokovic or Fed on HC. Sure he is better than Djokovic at USO but overall he is bit behind both.

At the age of 32 Sampras has 7 HC slam whereas Djokovic and Federer has 9 HC slam Djokovic is 10 with AO 2019 if you count.
Sampras is way behind at masters though. If he had Agassi type career at masters it would be more close with some normalization. Also you need to consider the fact that they played against each other + with Nadal.
This is fair. I think Pete is better than both on grass and indoors though.
 
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Titanic was the absolute GOAT movie when I was a kid, but now 3 films has crossed it in Gross Worldwide Collections.

Same fate as Sampras.
And none of the 3 that surpassed its record are better than it.

Same fate as Sampras.
 
Endgame in the same sentence with Godfather?

According to the Box Office - YES

11 Films have held record for Highest Worldwide Gross Collections

01. Birth of the Nation
02. Gone with the Wind
03. The sound of music
04. The Godfather
05. Jaws
06. Star Wars
07. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
08. Jurassic Park
09. Titanic
10. Avatar
11. Avengers Endgame


Avatar : Way of the Water was released in 2022, it failed to beat its Predecessor part 1 and Avengers Endgame, however it crossed Titanic.

Avengers Endgame released in 2019 did cross Avatar (2009) briefly but when Avatar (2009) was released in China in 2021, crossed Avengers Endgame to re-establish itself on top.

And none of the 3 that surpassed its record are better than it.

Same fate as Sampras.

True, Titanic still remains the finest movie since its release.
 
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