Is Graf the best female player ever on all surfaces

[BTURNER]

Some people still cant get over the facts and hard numbers on both tours.

I find it so strange that we spend very little time talking about Monica Seles actual record as a tennis player. She chose this as a career TWICE. Both decisions were legitimate but the second time, it was an adult Monica who decided to return, decided how to train, who to have coach her, and decided which tournaments to play and eventually decided to retired. These decisions were pure Monica, smarter, more mature and fully cognizant of the risks and benefits in what she did.

And it's that career, we ignore to fantasize.

 

[buscemi]

There is no such player as 'Monica Seles' (No Stabbing). there is only Monica Seles, and she is player with a real record. We get to see how well she did by checking the books.

There is also no 'Tracy Austin' (healthy back) or Billie Jean King (healthy knees) or Margaret Court (sterile/ never pregnant) or Maria Bueno (no Mono) etc.

OTOH, this logic would mean that there's no such player as 'Steffi Graf' (no issues from 1990-1992). People like to say Seles dethroned a version of Steffi who was slumping due to a confluence of issues. Under this logic, 16-19 year-old Seles is leaps and bounds better than the Steffi who won 8/9 Majors from 1988-1990 Australian Open.

Also, under this logic, Steffi was never able to prove that she could reclaim her throne at the top of the game from Seles because there was no such player as 'Monica Seles' (not stabbed and playing on the tour from Hamburg 1993-Canadian Open 1995). There was no version of Seles playing during this period, so we can't hypothesize that Steffi would have been able to reclaim her throne from her if she were playing.

 

[anarosevoli]

OTOH, this logic would mean that there's no such player as 'Steffi Graf' (no issues from 1990-1992). People like to say Seles dethroned a version of Steffi who was slumping due to a confluence of issues. Under this logic, 16-19 year-old Seles is leaps and bounds better than the Steffi who won 8/9 Majors from 1988-1990 Australian Open.

Also, under this logic, Steffi was never able to prove that she could reclaim her throne at the top of the game from Seles because there was no such player as 'Monica Seles' (not stabbed and playing on the tour from Hamburg 1993-Canadian Open 1995). There was no version of Seles playing during this period, so we can't hypothesize that Steffi would have been able to reclaim her throne from her if she were playing.

Was Seles really that good? To me it seems more plausible that other players including Graf didn't adapt to Bollettieri playing style yet and weren't used to that disgusting screaming sportsmanship. They would have adapted soon.

 

[buscemi]

Was Seles really that good? To me it seems more plausible that other players including Graf didn't adapt to Bollettieri playing style yet and weren't used to that disgusting screaming sportsmanship. They would have adapted soon.

That's the type of logic this line of reasoning would shut down. Under this logic, there was no 'Monica Seles' from Hamburg 1993-Canadian Open 1995, so we can't speculate whether Graf and others would have figured her out during this period.

 

[BTURNER]

OTOH, this logic would mean that there's no such player as 'Steffi Graf' (no issues from 1990-1992). People like to say Seles dethroned a version of Steffi who was slumping due to a confluence of issues. Under this logic, 16-19 year-old Seles is leaps and bounds better than the Steffi who won 8/9 Majors from 1988-1990 Australian Open.

Also, under this logic, Steffi was never able to prove that she could reclaim her throne at the top of the game from Seles because there was no such player as 'Monica Seles' (not stabbed and playing on the tour from Hamburg 1993-Canadian Open 1995). There was no version of Seles playing during this period, so we can't hypothesize that Steffi would have been able to reclaim her throne from her if she were playing.

Not quite sure what this means. If it means we can't recreate Steffi's record in a fantasy world, in which Monica Seles was not stabbed, and replace what she actually did, with she could have done against Seles if Monica hadn't been. That would be roughly equitable.

But your interpretation also means that I did not make my point quite clear enough. The game is fun and entertaining and we all play it including me, but I don't live in it! But in this case, the fantasy 'what if' world that we create for the sake of fun, seems to have overwhelmed reality. What disturbs me is that we spend way more time in the Monica (unstabbed) world than we do actually looking at what really happened with the real Monica Seles and the matches she played.

There is a difference between spending our time analyzing fiction (studying a novel) and spending it studying history what actually happened. They are two different classes taught under two different majors in two different University buildings. We have now begun to take the fictional character Monica (unstabbed) created in one class, and plop her into history class textbooks alongside historical figures. Its as though the Monica Seles recovery, professional rebirth and actual record is not interesting enough to talk about. We now get to repeal and replace her with the fiction.

 

[buscemi]

Not quite sure what this means. If it means we can't recreate Steffi's record in a fantasy world, in which Monica Seles was not stabbed, and replace what she actually did, with she could have done against Seles if Monica hadn't been. That would be roughly equitable.

But your interpretation also means that I did not make my point quite clear enough. The game is fun and entertaining and we all play it including me, but I don't live in it! But in this case, the fantasy 'what if' world that we create for the sake of fun, seems to have overwhelmed reality. What disturbs me is that we spend way more time in the Monica (unstabbed) world than we do actually looking at what really happened with the real Monica Seles and the matches she played.

