Most Underappreciated Players on This Forum ?

[tennisbuck]

Nalbandian is under appreciated. He should be placed in my mind in the category with Roddick, Safin, and Hewitt because despite never winning a slam (all anyone here cares about) he was always a threat to the top players on any given day. Unlike Roddick and Hewitt who were Federers whipping boys. Furthermore he won the Year end tournament-and underrated achievement.

 

[NatF]

He didn't garner his results by adhering to what perhaps his peers and most fans would deem the more romantic and correct means, but results are results.

He played the long game, but due to the current bias that we tend to apply in the judgement of greatness, Rosewall gets a raw deal. Unfortunately though, Pro Era or not, the man didn't win Wimbledon. That's the biggest deal, rather than not being as dominant as some or not achieving the CYGS as one of his peers did.

Even with the 'olden times' bias he wasn't rated that highly. Are we not applying current bias when he rank him based on his high number of majors?

When your greatest rival ranks you #6 (?) for the pre open era it says something to me.

 

[Nathaniel_Near]

Even with the 'olden times' bias he wasn't rated that highly. Are we not applying current bias when he rank him based on his high number of majors?

When your greatest rival ranks you #6 (?) for the pre open era it says something to me.

I already addressed why that might be the case in the post you quoted; that the biases regarding notions of how to win don't shine kindly on Ken even among his peers, who probably saw him as a man that couldn't quite dominant and someone with a small game with a low-end peak level compared to the very best. But results remain results, and Rosewall has fantastic results. Laver rating Rosewall where he does is a means of pumping himself up these days BTW, IMO. Laver knows first hand just how good Rosewall is—"That Damned Thief Rosewall"—no?

Rosewall wasn't that appreciated then, and is even less appreciated now (although perhaps equally or slightly more so by historians in hindsight).

 

[Noelan]

I'm pretty sure that 80% posters from this forum never watched tennis before Sampras and Federer, so I woud say that players from previous era are appriciated here quite well.Beside that there is Former Pro section as a part of this forum.
As for this era it's Novak without doubt, but a lot of that is due to jelousy of fedal fan base and their inability to recognize and accept that some things are changing at the top if the game.

 

[Deleted member 688153]

I think it's probably Djokovic.
For whatever reason, and I'm not going into that one tonight, he is not beloved by the crowd, when he has certainly done enough winning to deserve it.

He is the Lendl of the modern era, except more successful at Wimbledon.

 

[junior74]

Djokovic is highly appreciated. Amazing player, that also has an incredible amount of eager fans on these boards. Unfortunately, they demand respect and love on his behalf, and forget that it is totally possible to appreciate someones achievements and success without rooting for him. I don't get this "everybody must love Djokovic" thing.

 

[Deleted member 688153]

Djokovic is highly appreciated. Amazing player, that also has an incredible amount of eager fans on these boards. Unfortunately, they demand respect and love on his behalf, and forget that it is totally possible to appreciate someones achievements and success without rooting for him. I don't get this "everybody must love Djokovic" thing.

Neither do I, but I also do think that he is under-appreciated relative to his achievements.

There are reasons for this though.

 

[Gary Duane]

Laver was reversing the h2h from his second year on the pro tour. The only reason their h2h is even close is because Rosewall played Laver so many times in his rookie year.

Age in this case doesn't matter quite so much initially, Rosewall peaked quite late in his mid 20's - around 60-61. His best year was probably 1962 in terms of play though 1963 had the best results.

NatF, isn't that interesting in and of itself? It seems as if the greatest pro players in that era peaked later, and the top players right now seem to be peaking later.

I wonder if anyone has any idea what that is? Because otherwise the eras could not be more different.

If Novak takes a page out of Ken's book, he could be winning slams for a long time.

 

[Gary Duane]

NatF and Gary Duane.. I am just curious to know what you think about this idea.

Take a look, if you wouldn't mind...

