Vincent-C
Legend
Pretty much this, AFAICS.
Why Sampras considered to be better than Borg
- Thread starter Phenomenal
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Vincent-C
Legend
Any thoughts on what happens when *two* great players meet?Data for everything exists but we dont have access to it. Lot of data analytics companies share with ATP, these are not shared with public. Plus Data is also relative to an era, if you compare across eras then data is never enough to compare, athletes born 10-16 years later always have an advantage over their predecessors when games are evolving, so you should not always do data comparison across eras, the feel is important.
Data for Serve is available, when old Sampras played young federer then young Federer could still not keep up with Sampras in terms of pace.... now if you extrapolate this with current strings nd rcquets then Sampras would be even faster nd harder on his serve, with better control over shots too.
Sameway there maybe more stats on Breakpoints saved with aces which Sampras would be leading, that kind of stats you wont find on UTS, we should not be searching for stats to compare players across eras. Watching the game, feel is also important you know, if you watch Sampras's matches then you would see how ferocious he was on the run, his athleticism was highest in that era. Sampras was a beast on courts where his Serve is a weapon just like Djokovic and Nadal are beasts on courts where their returns and endurance are weapons. Great players find ways to impose themselves on others.
Razer
G.O.A.T.
When 2 great players meet and they are of the same age then the better player 8-9 out of 10 times wins. Federer was lucky that Sampras was a full 10 years older to him, not the other way around.
Vincent-C
Legend
You seem relatively uninformed in this case. Sampy was all of twenty-nine when The Great Man defeated him on Centre Court Wimbledon- hardly "old". He was also- if you ever bother to watch the match, at some point- serving around twenty mph harder than The Great Man, who nonetheless bested
him in serving stats, via precision rather than pace (and, not coincidentally, won the match). Fred was *nails* that day. Kudos to the unequalled eight-time Wimbledon Champion.
Vincent-C
Legend
You should watch that match sometime.
Razer
G.O.A.T.
Sampras was a month away from 30 and in those days 30 was very very old in Tennis or athletics or swimming type sports. You cannot call Usain Bolt in 2016 a young sprinter, he is old at 30 for a sprinter, sameway Sampras at almost 30 was old and way past his prime. Had it been prime Sampras then the result would be 1 sided.
Holmes
Hall of Fame
Does it need to be?
Holmes
Hall of Fame
It is one of my favorites. One of the most important, "passing of the torch" moments in the game, and surprisingly extremely high quality from the start to the end. Pete missed a lot of shots he shouldn't have, but his quality on second serve and big points (except for ironically the biggest one) shone through. Roger's touch, volleys, returns, and shotmaking were outstanding that day. The fact that Pete's serving was able to keep him in the match, since it was virtually all he did extremely well, says a lot about the quality of that shot.
Neptune
Hall of Fame
He claimed Pete would dominate Fed if they were the same age. I asked him to present a case to support his claim, but he failed to do so and became upset. You can review the exchange yourself to see that my main focus was on challenging his logic and argument.
Razer
G.O.A.T.
It is pointless to convince you of anything if someone has to spell it out loud that Pete has a much better serve than Federer, you even denied that. Apart from a harder and unreturnable serve which is more clutch at hitting aces to bail out of BPs, his BP saved and BP faced rate in slams are both better than Federer despite Federer using better racquets that aide these stats, do you think I will spoonfeed you? Go and open UTS and sing songs of Nole praise all day, thats all that you are capable of, pointless to discuss pre 2011 tennis with you.
Neptune
Hall of Fame
I refuted your laughable logic and argument, and you can be as angry as you like.
Holmes
Hall of Fame
It seemed you not only doubted the structure of his argument, but its conclusions, which I find alarming in the case of the challenge to the claim that Pete's serve is superior to Roger's. I say this as a Fedfan.
Neptune
Hall of Fame
Perhaps I didn't articulate it clearly: with his laughable logic and argument, it's quite a challenge for him to substantiate any claim, whether it's about 'serving,' 'Wimbledon and the US Open,' or the 'dominance' of Pete over Fed if they were the same age.
30 was considered old....up to that point, only Connors had played well into his 30s, with Andre soon to follow
Enceladus
Legend
This isn't fair to Borg. I have already stated here that it was Chatrier, then head of the ITF, who largely provoked Borg into leaving professional tennis, as he threatened Borg with having to play Grand Slam qualifiers if he didn't play enough tournaments.
Razer
G.O.A.T.
Aww, My teacher asked me to do more homework, so I quit schooll, I am not coward, I am just a genius dropout ? ... LOL .... Is that the logic you are giving?
Who the hell was Borg to ask for special treatment from the head of ITF ? If 4 years older Connors could play all the tournaments then why should Borg ask for special treatment ?
