Ranking the Australian GOATs

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

I started thinking about this last October, when I was making a wee post on Reddit to commemorate the 90th birthday of Neale Fraser. As someone who admires players who demonstrated great combined singles/doubles prowess, I'm a fan of his. "Only" three singles majors, and never won his home slam despite appearing in three finals, but eleven doubles majors with three different partners. And he's one of only three men in history to successfully defend a Triple Crown, which he did at the US Nationals in 1959 & '60 (Budge and Tilden are the other two).

As I was writing the post, I thought I'd check out the Tennis 128 as I frequently do. Where was Fraser on Sackmann's list? Turns out... he wasn't. Twelve men and three women, but the Melbourne native doesn't make the cut. Jeff's complete ranking of Aussies are as follows:

Men:

1. Laver (#1)
2. Rosewall (#15)
3. Newcombe (#52)
4. Emerson (#55)
5. Sedgman (#60)
6. Bromwich (#70)
7. Hoad (#74)
8. Crawford (#83)
9. Lleyton Hewitt (#84)
10. Roche (#103)
11. Quist (#119)
12. Cooper (#122)

Women:

1. Court (#18)
2. Goolagong (#59)
3. Barty (#101)

The women's list is kinda indisputable, but the men's is a really interesting one. I'm sure most people (@Dan Lobb being an obvious exception) would have Laver and Rosewall at #1 and #2, but Bromwich above Hoad? Roche/Quist above Cooper? Maybe you'd shuffle Newcombe, Emerson, and Sedgman around? Perhaps you'd bump a couple of these old geezers off to make way for Rafter and Cash? Would you have Brookes and Wilding, or does a pre-WWI cut-off make sense?


My personal top 10 considers singles/doubles combined, and is grouped into tiers rather than ranked (I'm becoming less amenable to splitting hairs nowadays in these conversations). Within each tier it's chronological. I really, really struggled to get it down to ten, and I'm not convinced I have it completely right. And sub-ranking the four guys in tier 2 would be a proper challenge:

1. Rosewall, Laver (but Rod in front really)
2. Sedgman, Hoad, Emerson, Newcombe
3. Crawford, Cooper, Fraser, Roche

Interested to hear everyone else's opinions. And no restrictions here; you can have a top twelve like Sackmann, or a top 10, or a top 5. You can have tiers if like me you're averse to splitting hairs. Peak performance, cumulative accomplishments... anything goes.

A group of Australian (Cashmere) Goats

 

[Dan Lobb]

I think that Sackmann's list is rather subjective. He also fails to consult the best authorities, namely the players themselves.

 

[urban]

Newcombe made a list of Austalian greats in Norman Giller, Book of Tennis Lists, 1985. He named in order Laver, Rosewall, Emerson, Hoad, Sedgman, Crawford, Roche, Fraser. We should not forget Sir Norman Brookes, the founding father of Australian tennis. He and his wife Melba were for a very long time the most influential people in Australian tennis.

 

[Cashman]

It depends on your criteria. Personally I think that Cash and Rafter were better players than several on that list but their injuries mean that their achievements don’t really stack up against the others

 

[Hard Court]

Probably should go something like this:
1. Laver
2. Rosewall
3. Newcombe
4. Emerson
5. Sedgman
6. Crawford
7. Hoad
8. Cooper
9. Bromwich
10. Hewitt
11. Anderson
12 Stolle
13. Roche
14. Rafter
15. Quist

Not sure where to rate Brookes. He just didn't play enough. Had he played full time, he may have been as high as #3 or #4.

Women
1. Court
2. Goologong
3. Barty

 

[socallefty]

What happened to Australian tennis after the Open Era? Why are there so few men’s champions compared to the previous decades? Were Australian coaches not able to adapt when most of pro tennis moved away from grass courts and wooden racquets?

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

What happened to Australian tennis after the Open Era? Why are there so few men’s champions compared to the previous decades? Were Australian coaches not able to adapt when most of pro tennis moved away from grass courts and wooden racquets?

