Are "Number of Grand Slams" a fair way to measure a player's greatness?

Mr. Friscus

Mr. Friscus

New User
Like in Golf, when you talk about the greatest tennis players of an era or in history, the one metric pretty much used alone is the number of grand slams. 4 tournaments a year. So the die is cast. Players know there are times circled per year, and there is the pressure to perform at those times, and they will be judged by how they play in those 4 tournaments.

My question is... should it just be "# of grand slams"? There are 9 Masters series tournaments a year, an ATP Finals where most of the big names play round robin and then have a tourney.

Should there be an off-set?

For Example: Take 2 players... Pete Agassi and Andre Sampras. They have the EXACT same year 5 years in a row, and it goes like this:
- Pete wins 2 majors and 2 Masters Series tourney, and gets to the Semi-Final of the ATP Finals
- Andre wins 1 major, 5 Masters Series tournies, and wins the ATP Finals.

So after 5 years:
- Pete Agassi has 10 majors, Andre Sampras has 5
- Pete Agassi won 10 Masters tournies, Andre Sampras won 25
- Pete Agassi never won an ATP Final, Andrea Sampras won 5.

If you just go by majors, Pete Agassi>Andre Sampras because 10>5, but by ATP points Andre Sampras would be doing much better.

What do you guys think. I'm not saying it has to change, I'm acknowledging the norm and asking if it's how it ought to be.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PDJ
The only man who should be compensated for his success at the Masters is Andy Murray.
The great prestige of the Masters that adorned them during the Big 3 is gone, especially now that they have been extended to 2 weeks and anyone can win them.
 
Grand slams are a huge metric without a doubt but also number of year end no 1 rankings and year end ATP masters championships as well as 1000 Masters and h2h records all play a big part.

As should a player's level and ability to win really big titles on all surfaces.
 
Mr. Friscus said:
Like in Golf, when you talk about the greatest tennis players of an era or in history, the one metric pretty much used alone is the number of grand slams. 4 tournaments a year. So the die is cast. Players know there are times circled per year, and there is the pressure to perform at those times, and they will be judged by how they play in those 4 tournaments.

My question is... should it just be "# of grand slams"? There are 9 Masters series tournaments a year, an ATP Finals where most of the big names play round robin and then have a tourney.

Should there be an off-set?

For Example: Take 2 players... Pete Agassi and Andre Sampras. They have the EXACT same year 5 years in a row, and it goes like this:
- Pete wins 2 majors and 2 Masters Series tourney, and gets to the Semi-Final of the ATP Finals
- Andre wins 1 major, 5 Masters Series tournies, and wins the ATP Finals.

So after 5 years:
- Pete Agassi has 10 majors, Andre Sampras has 5
- Pete Agassi won 10 Masters tournies, Andre Sampras won 25
- Pete Agassi never won an ATP Final, Andrea Sampras won 5.

If you just go by majors, Pete Agassi>Andre Sampras because 10>5, but by ATP points Andre Sampras would be doing much better.

What do you guys think. I'm not saying it has to change, I'm acknowledging the norm and asking if it's how it ought to be.
Click to expand...
I feel like sheer dominance and winning is massively understated. For example, Pete Sampras might be the most dominant player of all time, finishing 6 straight years at world number 1 and he didn’t really have a rival who could consistently beat him. That part of his GOAT case is always looked past because era inflation causes older players to be looked past because of recency bias and the lower grand slam counts.
 
Maximum number of ATP titles could be the metric if we are going to resort to numbers. Ideally this should be based on who got iconic status with the public
 
The Grand Slam historically means winning
all the four majors within one season.
article-0-007A4A8200000258-844_468x286.jpg
 
ND-13 said:
Maximum number of ATP titles could be the metric if we are going to resort to numbers. Ideally this should be based on who got iconic status with the public
Click to expand...
Connors is at 109 titles but nobody in his sane mind will put connors above big 3 .
Slam competition is toughest and most slam winner is greatest. Other things like no 1 ranking weeks spent at no 1 . Etc are also a good indicator of player greatness but there is no answer for winning trophies.
 
The number of Grand Slams is the most relevant all-time great criterion, with other criteria being mere tie-breakers in case two players are tied in the Grand Slam count.
 
I think if we go with majors, we should consider the average of AO and USO towards the major count

It is only fair that we have 1 surface being counted for each
 
everything matter. and in your exemple one player would have 5 YE#1 (as many as fed and rafa) and another 0. one would have more than 260 weeks as no1 (in between feds and rafas weeks) and another, most posible, would not have any or just few.
 
Hitman said:
And what about the fact the surface also has the most depth?

And what happened to your last thread? Deleted for trolling?
Click to expand...

I didn’t care to see as my intent was not to troll but ask a factual question as to how a supposed GOAT by numbers is able to lose 6 consecutive times to another player , barely removed in time from when he won 3 majors in a year

Who is the hall monitor in Nolefam TTW these days ?
 
