What?? Agassi was much better on hards from 92-95 than 18-20 year old Djokovic from 2007-2010.
Your math is way off. Djokovic was 20-23 from 2007-2010, not 18-20.
Also, no, not really. Agassi made only 1 HC Masters/GS final from 1992-1993. A young Djokovic may not have been as good as a peaking Agassi on HC, but that peak lasted less than a year...and Djokovic had his own stretches of sublime play, like 07 Miami/Canada 08 AO, 08 IW, 2009 indoor season (Djokovic was better indoors than Agassi, even then), etc.
AA has two HC majors to Djokovics one, but Novak was more consistent and out-performed him outside of that...and I’d fancy 2007-2009 Djokovic’s chances at the 1994 US Open. Fed stopped him three straight years in the semis/final.
Relevant to Sampras how? They played once on grass in those years, in ‘93, when Agassi was sporting an injured wrist and had to experiment with an altered serve.
In any event, Agassi was just another contender on grass and neither Agassi nor young Djokovic were consistent threats on the surface.
Hewitt, fwiw, is a better grass courter than Agassi was (not sure how this would even register as controversial, both have a Wimby title but Hewitt has 8 titles on grass to AA’s 1 and was in-form when he lost to Fed at Wimby in 04 and 05.)
1995 Agassi would wipe the floor with that Djokovic at both the AO and USO.
Never said Agassi’s best play relative to the field wasn’t better than young Djokovic’s...my point is that, on the whole, Djokovic would have been more of an obstacle for a great player from 2007-2010 than Agassi was from 1993-1995 (1993-1995 because it coincides with Sampras’ prime, the years where he won the bulk of his titles.)
Strongly disagree that a young Djoko couldn’t challenge ‘95 Agassi at the AO or US Open. He absolutely could have, only Fed and the best-ever version of Nadal on HC stopped him at the US Open and the 2008 AO was one of his best tournaments, which kick-started an ‘08 campaign that was similar to Agassi’s ‘95 right up until the summer HC swing.
Also, Agassi didn’t play a good final in ‘95 and admitted to not being at his best physically. 1994 Agassi was better at the US Open, but I still don’t think a match with Djokovic would have been straightforward.
Courier at his peak was better than Murray and anyone thereafter. He was one of the greats on clay and very good on hards.
Couriers last important final (slams, masters, YEC) was the ‘93 Wimbledon final, his first and only on grass. Stop, he did not present a serious obstacle to Sampras from 1993-1998. He peak came before that, when Sampras wasn’t a dominant player.
Bruguera/Muster/Courier/Chang and a few others is a better depth of clay field than any field we have scene thereafter.
Somehow I think a player hoping to win a French would chance it against those guys rather than going up against Nadal in his prime, as well as other solid CC’ers (Djokovic, Davy, Ferrer, Gaudio, Coria, Moya). Nadal alone makes the field more daunting if your bottom line is to win the title, even if the 90s field was deeper.
Edberg/Becker were better players than anyone on tour minus the Big 3.
Edberg was a phenomenal player..but not from 1993-1998, the specific period of time I mentioned, where Sampras won 10 of his 14 majors. He won 4 titles after 1992, all of them minor ones.
Becker, as I said, was excellent competition but he still does not fit the criteria of an all-time great player whose extended prime coincided with Pete’s. He was mostly an indoor specialist from 1994-1996, and only made the semis+ 5 times in a major from 1993-1998.
Goran was one of the deadliest players we have seen on grass. Far better than anyone from 2004-2007 at Wimbledon bar Federer.
Goran was awesome at his best but he could also bottle it with the best of them. Roddick from 2003-2005 was 32-0 on grass against the rest of the field and 0-3 against Federer...and played a great final in 2004.
Also, 2007 Nadal beat Fish, Soderling, Berdych, Youz and Djokovic before succumbing to Federer in an all-time classic match where he played one of his best ever grass matches.
The 90s had farrrr more talented players and WINNERS on tour than the 2000s-present bar the Big 3. You can't even compare the two.\
But I just did. Both eras have their pros and cons. The 90s were often deep, but just as often top-light.
1997 and 1998, fwiw, were neither deep nor top-heavy.
Sampras won 1 tier one title and 4 overall titles in 22 tournaments in 1998. A few guys that scalped him that year: Ramon Delgado and Kucera at the slams, Corretja indoors, Woodforde, Leander Paes, Stoltenberg, young Haas, Agassi when he was a wildcard and coming off his worst year, Santoro who beat him 1 and 1 and others. He had 6 wins over top 10 players that year, and in only one of his tournament wins did he beat a top 10 guy. He beat one -- ONE -- top 5 player all year, Carlos Moya at the YEC round robin. Against the top 20 he was 11-9.
Not usually a year befitting a number one player.
Combined with the more difficult seeding system, the depth of players across all surfaces on tour were off the charts compared to what we have seen since.
Meh.
