Guess I’ll jump in. Here’s my top 10:
1) Borg
2) Nadal
3) Lendl
4) Wilander
5) Kuerten
6) Muster
7) Courier
8) Vilas
9) Bruguera/Federer (tie)
A few points:
1) I place Vilas rather low mainly on one basis: Most of his clay titles came at the expense of 2nd-tier players. In fact he never was able to trouble a prime Borg except in that sole win at the '80 Nations Cup. A pre-prime Lendl, on the other hand, was able to push Borg to 5 sets in the '81 FO final. (And yes, I do know Vilas beat Lendl twice in ‘82, but Ivan got the last laugh with a superior 7-5 H2H on clay, the other three losses incurred in ’80.) Doubt Vilas' peak > Muster’s or Courier’s—or Fed's, for that matter. This is also why I don’t think Nastase and Panatta are up there. Peter Bodo actually once said that the supposedly great clay-courters of the ‘70s (save Panatta, who constantly sought to attack even on clay), had nothing that could hurt Borg, whereas now there are many players who do have the weapons to hurt Nadal but he’s simply much better. Something to think about before we rate Borg’s competition. Anyway Vilas’ prolific clay resume can’t be denied, so I put him a notch above Bruguera and Federer.
2) Connors deserves an honorary mention for making 4 FO SFs and QFs. He might have snatched a trophy from Borg (most likely in ’74—don’t see him winning after that) had he been allowed to compete at RG from ’74-‘78.
3) I agree with those who argued that Fed should be placed higher than Ferrero. One thing that struck me about this issue, though, is that some of you were comparing Fed and Ferrero in their respective primes. Actually, I’m not so sure we ever got to see Ferrero in his prime, just as I’m not sure we got to see Kuerten in his prime on HCs and grass. Both players’ careers were cut short by injuries, and who knows how much more they would’ve achieved not just on clay but on other surfaces, too. But we have to assess what did happen, and I might put Ferrero above Fed if JCF’s peak level was clearly superior, but I don’t see such a big gap. So Fed above JCF.
As for Guga, I do feel his peak could be above Lendl’s and Wilander’s, but the clay resume of either of the two ‘80s titans is richer by at least half a dozen titles. Besides they had each other as rivals, whereas Guga didn’t have such a formidable rival on his runs to the finish lines. I guess some could say Guga had to face a greater # of very good and great clay-courters, but a closer look reveals it’s not as clear-cut as that. By ’97 Bruguera was slightly past his prime, and Muster had revamped his game with flatter strokes to focus on HCs, which did pay off but not on clay. (BTW I think it was the ’97 FO, not ’96, that was Sampras’ best chance at his career Grand Slam, but I digress.) Guga also had to defeat Kafelnikov and Ferrero in the ’00 and ’01 QFs and SFs (yes, he did face the same two players in the same rounds two straight years), and Norman and Corretja in the ’00 and ’01 finals respectively, but none of them are all-time clay greats, at least not in the top 10. And though Guga did lose to Medvedev having the best 13 days of his life in ’99 (the frustratingly talented but underachieving Muscovite should’ve won the whole thing that year, but choked in the last 3 sets of the final against Agassi), the same can be said of Noah in ’83. So it’s actually a close call, and one can argue for Kuerten on the basis of tougher overall competition, higher peak level and the fact that Lendl and Wilander met in only 2 FO finals. Think I’ll stick with my current ranking unless someone shows me I missed something important.
4) Speaking of peak level, I can’t help but chuckle when I see some breathtakingly erudite experts place Muster below Courier, Bruguera and even Federer just ‘cause he won only 1 FO, his 40 clay titles be damned. Tell you what: There’s only one clay-courter since the ‘90s on whom I’d bet to take down Muster at his peak, and his name is Raphael Nadal. Even Guga would have to be at his flamboyant best to break down the wall that was Muster’s defense, as he wouldn’t be able to exploit his BH which was one of the very few 1HBHs that could handle high topspin balls with utter ease and then some. (The same, of course, can’t be said of Federer’s own 1HBH.)
And what makes this revisionism even more amazing is the trope that Muster underachieved at RG. No, Muster did not “underachieve” at RG, if you’re referring to his 4th-round exit from the ’96 FO. What he did do was to run into Stich who could blow anyone off the court on any surface on his best days, and that he exactly did to Muster, from the baseline. Stich wasn’t the player Sampras feared most for nothing. But let’s just go by the # of Slam trophies. Seems to be the genius logic around here.
5) I place Courier above Bruguera largely because the former’s best beats the latter’s. Sergi was a very, very talented player, but I felt he just never lived up to his potential. He had actually very good hands at the net and could smack FH winners if he wanted, but he simply chose to retrieve like a Spaniel. Too bad. And that’s why I place him alongside Federer.
BTW some of you seem to have this notion that Courier was a non-factor after ’93. Eh, not quite. What happened was that there was this man named Pete Sampras who not only happened to be the best player of his generation, but also the first player who, according to Jim’s former coach Jose Higueras, figured out how to exploit Courier’s huge FH by precisely serving out wide to his FH side. And even so Jim didn’t go down with a whimper. Their ’95 AO QF 5-setter was a classic, not just for that famous weeping incident, and of course there’s that another 5-setter in the ’96 FO QF. Now I know some, apparently having a photographic memory of the match, point to Courier’s poor showings in clay events right before that year’s FO as the evidence that he was way past his prime. Actually, Jim usually didn’t fare so well before the FO, even in the years he won the title. If you can, watch the match again and you’ll see that given his level of play in the QF he had a very good chance at his 3rd FO title without Sampras stopping him again (unless Stich kept up his form from early rounds). It’s pretty impressive that Pete came back from 2 sets down (again), ‘cause he wasn’t moving all that well in the 1st 2 sets compared to how he moved just the previous round. Probably his best win on clay, apart from the ’95 DC finals.