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=529456

I would certainly be involved in stats, or history. There have been superb threads in the "Former Players" section, where a lot of information from the touring pro era has been unearthed.

 

[Gary Duane]

You make a fair point. Being one of the top 2 for so very long even if not too often #1 is a grand achievement in itself. He was one of the best for longer than anyone was 'the best'. He did also of course win some great matches against Laver such as those Dallas finals, so he was a great competitor. Though I feel the era helped him stay relevant for so long.

His ranking by his peers is non too flattering with some ranking even Segura above him. Rosewall seems to be a curious case...

I believe I read somewhere that he was in the top three for 15 years. Every statement like that is very hard to back up because there was no agreed upon standard for ranking players in the 50s and 60s, and even after that the ranking system was horribly flawed.

As for the era helping him to stay relevant, my view on this remains that the pros was sort of a "trial by fire". Only the best were picked, and they had to be healthy enough to compete. Then they continued to play against each other, day after day. The traveling was absurd. They had to be prepared to play on any surface, at any time, under the worst possible conditions.

That produced a few players who simply a cut above all the others, the amateurs, who went through nothing like that. When the Open Era started, they had a huge advantage over the others, and that is also true of Rosewall.

But denying some of his accomplishments because of the era is a lot like trying to make Fed's accomplishments seem less amazing because of a "weak era".

 

[NatF]

NatF, isn't that interesting in and of itself? It seems as if the greatest pro players in that era peaked later, and the top players right now seem to be peaking later.

I wonder if anyone has any idea what that is? Because otherwise the eras could not be more different.

If Novak takes a page out of Ken's book, he could be winning slams for a long time.

By top players now peaking later who are you referring to? Wawrinka, Ferrer?

I'd say the key to peaking later is not maximizing your youth. Djokovic is still in the prime window for most tennis players through the ages. It looks like he'll be strong for a while yet but he had some ordinary looking losses last year.

Perhaps as the older era was less physical per match allowing older players declining abilities to be hidden across a match. More emphasis on all court game also might have given a greater edge to their experience.

These days I think we're just seeing a weaker crop of younger players. Similar to the late 90's where Moya and co were the next gen. The difference is this time the previous era's greats are still relatively strong - Djokovic especially.

I already addressed why that might be the case in the post you quoted; that the biases regarding notions of how to win don't shine kindly on Ken even among his peers, who probably saw him as a man that couldn't quite dominant and someone with a small game with a low-end peak level compared to the very best. But results remain results, and Rosewall has fantastic results. Laver rating Rosewall where he does is a means of pumping himself up these days BTW, IMO. Laver knows first hand just how good Rosewall is—"That Damned Rosewall"—no?

Rosewall wasn't that appreciated then, and is even less appreciated now (although perhaps equally or slightly more so by historians in hindsight).

I think it was 'That Damned thief Rosewall'? Laver may perhaps be trying to plump himself up, though I don't know how diminishing a rival would do that? Especially when historically speaking you are viewed in a much greater light anyway.

The players from that era tend to rate based on level of play, which is probably why Ken is ranked so lowly by a few. You maybe right about there being a bias to the power players though.

Still for me being ranked #1 is a huge deal, worth as much or more than majors. I also feel Laver and Gonzalez were clearly better players at their best. So for me personally I wouldn't rank him above players who were the best of their own era's.

I understand the arguments for otherwise though.

 

[Nathaniel_Near]

Yes, that damned thief (couldn't really remember it.. edited).

 

[NatF]

I believe I read somewhere that he was in the top three for 15 years. Every statement like that is very hard to back up because there was no agreed upon standard for ranking players in the 50s and 60s, and even after that the ranking system was horribly flawed.

As for the era helping him to stay relevant, my view on this remains that the pros was sort of a "trial by fire". Only the best were picked, and they had to be healthy enough to compete. Then they continued to play against each other, day after day. The traveling was absurd. They had to be prepared to play on any surface, at any time, under the worst possible conditions.

