"The Big Four" compared to other past "golden quartets"

powerangle

Legend
With the dominance of the "Big Four" (well, before this year at least) of the last several years, some may forget past "big fours". How do they compare in your mind?

I've provided some staggering statistics of the current Big 4, but when you tally the career accomplishments of some past great quartets, it's actually fairly close.

Borg/Connors/McEnroe/Lendl= 34 slams, 73 GP/MS, 11 WTF = 118 total big titles

Edberg/Becker/Agassi/Sampras= 34 slams, 46 GP/MS, 10 WTF = 90 total big titles

Federer/Nadal/Djokovic/Murray= 37 slams, 68 GP/MS, 8 WTF = 113 total big titles
*

(GP = Grand Prix, MS = Master Series)

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Current Big Four stats:

The Big Four have played in 80 tournaments where all four have competed. Collectively they have won 70 of these 80 tournaments (88%). Of the 10 tournaments they failed to win, they were runner-up in 4 of them, and 5 of these 10 tournaments occurred prior to them first being seeded as the Top 4 players (post-US Open 2008 ).

Since the 2005 Australian Open, the opening Grand Slam tournament of the 2005 ATP Tour, the Big Four have won all but one Major, all but two Tennis Masters Cups/ATP World Tour Finals (2005 and 2009) as well as both Olympic Games singles tournaments.

Similarly, ATP Masters/ATP Masters 1000 events have been dominated by the Big Four. Since 2009 of the forty-one events that have took place they won thirty-six. This includes all 9 in 2011. Moreover, between the 2010 Paris Masters and 2012 Paris Masters, they won 17 consecutive ATP Masters 1000 events.

As of the 2013 Rome Masters, they have won 109 titles from 121 finals at all levels of the ATP Tour since the start of the 2008 season.

Of these ATP Masters events, excluding the Paris Masters (where the Big Four have had little success) they have won:

All but one Indian Wells Masters events since (and including) 2004.
All but two Miami Masters events since (and including) 2005.
Every Monte-Carlo Masters event since (and including) 2005.
Every Rome Masters event since (and including) 2005.
All but one Madrid Masters event since (and including) 2005.
Every Canada Masters event since (and including) 2004.
All but one Cincinnati Masters event since (and including) 2005.
All but one Shanghai Masters event since its introduction in 2009.
All but one Hamburg Masters event between 2004–08 before it was downgraded to an ATP 500 tournament.
 
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90's Clay

Banned
They are up there. Probably third though between the dominant ones of the 80s and 90s. Yes they garnered more slams but the field over the past 7 years or so has seen a major lack of depth if you compared it to the 80s and 90s.

In the 80s you still had Edberg, Becker and Wilander don't forget who were MORE THAN capable of winning slams.

In the 90s you had Rafter, Goran, Kafelnikov, Courier (then the great clay specialists like Muster, Bruguera etc) and even Becker and Edberg who were still top player in the early 90s and still awesome

In the 2000s-present... Well.. You know the story. Clearly no one on the same level as some of the guys outside the (dominant ones) of the 80s and 90s

The rest the "Big 4" has garnered more slams is because of homogenized conditions. Change the dynamic and they wouldn't be the "big 4". But big 7-8 as well

I mean sure Murray, Nadal, Nole can dominate and take all the slams today. Its all slow surfaces. Their speciality. But that would be like if you let Sampras and Becker play on fast surfaces and low bouncing all year round.
 
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mike danny

Bionic Poster
They are up there. Probably third though between the dominant ones of the 80s and 90s. Yes they garnered more slams but the field over the past 7 years or so has seen a major lack of depth if you compared it to the 80s and 90s.

In the 80s you still had Edberg, Becker and Wilander don't forget who were MORE THAN capable of winning slams.

In the 90s you had Rafter, Goran, Kafelnikov, Courier (then the great clay specialists like Muster, Bruguera etc) and even Becker and Edberg who were still top player in the early 90s and still awesome

In the 2000s-present... Well.. You know the story. Clearly no one on the same level as some of the guys outside the (dominant ones) of the 80s and 90s

The rest the "Big 4" has garnered more slams is because of homogenized conditions. Change the dynamic and they wouldn't be the "big 4". But big 7-8 as well

I mean sure Murray, Nadal, Nole can dominate and take all the slams today. Its all slow surfaces. Their speciality. But that would be like if you let Sampras and Becker play on fast surfaces and low bouncing all year round.
so you think federer can play better on fast surfaces than those 3?
 
so you think federer can play better on fast surfaces than those 3?

Who cares?

You play on the surfaces you are given . No excuses.

Connors had to play the us open on three different surfaces . He actually had to play BORG at the us open on clay!!! That's like fed facing Nadal at the us open on clay!!! What would you say then???

