Whats your top 10 of all time now (men)

MissileBackHand99 · Aug 17, 2024

What I love about this topic (and this thread is proof) is that this debate is endless. Everyone's gonna have a different list, different criteria, etc. With the wonky, non-linear history of tennis (different tours, different eras, amateur/pro era, etc), different equipment eras, etc ..its impossible to have an objective baseline for determining who's "the best" (and no, not "Big Titles" either, as that label itself varies wildly depending on era). An all time GREAT like Don Budge wins the first "Grand Slam", then his PRIME is interrupted by World War II. Without that, his career #'s look VERY DIFFERENT today

Unseeded Player · Aug 18, 2024

MissileBackHand99 said:
The old "stats are stats"/Numbers Never Lie argument is inherently flawed. When you factor in CONTEXT (injuries, era played, rackets/strings/balls used, etc) Numbers definitely are deceiving. Nadal has missed several halves of seasons or entire seasons due to injuries; he's had to WD in the middle of multiple Slams due to injuries. That stuff matters when judging one player's record against another

And we should assume he would win most of those? Why not assume he would made early round loss like he did several times at WB and AO?

Unseeded Player · Aug 18, 2024

MissileBackHand99 said:
What I love about this topic (and this thread is proof) is that this debate is endless. Everyone's gonna have a different list, different criteria, etc. With the wonky, non-linear history of tennis (different tours, different eras, amateur/pro era, etc), different equipment eras, etc ..its impossible to have an objective baseline for determining who's "the best" (and no, not "Big Titles" either, as that label itself varies wildly depending on era). An all time GREAT like Don Budge wins the first "Grand Slam", then his PRIME is interrupted by World War II. Without that, his career #'s look VERY DIFFERENT today

Hypothetic scenario didn't happen, why imagining it? You can not compare tennis earlier with this level today.

Hard Court · Aug 19, 2024

That is true with should bother comparing it to the level of tennis today. However, the situation today is not hopeless. Yes, a senior a senior citizen who just had knee surgery was the runner up at Wimbledon and won the Gold Medal.
True, there doesn't seem to be much variety in the game or seems to have a Plan B...
True, no one seems to be able to volley. True, most of the talented players are chokers.
Having said that, Alcarez is for real, Sinner might be, and others could emerge.

However, with all the changes in the sport, if we try, we can still compare the game of tennis from many decades ago to the game up to not that long ago. For example, we can compare players from the 1970s to the 1980s, the 1980s to the 1990s and so on.

nolefam_2024 · Aug 19, 2024

Hard Court said:
That is true with should bother comparing it to the level of tennis today. However, the situation today is not hopeless. Yes, a senior a senior citizen who just had knee surgery was the runner up at Wimbledon and won the Gold Medal.
True, there doesn't seem to be much variety in the game or seems to have a Plan B...
True, no one seems to be able to volley. True, most of the talented players are chokers.
Having said that, Alcarez is for real, Sinner might be, and others could emerge.

However, with all the changes in the sport, if we try, we can still compare the game of tennis from many decades ago to the game up to not that long ago. For example, we can compare players from the 1970s to the 1980s, the 1980s to the 1990s and so on.

Senior citizen is 60+

You have hate in your heart. Djokovic is playing better than most guys on the tour which is why he is the greatest

Just having hate in heart should be complete BAN

MissileBackHand99 · Aug 19, 2024

Unseeded Player said:
And we should assume he would win most of those? Why not assume he would made early round loss like he did several times at WB and AO?

This question is in bad faith, and that's obvious. But yes, we can assume he would win at least some of those. Nadal was in his prime when missing or WD'ing from those Slams. WB 2009, the QFs of AO 2010, 2012 USO and Olympics due to that big leg/knee injury (and later surgery), 2013 AO, 2014 USO, etc. He wins a couple of those at least if he's healthy (But I know you're gonna pretend it's lunacy to say that, esp judging by your profile picture)

We're really gonna pretend that WB (a tourney he won twice and got to the Finals 5 consecutive times he played it from '06 to '11) is some tournament he had "several early round losses" at?? 2012 and 2013 (a crazy year where a lot of top players lost early) were the only ones with "early losses" (unless you count the 15-13 fifth set loss to Mueller in 2015 in the 4th round as an early loss)

MissileBackHand99 · Aug 19, 2024

Unseeded Player said:
Hypothetic scenario didn't happen, why imagining it? You can not compare tennis earlier with this level today.

You missed my point. Budge had several years in his prime taken away by World War II, so he gets put lower on these GOAT lists because of it. I bring that up to show how this whole topic, while fun to discuss, is flawed ..because there's simply no objective way to compare the different generations of tennis players

Unseeded Player · Aug 20, 2024

MissileBackHand99 said:
This question is in bad faith, and that's obvious. But yes, we can assume he would win at least some of those. Nadal was in his prime when missing or WD'ing from those Slams. WB 2009, the QFs of AO 2010, 2012 USO and Olympics due to that big leg/knee injury (and later surgery), 2013 AO, 2014 USO, etc. He wins a couple of those at least if he's healthy (But I know you're gonna pretend it's lunacy to say that, esp judging by your profile picture)

We're really gonna pretend that WB (a tourney he won twice and got to the Finals 5 consecutive times he played it from '06 to '11) is some tournament he had "several early round losses" at?? 2012 and 2013 (a crazy year where a lot of top players lost early) were the only ones with "early losses" (unless you count the 15-13 fifth set loss to Mueller in 2015 in the 4th round as an early loss)

Why should I give him advantage against Novak at AO or against Fed at WB? Murray and Wawrinka were able to beat him on hard court, why wouldn't they be able to beat him at US?

Grass is his weakest surface. He was only able to go high in early period of the career, after that only 2 times.