I think it was a few things that combined into a perfect storm for them in the postwar years. The first would have been the Aussie version of the Borg Effect, where Bjorn begat Mats, Stefan, Anders, Kent, Joakim, Mikhail, etc. I don't know if Jack Crawford or Frank Sedgman was the chief catalyst Down Under, but I guess it was a similar thing?

Once the ball was rolling, Harry Hopman was terrific at converting all his young hopefuls into great amateur stars, and replacing them when they turned pro (to his disgust) with the next generation. His reign as Australia's Davis Cup captain lasted until 1967.

Finally, everything I've read of that era suggests Australian tennis authorities were more likely to look the other way with regards to their players making money, be it from under-the-table payments or having token jobs on the side. A 1964 Sports Illustrated article describes how "[Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle are] employed as public relations men for cigarette companies, a situation that is permissible under Australia's broad code of amateur standards." If other federations were more strict with regards to 'shamateurism', then their players would struggle more to make ends meet, get coaching, etc, which would have obviously detrimental consequences on their development and success.

Then the Open Era dawned; everyone could start making money without pretence, and at the same time Harry Hopman stepped down as DC coach. The country was still capable of producing talent — Cash in the 1980s, Rafter in the 1990s, Hewitt in the 2000s, then the halcyon days of Tomic/Kyrgios/DeMinaur — but it's less of a production line than had existed 30–50 years before.

 

[martinezownsclay]

First of all the Tennis128 rankings are garbage and meaningless. Seles and Venus both above Margaret Court!!?!? I am sure even the huge Venus and Seles (particularly Venus) fanboy @buscemi would not agree with that. Goran above the Career slammer Shirley Fry (if you insist on combining men and womens rankings which is stupid in the first place). Virginia Wade and Pam Shriver back to back!?! (atleast considering it seems to be a singles only ranking). Elizabeth Ryan who couldn't even win a singles major in an era with no depth and got 0-2 games each time she played Lenglen, above Lew Hoad. Conchita Martinez above Jennifer Capriati, or about 60+ of the people she was put above. Gabriela Sabatini above Justine Henin. Sanchez Vicario above Billie Jean King (this wouldn't ever work even in a combined singles/doubles ranking as King absolutely killed doubles even moreso than ASV), Ivan Lendl over Pete Sampras. I am not sure if this is a parody list on purpose or what it is, but it was so bad I fell over laughing reading through it. Will give my thoughts on some of the mens rankings later, the women are super easy as you said. But the Tennis128 rankings are no barometer for anything.

 

[Cashman]

What happened to Australian tennis after the Open Era? Why are there so few men’s champions compared to the previous decades? Were Australian coaches not able to adapt when most of pro tennis moved away from grass courts and wooden racquets?

Most Australian team sports professionalised in the 70s and 80s - cricket, rugby league, Australian football. This sucked a lot of talent away from tennis.

The only reason Lleyton Hewitt played tennis is because he was told he was too short to cut it as a professional Aussie rules player

 

[Vincent-C]

..then the halcyon days of Tomic/Kyrgios/De Minaur..

nice.

 

[Angrybirdstar]

First of all the Tennis128 rankings are garbage and meaningless. Seles and Venus both above Margaret Court!!?!? I am sure even the huge Venus and Seles (particularly Venus) fanboy @buscemi would not agree with that. Goran above the Career slammer Shirley Fry (if you insist on combining men and womens rankings which is stupid in the first place). Virginia Wade and Pam Shriver back to back!?! (atleast considering it seems to be a singles only ranking). Elizabeth Ryan who couldn't even win a singles major in an era with no depth and got 0-2 games each time she played Lenglen, above Lew Hoad. Conchita Martinez above Jennifer Capriati, or about 60+ of the people she was put above. Gabriela Sabatini above Justine Henin. Sanchez Vicario above Billie Jean King (this wouldn't ever work even in a combined singles/doubles ranking as King absolutely killed doubles even moreso than ASV), Ivan Lendl over Pete Sampras. I am not sure if this is a parody list on purpose or what it is, but it was so bad I fell over laughing reading through it. Will give my thoughts on some of the mens rankings later, the women are super easy as you said. But the Tennis128 rankings are no barometer for anything.

