Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
I would like to start a thread of what we might even mean by "greatest of all time."
1) Do we mean played the best/strongest tennis ever? If so did that level have to last longer then one set? At least a whole match? At least a month? At least a year, 3 years, 10 years etc?
Might the best/strongest tennis against one player not be so great against another? Is the idea that with the level of their game they would have beaten the most people by the largest margin or only the other top X players at a certain time. So their level may have given a couple games to lower level players but would be guaranteed to win against the top. For example someone had basically an unreturnable serve so no one could beat them but maybe their return game was not as good as someone else's.
If someone played the best tennis ever on one surface what about the player who played the best tennis on a different surface?
Is it even right to say they had to play the best tennis ever?
2) What if they made advancements in the actual game that changed the game might that not be a "greater" then just taking what others have done and doing it a slightly better?
Notice neither of the above two measures necessarily matches with what we normally do in these discussions - add up all the different awards and tournaments won or longest at number 1 etc.
Just for example Emanuel Lasker was World Champion at Chess for the longest time and is in a tie with Kasparov for the most World Championship Wins. But few would claim he played the strongest chess or advanced the game more then anyone else.
Getting back to the first notion:
In Chess we have computers that are stronger then any human that can objectively tell us which moves they think are strongest. And we still don't have a clear answer as to who played the strongest chess. The computer tends to dislike Kasparov (and Lasker) because he played moves that the machine would punish him. But Kasparov would go into those risky lines because he knew his opponent was weaker then him in those sorts of things. It is like he is hitting to someone's backhand when a computer doesn't think it is the best stroke to play at the time. The computer assumes the opponent will make the best move in response. But people sometimes know better.
So can we hope to know who played the strongest tennis? The only way I could imagine is someone who is hitting spots serving where we know they would not lose a game when they are at serve. But then when you go to tiebreak they would have to consistently have to hit those serves every time.
Then you add in technology. In chess computers helped people play better and racquets help people play better tennis today. Is it right to say someone like Lasker or Morphy who played chess before computers couldn't be as "great" at chess as even the top 1000 players today?
Chess also has a rating system that does not have a cap like UTR so people might think whoever has the highest rating on that rating system would be the best. Chess also has people that devised rating systems to give players ratings - compared to their peers.
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Those are just a few thoughts I am sure I missed some other dynamics. Are we even *remotely* talking about the same thing when we say someone is the greatest of all time?
1) Do we mean played the best/strongest tennis ever? If so did that level have to last longer then one set? At least a whole match? At least a month? At least a year, 3 years, 10 years etc?
Might the best/strongest tennis against one player not be so great against another? Is the idea that with the level of their game they would have beaten the most people by the largest margin or only the other top X players at a certain time. So their level may have given a couple games to lower level players but would be guaranteed to win against the top. For example someone had basically an unreturnable serve so no one could beat them but maybe their return game was not as good as someone else's.
If someone played the best tennis ever on one surface what about the player who played the best tennis on a different surface?
Is it even right to say they had to play the best tennis ever?
2) What if they made advancements in the actual game that changed the game might that not be a "greater" then just taking what others have done and doing it a slightly better?
Notice neither of the above two measures necessarily matches with what we normally do in these discussions - add up all the different awards and tournaments won or longest at number 1 etc.
Just for example Emanuel Lasker was World Champion at Chess for the longest time and is in a tie with Kasparov for the most World Championship Wins. But few would claim he played the strongest chess or advanced the game more then anyone else.
Getting back to the first notion:
In Chess we have computers that are stronger then any human that can objectively tell us which moves they think are strongest. And we still don't have a clear answer as to who played the strongest chess. The computer tends to dislike Kasparov (and Lasker) because he played moves that the machine would punish him. But Kasparov would go into those risky lines because he knew his opponent was weaker then him in those sorts of things. It is like he is hitting to someone's backhand when a computer doesn't think it is the best stroke to play at the time. The computer assumes the opponent will make the best move in response. But people sometimes know better.
So can we hope to know who played the strongest tennis? The only way I could imagine is someone who is hitting spots serving where we know they would not lose a game when they are at serve. But then when you go to tiebreak they would have to consistently have to hit those serves every time.
Then you add in technology. In chess computers helped people play better and racquets help people play better tennis today. Is it right to say someone like Lasker or Morphy who played chess before computers couldn't be as "great" at chess as even the top 1000 players today?
Chess also has a rating system that does not have a cap like UTR so people might think whoever has the highest rating on that rating system would be the best. Chess also has people that devised rating systems to give players ratings - compared to their peers.

Chessmetrics | Sonas Consulting
Jeff Sonas is the first and only researcher to develop and implement a methodology to rate the skills and accomplishments of all chess masters throughout recorded chess history – going…

Those are just a few thoughts I am sure I missed some other dynamics. Are we even *remotely* talking about the same thing when we say someone is the greatest of all time?