I believe that Bud Collins spoke highly and often of Margaret Court...am I right?
Why Is Margaret Court never mentioned as GOAT?
- Thread starter rayoflight110
- Start date
Yes. As recently as the WTA gathering of champions, Martina mentioned her and Billie Jean BOTH as two of her strong influences in her early years right in her presence. I think King still has her yearly lunch date with Court each year when she attends the Aussie to do commentary if I am not mistaken. Court is not shunned by other champions as much as some people suggest. My sense is that they are working to keep that door open, rather than slam it shut. her politics is not her career, and it should not color its perception.
7
70sHollywood
Guest
Who on here actually saw a lot of Court in action back in the 60's/70's? I've only seen the sparse footage on youtube and I get the impression this does not do her justice. I mean, I think BJK looks better based on old clips.
To be honest, unlike the mens game, womens tennis didn't seem to change all that much between the 30's and the 70's/80's.
To be honest, unlike the mens game, womens tennis didn't seem to change all that much between the 30's and the 70's/80's.
MLRoy
Hall of Fame
The youtube clip I saw of her playing Evert in the '73 French Open final doesn't do either of them justice. They both look like they're running in slow motion. If you saw them play in person, you'd understand why a lot of us roll our eyes when the shills on TV -- including Evert! -- call Williams "the greatest who ever lived or ever will live!" I don't expect you to take my word for it, but I saw her play twice in person. The top ten in her day would be cleaning up now because they knew how to volley and weren't afraid to.
Good to hear. Margaret often stated that she and Billie Jean were close friends in the early sixties....that changed a bit later.
7
70sHollywood
Guest
And with perfect timing, Court and King were presented together to the Centre Court crowd today, from the royal box.
Phoenix1983
G.O.A.T.
I think they're both extraordinary women, albeit with very different personalities and outlooks on life.
Boaty McBoatface
Rookie
Margaret still attends the majors regularly, both in Australia and overseas. Otherwise the only time she gets media attention is for her extreme religious views.
BorisRogerFan
Semi-Pro
Basically because of the pathetic women's tennis level back then. Just take a look at his match against a sexagenarian Bobby Riggs. He toyed with her.
WYK
Hall of Fame
All on homogenized surfaces, made slower, with slower balls. Basically, the tour was nearly set up for him.
There is no doubt that Margaret played a crappy match against Riggs. No one denies it, but it was just one very bizarre exhibition match. Every champion has had the odd crappy match in their career, only most of them do it, when it actually counts for something on a tour event or major. It happens. I don't even consider normal exhibitions relevant. Court's competition was not unusually weak or strong. In her early days there was Darlene Hard, Maria Bueno, Angela Mortimer, Christine Truman,and Ann Hayden Jones. A little later we add Nancy Richey, Billie Jean King, Leslie Turner, Frankie Durr, Kerry Melville, Rosie Casals, Virginia Wade. A little later we see Helga Mastoff Niessen, and Julie Heldman added. Late career she competed with Goolagong, Evert, and even a young Navratilova.
It seems like a normal mix of was- greats, greats, near- greats, and greats-to-be that we see in every career.
It seems like a normal mix of was- greats, greats, near- greats, and greats-to-be that we see in every career.
D
Deleted member 735320
Guest
When I first started following tennis in 1985, Margaret Court was spoken of as the best ever because she had won the Grand Slam in 1970 and 24 majors plus multiple major doubles and mixed doubles titles. The question was whether Martina would catch her and later Graf. I think she is ignored because of her outspoken views on homosexuality. Ironically that has nothing to do with her tennis but is skews everything. I think BJK and MN actually knowing her makes them more fair when seeing her in the grand scheme of tennis. The press otherwise is too PC and presents a world as they wish it was instead of the world that is.
MLRoy
Hall of Fame
Actually, from THAT list, she had MUCH tougher competition than Williams.
Mainad
Bionic Poster
A lot of the arguments against Court's record seem to revolve around the fact that most of her Slams were won in the amateur era (13 out of 24) but it's interesting that you don't hear that same argument used against Laver who also won most of his Slams in the amateur era (6 out of 11).
I don't think there was anything she didn't achieve in tennis in singles, doubles and mixed doubles many times over.
I don't think there was anything she didn't achieve in tennis in singles, doubles and mixed doubles many times over.
Man of steel
Hall of Fame
Based on what exactly.
Most of those names either won 2 to 3 slams except bueno, BJK, and goolagong.