the most convincing argument i see for The Tennis 128's algorithm: if one agrees that the top 25 and all viable GOAT candidates for men and women are exactly equal sets (perhaps save Venus), then one should grant that the algorithm is meaningfully self-consistent (moreso than any given person) and potentially worthwhile when proceeding down the list. my take is that the precise order doesn't mean much but splitting the list into tiers of 1+/26+/66+ makes a lot of sense, especially if you imagine that the last tier could be stretched or truncated to one's desired bar for greatness.

 

[Dan Lobb]

Newcombe made a list of Austalian greats in Norman Giller, Book of Tennis Lists, 1985. He named in order Laver, Rosewall, Emerson, Hoad, Sedgman, Crawford, Roche, Fraser. We should not forget Sir Norman Brookes, the founding father of Australian tennis. He and his wife Melba were for a very long time the most influential people in Australian tennis.

That's fine, but Newcombe did not play against most of the Australian great players. It is better to get evaluations from the contemporary players.

 

[Dan Lobb]

I think it was a few things that combined into a perfect storm for them in the postwar years. The first would have been the Aussie version of the Borg Effect, where Bjorn begat Mats, Stefan, Anders, Kent, Joakim, Mikhail, etc. I don't know if Jack Crawford or Frank Sedgman was the chief catalyst Down Under, but I guess it was a similar thing?

Once the ball was rolling, Harry Hopman was terrific at converting all his young hopefuls into great amateur stars, and replacing them when they turned pro (to his disgust) with the next generation. His reign as Australia's Davis Cup captain lasted until 1967.

Finally, everything I've read of that era suggests Australian tennis authorities were more likely to look the other way with regards to their players making money, be it from under-the-table payments or having token jobs on the side. A 1964 Sports Illustrated article describes how "[Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle are] employed as public relations men for cigarette companies, a situation that is permissible under Australia's broad code of amateur standards." If other federations were more strict with regards to 'shamateurism', then their players would struggle more to make ends meet, get coaching, etc, which would have obviously detrimental consequences on their development and success.

Then the Open Era dawned; everyone could start making money without pretence, and at the same time Harry Hopman stepped down as DC coach. The country was still capable of producing talent — Cash in the 1980s, Rafter in the 1990s, Hewitt in the 2000s, then the halcyon days of Tomic/Kyrgios/DeMinaur — but it's less of a production line than had existed 30–50 years before.

Emerson claimed that he was a professional, not an amateur, and most of the money the Aussie and other top amateurs made came from tournament organizers who usually worked for the host club or hotel. The top amateurs got paid bonuses, which were not taxable as income.

Emerson turned down a $100,000 guarantee to turn pro in 1966, claiming that it would represent a pay cut from his usual money.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

I think that Sackmann's list is rather subjective. He also fails to consult the best authorities, namely the players themselves.

It's exactly the opposite of subjective. He built a mathematical model and ranked players based off that. You can dispute his methodology's accuracy, but it is infinitely more objective than "asking the players themselves".

First of all the Tennis128 rankings are garbage and meaningless. Seles and Venus both above Margaret Court!!?!? I am sure even the huge Venus and Seles (particularly Venus) fanboy @buscemi would not agree with that. Goran above the Career slammer Shirley Fry (if you insist on combining men and womens rankings which is stupid in the first place). Virginia Wade and Pam Shriver back to back!?! (atleast considering it seems to be a singles only ranking). Elizabeth Ryan who couldn't even win a singles major in an era with no depth and got 0-2 games each time she played Lenglen, above Lew Hoad. Conchita Martinez above Jennifer Capriati, or about 60+ of the people she was put above. Gabriela Sabatini above Justine Henin. Sanchez Vicario above Billie Jean King (this wouldn't ever work even in a combined singles/doubles ranking as King absolutely killed doubles even moreso than ASV), Ivan Lendl over Pete Sampras. I am not sure if this is a parody list on purpose or what it is, but it was so bad I fell over laughing reading through it. Will give my thoughts on some of the mens rankings later, the women are super easy as you said. But the Tennis128 rankings are no barometer for anything.