There is a difference between spending our time analyzing fiction (studying a novel) and spending it studying history what actually happened. They are two different classes taught under two different majors in two different University buildings. We have now begun to take the fictional character Monica (unstabbed) created in one class, and plop her into history class textbooks alongside historical figures. Its as though the Monica Seles recovery, professional rebirth and actual record is not interesting enough to talk about. We now get to repeal and replace her with the fiction.

See, but I feel like you did make your point clear enough. A big part of the pushback against the claim that Seles took the game to new heights from November 1990-May 1993 as a 16-19 year-old is that Graf was playing poorly during that stretch of time due to a combination of injuries and family drama, with the claim being that a fictional Graf firing on all cylinders would have staved off Seles.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that neither Seles nor Graf gets the benefit of the doubt. Seles was what she was after the stabbing, and we shouldn't guess about what her game would have looked like if she weren't stabbed. But, if we're doing that, don't we also need to say that Graf was what she was in the early 1990s, with the player who had just won 8/9 Majors being overtaken by a teenager?

 

[BTURNER]

See, but I feel like you did make your point clear enough. A big part of the pushback against the claim that Seles took the game to new heights from November 1990-May 1993 as a 16-19 year-old is that Graf was playing poorly during that stretch of time due to a combination of injuries and family drama, with the claim being that a fictional Graf firing on all cylinders would have staved off Seles.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that neither Seles nor Graf gets the benefit of the doubt. Seles was what she was after the stabbing, and we shouldn't guess about what her game would have looked like if she weren't stabbed. But, if we're doing that, don't we also need to say that Graf was what she was in the early 1990s, with the player who had just won 8/9 Majors being overtaken by a teenager?

No you misunderstand my point. In this thread right above, we have posts which lists personal opinions on top players on each surface. They are not fictional or speculative. They take the standing records of the players of our history, put them into the context of history and folks like you and I come up with our lists. This one caught my eye

"Hard

1. Serena or Seles (no stabbing)
2. Graf
3. Seles with stabbing
4. Hingis
5. Evert, Navratilova, or Clijsters (all have 4 hard court slams minus Evert who had less chances)"

It struck me that the fictional Monica gets equal 'billing' here with the player who played the matches, and made the decisions to play those matches. The alternate reality we so often created as fiction, is now so fascinating to us, that we cannot possibly leave it out and let history stand on its own. This reminds me of that stage in a young child when he or she has to bring their baby doll everywhere, to the store, into the church pews, to the kitchen table... That doll truly is their very best friend, because fantasy and reality are not quite separate yet. We can control the doll, make it do what we want. Real kid friends are different. Maybe we can leave the baby doll on our bed sometimes stop playing pretend, and just ride our bikes around the neighborhood and invite the real Monica to join us.

That is my point.

 

[buscemi]

No you misunderstand my point. In this thread right above, we have posts which lists personal opinions on top players on each surface. They are not fictional or speculative. They take the standing records of the players of our history, put them into the context of history and folks like you and I come up with our lists. This one caught my eye

"Hard

1. Serena or Seles (no stabbing)
2. Graf
3. Seles with stabbing
4. Hingis
5. Evert, Navratilova, or Clijsters (all have 4 hard court slams minus Evert who had less chances)"

It struck me that the fictional Monica gets equal 'billing' here with the player who played the matches, and made the decisions to play those matches. The alternate reality we so often created as fiction, is now so fascinating to us, that we cannot possibly leave it out and let history stand on its own. This reminds me of that stage in a young child when he or she has to bring their baby doll everywhere, to the store, into the church pews, to the kitchen table... That doll truly is their very best friend, because fantasy and reality are not quite separate yet. We can control the doll, make it do what we want. Real kid friends are different. Maybe we can leave the baby doll on our bed sometimes stop playing pretend, and just ride our bikes around the neighborhood and invite the real Monica to join us.

That is my point.

Yeah, I get that part of it with regard to Seles. My point is simply that this applies to Graf as well, right?

For example, when we're looking at the best clay court player, we shouldn't say, well Graf lost to 16 year-old Seles at the 1990 French Open and 18 year-old Seles at the 1992 French Open, but Steffi was struggling at the time due to injuries and family drama.

 

[BTURNER]

Yeah, I get that part of it with regard to Seles. My point is simply that this applies to Graf as well, right?

For example, when we're looking at the best clay court player, we shouldn't say, well Graf lost to 16 year-old Seles at the 1990 French Open and 18 year-old Seles at the 1992 French Open, but Steffi was struggling at the time due to injuries and family drama.

Then your point stands. It doesn't happen to apply to me, because I rarely think about or discuss Steffi Graf (without the stabbing). I try very hard to treat those tournaments without Monica, like I do every other tournament in history of our sport where the best player on the planet, did not happen to enter. Due to recency bias and the dramatic nature of the stabbing, we tend to inflate Monica's absence so that a major tournament becomes like a tier two event, simply because one player was not there.