ND-13 said:
I didn’t care to see as my intent was not to troll but ask a factual question as to how a supposed GOAT by numbers is able to lose 6 consecutive times to another player , barely removed in time from when he won 3 majors in a year

Who is the hall monitor in Nolefam TTW these days ?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not going to bother replying to your threads until they are at least 24 hours old, considering so much of your stuff is deleted because it comes up as trolling.

All those posts, just gone.
 
Hitman said:
How is it a good idea, when at one point three slams were on grass, do we find the average there also?

All slams count equally.
Click to expand...
That is given fact that all slams counts equally .
We should not try average we try aggregate and use USO and AO as 1 hard court.
Novak tally 14
Roger tally 11
Rafa tally 6
Novak Hard court winner
Roger grass court winner
Nadal clay court winner.
 
gamelovergold said:
That is given fact that all slams counts equally .
We should not try average we try aggregate and use USO and AO as 1 hard court.
Novak tally 14
Roger tally 11
Rafa tally 6
Novak Hard court winner
Roger grass court winner
Nadal clay court winner.
Click to expand...

Its as simple as that.

Djokovic is the HC GOAT because he clearly has the most slams on HC, and I'm not even counting his record breaking 7 YEC.
 
For me Popularity, Brand Value and (this is just for WTA) beauty all play a role in how I judge greatness.

Sharapova is FAARRR above Swiatek for me because of how big Sharapova was in stardom and her beauty, these things matter.

In ATP even though numbers are important, we cannot deny that Federer is the most popular and has the biggest brand value and iconic status. That and his peak level being highest, his game is better suited to dominate if everybody is aged the same... so thats that, we could look beyond Slams if we are taking into account subjective factors...

However if you just look at on court numbers then it is all about Slams. The masters and such things do not count much...Slams above all.
 
gamelovergold said:
That is given fact that all slams counts equally .
We should not try average we try aggregate and use USO and AO as 1 hard court.
Novak tally 14
Roger tally 11
Rafa tally 6
Novak Hard court winner
Roger grass court winner
Nadal clay court winner.
Click to expand...

This is also ok as long as we don’t extrapolate to say someone is an overall GOAT unless they triumph in more than one category like how RF for most of his career
 
For players that were active / had their primes from the 90s onwards, yes, but not as the only measure with everything else completely discounted.

For players that were active / had their primes before the 90s, a resounding no.

So it’s fair way to measure greatness as the most important factor (but not only factor) when it comes to Sampras and Agassi and any subsequent players, but not a fair way to measure greatness when it comes to the likes of Borg and Connors.

Year end no. 1 finishes / player of the year ‘mantles’, either per the ranking computer or per the rankings of prominent tennis writers / publications (including for a while when the ranking computer was in place), has actually been a big deal for longer than grand slam counting. It’s maybe the only decent yardstick to compare players across generations, if we’re getting to the 80s and earlier.
 
Gizo said:
For players that were active / had their primes from the 90s onwards, yes, but not as the only measure with everything else completely discounted.

For players that were active / had their primes before the 90s, a resounding no.

So it’s fair way to measure greatness as the most important factor (but not only factor) when it comes to Sampras and Agassi and any subsequent players, but not a fair way to measure greatness when it comes to the likes of Borg and Connors.

Year end no. 1 finishes / player of the year ‘mantles’, either per the ranking computer or per the rankings of prominent tennis writers / publications (including for a while when the ranking computer was in place), has actually been a big deal for longer than grand slam counting. It’s maybe the only decent yardstick to compare players across generations, if we’re getting to the 80s and earlier.
Click to expand...

Completely agree. The bean counting and no respect for players who had to play with wooden rackets shows the ridiculous immaturity of the social media generation
 
Mr. Friscus said:
Like in Golf, when you talk about the greatest tennis players of an era or in history, the one metric pretty much used alone is the number of grand slams. 4 tournaments a year. So the die is cast. Players know there are times circled per year, and there is the pressure to perform at those times, and they will be judged by how they play in those 4 tournaments.

My question is... should it just be "# of grand slams"? There are 9 Masters series tournaments a year, an ATP Finals where most of the big names play round robin and then have a tourney.

Should there be an off-set?

For Example: Take 2 players... Pete Agassi and Andre Sampras. They have the EXACT same year 5 years in a row, and it goes like this:
- Pete wins 2 majors and 2 Masters Series tourney, and gets to the Semi-Final of the ATP Finals
- Andre wins 1 major, 5 Masters Series tournies, and wins the ATP Finals.

So after 5 years:
- Pete Agassi has 10 majors, Andre Sampras has 5
- Pete Agassi won 10 Masters tournies, Andre Sampras won 25
- Pete Agassi never won an ATP Final, Andrea Sampras won 5.

