Who are your favorite 5 players (both tours if you wish) all-time?

RaulRamirez

RaulRamirez

Legend
Nothing too deep here.
With Rafa's retirement, perhaps, your mind was/is flooded with memories of other favorite players.
Let's have a judgment-free zone here, and whether in order or not, who are your 5 favorite players (for whatever reasons...and not the 5 best in your eyes) of both tours. No debates, just names and whatever reasons and memories you wish to share.

For what it's worth, for me, as I think of it:

MEN - roughly chronologically

Arthur Ashe - as much for the great human being he was, but he was a great player, too.
Roger
Rafa
Novak
(yes, it's boring to have each of the Big 3, but there it is)
The 5th spot can be shared by so many -- here are a few disparate names (Laver, Nastase (when I first started following -- pure excitement and unpredictability), Yannick Noah, Patrick Rafter, perhaps, the real Raul Ramirez...)

WOMEN - I need to think about it some more, and welcome your choices.
 
No further ranking, just in chronological order when they became important:

Boris Becker
Pete Sampras
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal
Novak Djokovic

Steffi Graf
Martina Hingis
Justine Henin
Iga Swiatek
Coco Gauff
 
JMR said:
In order of their appearance on the scene, with primi inter pares bolded:

Borg
Vitas
Mecir
Agassi
Federer

Goolagong
Mandlikova
Sabatini
Pierce
Rybakina
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If I may, I'd like to add a few Honorable Mentions. I'll place them in this separate post to avoid confusion.

Ramirez, Wawrinka, Clijsters, Sharapova
 
JMR said:
If I may, I'd like to add a few Honorable Mentions. I'll place them in this separate post to avoid confusion.

Ramirez, Wawrinka, Clijsters, Sharapova
Click to expand...
Another Raul fan -- cool. (When starting to follow tennis...and they showed muchmore doubles then...I loved the Gottfried-Ramirez doubles team -- still my favorite tandem. Both were good at singles, too; I preferred RR.
 
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RaulRamirez said:
Another Raul fan -- cool. (When starting to follow tennis...and they showed muchmore doubles then...I loved the Gottfried-Ramirez doubles team -- still my favorite tandem. Both were good at singles, too; I preferred RR.
Click to expand...
Today, players at the singles level of Ramirez and Gottfried (not slam winners, but both top 5 at their peak, with many singles titles won) would not even think about playing doubles regularly. It wouldn't even be on the table for consideration. But I'm sure R&G are very glad they did, for all the extra glory and the slam titles, not to mention the additional income at the time. :)
 
JMR said:
Today, players at the singles level of Ramirez and Gottfried (not slam winners, but both top 5 at their peak, with many singles titles won) would not even think about playing doubles regularly. It wouldn't even be on the table for consideration. But I'm sure R&G are very glad they did, for all the extra glory and the slam titles, not to mention the additional income at the time. :)
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Totally agree.
 
Still trying to do justice to my 5 favorite female players. A lot of good choices, but possibly -- roughly chronologically:

Goolagong
Evert
Hingis/Henin (both were undersized tennis geniuses -- even if kind of unlikable in some aspects, they'll share a spot)
Radwanska
Emma R...

Others: Ivanovic; Sabatini; Iga...
 
JMR said:
You have two pairs of regular, intense rivals in your top 5. Must have been hard to watch!
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I always liked both Sampras and Agassi equally. Those were the easiest of times. It was Mac that really got me into tennis; especially when he scored those epic wins over Borg. Connors did tick me off a bit when he beat Mac in the 1982 Wimbledon final. Who in the hell did Connors think he was, anyway? But Jimbo grew on me later on when Mac was washed up. And of course, he had our entire country's attention during his run to the semis at the 1991 USO. The worst of times were when Lendl was starting to get the better of Mac in their HTH. Those were terrible times.
 
In terms of support, obviously Sinner.
On a mythological level, Federer.
In terms of admiration Djokovic.
On a historical level Lendl.
At the level of the first tennis crush Gianluigi Quinzi.
 
Among players I followed closely:


Federer
Djokovic
Haas
Goffin
Brown

(Agassi was up there, but I soured on him a little.)

HM’s: Tsonga, Ljubicic, Youzhny, Blake, Coria, Phau

Ivanovic
Clijsters
Davenport
Voegele
Dokic

HM’s: Kvitova, Venus, Kirilenko


Historically I’d add many more, but I’ll leave it at players whose careers I followed in real time!
 
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Men
Federer ( Absolute favorite)
Nadal ( he was not favorite till 2019, now yes)
Zverev
Alcaraz
Sinner

Note: Appreciate djokovic a lot but not favorite player. Hes the goliath to me

Women
Graf
Seles
Henin
Halep
Muchova
 
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