Where does Medvedev rank all time on hc?

[timnz]

Players with 2+ Majors on hard courts (in no particular order):

(1) Federer; (2) Djokovic; (3) Nadal; (4) Wawrinka; (5) Safin; (6) Rafter; (7) Agassi; (8) Sampras; (9) Courier; (10) Becker; (11) Edberg; (12) Wilander; (13) Lendl; (14) McEnroe; (15) Connors.​

Then, you have players like Medvedev, who had 1 hard courts Major. Again, in no particular order:

(1) Sinner; (2) Alcaraz; (3) Thiem; (4) Cilic; (5) Murray; (6) del Potro; (7) Roddick; (8) Hewitt; (9) Johansson; (10) Kafelnikov; (11) Korda​

Then, you have great hard court players who played most/all of their careers before hard court Majors like Laver and Newcombe.

Setting aside the older guys like Laver and Newk, I'd have Medvedev behind the 15 players with 2+ hard court Majors. The question then becomes how he compares with the other players who won 1 hard court Major. He's currently ahead of Sinner and Alcaraz, but they have plenty of time to pass him. I'd also have him ahead of Thiem, Cilic, Johansson, Kafelnikov, and Korda.

That puts Medvedev in the 16-20 range, behind the 2+ Major winners and in competition with Murray, del Potro, Roddick, and Hewitt. I'd have to think about how he measures up to them.

Lendl only had 1 hard court major tournament he could compete in until he was nearly 28. 1988 was the first AO on hard court. Imagine lendls major count if the AO went to hard court in 1978 instead of 1988

 

[timnz]

Lendl only had 1 hard court major tournament he could compete in until he was nearly 28. 1988 was the first AO on hard court. Imagine lendls major count if the AO went to hard court in 1978 instead of 1988

I’d pick at least 3 more

 

[thrust]

Medvedev stopped CYGS from happening on hardcourt.
No Open Era player achieved that.

No other player had that opportunity?

 

[Pheasant]

I’d pick at least 3 more

That sounds very reasonable. The slower Rebound Ace court was right up Lendl's alley. The guy won 2 straight titles there at ages 29-30. I seriously doubt that anybody was stopping him there from 1985-87.

 

[Angrybirdstar]

So saf Borg only ever played 4 HC slams in his life and we have to compare him to guys like Med

definitely the most uncomfortable choice on my list. the tension for me is that through '77-81 for Borg, his win % jumps from his career mark in the high 70s to 87%, where he outperformed Medvedev against top opponents and against the overall field. however, he still didn't win a slam, and i don't think he showed that high a level in his runs outside of '81 pre-final. further, the comparisons don't look that favorable for Borg when you move to the next tier of Edberg, Becker, Murray, and Nadal, so it makes more sense to me to have Borg in the same tier as Medvedev

'80 > USO '19, '81 < USO '21, '78 < USO '23, '79 < AO '22, and Med has AO '21 and '24 as potential replacements

Las Vegas '79 > Cinci '19, Toronto '79 > Toronto '21, Stockholm '78 < Paris '21, Basel '80 < Paris '20, and Med has Shanghai '19 as a potential replacement

 

[BorgTheGOAT]

definitely the most uncomfortable choice on my list. the tension for me is that through '77-81 for Borg, his win % jumps from his career mark in the high 70s to 87%, where he outperformed Medvedev against top opponents and against the overall field. however, he still didn't win a slam, and i don't think he showed that high a level in his runs outside of '81 pre-final. further, the comparisons don't look that favorable for Borg when you move to the next tier of Edberg, Becker, Murray, and Nadal, so it makes more sense to me to have Borg in the same tier as Medvedev

'80 > USO '19, '81 < USO '21, '78 < USO '23, '79 < AO '22, and Med has AO '21 and '24 as potential replacements

Las Vegas '79 > Cinci '19, Toronto '79 > Toronto '21, Stockholm '78 < Paris '21, Basel '80 < Paris '20, and Med has Shanghai '19 as a potential replacement

For me 81 > 21. Straight setting Connors and giving Mac a good match for me beats what Med did. I mean look at that draw:
Gasquet - Koepfer -Andujar-Evans-van de Zandschulp (lol for a quarter)- Aliassime (lol for a semi). The only competent opponent was Djok in the final but we know about the circumstances.
Also, since Borg only ever played 4 HC slams in his life, while Med plays 2 a year there is way more to choose from. If Borg had played under the same circumstances as Med we would not even have that discussion.

 

[Indeedy71]

Djokovic was already really good before 2011 and importantly he was young unlike oldovic

People really underestimate the end-of-career motivation producing incredible results, it’s just for most normal players it’s late 20s / early 30s, big 3 built different. This is only true if you think physicality is the only thing that matters

 

[Milanez82]

For me 81 > 21. Straight setting Connors and giving Mac a good match for me beats what Med did. I mean look at that draw:
Gasquet - Koepfer -Andujar-Evans-van de Zandschulp (lol for a quarter)- Aliassime (lol for a semi). The only competent opponent was Djok in the final but we know about the circumstances.

Borg had no chance in that final while Medvedev mopped up a former 3 time champ who was looking for his 4th title and 4th slam of the year.
Borg played match better in 80 final.

 

[BorgTheGOAT]

Borg had no chance in that final while Medvedev mopped up a former 3 time champ who was looking for his 4th title and 4th slam of the year.
Borg played match better in 80 final.