Laver only had to play the slams almost exclusively on grass.

The AO has changed surfaces 3 times.

The FO twice .

Wimby arguably three times ....fast grass , slow grass and now a roof .

You have to deal with the cards you are given . Fast is not somehow better than slow .....it just is what it is.
 

jackson vile

G.O.A.T.
To make it competitive you will need to go back to the pre-open era, consider that the four are not even finished yet, and that even after the two are gone Novak and Murray will remain and continue to clean house long after.

Take a look a the competition, no one is working as hard as these four, not even close.
 

BobbyOne

G.O.A.T.
With the dominance of the "Big Four" (well, before this year at least) of the last several years, some may forget past "big fours". How do they compare in your mind?

I've provided some staggering statistics of the current Big 4, but when you tally the career accomplishments of some past great quartets, it's actually fairly close.

Borg/Connors/McEnroe/Lendl= 34 slams, 73 GP/MS, 11 WTF = 118 total big titles

Edberg/Becker/Agassi/Sampras= 34 slams, 46 GP/MS, 10 WTF = 90 total big titles

Federer/Nadal/Djokovic/Murray= 37 slams, 68 GP/MS, 8 WTF = 113 total big titles
*

(GP = Grand Prix, MS = Master Series)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Current Big Four stats:

The Big Four have played in 80 tournaments where all four have competed. Collectively they have won 70 of these 80 tournaments (88%). Of the 10 tournaments they failed to win, they were runner-up in 4 of them, and 5 of these 10 tournaments occurred prior to them first being seeded as the Top 4 players (post-US Open 2008 ).

Since the 2005 Australian Open, the opening Grand Slam tournament of the 2005 ATP Tour, the Big Four have won all but one Major, all but two Tennis Masters Cups/ATP World Tour Finals (2005 and 2009) as well as both Olympic Games singles tournaments.

Similarly, ATP Masters/ATP Masters 1000 events have been dominated by the Big Four. Since 2009 of the forty-one events that have took place they won thirty-six. This includes all 9 in 2011. Moreover, between the 2010 Paris Masters and 2012 Paris Masters, they won 17 consecutive ATP Masters 1000 events.

As of the 2013 Rome Masters, they have won 109 titles from 121 finals at all levels of the ATP Tour since the start of the 2008 season.

Of these ATP Masters events, excluding the Paris Masters (where the Big Four have had little success) they have won:

All but one Indian Wells Masters events since (and including) 2004.
All but two Miami Masters events since (and including) 2005.
Every Monte-Carlo Masters event since (and including) 2005.
Every Rome Masters event since (and including) 2005.
All but one Madrid Masters event since (and including) 2005.
Every Canada Masters event since (and including) 2004.
All but one Cincinnati Masters event since (and including) 2005.
All but one Shanghai Masters event since its introduction in 2009.
All but one Hamburg Masters event between 2004–08 before it was downgraded to an ATP 500 tournament.

powerangle, the all-time greatest Big Four were probably Gonzalez, Hoad, Rosewall and Laver.
 
Borg/Connors/McEnroe/Lendl= 34 slams

Edberg/Becker/Agassi/Sampras= 34 slams

Federer/Nadal/Djokovic/Murray= 37 slams


I'm not going to dissect your other stats, but I think you should give the context of how long a timeframe we're talking about for "slamming" [sic]; the current crop have won their major titles in a much shorter timeframe than the others:

Connors/Borg/McEnroe/Lendl: between Connors' first in 1974 and Lendl's last in 1990, 34 of 65 (52%)

Edberg/Becker/Sampras/Agassi: between Edberg's first in 1985 and Agassi's last in 2003, 34 of 72 (47%)

Federer/Nadal/Djokovic/Murray: between Federer's first in 2003 and Murray's last (so far) in 2013, 37 of 41 (90%)

I'd also query whether these were all genuine quartets. I'd say Connors/Borg/McEnroe were really a trio from the '70s and early '80s, then Lendl/Edberg/Becker (plus Wilander) in the mid to late '80s, and then Sampras/Agassi in the 1990s. I know it's hard to figure exactly, but there's no overlap at all between Connors/Borg and Lendl from the point of view of winning slams, nor any overlap between Edberg and Agassi. Conversely there's a great overlap between Lendl and Edberg/Becker/Wilander.


powerangle, the all-time greatest Big Four were probably Gonzalez, Hoad, Rosewall and Laver.
Obviously their stats can't be compared directly because of the pre-Open complications, but this does seem like the strongest quartet prior to 1969. Based on my own personal, subjective rankings of the greatest players of all time, Bobby's quartet is indeed stronger than any of the OP's suggestions. (Looks like I'll be banished to Former Player Talk if I'm not careful. :neutral:)


Regards,
MDL
 
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