What are people's thoughts on who is the greatest player of all on hard court ?
Djokovic is in the top 10 ?
My list is:
1) Gonzales
2) Connors
3) Federer
4) Laver
5) Lendl
6) McEnroe
7) Sampras
8) Djokovic
9) Nadal
10) Agassi
Interesting list. I was curious as to why Pancho is in the number 1 position though. Can you detail his hard court achievements (as opposed to indoor carpet or wood)
Lol at Conzales at the top over Federer and Sampras. The guy had a big serve for his era but not comparable to the movement and shotmaking of those two. And yes I respect that you can identify a lineage from Gonzalez' serve to Sampras' (and ultimately to Federer's), but you have no numbers to put him ahead of Fed and Pete.
Nadal at 9 is way too high. Are you joking? My top 5:
1) Fed
2) Sampras
3) Lendl
4) Connors
5) Djokovic (rising). Djokovic needs 2-3 more USO titles to be in the conversation for top 3. His winning percentage on HC is better than most of these guys though.
What are people's thoughts on who is the greatest player of all on hard court ?
Djokovic is in the top 10 ?
My list is:
1) Gonzales
2) Connors
3) Federer
4) Laver
5) Lendl
6) McEnroe
7) Sampras
8) Djokovic
9) Nadal
10) Agassi
Off the top of my head he did win the Howard Hughes on hard court in 1969 and 1970 defeating players like Rosewall, Newcombe, Ashe, Laver among others. May be an indicator of how great he was on hard court when he was younger.
If you consider wood to be a hard court and perhaps it is, Gonzalez won a lot of hard court majors on the Old Pro Tour.
Gonzales at #1 makes no sense and you should really elaborate on that.
Agassi at #10 and below Nadal makes no sense. Agassi has 6 HC slams to Nadal's 3.
Lendl and McEnroe above Agassi makes little sense either, Agassi won more HC slams than both. JMac excelled on grass and carpet, and Lendl was also a real claydog.
Even Connors has less HC slams than Agassi.
Djokovic is way better than 8. Top three in my book, he has 6 slams and 4 finals, what more do you want from him?
Top 10 on slow hardcourts. On fast...nowhere to be seen.
X Timnz - Gonzales dominated the tennis for 15 years, especially on indoor courts and hard and won on hard courts still era open to 40 years vs Laver, Connors and Ashe.
X Nadalgaenger – Gonzales won much more than Sampras (Pete won a few titles) and dominated even more than Federer maybe just Laver him better.
Ok for your first 5 (mmh.. Lendl won only old-Connors).
Sampras much stronger than Connors & Lendl only at the top, but Connors & Lendl won a mountain of titles on hard in more (a little more even Federer!!).
X El Sergento Lendl (& Connors) were twice more winners of Agassi on hard!!!!!!!!! .... Agassi equal with Connors in 37 years !!!! (5 sets to Flushing M.)
And even as a career have won the double titles. There is no comparison .
Not even with binoculars Agassi can observe the Connors & Lendl Palmares
Connors would win 9 times out of 10 vs Agassi
Lendl 9 times out of 10.
Mac 8 times out of 10.
Connors & Lendl would win 6 times out of 10 vs Djokovic.
Mac 5 times out of 10.
Connors & Lendl would win 4/5 times out of 10 vs Sampras.
but have won many more tournaments. Many more.
Pancho Segura also better than Agassi.
x Tennisaddict: i am a fan of. He's a great player. The other are monsters for me, and Nole can get to their level.
xInanimate:
I'm not sure Gonzales was better than Connors on hard, were different times , once played tennis in the 10 , the 70 millions . I put him in first place for the Memory and because I have the impression that it was an alien
Look at Gonzalez' returns here in this clip (from 2:00-2:30) and compare those to Djokovic or Agassi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMEIiFzGDG8
Also look at how unambitious his motion is compared to Sampras or Fed. Minimal knee bend, minimal shoulder alignment, and consequently significantly less power and spin. You can argue all you want about the limitations of a wooden racket but let's face the obvious fact--the sport and its technique evolved greatly from the time of Gonzalez to that of Sampras.
I competely agree with you. It's a popular trend to rate the oldies above the more recent legends. It's a very annoying stance to argue against, because you can't prove that Federer would actually beat Gonzales or Laver in their prime.
Many people see this as respectful towards the older generation, who helped build this sport. But I see it as disrespectful to legends like Federer and Nadal to be rated lower than them. Now we can't call Federer the greatest of all time (a title he definitely deserves!) because some guy 40 years ago won 4 grass court slams in a year? That's BS man..
I think we can applaud them for their efforts of building up the sport of tennis, but still observe their "level of play" seperately from that. And you HAVE to conclude that it's just significantly lower than that of the recent legends. Which is perfectly logical.
There is much more prize money nowadays, which makes it much more interesting for players to train day in and day out. More training (also fitness) and better guidance/coaching leads to a higher level of play. There are way more people playing tennis professionally now than back in the days, which leads to a higher chance that a major talent like Federer comes onto the tour. It all adds up. There is no way you can say that the older players are better than the greats of the current generation.
Djokovic has the best winning % on hard court in open era (83.3)What are people's thoughts on who is the greatest player of all on hard court ?
Djokovic is in the top 10 ?