Thats 3 players who won above 3 majors between the timeframe of courts first and last slam title
Serena has contended with arguably 5 to 6 players who won over 4 or more majors and who would all be easily top 20 All time
And thats not even including players like capriati or davenport who has a ridiculous amount of weeks at number 1 and number of titles as well compared to some other greats.
Just to point out how you stretched the goal post between sentence two for Court, and the rest of the paragraph discussing Williams to increase the size of the pool from which the subset is drawn . You don't have vague phrases like 'arguably... and easily top 20' for Court at all, and you add an entire standard completely inapplicable to a champion without a computer ranking system . Its a nifty way to set one narrow criteria for Court and a broader one for Williams.
I am not sure that you are actually measuring 'toughness in competition better, after self selecting this 'two or three slams standard to make Bueno, King and Goolagong irrelevant to a discussion on 'toughness in competition'. I smell bias.
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Man of steel
Hall of Fame
I'm not the one making Bueno, King and Goolagong irrelavent. But when all the players that you named were either 2 or 3 time major winners and suddenly someone uses that as the bases that they had MUCH more competition than another All time GOAT, it seems way more far-fetched to me to make that assumption. Why don't we include all of the players who have won at least 2 majors in serena's era and who she's had to play and see how that stacks up in comparison to Court.
And thats not even considering the changes that has happened in the sport since then that has increased the competitiveness of players and subsequently the sport( increase in draw sizes, no bye's in earlier rounds especially at AO in todays game compared courts era)
It is my position that we make way too much of this competitive/ non-competitive era discussion. If the top one, two or three players do a good job of strangling competition, we reward them by saying there was no competition. If they fail to, we reward them by saying they did not dominate their era. I think eras inevitably produce a byproduct that reflects the nature of competition in that era. We may not appreciate it because it differs from what we expect it should look like, or meet our modern definition by standards we apply now, and because it does not reflect what history has in store for it.
When I say I think Court's competition looks about the same as what every other champion faced, that does not means it will look the same to us because it will have the ideosyncracies of Court's generation. I think the same is true of Williams. Champions are outgrowths of the tennis environment around them, to grow taller than the rest, they will strangle the younger one with their roots if they happen to geminate too close.
When I say I think Court's competition looks about the same as what every other champion faced, that does not means it will look the same to us because it will have the ideosyncracies of Court's generation. I think the same is true of Williams. Champions are outgrowths of the tennis environment around them, to grow taller than the rest, they will strangle the younger one with their roots if they happen to geminate too close.
Limpinhitter
G.O.A.T.
I think you're a little confused about what and who the NWO is.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
Court did face a lot of tremendous players over her long career. She beat top players like Maria Bueno, Billie Jean King, Ann Haydon-Jones, Kerry Melville, Rosie Casals, Evonne Goolagong and even Chris Evert in major finals. She also had beaten a young Navratilova at Wimbledon in 1975 in the quarterfinals. Navratilova wasn't close to what she would be but she was excellent at that time.
Court was a great player who was an excellent athlete. You cannot say every player was a great athlete in tennis. Court clearly was and I believe Court, given today's equipment would do well.
Interestingly enough there is no individual stroke of Court's outside of serve and volley that stands out to me. However I'm not even sure people realize what a great first serve and excellent volley she had. With Evert you think of her backhand and groundies. With Graf it's the forehand, Henin the backhand, Serena the serve, Goolagong the backhand, King the backhand and volley. Seles it's the on the rise groundstrokes.
If you watch Court play on clay, you will see what a forcing shot her forehand was. She could really push you all over with a series of forehands on clay. With that backhand slice coming down from her 6 foot 1 inch frame, Court's backcourt game really looked a lot like Graf's, except she did not hit clean winners of the forehand but used it to push her opponent into a defensive position to get the short ball. We both know what she did with a short ball.
Tshooter
G.O.A.T.
Yes, "political correctness." More accurately described as calling people out on their racist or in her case homophobic crap.
Her personal views aside no one while #1 in the world that loses to a 55 year old man is ever going to be reasonably considered in a GOAT conversation.
Maybe the problem is the political correctness ... I hate the political corectness and the Court is logically and objectively between GOAT contenders .
With Connolly , Evert , Navratilova , Graf , Williams .
And Seles, for me.
hoodjem
G.O.A.T.
Or too extreme.
Because of its global nature and plurality, the present tennis world is more about enlightened tolerance and inclusion. It's better for marketing not to be exclusionary--more audience, more customers. More money.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
I think a 55 year old John McEnroe could beat Serena Williams. That shouldn't be held against Court.
pc1
G.O.A.T.