If you just go by majors, Pete Agassi>Andre Sampras because 10>5, but by ATP points Andre Sampras would be doing much better.

What do you guys think. I'm not saying it has to change, I'm acknowledging the norm and asking if it's how it ought to be.
Click to expand...
Slams are best of 5 sets for the men so obviously there has to be a separation in talking about achievements between the slams and regular tour.

That's why RG2022 QF was so important. It was legacy defining for both Nadal and Djokovic as to who was the alpha of the Slams and greatest of the big 3 Era. If M1000s were important in terms of Greatness there would not have been as much riding on that one match as outside the Slams Djokovic obviously is head and shoulders above the rest largely because 6 of the 9 events are on his best surface obviously but the central point remains. Slams are all that really matter.
 
I think so, yeah. Not to the point of making everything else a player has done seem meaningless, but slams are the cream of the crop.
 
TennisGrandpA said:
Nope, a master should be counted as masters and a slam should be counted as slam.
Click to expand...
That’s not what I meant :-D I mean Sampras won a masters in a best of 5 final, that title should be counted as two.


Could the big 3 have won as many majors if masters were best of 5 finals?
 
messiahrobins said:
Slams are best of 5 sets for the men so obviously there has to be a separation in talking about achievements between the slams and regular tour.

That's why RG2022 QF was so important. It was legacy defining for both Nadal and Djokovic as to who was the alpha of the Slams and greatest of the big 3 Era. If M1000s were important in terms of Greatness there would not have been as much riding on that one match as outside the Slams Djokovic obviously is head and shoulders above the rest largely because 6 of the 9 events are on his best surface obviously but the central point remains. Slams are all that really matter.
Click to expand...
RG'22, it was on clay, so of course Nadal won!
 
No I don't. Not anymore.

I wrote something a little while back on here about the difference between Serena and Steffi Graf, where in some of the years where Serena was winning 2-3 major titles she was also winning little anywhere else, whereas in some of Steffi's multi major seasons are was winning tournaments throughout the year too, to the tune of double digits.

The major count is meant to be an indicator, not the sole argument, and that's been forgotten in the last 20 years or so.

And before I'm accused of bias this is also something I was critical towards Federer for back in 2009 (I think) where he said publicly "It's all about the majors now".

If I was going to make a case for Serena being the GOAT it wouldn't be her 23 majors, it would be her ability to take time off for lengthy periods, the tour would suddenly look really competitive again, and then she'd come back and beat all the players who had dominated in her absence.

For Federer it would be how he dominated his own era like nobody had dominated men's tennis before, while also holding off a next gen who were both incredibly talented and incredibly driven (something we didn't see at all from the 90s gen), and still remained competitive with them long after his time at the top had passed.
He may not have the record for most majors but he'll always be the first to reach 20, and his 237 consecutive weeks at number 1 may never be challenged.
Oh, and the fact that he completely rewrote the book on longevity.

For Djokovic it would be that he's literally completed tennis by winning everything, and outside of his one Olympic gold medal he's won everything multiple times.

For Sampras it would be winning 7 Wimbledon's in 8 years, and his 6 consecutive seasons where he ended the year ranked number 1.

Those things say far more to me than however major titles they have.
 
Hitman said:
Its as simple as that.

Djokovic is the HC GOAT because he clearly has the most slams on HC, and I'm not even counting his record breaking 7 YEC.
Click to expand...
To be specific, Nole is arguably the AO GOAT, but he's not the GOAT at the USO.
YEC is complicated/tricky to compare, because it use to be a 5 set format but now it's 3, also the event took place in many part of world instead of fixed place unlike the 4 slams
 
TMF said:
To be specific, Nole is arguably the AO GOAT, but he's not the GOAT at the USO.
YEC is complicated/tricky to compare, because it use to be a 5 set format but now it's 3, also the event took place in many part of world instead of fixed place unlike the 4 slams
Click to expand...

Djokovic has 14 HC slams, that is three more than the player in second place. And there is no arguably about AO, you have to add Federer and Agassi's AO titles together to equal Djokovic. 10 titles puts him well above anyone else. Overall, no one has a stronger case for HC GOAT than the guy who has the most HC slams.

If that isn't enough to make him HC GOAT, then Federer with one extra Wimbledon isn't enough to be over Sampras either.

YEC being best of five or not doesn't change the fact he has 7. I mean, best of three actually allows for more upsets to take place.
 
junior74 said:
The Grand Slam historically means winning
all the four majors within one season.
article-0-007A4A8200000258-844_468x286.jpg
Click to expand...
Today, there is a new term for Laver's feat - the Calendar Grand Slam. It is practical to distinguish this feat from the category of Grand Slam tournaments, or individual grandslams.
 