I thought it was a fantastic list, even though I disagreed with loads of it. But it was nice to see (a) a ranking of both men and women (I filter them into two separate lists myself), and (b) one that didn't cut off at 1968. Sackmann was upfront about building the whole thing around an Elo-based algorithm, come what may. The TTW thread on it as it was published was entertaining and enjoyable. And most importantly for me, as @NonP said in that thread, "it's producing at least some unexpected results unlike most excruciatingly predictable GOAT lists that tell us nothing new whatsoever."

the most convincing argument i see for The Tennis 128's algorithm: if one agrees that the top 25 and all viable GOAT candidates for men and women are exactly equal sets (perhaps save Venus), then one should grant that the algorithm is meaningfully self-consistent (moreso than any given person) and potentially worthwhile when proceeding down the list. my take is that the precise order doesn't mean much but splitting the list into tiers of 1+/26+/66+ makes a lot of sense, especially if you imagine that the last tier could be stretched or truncated to one's desired bar for greatness.

I had exactly that feeling. When it got down to the final 25, I surveyed in my head the players still to come and realized that I agreed with pretty much all of them — although the order they then appeared was a different matter. That meant I could go back through the list to check out other players further down, and see if I should maybe re-evaluate them. Richey ahead of Wade? The placings of Les Mousquetaires? Drobny ahead of nearly all his post-war contemporaries (Sedgman, Hoad, Parker, Patty, etc)?


It looks like I should have started a "What does everyone think of Sackmann's Tennis 128?" thread instead. That seems to be what people want to argue about...

 

[urban]

The older i get, the more i have difficulties to make any inter-era ranking. Of course, you can find reasonable arguments, based on stats to evaluate players. But on the other other hand, so much time has gone in between say a Brookes or a Federer (more than 100 or 120 years), that every serious attempt of comparison is somewhat futile. The evolution of the game, the different enviroment, the technological jump in equipment (those old small wooden sticks vs. those monster hybrid machines of today), training, coaching by real specialists teams, nutrition, you name it, all do enhance the difficulties of comparison. In tennis as a sport another problems lies in the fact, that the statistical records are not directly comparable, regarding the am-pro-split, and the long-time absence of a standardized playing schedule and also a commonly accepted ranking system. Also many records were nor well kept by media and institiutions, and only in the last few years, many old results were dug up by serious researchers on the internet. As Angrybird wrote, you can identify say 12-15 greatest players with some reason, but one could make indeed a good, reasonable case for anyone of them for top spot or at least top 5. I only mention Lenglen, and Wills, nobody actually could have done better than them, even with modern training. You simply cannot do more than win every match near to 6-0, 6-0.

 

[urban]

To Tennis Abstract. To his credit, Jeff Sackmann had sampled an awful lot of data, match stats, performance curves, year by year match scores of single players, hth with leading opponents, and so on, not only for open era players, but also for players of pre open era. Maybe there are sometimes slight errors or differences with the (not so free) data of Tennis Base or my own informations. but nevertheless the presented data give a good overview about the careers. And the data are free to research and easy to get for your own interest. Recently i visited the side for the complete career of John Newcombe with year by year scores and hth against leading players.

A second point: Independently from the actual ranking, the articles on the 128 players series are mostly really well written and informative, and cite contemporary sources. I recommend also his series with historical articles about the year 1973, which were very refreshing and near the sources.

