Womens grass
1. Graf- highest average of slams per grass major (7) tied with Serena, and would have easily tied or broken Navratilova's Wimbledon record without her knee operation. Seles is irrelevant to Graf on grass, so the Seles stabbing is also irrelevant to this.
2. Serena- Tied with Graf for highest grass major (7) per grass major at the time average, and had BY FAR the toughest grass competition compared to any of Navratilova (the weakest), Graf (2nd weakest) or Court. Only don't have her #1, since she should have broken the Wimbledon record and didn't since she choked in finals vs lesser opponents, unlike Graf who was prevented it by injury.
3. Court- 19 grass majors out of 3 grass slams, so an average of 6.5 grass slams per major. However Australian Open was not a real slam, so that is a bit skewed, however she wins almost all those anyway so would still be around 6. Also would be even higher if she didn't skip so much time for her various pregnancies and breaks. Would probably be the grass GOAT without all her breaks.
4. Navratilova- Wimbledon record but only averaged 6 grass slams out of 2 grass majors, and the only years she missed Australia she could win are 78 and 79, but had Evert, Goolagong and others played those she probably wins 0 or 1 of those, as she wasnt dominant yet, and was always weaker on Australian grass than Wimbledon grass. Her grass competition also sucked, even more than Graf's which also sucked.
5. Venus- close between Venus and King but went with Venus.
6. King
7. Goolagong- IMO better grass courter than Evert and she does have 1 more (6 to 5) grass major and also leads their head to head on grass 5-4, with all of Evert's wins minus 76 Wimbledon being when Evonne was past her prime. Evert has 1 more WImbledon, but Goolagong beating peak King and peak Court back to back to win 71 and peak Austin and peak Evert back to back to win 80, are more impressive than any of Evert's Wimbledon titles, and way more impressive than Evert's 74 or 81 titles where she beat nobody except a horribly playing Hana in the 81 final.
8. Evert- a quality grass courter, but never would be a dominant one in any era ever. Yes she was unlucky to have Martina, but it is a similar situation to Federer. You could say Federer wins 6 French Opens without Nadal, probably true, but there also isn't a single era you place Federer in he wins anywhere near 6 French Opens. Likewise Evert might have 6 or 7 Wimbledons without Navratilova, but there also isn't a single era you place her in she wins anywhere near 6 or 7 Wimbledons. An excellent grass courter, just not a dominant one, like she was on all other surfaces.
9. Davenport- I put her this high as she probably wins 6 or 7 Wimbledons without the Williams sisters, which is super bad luck and was in an incredibly hard grass era with not only the Williams, herself, plus Mauresmo, Sharapova, Hingis, Henin. The fact Henin who is definitely a quality grass courter, never won Wimbledon, just shows how hard that era is.
10. Mandlikova/Novotna- These two are kind of tied for 10th for me. Novotna clearly better at Wimbledon, but Hana was great at Australia on grass and other grass events.
Mens grass
1. Sampras- I know stats favor Federer but IMO Sampras is superior. I know this ranking will get a lot of complaints, I don't care, they are mine and I can do whatever the f-ck I want.
2. Federer
3. Djokovic/Borg- I have them tied. Djokovic 2 more Wimbledons, but Borg retiring super early, and had a decent shot to match Djokovic's 7 or atleast get a 6th if he continued. Borg won 5 in a row, which nobody did, not even Sampras or Federer, nor Djokovic. And Borg had way harder competition, but also played in an era with proper grass, which would be less suited to both Borg and Djokovic, but which Djokovic never had to deal with, and Borg did and still was this dominant inspite of it.
5. McEnroe
6. Edberg- I rank him over Becker since he has 1 more grass major (4 to 3) and is also 2-1 vs him at Wimbledon. Both had the benefit of a 2nd major on grass before 88.
7. Becker
8. Nadal- Ranking him this high might be controversial, but again they are my rankings so I don't care. He was inconsistent on grass but had great longevity of strong performances, and having to deal with two of the grass GOATs Djokovic and Federer, and still winning twice, being involved in two of the best finals ever in 2007 and 2008, reaching 5 finals and numerous other semis.
9. Connors- I guess on paper he should be over Nadal. It is a hard comparision, I was just more impressed with Nadal at Wimbledons 2007, 2008, and 2010 than I ever was by anything I saw from Connors personally. Their Wimbledon records are virtually identical, although Connors was more consistent.
10. Newcombe I guess, or maybe Laver who had enough strong play on grass Open Era alone to be in contention for this.