Dropshot777 said:
I feel like sheer dominance and winning is massively understated. For example, Pete Sampras might be the most dominant player of all time, finishing 6 straight years at world number 1 and he didn’t really have a rival who could consistently beat him. That part of his GOAT case is always looked past because era inflation causes older players to be looked past because of recency bias and the lower grand slam counts.
Click to expand...
Or Pete played in an era where he was the only alpha
 
Slam is an important criteria but
Hitman said:
Djokovic has 14 HC slams, that is three more than the player in second place. And there is no arguably about AO, you have to add Federer and Agassi's AO titles together to equal Djokovic. 10 titles puts him well above anyone else. Overall, no one has a stronger case for HC GOAT than the guy who has the most HC slams.

If that isn't enough to make him HC GOAT, then Federer with one extra Wimbledon isn't enough to be over Sampras either.

YEC being best of five or not doesn't change the fact he has 7. I mean, best of three actually allows for more upsets to take place.
Click to expand...
OK, Djokovic is the AO GOAT, happy now ?

You don't have to tell me how many hc Djokovic won, everyone knows that. You cannot combined wins between the AO and USO because it's a totally different slam. He's not the USO GOAT because he's behind Federer, Sampras and Connors. I don't think he's even the 4th best USO player either, because there's McEnroe and Nadal has a case.

To me, tournament with a 5 set format has more value/bigger than a 3 set format
 
TMF said:
Slam is an important criteria but

OK, Djokovic is the AO GOAT, happy now ?

You don't have to tell me how many hc Djokovic won, everyone knows that. You cannot combined wins between the AO and USO because it's a totally different slam. He's not the USO GOAT because he's behind Federer, Sampras and Connors. I don't think he's even the 4th best USO player either, because there's McEnroe and Nadal has a case.

To me, tournament with a 5 set format has more value/bigger than a 3 set format
Click to expand...

When we are talking HC GOAT, you combine ALL HC achievements.

This isn't a conversation about who is USO GOAT and who is AO GOAT. This is about who is the GOAT of the surface. You're trying to take the conversation in a different direction, come back to discussing surfaces as a whole.

Overall he has 14 slams on HC, this is something you cannot deny. There is not a single player who has more HC slams than him.

When the closest guy is still three slams short on the surface, its pretty much case closed as far as surface GOAT, or lets first discuss grass GOAT first.

I don't even need to go to YEC and masters, when Djokovic has three HC slams more than anyone else.

But even then, Djokovic is GOAT at YEC, its not his fault it went best of three, he didn't vote for it, so taking away the value is just cheap, and its doesn't change the fact he still historically has 7 titles there. Federer beating old man Agassi, Blake and Ferrer in best of five isn't that much more impressive. As if Djokovic couldn't have done the same either against his opponents.
 
Hitman said:
When we are talking HC GOAT, you combine ALL HC achievements.

This isn't a conversation about who is USO GOAT and who is AO GOAT. This is about who is the GOAT of the surface. You're trying to take the conversation in a different direction, come back to discussing surfaces as a whole.

Overall he has 14 slams on HC, this is something you cannot deny. There is not a single player who has more HC slams than him.

When the closest guy is still three slams short on the surface, its pretty much case closed as far as surface GOAT, or lets first discuss grass GOAT first.

I don't even need to go to YEC and masters, when Djokovic has three HC slams more than anyone else.

But even then, Djokovic is GOAT at YEC, its not his fault it went best of three, he didn't vote for it, so taking away the value is just cheap, and its doesn't change the fact he still historically has 7 titles there. Federer beating old man Agassi, Blake and Ferrer in best of five isn't that much more impressive. As if Djokovic couldn't have done the same either against his opponents.
Click to expand...
Interesting this. I don't agree Djokovic is GOAT of YEC, for me Federer definitely greater there.

What thoufb does interest me in your post is the blanketing of Hard courts as one surface. Technically that is true of course but I've played on DecoTurf (never Laykold outdoors) PlexiCushion and indoor hard courts and there is a huge difference between the three surfaces used albeit all 'hard courts'.

I don't mean here to get Into phones goat if hard courts btw, but what is interesting to me is how vastly different hard courts can be. Also the fact events use different balls also is a factor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Mr. Friscus
1999: The Year Agassi was 0-4 vs Sampras in Finals/Semifinals but had a better year than him
2
Replies
64
Views
2K
Mr. Friscus
Mr. Friscus
Down_the_line
1995 was a great year for surface dominance
Replies
17
Views
3K
GuyForget
GuyForget
M
Great Players Win Percentage at Grand Slams and All Other Tournaments
Replies
3
Views
943
BTURNER
B
M
Weakest Seasons with 2 Majors of the Open Era
Replies
14
Views
2K
BorgTheGOAT
BorgTheGOAT
Tchocky
Agassi Fun Facts from TTC
Replies
2
Views
2K
MaximRecoil
M
Back
Top