Of course but at the same time should that take away from Court's accomplishments as a player?
There have been many players in all sports with different opinions and may not project the image the sport wants but that shouldn't affect how they are viewed in the sport alone.
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I don't think it need be mutually exclusive to 'call out' bigotry and homophobia within our sport, and also to call all of us to remember a historic great in terms of tennis. It sounds tricky, I suppose, but I know that I personally can remember that prejudice is only one aspect of this person's character, only one trait in a mind that can be otherwise generous, giving and even brave and this is not all she is as a mother, a pastor or as a wife. If her bigoted and frankly embarrassingly dated view of sexual orientation and sin can be seen as only part of who she is today, it can be seen as even a smaller slice of her history as a person, a celebrity and as an athlete. None of this diminishes our responsibility to stand up consistently and firmly when we hear her pontificate about LGBT people and marginalize or shame them.
We cannot allow her place in our sport to give license to behavior that impacts a gay boy struggling in a tennis camp, or a 15 year girl, who wants a poster of Martina Navratilova and her spouse inside her locker. She is Margaret Court, one of our great champions, and a complex woman struggling with her valuesjust like all of us, who is also capable of doing a lot of harm with her podium. We must not forget one side of what she did, to recall the other side of what she may do.
Mostly Court makes me feel sad that she condemns who I am and who thousands of other tennis fans may be, while I still honor who she was and what she did for our sport. Her limitations need not be ours, and her condemnation of us, need not excuse us while we turn her into just a caricature of bigotry.
We cannot allow her place in our sport to give license to behavior that impacts a gay boy struggling in a tennis camp, or a 15 year girl, who wants a poster of Martina Navratilova and her spouse inside her locker. She is Margaret Court, one of our great champions, and a complex woman struggling with her valuesjust like all of us, who is also capable of doing a lot of harm with her podium. We must not forget one side of what she did, to recall the other side of what she may do.
Mostly Court makes me feel sad that she condemns who I am and who thousands of other tennis fans may be, while I still honor who she was and what she did for our sport. Her limitations need not be ours, and her condemnation of us, need not excuse us while we turn her into just a caricature of bigotry.
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There is normally enough data to contend with, when examining a career for GOAT. Why on earth would I consider exhibition events? I pay no heed to them at all. Its pretty common for final scores in final sets to be determined more by unspoken or spoken agreements than tennis shots; there is no sanction if they are not. Matter of fact, many claimed that Riggs threw the King match. They are primarily designed as entertainment not competition. They are not included in any professional histories. Anyone calculate or measure the career of Connors or Borg using exhibition matches? How about Evert or Navratilova with all their 'matches' for charity? These male/ female exhibitions are more circus than the rest of them.
Now I don't believe or maintain that the final score in the Mother's Day Masacre was preordained at all, but to think it should reflect at all on the tennis career of either of them is peculiar, and that it should dominate this discussion is just silly.
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Can a criminal ( as Bob Hewitt ) be a GOAT contender ?
Can a criminal be the GOAT ?
Can a player who says the public opinion of nonsense or atrocities against a group of persons being a GOAT contender ?
Or the GOAT ?
If Laver had been a serial killer or a drug dealer would be considered the same GOAT ?
If Bill Tilden was a pedophile would be considered the same GOAT ?
I suspect you are mixing up two very different ideas when you connected this post with a discussion on the Riggs/Court match. No one is suggesting playing exhibitions is a character flaw or that it disqualifies someone who plays in them from consideration, just that the results are rarely included as professional standard statistics. I will answer the abov in terms of homophobia allegations,
Its going to depend on whether you are defining personal character as part of what you are measuring. that is a personal call, just as other in intangibles off the court activity is, or how much weight you give doubles. If we are deciding that off the court behavior is part of what we are measuring, than philanthropic giving is going in the 'plus' column. Attributes like sportsmanship are also on the table, and we are now giving extra credit points to players who promote civil rights or other social change we laud while winning tournaments, like Arthur Ashe or Billie Jean King.
We also have to ask what to do with behavior that happens after the tennis playing career ends. Do they get points for becoming a nun and working with the poor like andrea jeager, and demerits for becoming a pastor and calling gay people sinners?
