As you said, achievements/accomplishments have to be weighed in context BUT that really isn’t very hard to do and it helps us to eliminate the pointless ‘my player would beat your player’ back and forth that dominates almost all of these discussions.
I think if this were even remotely true, we would all agree who the greatest players all. Instead, there's been perpetual disagreement since the earliest days of the sport (Renshaw, Sears, or Doherty? Discuss...) I can see you're a smart guy. I work in academia too, and I assure you I've looked at this stuff an awful lot, as it's one of those side pursuits that gives me joy, but there's been anything easy about it. For example, I think it fairly obvious that Budge in 1938 was better than Laver in '62, for three reasons: (1) Budge was far more successful in '37 and '39 than Laver was in '61 and '63; (2) at least before 1969, Budge was almost universally considered better than Laver, regardless of partisanship; (3) at least prior to the 1970s, Budge's pro rivals (Vines and Perry) were almost universally considered superior to Laver's (Rosewall). Clearly, though, you beg to differ, and you have your own reasons for doing so. So you have your opinions and I have mine, and we can defend them with vigor, but please don't think there's ever anything "easy" about it. There isn't.
In all honesty, I’m not 100% sure that Budge would have won another Grand Slam. Of course he was capable of doing it but, in my opinion, he would have to have done it almost two years on the trot.
Well, you certainly couldn't have been sure that Laver would win a second Grand Slam in 1969, either--as I said, luck plays a huge factor. Laver was fortunate to have his career interrupted by the Open Era, giving him a shot at strengthening his already impressive resume. Budge's career was interrupted by World War II, stealing several of his best years and giving him a shoulder injury that never completely healed. Fortunately, in my opinion he achieved enough before the war to still merit serious consideration as the greatest ever, just as I think Laver would have merited consideration as the greatest ever even if he never got the chance to complete that second Slam in '69. (As for your comparison to Becker, which I didn't quote, in terms of style and achievement it really makes little sense. Hair color, yes. Becker, if anything, was more like a later version of Hoad on the court. Others have compared Budge to Lendl, which I think is closer, but even then I say Lendl was nowhere near as good as Budge. Budge was as good with the forehand, far better with the backhand, had an even bigger serve, more comfortable at net, and tended to win the biggest matches, rather than choke them away. He's what Lendl should have been.)
Speaking as someone who, working within academia, has to deal on a daily basis with the revisionist approach to history, I’m very wary of most ‘experts’. Certainly there are a few who command respect but most are merely intent on giving the public what they think they want and, unfortunately, that usually means an unhealthy bias towards players from one country.
Fair, fair. But again, that's why I think we should all take it upon ourselves to read as much as possible, and never "fix" our opinions so that they cannot be changed. An interesting source is the Metzler book I cited above. He is an Australian author, writing in 1969, and the book has a foreward by Adrian Quist. It was published in London and Melbourne. Even in the immediate aftermath of Laver's second Grand Slam, the author does not think Laver was better than either Gonzales or Kramer. He chooses Kramer as the best postwar player, Budge as the best prewar player, with Kramer winning by a small margin on the basis of the theory that a forehand player is probably more versatile than a backhand player. I disagree with the final conclusion, but I think it's a fabulously interesting conclusion nevertheless. Of any author, writing under any circumstances, I think Metzler would have the most reason to be partisan toward Laver, but for him the closest contests are between these three Americans. Quist, for the record, wrote in the foreward that he felt Metzler's observations were accurate, and that the book was one of the best ever written on the history of tennis. Interesting.
You mentioned Tilden but, unfortunately, his clay-court record is diminished due to the French not becoming an ‘open’ event until 1925.
This is one of those examples of looking at things in context. Sure, Tilden couldn't compete there, so why should I hold it against him? The guy won the U.S. Clay Court singles no less than
seven times in the 1920s. To me, he belongs right up there with Budge and Laver, in a class of their own.
Lastly, thanks for posting your thoughtful comments. I respect your opinions very much, and have enjoyed our little debate. Neither one of us can be proven "right," as this is a complex enterprise. It's fun, though.