He was too full of himself to think of himself bigger than the game and he ran away, that is how it will be seen !
Enceladus
Legend
Tennis is not a school and the head of the ITF is not a teacher. It was very insensitive of Chatrier to ask the biggest star of tennis at the time to play qualifiers at Grand Slams. Nowadays, Borg would get a bunch of wild cards, much like Venus or Murray.
Razer
G.O.A.T.
Venus and Murray are very old for their tennis age, they are just being offered wild cards because they bring audience to the stadium. See nobody is giving Murray wild cards out of the goodwill of their heart, it is business, if they are given then it means they have commercial value. If Borg was not given wild cards or some lateral entry or whatever then that was the decision of the ITF and if other players can adhere to it then so should he. Moreover these wild cards and such things come much later in your career after you are done nd dusted levelwise, however Borg was like 25-26 at that time when he demanded a light schedule, such demands were not met, and so he left, that is his way of chickening out. If he wanted to take a break then he should have taken a break from tennis and returns after an year and started off the hard way nd made his way back to the top, why didn;t he do that ? Didn't Agassi do that in 1998 ? a big break and then return to the top in 1999 ? No excuse man, Borg cannot be defended.
Neptune
Hall of Fame
Some legends were elevated by power, while some were oppressed. Perhaps such a simple thing is difficult to comprehend or cope.
hoodjem
G.O.A.T.
True.
Emmo himself was not aware of his own total, and thus in effect considered it "largely meaningless."
Enceladus
Legend
No, you're out. You defend the stubborn attitude of the head of the ITF at the time, which even most of Borg's leading opponents didn't agree with at the time. I understand Borg that he did not want to accept the humiliating condition of playing the RG/Wimbledon qualification, even though he was the 5th player in the world at the time. That would **** off any tennis star, including the Big 3.
To make Borg play Quallies would have been ludicrous. The ITF took an overly rigid stance. Today we have protected rankings and such. Perhaps he should have just taken a 6 month break. But it became a real p#ssing match which ultimately hurt the game.
Mustard
Bionic Poster
False history. Borg retired from official matches in January 1983, when McEnroe held none of the majors, WCT Finals or YEC Masters. In fact, at that point, McEnroe had been getting badly defeated by Lendl, as Lendl from 1981 to January 1983 beat McEnroe 7 times in a row in official competitions, with Lendl winning 19 out of 20 sets against McEnroe across those 7 matches played against each other in that timeframe.
Connors made a famous quote to Lendl at the time "I won't run away from you like McEnroe does".
McEnroe at that time struggled to deal with Lendl's powerful groundstrokes, while Connors seemed to thrive on Lendl's game. It took Don Budge to pull McEnroe aside and tell him to aggressively attack the net against Lendl on a consistent basis, and then McEnroe started turning things around against Lendl in the 1983-1985 period. McEnroe getting a graphite racquet to replace his wooden racquet also helped.
The fact is, people who say "Borg ran away from McEnroe" seem to forget that once Borg was arguing with the tennis authorities and sat out nearly all official matches in 1982, McEnroe had huge problems with Lendl, while Connors won Wimbledon and the US Open in 1982. A lot of it is probably down to the dodgy world rankings of the time that absurdly have McEnroe as number 1 for 1982, when he clearly wasn't in reality. Connors won the two biggest events in 1982 (i.e. Wimbledon and the US Open, and won 7 tournaments that year), while Lendl dominated that year outside the majors (winning 15 tournaments that year, which included winning the Masters and WCT Finals, both of which were much bigger than the Australian Open that year). McEnroe won 5 tournaments in 1982, the biggest being Philadelphia, Tokyo Indoor and Wembley.
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All true. Lendl was clobbering Mac at that point. It took a change in tactics to start to turn that around...rushing Lendl, keeping the ball up the middle on the approach. Shocking difference. Connors game was more suited to Lendl's power, no question. How Mac stayed #1 in 1982 for so long was simply beyond me, given what Connors and Lendl accomplished. Made no sense. Connors did get to #1 after the USO I believe (so says Wiki) and got the Player of the Year award.
I think Mcenroe finished 1982 number 1 on the ATP computer. He did win a bunch of tournaments later in the year. Maybe 4, but I think he'd only won 1 before that. Anyway, that puzzled me how he finished 1st. Maybe if he'd won a slew of tournaments. Somehow I think Connors was quite content to win the big 2 and let Mcenroe have the number 1 ranking.
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Yes, but I don't pay them much attention until 1985 really, when Lendl beat McEnroe at the US Open.
Vincent-C
Legend
Thanks.
Cani blame Borg cause his rivals where older,,, haha
theagassiman
Rookie
True, I think it's also very dependent on the indivdual player. Sampras did seem like a really, really old 30 year old. He seemed to age ten years trying to go for that 6 consecutive year end world no 1 record, and he lost half of his hair. Even when he won Wimbledon in 2000, he looked like he was relying too much on his serve. I wonder what a match between a burnt-out 2001 Sampras vs 2021 Federer with his crock knee would look like...
