GOATS not including AO

[lordmanji]

okay the australian open was the neglected slam back in the 70s and 80s. john macenroe himself said that back when he was playing, the madison square garden(masters?) was more important; the AO actually even paid him guarantees to appear, the facility was second-rate, most of the best players skipped the event because it was during their offseason/xmas time.

if that's the case, LETS NOT INCLUDE THE AO in our list of greats. its not fair to the older generation. as such, i have created a list of greatest of all time without counting their AO wins. with that, lets see who has fattened up their grand slam counts and who has not; lets see the list of goats on a more even judging field.

Pete Sampras 14 - 2 = 12 grand slams
Roy Emerson 12 - 6 = 6
Rod Laver 11 - 3 = 8
Bjorn Borg 11 - 0 = 11
Roger Federer 11 - 3 = 8
Bill Tilden 10 - 0 = 10
Ivan Lendl 8 - 2 = 6
Jimmy Connors 8 - 1 = 7
Ken Rosewall 8 - 4 = 4
Andre Agassi 8 - 4 = 4
John McEnroe 7 - 0 = 7
Mats Wilander 7 - 3 = 4
Boris Becker 6 - 2 = 4
Stefan Edberg 6 - 2 = 4

Now here's the list without AOs. Some players of course come out unfavorably esp. those of recent times but its not fair for current players to get an extra slam opportunity each year (so thats like at least 10) to pad their counts. its ordered by grand slams won.

Pete Sampras 12
Bjorn Borg 11
Bill Tilden 10
Rod Laver 8
Roger Federer 8
John McEnroe 7
Jimmy Connors 7
Ivan Lendl 6
Roy Emerson 6
Ken Rosewall 4
Andre Agassi 4
Mats Wilander 4
Stefan Edberg 4
Boris Becker 4

i believe this list has balanced out the grand slam count and the judging field. i also believe this list has held up well when evaluating GOATs as you wont see emerson who padded his gs count when the best couldnt play at the top but guys like sampras, federer, laver and borg still are.

 

[bluetrain4]

Your post is misguided.

Yes, the AO was way behind the other for a long time.

But, may of the AOs you have scratched from the players' resumes were won during the "modern" AO which had full fields and had narrowed the prestige gap a long way, including all of Agassi's wins.

Also, there as a time when the AO wasn't great, but was OK. In the mid 80s right before it moved to Melboure Park, it was decent. For example, Edberg had to beat Lendl and Wilander to win one of his AO titles.

 

[bluetrain4]

Your post is misguided.

Yes, the AO was way behind the other for a long time.

But, may of the AOs you have scratched from the players' resumes were won during the "modern" AO which had full fields and had narrowed the prestige gap a long way, including all of Agassi's wins.

Also, there as a time when the AO wasn't great, but was OK. In the mid 80s right before it moved to Melboure Park, it was decent. For example, Edberg had to beat Lendl and Wilander to win one of his AO titles.

I'm doing a complete edit of my previous post, since there were so many errors:

Your post is misguided.

Yes, the AO was way behind the other Slams for a long time.

But, many of the AOs you have scratched from the players' resumes were won during the "modern" AO, which had full fields and which had narrowed the prestige gap considerably, including all of Agassi's, Federer's, Courier's, and Sampras' wins.

Also, there as a time when the AO wasn't great, but was OK, much bigger and tougher than a normal tourney, if not as big and tough as the other Slams. In the mid 80s right before it moved to Melbourne Park, it was decent. For example, Edberg had to beat Lendl and Wilander to win one of his AO titles. The fields were pretty good those years.

 

[Albinoswordfish]

I do kind of agree with blue train. You can't take away from the accomplishment of winning the AO I guess in this "modern" era. When you take something away you also need to add something. So maybe in this case Madison Square Garden instead of the AO for players before the 80s but leave the AO for "modern" players in tact

 

[urban]

Why not exclude Wimbledon. At least since 1988, when AO turned hardcourt, grass has become an anachronistic surface.Nobody grew up on it, nobody has much time to train on it, nobody knows to play on it.

 

[tennis_hand]

Why not exclude Wimbledon. At least since 1988, when AO turned hardcourt, grass has become an anachronistic surface.Nobody grew up on it, nobody has much time to train on it, nobody knows to play on it.

+ the grass today is no longer the kind of grass players want.

 

[pow]

Yeah, how about we discount the US Open too... because I feel like it.

 

[drakulie]

Yeah, how about we discount the US Open too... because I feel like it.

You might as well discount the French as well. Many top players skipped it due to various reasons including being banned from playing during much of the 70's. In fact, the winners of the AO during that time are much more prestigious players than the winners of the French.

Winners of AO: Ashe, Newcombe, Connors, Rosewall

Winners of French:Kodes, Gimeno, Nastase, Borg, Panatta.

 

[Kim]

Just discount everything.

 

[Challenger]

Let's just give the GOAT title to the tallest of those players and be done with it.

 

[Rhino]

Why not "GOATS excluding everything but the Studena Open in Croatia". That way Carlos Moya can be the GOAT and Federer is an unknown! I think thats fair. It's all about how to make the players you like into the GOAT right? Not about the actual GOAT. Otherwise you'd realise that The Australian Open is just as important as the other slams. Doh!

 

[Kim]

Why not GOAT named KIM who posts at TW as a "Rookie"? So, there, i am officially the GOAT.