That produced a few players who simply a cut above all the others, the amateurs, who went through nothing like that. When the Open Era started, they had a huge advantage over the others, and that is also true of Rosewall.

But denying some of his accomplishments because of the era is a lot like trying to make Fed's accomplishments seem less amazing because of a "weak era".

I don't recall trying to diminish his achievements?

I do have a lot of respect for the old pro's. The lengths they had to go to in order to earn their living is worse than even sub 100 ranked pro's have to do today. My opinions on Rosewall have probably been coloured by a certain former member of this forum,

 

[Gary Duane]

Yep... perhaps even higher than Rosewall, though it's less baffling a case.

Clearly, Gonzales had the big game, talent, skills and finesse to chop through Rosewall and Laver plenty of times well past his prime period of playing. One does wonder what would have happened if all their primes coincided, because I can't help but think that Gonzales might overwhelm both of them with his amazing serve and powerfully accurate game. Rosewall and Laver was an era of the little men. Not taking anything away from them but I find it hard to imagine in my mine Laver having a winning record over Sampras on grass, for example. I'd favour Sampras over Laver or Borg at Wimbledon.

I would need to see the matches really that Gonzales had against Rosewall and Laver well into his 30s and also matches from his pomp.

Gonzales led the series against Laver 3-2 in 1970? I wonder how reliable that info is. If that's true, well that's incredibly impressive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales–Laver_rivalry
"Kramer sees as evidence of Gonzales's superiority over Laver the fact that Gonzales defeated Laver in a U.S.$10,000 winner-take-all, five-set match before 15,000 spectators in New York City's Madison Square Garden in January 1970, when Gonzales was 41 years old and Laver was still considered the World No. 1 player."

Would love to see that match.

I don't like to get into hypotheticals about who would beat whom, picking and choosing players from different eras.

Even talking about players competing, all in their primes, is too iffy for me.

I'm interested in what indicates dominance regardless of eras, and the sad fact is that we do not have enough data before 1991. And when we get into the time of Gonzales, Laver and Rosewall, we don't even have fully accurate records of who played whom, or how often. So it is very frustrating.

A "small man era" could be equally misleading, because Laver and Rosewall were smaller than average. And yet we could assume that around 6'1" is the right height just because that describes Federer and Nadal, and there is no one threatening to be dominant who is not taller. (Most of us do not expect Nishi to be the next #1, and the fact that people like Ferrer are stuck in the top 5 but can't get beyond that is a lot of what this thread was about.)

 

[Nathaniel_Near]

I don't like to get into hypotheticals about who would beat whom, picking and choosing players from different eras.

Even talking about players competing, all in their primes, is too iffy for me.

I'm interested in what indicates dominance regardless of eras, and the sad fact is that we do not have enough data before 1991. And when we get into the time of Gonzales, Laver and Rosewall, we don't even have fully accurate records of who played whom, or how often. So it is very frustrating.

A "small man era" could be equally misleading, because Laver and Rosewall were smaller than average. And yet we could assume that around 6'11" is the right height just because that describes Federer and Nadal, and there is no one threatening to be dominant who is not taller. (Most of us do not expect Nishi to be the next #1, and the fact that people like Ferrer are stuck in the top 5 but can't get beyond that is a lot of what this thread was about.)

A nice twist to this thread might be to combine two players who won only one slam. Imagine, for instance, A healthy Hewitt with Roscoe Tanner's serve, or Roscoe Tanner with Hewitt's ground strokes and movement. I find this interesting because Tanner was only around 6 feet.

There's a thread about currently for combining players with 0 Slams to make a great player.

Careful with the measurements for Fedal. :twisted:

 

[Gary Duane]

Even with the 'olden times' bias he wasn't rated that highly. Are we not applying current bias when he rank him based on his high number of majors?

When your greatest rival ranks you #6 (?) for the pre open era it says something to me.

Kramer in my opinion had a massive ego, and he is one of the writers he is most quoted as to which players were really the best. I don't believe he was shy about placing himself quite near the top.