 

[martinezownsclay]

the most convincing argument i see for The Tennis 128's algorithm: if one agrees that the top 25 and all viable GOAT candidates for men and women are exactly equal sets (perhaps save Venus), then one should grant that the algorithm is meaningfully self-consistent (moreso than any given person) and potentially worthwhile when proceeding down the list. my take is that the precise order doesn't mean much but splitting the list into tiers of 1+/26+/66+ makes a lot of sense, especially if you imagine that the last tier could be stretched or truncated to one's desired bar for greatness.

Yeah well still a fail. Henin wouldn't even be possible anywhere on planet Earth to place in the same tier as Sabatini, even if she weren't below.

And Budge, Connors, Seles, Venus, Lendl, Rosewall, Marble could not be possibly considered GOAT contenders under any measurement or stretch of reality either. Amongst the GOATs maybe, but no way even an outside candidate for the GOAT.

 

[Dan Lobb]

It's exactly the opposite of subjective. He built a mathematical model and ranked players based off that. You can dispute his methodology's accuracy, but it is infinitely more objective than "asking the players themselves".




I thought it was a fantastic list, even though I disagreed with loads of it. But it was nice to see (a) a ranking of both men and women (I filter them into two separate lists myself), and (b) one that didn't cut off at 1968. Sackmann was upfront about building the whole thing around an Elo-based algorithm, come what may. The TTW thread on it as it was published was entertaining and enjoyable. And most importantly for me, as @NonP said in that thread, "it's producing at least some unexpected results unlike most excruciatingly predictable GOAT lists that tell us nothing new whatsoever."




I had exactly that feeling. When it got down to the final 25, I surveyed in my head the players still to come and realized that I agreed with pretty much all of them — although the order they then appeared was a different matter. That meant I could go back through the list to check out other players further down, and see if I should maybe re-evaluate them. Richey ahead of Wade? The placings of Les Mousquetaires? Drobny ahead of nearly all his post-war contemporaries (Sedgman, Hoad, Parker, Patty, etc)?


It looks like I should have started a "What does everyone think of Sackmann's Tennis 128?" thread instead. That seems to be what people want to argue about...

No, he makes exceptions for periods where his data is not applicable. Then he admits using subjective criteria, which remain unidentified. So in the end it is subjective.

It is better to get evaluations from players who actually tested the games of the greats. There are some consensus choices emerging from that approach.

I doubt that Sackmann ever saw most of those players.

His ranking choices are very strange, to put it mildly.
Check out the discussion here, at this thread below.

Let’s discuss/lampoon Sackmann’s all-time list​

 

[Hard Court]

He ranks Crawford too low. Bromwich and Quist are too high. Overall a good list.

 

[sandy mayer]

Yeah well still a fail. Henin wouldn't even be possible anywhere on planet Earth to place in the same tier as Sabatini, even if she weren't below.

And Budge, Connors, Seles, Venus, Lendl, Rosewall, Marble could not be possibly considered GOAT contenders under any measurement or stretch of reality either. Amongst the GOATs maybe, but no way even an outside candidate for the GOAT.

I have heard Budge in GOAT discussions quite a few times

 

[martinezownsclay]

I have heard Budge in GOAT discussions quite a few times

To people familiar with that time very rarely. In fact most seem to regard Vines as the best player of that decade/era and not Budge, overall.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

To people familiar with that time very rarely. In fact most seem to regard Vines as the best player of that decade/era and not Budge, overall.

Citation needed.

As @pc1 detailed in this thread, there was a poll of experts at the 1969 M&R awards to identify the greatest of all time. Budge finished second to Tilden overall; Vines was tenth.
Danzig, Hopman, and Tingay all had personal top tens, and all three ranked Budge ahead.
Kramer, Mako, and Falkenburg all ranked both.
Riggs ranked only Budge in his top ten. (1950s?)
Dan Maskell in his 1990 autobiography ranked only Budge in his top ten.
American author Paul Fein ranked only Budge in his 2003 top ten.
Joel Drucker, Steve Flink and Bud Collins ranked only Budge in their respective top tens in September 2006.