Personally, I prefer to leave the off-the court stuff off the court when measuring the play, and including it when measuring a total impact on the sport. When I am talking about GOAT player, I mean play, rather than the person. So yes bad people who's character while playing the sport would disqualify them from being in the Hall of Fame, could be GOAT from my normal point of reference. its already complicated enough to determine if Graf is GOAT over Williams or Lenglen or Court on that basis, without trying to include who was nicer, and more moral and who was nasty and selfish and refused to take in stray cats while training for Wimbledon.
That is certainly true if the conduct was in an 'afterlife' rather than during the time frame we are normally judging, namely from their first tournament on the main tour, to the last rather than from their first breath to their last.
Mostly this is all about being very specific in our definition of what is included or not before we start arguing. If you are going to include matters of character, and matters outside the time frame of play as a matter of principal, then I would not call Court a GOAT tennis candidate when discussing the topic with you. I will also not call Evert a GOAT candidate if you want to give doubles and mixed doubles equal weight. Evert then barely makes the top twenty list!
I'll adapt to your definition so that the conversation has meaning or I won't talk about it with you. I don't mind playing football on your field with your goalposts as long as I know the distance between them.
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I think I understand your thought , thank you.
I not only understood the thought .. of Evert out of 20 !!! ... but I was more interested in the rest of the post .
Tshooter
G.O.A.T.
You don't have to struggle to "contend with" all the data nor stuff it into fruit analogies because the loss to Riggs ends the inquiry. Easy peasy.
Riggs was just one rather high profile exhibition. For me to entertain it over actual tournaments, I have to struggle with all that exhibition stuff for all these contenders, when I have never even looked at it.
I would be looking at a world where Shriver has almost as many majors as Evert.
Tshooter
G.O.A.T.
I never even saw Court play. Exos are meaningless, I agree. But I make an exception for the two against Riggs because they were unlike any others. I think the one with BJK is still the biggest audience for a tennis match ever ?
They had a nice exhibit on that Exo at USO a few years back, I think sponsored by the HOF. I remember pitching a Serena/JMac exo...
hoodjem
G.O.A.T.
This problem is a version of what I call the Wagner Syndrome.
Can one listen to and enjoy Wagner's music, without being affected by his anti-semitism and pro-Germanic xenophobia?
Sometimes it is difficult to separate the person's behavior or ideas from the accomplishments.
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pc1
G.O.A.T.
No doubt about that. It's a pity people can't just focus on what she did as a player but understandable.
I have to disagree. The woman won money and fortune from our sport. She got a larger megaphone because of her fame in our sport. We cannot ignore what she says with it, when she exploits her fame to showcase stereotypes of gays and lesbians, or when she marginalize and isolates them. But we have to keep it in perspective. She is not just a box full of her worst moments and most bigoted utterances towards gays. And none of that minimizes her valuable contributions to our sport.
RenaRafa
New User
I am surprised almost nobody has pointed out the real reason. The Australian Open situation back then. She won a whopping 11 of her 24 slams there. Back then it wasnt even regarded a full slam, with often only 2 or 3 of the top 15 even playing. Just look at the seeds in some of her winning years, and Jan Lehane was her finals opponent 4 times which says it all. That would probably the equivalent of Graf playing Barbara Paulus or Serena playing Anna Smashanova or Tatiana Panova in 4 slam finals at a venue they won 11 slams at (which would obviously only occur if it was a true non slam with most people skipping every year). It isnt even about weak competition, the competition wasnt even there, weak competition is subjective to a degree, but an competition is better than the competition not even showing up.
Outside of the Australian Open these are the slam totals:
Wills Moody- 19
Graf- 18
Serena- 16
Evert- 16
Navratilova- 15
Court- 13
Lenglen- 12 (with only playing US Open once)
Little wonder few see her as GOAT.
Outside of the Australian Open these are the slam totals:
Wills Moody- 19
Graf- 18
Serena- 16
Evert- 16
Navratilova- 15
Court- 13
Lenglen- 12 (with only playing US Open once)
Little wonder few see her as GOAT.
This list is too simplistic. beginning in the 1980's the Aussie drew more and more of the top seeds. Comparing the draws of Courts first Aussie win, with Graf's in 1988 is no comparison at all. By any definition Graf was in a major, every time she won an Aussie.
Tshhooter, The political correctness was not only invented to stop racism or homophobia; meanwhile it means great danger for free speech, at least in the European version. If you say in Austria you are against abortion, you immediately are called a Fascist...
RenaRafa
New User
I was not making the list to reflect absolute value between everyone though. I was doing it just to put Court's slams and only her slams and how they are viewed vs other GOATs in proper perspective.
Tshooter
G.O.A.T.
One h.
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