[Poll] Who was the best returner in the history of tennis?

[messiahrobins]

But am I the only one who thinks that Nadal's return is overrated?
The fact that he has one of the highest percentages of return game wins in his career is misleading since we are talking about a player who was a master at overturning the inertia of a rally in a nanosecond. But if we talk about actual returns, I think he shouldn't be in a top 10. His returns were often containment aimed at starting the exchange without worrying too much about attacking to immediately generate an advantageous position.

Nadal could return brilliantly but for some reason mainly elected to stand with the judges to return serve, which worked great for him obviously, but not sure that would have worked in the 90s tbh.
Agassi is the best returner by a distance. Then Connors. They had to deal with elite serve volleyers so didnt have the luxury of defensive returns up the middle of the court like modern players of today do

 

[nolefam_2024]

Overall, Novak. No doubt. Moat complete serve/return combo ever.

If we go specifically by surfaces, then Nadal on clay has the best ATP return rating ever, meaning he's the best returner on the surface. His serve/return combo is the best for clay, in spite of the fact that his serve isn't comparable to servebots like Isner/Karlovic or great servers like Sampras/Federer.

If we go specifically by condition, I'm tempted to assert that Federer possesses the best indoor hard serve/return combo ever, but it's close with Novak and can be argued either way. Seeing a 38 years old Federer dismantling Novak in 2 sets in the 2019 ATP finals reinforced my view. When Federer's serve is on an inspired day indoor hard, he becomes virtually unatoppable.
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Yes but that is just serve. Serve + Return , even on fast indoor hard Nole is ahead.

First serve return pts won on indoor hard
Murray 30.73
Nole 30.08%
Fed 30.05%
Nadal 27.56

Second serve pts won on indoor hard
Nole 54.81
Murray 53.73
Nadal 51.34
Fed 49.58

Return rating on indoor hard
Nole 154.4
Murray 152.5
Fed 146.3
Nadal 142.9

Bare in mind, Fed skipped all Paris Bercys save 3/4 times and played a tournament like Basel which has less than half of the draw of masters (end of the year).
Nole has played Paris some 16+ times.
Both played very few indoor hard events like Rotterdam/Vienna.

So Nole has better numbers even in harder competition level.

 

[nolefam_2024]

Looking into the story by surface , Fed is ahead of Nole only on GC and barely.

This is because of Chip return that fed would deploy which is far more effective on grass. The chip return is going to be punished on hard courts in game today. Look at Sonic, his backhand is incredibly strong.

 

[FD3S]

It has to be Novak as an overall package but gonna single out Hewitt, Agassi and Fed for certain individual qualities that IMO they stand alone on. Peak Hewitt gleefully feasted on net rushers because he may have been the best ever at keeping his returns low and making servers volley up, no one consistently annihilated aggressive returns like Agassi did when he got a clean look and Federer's ability to absorb and neutralize some of the biggest first serves the game's seen (Roddick, Goran, Scud, Mirnyi, Karlovic, Isner, etc) was borderline obscene.

 

[Jonas78]

The ATP career leaderboard for Returns is interesting and unexpected with several lesser known players in the Top 10 along with Nadal, Djokovic, Muster and Chang. Who would have guessed that Coria would be #1? If you change the surface to only hard courts, the top 5 is somewhat unexpected with Edberg and McEnroe joining Chang, Djokovic and Agassi.

Leaderboard | ATP Tour | Tennis

Statistical measures of the best-performing players in three key categories in men's professional tennis.

www.atptour.com

This is because you have to separate ROS from returning in general. Interestingly, Agassi isnt even top20 on win% on 1st SPR on hard. I mean, Nadal & Coria leads the return points won% because of clay and their baseline game in general. Of course it doesnt mean they are the best returners in history (unless you have a very strange definition of it).

Its like when people think Federer is among the best servers in history. The best 1st serve is of course Karlovic (by a margin). He leads both ace% and 1st serve won%. Federer is 97 in history on ace%. Ofc Federer had a far stronger baseline game to follow up on the serve, therefore he is higher up on the list on 1st SP won%, and even higher on 2nd SP won%

Its important to separate baseline-skills from returning and serving in these discussions.

 

[BorgTheGOAT]

Agree it’s overrated…GOAT second serve return but merely decent 1stSR is hilariously asymmetrical.

He was the best at slamming back anything in his hitting zone but was too often beaten for width.

He was also one of the most aced which came due to him guessing a lot. Many players (including Rafter and Pete) have their highest ever number of aces in a match against Agassi.
The whole overrating of Agassi’s return came due to media wanting to promote the Sampras-Agassi rivalry as best server vs best returner (and introvert vs extrovert, in short battle of contrasts). As a consequence both are a little overrated even if of course still elite (Pete also didn’t have the best serve, Goran had).

 

[RS]

King Andy could actually do it any time, anywhere, any place

metsman counter pending

 

[Poisoned Slice]

nvm misunderstood.

 

[Devilito]

Love the recency bias. Novak has never in his life had to deal with net rushers and pure serve and volleyers on fast surfaces, grass and without poly. Novak had success returning from 10 feet behind the baseline. He'd be destroyed doing this on grass and hardcourts in the 90s. He'd be at best a clay court specialist.

 

[The Guru]

Love the recency bias. Novak has never in his life had to deal with net rushers and pure serve and volleyers on fast surfaces, grass and without poly. Novak had success returning from 10 feet behind the baseline. He'd be destroyed doing this on grass and hardcourts in the 90s. He'd be at best a clay court specialist.

Even if this were true the reverse would be true and there's no reason to preference the far past over the near past. Also anyone who thinks Novak returns from 10 feet behind the baseline has never seen him play tennis before.

 

[RS]

nvm misunderstood.

Got there first