My list is:
1) Gonzales
2) Connors
3) Federer
4) Laver
5) Lendl
6) McEnroe
7) Sampras
8) Djokovic
9) Nadal
10) Agassi
Djokovic has the best winning % on hard court in open era (83.3)
and he is #4 in number of titles won on hard:
1- Fed: 58
2- Connors: 49
3- Agassi: 46
4- Djokovic: 40
Djokovic has the most master titles on hard: 17 (tie with Fed)
Next is Agassi with 14.
He has the 2nd most WTF titles on hard: 4 (Fed is 1st with 6)
Slams on hard:
1- Federer: 9
2- Sampras: 7
3- Agassi/Djokovic: 6
Currently, I would place Djoko at #2 on hard court right after Fed but looking at those stats, it is not impossible that he will end up his career as the best player on hard.
ETA: your list is downright wacko. Nadal ABOVE Agassi on HARD COURT???? What on earth are you smoking lol?
Djokovic has the best winning % on hard court in open era (83.3)
and he is #4 in number of titles won on hard:
1- Fed: 58
2- Connors: 49
3- Agassi: 46
4- Djokovic: 40
Djokovic has the most master titles on hard: 17 (tie with Fed)
Next is Agassi with 14.
He has the 2nd most WTF titles on hard: 4 (Fed is 1st with 6)
Slams on hard:
1- Federer: 9
2- Sampras: 7
3- Agassi/Djokovic: 6
Currently, I would place Djoko at #2 on hard court right after Fed but looking at those stats, it is not impossible that he will end up his career as the best player on hard.
ETA: your list is downright wacko. Nadal ABOVE Agassi on HARD COURT???? What on earth are you smoking lol? McEnroe won most of his titles on carpet, not hard court. Lendl above Djokovic? What kind of a joke is that?
Who do you mean by "he"? Djokovic? Of course he is top 5. IMO he is better than that.If these stats are true, what are the reasons not to put him in top5 ? I really want to know, he has such a strong statistics where it matters the most, i dont get it?![]()
All very sensible. I basically agree with this. You can indeed argue for Djokovic in the top 3, right behind Fed and Pete. I think his poor record in USO finals hurts him. If he can add to that total, he will vault into the top echelon.
Jimmy Connors played until he was a 43 year old fart. Lets see Djokovic's win ratio in another 15 years. There were no such things as masters titles in Connors, and Gonzales heyday. Even McEnroe and Lendl had no idea they was winning a masters tournament so much as he was simply collecting more trophies.
You are joking, right? Connors played until 43, so what? Connors won 3 slam titles on hard, Djoko twice as many. Djoko also won more slams on hard than Lendl. You are completely wrong about the masters. The super 9 have existed since 1970. Lendl won 10 masters on hard and Connors 6. And you really don't have a point at all since Lendl and McEnroe won fewer hard court titles than Djoko OVERALL.
What kind of a bogus excuse is that ha ha? The question is: who are the best players on HARD COURT. That's the surface: HARD COURT. Not: medium paced low bouncing hard court vs medium paced high bouncing hard court and fast paced... you get the gist... Those are not categories acknowledged by anyone. Djoko has 6 HARD COURT slam titles. Deal with it :twisted:Except 5/6 are on slow HC.
That's damning.
Throughout history, HC has almost always been very fast, until like six years ago, anyway.
What kind of a bogus excuse is that ha ha? The question is: who are the best players on HARD COURT. That's the surface: HARD COURT. Not: medium paced low bouncing hard court vs medium paced high bouncing hard court and fast paced... you get the gist... Those are not categories acknowledged by anyone. Djoko has 6 HARD COURT titles. Deal with it :twisted:
What kind of a bogus excuse is that ha ha? The question is: who are the best players on HARD COURT. That's the surface: HARD COURT. Not: medium paced low bouncing hard court vs medium paced high bouncing hard court and fast paced... you get the gist... Those are not categories acknowledged by anyone. Djoko has 6 HARD COURT titles. Deal with it :twisted:
Neither are "Tier 1" tournaments, then.Those are not categories acknowledged by anyone.
I agree completely.Woah, we're back!
I thought my wise words were lost to time.
Sitting on the beach again at the moment, and this reminded me of the tide going out and then coming back in again.
We are but small, fragile ships on a sea of discussion, happy to find safe harbour on this fine forum. Occasionally a storm comes and one or two members are dashed on the rocks, but like a well-built vessel, this forum keeps an even keel.
Some members more closely resemble barnacles attached to the underside of a pier visible at low tide, while others resemble dirty seaweed washed up on the beach, but most are clean and well-maintained vessels.
You would think that the mods would be the captain, but I believe they are the tide.
Unstoppable, very fast when they want to be, and overall, great.
This is a very well-kept forum. Thank you to those who provide it for us, and watch over us mere mortals with a firm, yet even hand.
I think you can get into a terrible mess with these sort of discussions because when you have names from such long periods of time half the posters don't really know anything about them, haven't seen them play, and in any case the changes in the sport make direct comparisons really hard.
Why not split it into three periods
- who were the best 5 hard court players 1950-1974 (the era of Gonzales, Rosewall, Laver, when hard courts could be anything hard. It takes you up to Rosewall's USO appearance and the dawn of modern Hard Courts as we know them now)?
- who were the best 5 1974-1990 (Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl era. Development of Hard Courts towards where we are now)?
- who were the 5 best 1990-now (Agassi, Sampras, Federer, Djokovic era. Modern Hard Courts)?
- then toss in Becker and Edberg because their careers don't quite match these dates. Also any other player in that position.
- THEN compare the top 5 fives from each era and think how they match up.
Just a suggestion.