I believe I mentioned that in post 176. I don't think he had better competition however. It's very debatable there. I think Kiki mentioned it already in the above post but Nastase faced Newcombe, Connors, Borg, peak Ashe, Smith, slightly pass peak Laver, past peak Rosewall, Kodes (for you Kiki), Vilas, Orantes, Okker, Panatta and he faced all of them at their peak or at least when they were still very strong in the cases of Laver and Rosewall. At his peak Nastase was competitive with all of them. But to be fair peak Wilander was competitive with everyone also except perhaps occasionally on grass at Wimbledon. I respect Wilander tremendously and it shows his great peak level that he won majors on grass, hard court and red clay. Both Nastase and Wilander were excellent on all surfaces.
and yet in the 2 majors that Nastase won, his only tough opponent was Ashe in USO 72 ..His 73 RG draw was pretty easy and any good CCer would run through that draw ..
Like I said the fields were split , many of the players were not at their primes and that makes a huge difference ....
He didn't face Laver in a major
He didn't face Newk in a major
Rosewall only once - in 69, much before his prime, almost irrelevant
Faced Connors twice - 72 and 82, 72 was pre-prime for Connors and 82 post-prime for Nastase , again close to irrelevant
Faced Ashe only once - USO 72 - already mentioned above
faced his direct contemporary Smith 3x
faced Borg 3x
etc etc ...
so all in all , he was relatively inconsistent, so was the field tbh and the fields were split in some cases etc etc ..
I'm not impressed by just the names floating in and around that era .... I actually look at what was happening in the majors, in the big tournaments ...
Contrast this to Wilander :
he had Lendl, Mac, Edberg , Becker and the the supporting cast of Vilas, Cash, Noah , Clerc, Agassi, Leconte, Curren etc.
Most of the fields were full ones and Wilander actually faced them in majors at their primes or near that level ....In majors
Wilander faced :
Lendl 9x
Edberg 5x
Mac 5x
Cash 5x
Becker 3x ( tbf, 2 were on clay )
Noah 3x
Its a big big difference ....
Just FTR, to put it in a different way, their records in majors in their prime years or near it :
nastase from 71-77 : a record of 71-19 (78.8%)
wilander from 82 to 88 : a record of 113-18 (86.26%)
that's a
gigantic difference , 42 more wins and 1 less loss
Nastase's great wins indoors does bring down the difference by some margin, but nowhere near to get him close ...
But Dan and others have brought up a great point, is the most accomplishments (by today's standards) necessarily mean that person is the greatest player? Naturally it's an indication of that but sometimes I wonder. Any comments??[/I][/B]
nothing that complicated. What Dan is talking about is level of play - that's it.
IMO, greatness requires achievements + level of play + something special that distinguishes the player - something that makes people remember that player .....Hoad doesn't have #1, though he has #2 and #3. But without #1, you cannot have greatness.