AgassiSuperSlam11
Hall of Fame
This is a rehash discussion which I also participated in. Perhaps the search forum function can pull some results. I haven't read the entire thread, but sure people discussed Davis Cup and also how many people have a positive h2h on each player with 3 or more wins.
Racquet_smash
Professional
Bumping this thread.
To me Borg was definitely better as he was the best player in the world on every surface.
To me Borg was definitely better as he was the best player in the world on every surface.
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Borg won the Masters twice, and won the WCT Finals, and won 22 titles overall on carpet. There weren't that many hardcourt tournaments, I think he won 5 of them, including beating Connors in Las Vegas and beating McEnroe at the first Canadian Open on hardcourt in Montreal. Borg famously never won the US Open, on grass, clay or hardcourt, despite being runner-up 4 times (3 of those on hardcourt).
Borg had a few calendar years clearly more dominant than Sampras' ever did.
Racquet_smash
Professional
Borg was easily the best carpet player in a very stacked carpet field.
Definitely not the best player on hard courts. That would be:
1974: Connors
1975: Connors
1976: Connors
1977: Connors
1978: Connors
1979: McEnroe
1980: McEnroe
1981: McEnroe
Racquet_smash
Professional
Fair enough as far as hard courts go, Borg never really reached his top level there as he did elsewhere. He was still a top tier hard courter either way and he was as much of a beast on slower and faster surfaces unlike Sampras who definitely does not crack the top 50 on clay.
nolefam_2024
Bionic Poster
mental midget
Hall of Fame
Served harder, AND had a banner % day, above his usual stats. i am a 'pete believer,' think he's probably top 3 overall athlete/shotmaker we've seen...but fed's skillset is definitely suited to get the edge on him, matchup favors the maestro imo.
Pheasant
Legend
I give Borg the slight edge over Sampras. He was far more dominant. Also, 14 > 11 slams is rather meaningless when you consider that Borg didn’t play the AO. Had he played it, he probably bags 3-4 of those to equal or pass Sampras’ slam count by the age of 25. But that’s a big if. I will toss that out for now.
Borg had 4 consecutive 70-win, .900 seasons. That is pure dominance. He won 3 slam titles without dropping a set. What’s ridiculous is that he did that on 2 of the most polar opposite surfaces. He had 3 consecutive Channel Slams. He had 14 Masters titles (equivalent to) by the end of his age-25 season. This cat had a great career for somebody that played his last slam at age 35; let alone at 25.
Sampras has the slight edge in career achievements. But IMHO, Borg’s superior peak is what moves him ahead of Sampras by a paper-thin margin.
Borg had 4 consecutive 70-win, .900 seasons. That is pure dominance. He won 3 slam titles without dropping a set. What’s ridiculous is that he did that on 2 of the most polar opposite surfaces. He had 3 consecutive Channel Slams. He had 14 Masters titles (equivalent to) by the end of his age-25 season. This cat had a great career for somebody that played his last slam at age 35; let alone at 25.
Sampras has the slight edge in career achievements. But IMHO, Borg’s superior peak is what moves him ahead of Sampras by a paper-thin margin.
nolefam_2024
Bionic Poster
Everyone had better numbers until 1990 when the tour started getting formalized.
Sampras was 20 years old in 1990. And he played much higher number of top 5 and top 10 players.
It's super hard for me to choose...I might switch my vote on any given day...by surface, Pete better on hard, Borg better indoors/carpet, Borg supreme on clay. Grass? Maybe a toss up. Borg retiring early always makes this conversation tricky. I've never been a huge Sampras fan, I like to root for underdogs, but his game was immense when he was "on". But if you look at a common window...accomplishments through age 25 (when Borg essentially quit), I lean torwards him over Sampras.
Hard Court
Rookie
As has been mentioned, Sampras won more Grand Slams which is the first thing people look at but there are other things. Borg actually won more tournaments and had a much higher winning percentage. Hard to compare stats of players from different eras, especially since tennis is always making changes (mostly for the sake of change).
I give the edge to Borg. I'm sure that anyone who grew up watching Sampras are going to go with him; it's human nature. People who came after Sampras assume it's one of the "Big 3" and don't even consider those before their time. Anyway, both are among 10 guys whom you could legitimately argue for being the best of all time.
