Was the John Newcombe Group at the 1991 WTF the best WTF group, top to bottom, of all time?

[buscemi]

At the 1991 WTF, the John Newcombe Group consisted of Becker, Stich, Sampras, and Agassi.

Becker had won the 1991 Australian Open, lost the Wimbledon final to Stich, was a prior WTF champion, and would win WTF again the following year in 1992.

Stich had won Wimbledon in 1991 and would go on to win the Grand Slam Cup in 1992 and WTF in 1993.

Sampras had won the 1990 U.S. Open and would go on to win 1991 WTF, the first of his five WTF titles.

Agassi had won WTF the year before Sampras, in 1990, and would win Wimbledon a year later, in 1992.

In the RR stage, everyone beat Stich, and Becker, despite beating Sampras and Stich, did not make it out of the group stage based on being 4-3 in sets won vs. 5-3 for Sampras.

So, top-to-bottom, in terms of skill as indoor/fast court players, does any other WTF Group compare to this one in 1991?

 

[GuyForget]

no, this was the GOAT group of death. great thing about YEC from 90-93 was that anyone of 8 players could win it: Becker, Edberg, Samps, Agassi, Stich, Courier, Goran or Lendl, all of whom were supremely talented + epic to watch + none of them defensive/counterpunchers/grinders; none of the winners in that time span could have been predicted

 

[ChrisRF]

I agree for the names. I cannot say too much about the quality of all matches though, because I only saw some of them on Youtube (it was before my time).

And damn, how much would I have loved those 4 to play the Davis Cup final in 1995. If only Stich would have converted 1 of his 9 match points on his own serve in the decisive SF against Chesnokov we could have seen it (no matter if live or later on Youtube etc.).

 

[Thetouch]

Man to this day I have never seen even a single point of that 1991 Becker vs Stich RR match. It's like a banned piece of tennis history.

 

[Thetouch]

I agree for the names. I cannot say too much about the quality of all matches though, because I only saw some of them on Youtube (it was before my time).

And damn, how much would I have loved those 4 to play the Davis Cup final in 1995. If only Stich would have converted 1 of his 9 match points on his own serve in the decisive SF against Chesnokov we could have seen it (no matter if live or later on Youtube etc.).

I still wonder what surface the germans would have chosen to play on...

 

[Kralingen]

Agassi’s 88-92 run was so damn underrated.

 

[King_olaf_the_hairy]

Surely this quartet pales in comparison to Casper Ruud's "dødsgruppe" in 2022, where the Norwegian ATG miraculously qualified for the latter stages despite the stern opposition of three Tour Final titans: Felix Auger Aliassime, Taylor Fritz, and Rafa Nadal on a four match losing streak?

(I have it on good authority from the GPPD forum that the strength in depth is far greater today than ever before, and guys from the past just had it so much easier.)

 

[HBK4life]

Agassi’s 88-92 run was so damn underrated.

Imagine if he practiced and worked out more then? A couple of slams and those years really stick out.

 

[Kemitak]

Who was in the other group?

Edit: Lendl, Courier, Forget, Novacek, finishing in that order.

 

[The Green Mile]

Man to this day I have never seen even a single point of that 1991 Becker vs Stich RR match. It's like a banned piece of tennis history.

Just uploaded today

 

[Thetouch]

Just uploaded today

Holy crap, thanks man! Finally!

 

[tennistiger]

Man to this day I have never seen even a single point of that 1991 Becker vs Stich RR match. It's like a banned piece of tennis history.

It was on late Wednesday evening and a simply impressive service demonstration by Becker! 44 of 56 first services in and 39 of this 44 are winning points! No breakpoint for Stich the entire match! Tiebreak was 7:1. The match itself was only serve and volley point or return error. Nearly no longer rallies tho whole match. And: It seemed that 8000 from the 8500 spectators applauded for Becker! And that after the Wimbledon win for Stich!

But at first the two groups were different:
Courier, Becker, Forget, Sampras
Edberg, Stich, Lendl, Agassi
After Edberg cancelled they changed the groups because at that time there was a strict Order: 1,4,5,8 and 2,3,6,7 in the two groups.
And there was a strange order of play the first four days: First match at 17.00 local time, after that the one hour game show Glücksrad of the home broadcaster SAT1 and not before 20.00 two other matches following.
Glücksrad was so holy at that time that all the other TV program was matched around that.

 

[HBK4life]

Agassi Becker is up now.

 

[The Green Mile]

Seems the Vataros channel is reading is this thread lol, a whole bunch of uploads from this tournament. Good stuff.

 

[NedStark]

It was on late Wednesday evening and a simply impressive service demonstration by Becker! 44 of 56 first services in and 39 of this 44 are winning points! No breakpoint for Stich the entire match! Tiebreak was 7:1. The match itself was only serve and volley point or return error. Nearly no longer rallies tho whole match. And: It seemed that 8000 from the 8500 spectators applauded for Becker! And that after the Wimbledon win for Stich!

But at first the two groups were different:
Courier, Becker, Forget, Sampras
Edberg, Stich, Lendl, Agassi
After Edberg cancelled they changed the groups because at that time there was a strict Order: 1,4,5,8 and 2,3,6,7 in the two groups.
And there was a strange order of play the first four days: First match at 17.00 local time, after that the one hour game show Glücksrad of the home broadcaster SAT1 and not before 20.00 two other matches following.
Glücksrad was so holy at that time that all the other TV program was matched around that.

Damn, Sampras would have very likely been busted from Round Robin had Edberg remained. Forget really had his numbers against Pete in 1991-1992, plus Becker was still better than Pete on indoor.

In the other group, Edberg and Lendl would have prevailed (sorry Andre)

IMO, Becker or Edberg would have won had the original grouping proceeded.