As for the pre-open era, that is about far more than the 50s and 60s. But to me it really muddies the waters when players none of us ever saw are remembered by people who are no longer alive. I have no feel at all for how people like Tilden and Budge played. At least with Gonzales we have some footage of how he played in his 40s, and we knew who he was still competitive against at that age. This is more true of Rosewall, and even more true of Laver. I just wish we had more complete matches and better video quality.

If we are talking about GOATs (something I don't like at all), Rosewall is not going to be in the discussion very often. The answer is obvious. But I feel pretty safe at saying that Rosewall was a solid #3 in his era, and an undervalued one at that.

I am tempted to make a connection here to Novak, who is only #3 in this era, but at #3 he is so far above everyone else that it is almost ridiculous. So we have #3, Novak, who is the #1 headache for both Fed and Nadal, and who is still chasing records, challenging their stats, who is amazingly fit at almost 28, and who still has an opportunity to make it to at least #2 for this era.

 

[Gary Duane]

I don't recall trying to diminish his achievements?

I was more thinking out loud than addressing my thoughts to you personally.

 

[Gary Duane]

There's a thread about currently for combining players with 0 Slams to make a great player.

Careful with the measurements for Fedal. :twisted:

Nathaniel, you are too quick. I already deleted the last paragraph when I realized I was mentally in two threads.

And I've removed the extra 10 inches!

 

[mightyrick]

Many great players gets underappreciated on this forum, but some gets more than others.

Which great player do you believe is underappreciated the most for their achievements ?

Pancho Gonzales by far.

The guy was the best player in the world for the longest and nobody ever talks about it. IMHO, he is the greatest player ever. 8 EIGHT year-end world's best player achievements -- 6 of those he held alone. 7 of those were consecutive. He ruled clay, grass, and indoors. He dominated at a time which saw tennis resurgence after WWII with a very strong field.

Who did he beat in big slams? Laver, Rosewall, Hoad, Sedgeman, Segura, Budge... jeezus. It's unreal.

Federer has 5. Sampras has 6. Laver and Tilden have 7.

But the only threads around here you'll see are "Federer vs. Sampras" or "Federer vs. Laver".

Rosewall gets way more play around here than Gonzales.

 

[Sebang]

Fe.....rrer.

 

[Gary Duane]

By top players now peaking later who are you referring to? Wawrinka, Ferrer?

Yes. We have players who are playing better in their late 20s and into their early 30s. Granted, they are not contenders for #1. But they are huge spoilers in major tournaments and slams.

I'd say the key to peaking later is not maximizing your youth. Djokovic is still in the prime window for most tennis players through the ages. It looks like he'll be strong for a while yet but he had some ordinary looking losses last year.

That's also what I am pointing towards. We were talking earlier about Gonzales, Laver and Rosewall, and how well they played up to 30 or after. And Laver getting the grand slam at age 31 (because the AO then was played in December.)

If we look at that as a peak for Laver, it was very late.

I don't expect Novak to get the CYGS this year, but if he somehow did it, he would be older than the years other players won 3 slams. Even if he gets 3 this year, it would be very unusual for the Open era (compared to the past).

Perhaps as the older era was less physical per match allowing older players declining abilities to be hidden across a match. More emphasis on all court game also might have given a greater edge to their experience.

All those things are certainly reasonable points.

Still for me being ranked #1 is a huge deal, worth as much or more than majors. I also feel Laver and Gonzalez were clearly better players at their best. So for me personally I wouldn't rank him above players who were the best of their own era's.

I think we agree, because Rosewall has to come after those two greats. But it still looks likely that he was #1 at least two years, right? That at least puts him in pretty rare company!

If you put a huge premium on weeks at #1 (which I think is an important metric) living in an era where ranking was debated at all times makes such a metric almost useless. To some extent this was true for the open era until sometime after 2000, when things were finally standardized. Some of the rankings as late as the 90s were really off.