Of that lot only the last four (Fein, Drucker, Flink, and Collins) are too young to have been unfamiliar with the decade. So who are the "most" you claim favour Vines?

 

[urban]

Don Budge was indeed ranked by many experts in the 1970s and even 1980s as one of the three greatest players ever. Only Tilden with his longer career rivalled him out of the pre war era. In the greatest poll of 37 experts together with a Computer based tournament for the Californian magazine Inside Tennis in 1986, Budge ranked 3rd in the consensus poll. Don "God" Budge himself was pretty cocky, in several interviews i saw, he stated, that he could and would beat anybody on any surface.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

I personally have Budge on my own (unordered) all-time top ten list. To me his claim to being top dog is enjoying what I consider the greatest single season in men's history. (Remember that I'm also into doubles.) In 1938...

• Budge completed the second career slam in singles at the 1938 French, and he remains the youngest to do so.
• He held all four majors at the same time when he won at Roland Garros — the first to do so.
• He then extended his slam-winning streak to six, which remains the record for men.
• That streak meant he completed the first ever CYGS.
• At Wimbledon and the US he also won the doubles and mixed events, giving him eight major titles in a single season. It remains an unbeaten men's record, although Sedgman equalled it twice.
• Those two Triple Crowns are the only time in history a man has achieved (a) two in a row, and (b) two in a single season. (Budge is the only man to have ever won three TCs.)
• From R4 at the French to the final of the US, Budge won a record 47 consecutive sets at the slams. Altogether that year he was 78–4 in sets at the majors in singles.
• When he quit amateur tennis at the end of 1938 he'd won six of the eleven slams he'd entered, a 55% win rate.

If that was my tennis CV, I think I'd be pretty cocky as well...

 

[Dan Lobb]

Citation needed.

As @pc1 detailed in this thread, there was a poll of experts at the 1969 M&R awards to identify the greatest of all time. Budge finished second to Tilden overall; Vines was tenth.
Danzig, Hopman, and Tingay all had personal top tens, and all three ranked Budge ahead.
Kramer, Mako, and Falkenburg all ranked both.
Riggs ranked only Budge in his top ten. (1950s?)
Dan Maskell in his 1990 autobiography ranked only Budge in his top ten.
American author Paul Fein ranked only Budge in his 2003 top ten.
Joel Drucker, Steve Flink and Bud Collins ranked only Budge in their respective top tens in September 2006.

Of that lot only the last four (Fein, Drucker, Flink, and Collins) are too young to have been unfamiliar with the decade. So who are the "most" you claim favour Vines?

The players themselves are the best experts, they actually experienced the play.

 

[Dan Lobb]

I personally have Budge on my own (unordered) all-time top ten list. To me his claim to being top dog is enjoying what I consider the greatest single season in men's history. (Remember that I'm also into doubles.) In 1938...

• Budge completed the second career slam in singles at the 1938 French, and he remains the youngest to do so.
• He held all four majors at the same time when he won at Roland Garros — the first to do so.
• He then extended his slam-winning streak to six, which remains the record for men.
• That streak meant he completed the first ever CYGS.
• At Wimbledon and the US he also won the doubles and mixed events, giving him eight major titles in a single season. It remains an unbeaten men's record, although Sedgman equalled it twice.
• Those two Triple Crowns are the only time in history a man has achieved (a) two in a row, and (b) two in a single season. (Budge is the only man to have ever won three TCs.)
• From R4 at the French to the final of the US, Budge won a record 47 consecutive sets at the slams. Altogether that year he was 78–4 in sets at the majors in singles.
• When he quit amateur tennis at the end of 1938 he'd won six of the eleven slams he'd entered, a 55% win rate.

If that was my tennis CV, I think I'd be pretty cocky as well...

Those 1938 majors were pretty weak fields.

Budge had his best showings in 1939 and 1942 against tough opposition. He skipped the U.S. Pro in 1939, which was the top pro event that year.