That former 3 time champion was only a shadow of himself in that final as he folded to the occasion of going for history, similarly to Serena against Vinci. Straight setting home crowd favorite and USO Co-GOAT Connors impresses me way more than beating THAT version of Djokovic. If we look at the whole tournament: Borg at least beat Noah and Tanner on top yo Connors, Med's draw was a cakewalk of epic proportions up to the final.

 

[BorgTheGOAT]

further, the comparisons don't look that favorable for Borg when you move to the next tier of Edberg, Becker, Murray, and Nadal, so it makes more sense to me to have Borg in the same tier as Medvedev

You are definitely right that Borg cannot be compared to Edberg, Becker, let alone Nadal (well potentially, if he had played two HC slams a year who knows, but this is pure speculation), but why can't he be compared to Murray? Murray has to business himself being in the same tier as Becker, Edberg and especially not Nadal.

 

[Angrybirdstar]

For me 81 > 21. Straight setting Connors and giving Mac a good match for me beats what Med did. I mean look at that draw:
Gasquet - Koepfer -Andujar-Evans-van de Zandschulp (lol for a quarter)- Aliassime (lol for a semi). The only competent opponent was Djok in the final but we know about the circumstances.

That former 3 time champion was only a shadow of himself in that final as he folded to the occasion of going for history, similarly to Serena against Vinci. Straight setting home crowd favorite and USO Co-GOAT Connors impresses me way more than beating THAT version of Djokovic. If we look at the whole tournament: Borg at least beat Noah and Tanner on top yo Connors, Med's draw was a cakewalk of epic proportions up to the final.

overall my point is that this is a discussion of thin margins and subjective weightings. in the specific '81 vs '21 comparison i tend to lean towards respecting Medvedev's real accomplishment in beating a poor Djokovic (i do have to wonder how many times after his losses his fans can say "no THIS one was The Worst slam match he has ever played" and still act like they don't engage in hypotheticals and mythical peak talk just like everyone else); his serve-return and baselining level in the first set and a half; and his skills and style on hard courts; over Borg serving strongly and volleying decently to make up for his mediocre returning and passing in his loss to McEnroe; Borg's level before the final in beating Noah, Tanner, and Connors; and Borg's ability to smush non-American competition in particular on hard courts (going through his record was very funny to see all the USA tags with Ls in the results column, even besides McEnroe and Connors). in the broader comparison i tend to respect Medvedev being able to be healthy and "je ne sais quoi" enough to consistently get through to late slam rounds over Borg getting upset by someone like Tanner and being injured in the '78 final (and even '77 if we just look at the USO rather than hard court slams).

continuing in that vein...

You are definitely right that Borg cannot be compared to Edberg, Becker, let alone Nadal (well potentially, if he had played two HC slams a year who knows, but this is pure speculation), but why can't he be compared to Murray? Murray has to business himself being in the same tier as Becker, Edberg and especially not Nadal.

nobody plays great in every tournament or final or matchup, and constantly being in a position to capitalize Can be as effective as being capable of wresting away an occasional win. this viewpoint is fine for you since (iirc) you're openly offense and level-of-play biased versus defense or results, but i don't think you can universalize what amounts to a moral judgment on a stochastic problem.

it's very simple, everyone. if Medvedev is a bargain brand Murray, Murray is a bargain brand Wilander who chronically underperformed at majors and would do so in any era. nevertheless, Murray is still an ATG because of the strength of his resume in every department other than winning majors.

 

[I get cramps]

I wasn't being very serious and didn't want to spend time typing my way through his record (which I had seen). my serious take is that he belongs more in the range of the miscellaneous slam winners crowd, where he had notable wins and titles and could be said to have a threatening game when on, but that level wasn't overwhelmingly high (whether from serve, return, baselining, net play...) and he didn't sustain that level often enough.

I think there are pretty reasonable asterisks about the competition Mecir faced and the level he brought in those matches (e.g., do we really weigh a win against a poor Lendl in '87 and a disappearing Noah post-2nd set in '89 that heavily vs getting destroyed convincingly by Lendl in major finals). Btw, I think one could argue the same sort of thing for Medvedev, but he holds a noticeable edge in his sheer reliability (regardless of CIE, different weights for tournaments, more hard courts, homogenization, etc. etc.)

It's about time somebody finally came out and said this about Miloslav.

I think Ivan played relatively well against Mecir in Hamburg. He played perfectly to draw Mecir's mistakes, following the blueprint. But Lendl also hit hard during the match despite the humid weather.

Sanchez, a player who almost didn't turn pro because his federation assured him that "you won't make it" because of his minimal talent, didn't give Mecir any pace and sliced weightless balls to him. The no-talent-mug knew how to play the wizard https://www.atptour.com/en/players/atp-head-2-head/emilio-sanchez-vs-miloslav-mecir sr/s014/m052 and was a fighter; he was a "mug," but he had guts.

 

[timnz]

If Borg had played under the same circumstances as Med we would not even have that discussion.

Absolutely. Of the 4 HC Slam tournaments that Borg competed it ie US Open 78, 79, 80, 81 - he got to the final 3 times and was very close in 1980. He had beaten McEnroe at the Canadian Open on hard and had a winning H2H against McEnroe on indoor hard and carpet.

 

[dking68]

@nolefam_2024 Its quite obvious he’s going to be a 1 slam wonder. I don’t think he’ll be able to defeat Sinner or Alcaraz in a major again, especially Sinner seeing how much he’s improved. Sinner already is superior to Med on a hard court. 88% matches won in the last 52 weeks. Medvedev has yet to achieve those sort of hard court numbers and he’s 28