I give the edge to Borg. I'm sure that anyone who grew up watching Sampras are going to go with him; it's human nature. People who came after Sampras assume it's one of the "Big 3" and don't even consider those before their time. Anyway, both are among 10 guys whom you could legitimately argue for being the best of all time.
pierceforehands
Rookie
The argument for Pete would be that he probably is better than Borg on every surface but clay, although carpet/indoors would be a real debate as well. Obviously Sampras comes out ahead on both grass and any sort of hard court. However I think this would be an unfair way to look at it. Another way would be their respective best surface going downwards vs each other. Borg on clay is probably equal or better than Sampras on grass. Borg isn't the clay GOAT anymore, but neither is Sampras the grass GOAT, which of course is now Federer. Borg on grass is almost certainly better than Sampras on any other surface. Sampras never had the level of dominance on fast hard courts or carpet/indoor that Borg had on grass. And Borg on any surface is far superior to Sampras on clay.
The other argument for Pete would be more slams, but of course a lot of that is the Australian Open being a virtual non slam then. It is still up in the air if Australia was a real slam back then (meaning everyone playing, not just Borg himself alone playing while everyone else still wasn't) if Borg is ahead, behind, or tied in slam titles at 14. I don't think with everyone playing Borg is likely as dominant there as either the French or Wimbledon, but he would have a good chance to still win atleast the 3 titles to be tied with Sampras's 14. I would add I don't give Borg any consideration for his shortened career as that was completely his own choice. If we aren't giving people consideration for things like being stabbed (Seles), having a crippling career ending accident (Connolly), having a debilitating virus that affects the final 70% of your career while also having your own younger sister you are sworn to protect as the GOAT (Venus), or career ending injuries that basically end your career 18 or 19 (Austin) you certainly don't get it for burn out, drug/addiction issues and bad business dealings, that end your career per your own choice at 26.
All in all I personally still have Borg ahead. More dominant at his peak by far. Sampras never had a 3 slam year, even playing all 4 slams every year in his prime. Borg also never had a 3 slam year but that was entirely the Australian Open situation I mentiond. His 78, 79, 80 were all probably better and more dominant years than Sampras's best one, which is probably 1994. More versatile in that he totally dominated the polar opposites of clay and grass, while also being dominant on carpet, while Sampras was dominant on some various surfaces, but all of the faster variety- grass, carpet/indoors, and faster hard courts, but not slower hard courts as his record in Australia and other slow-medium hard court events indicate. Just a more impressive career overall for m.
I guess I forgot the other edge for Samrpas would be time at #1 where he has a huge lead, but the ranking system in the 70s was bogus. Borg really was the true #1 a lot more than indicated. It would still be below Samrpas's total in both weeks and years, but by less of a margin than it is currently.
The other argument for Pete would be more slams, but of course a lot of that is the Australian Open being a virtual non slam then. It is still up in the air if Australia was a real slam back then (meaning everyone playing, not just Borg himself alone playing while everyone else still wasn't) if Borg is ahead, behind, or tied in slam titles at 14. I don't think with everyone playing Borg is likely as dominant there as either the French or Wimbledon, but he would have a good chance to still win atleast the 3 titles to be tied with Sampras's 14. I would add I don't give Borg any consideration for his shortened career as that was completely his own choice. If we aren't giving people consideration for things like being stabbed (Seles), having a crippling career ending accident (Connolly), having a debilitating virus that affects the final 70% of your career while also having your own younger sister you are sworn to protect as the GOAT (Venus), or career ending injuries that basically end your career 18 or 19 (Austin) you certainly don't get it for burn out, drug/addiction issues and bad business dealings, that end your career per your own choice at 26.
All in all I personally still have Borg ahead. More dominant at his peak by far. Sampras never had a 3 slam year, even playing all 4 slams every year in his prime. Borg also never had a 3 slam year but that was entirely the Australian Open situation I mentiond. His 78, 79, 80 were all probably better and more dominant years than Sampras's best one, which is probably 1994. More versatile in that he totally dominated the polar opposites of clay and grass, while also being dominant on carpet, while Sampras was dominant on some various surfaces, but all of the faster variety- grass, carpet/indoors, and faster hard courts, but not slower hard courts as his record in Australia and other slow-medium hard court events indicate. Just a more impressive career overall for m.
I guess I forgot the other edge for Samrpas would be time at #1 where he has a huge lead, but the ranking system in the 70s was bogus. Borg really was the true #1 a lot more than indicated. It would still be below Samrpas's total in both weeks and years, but by less of a margin than it is currently.
NAS
Hall of Fame
Oh people are doing hypothetical lol, as much I respect Borg but he never won single Us open but suddenly he was going to clean all AO.
This single reason alone put Sampras> Borg.
And there is yec, Sampras has 7 yec over Borg 3 .
I will repeat again that if we are playing hypothetical then think of Sampras, Sampras changed all his game plan according to fast surface and grass and this even hindered his growth as a junior ( because of his style change from 2 bh to 1 bh)
Now he started playing and suddenly surface was changed from grass to Slow medium HC and Sampras still managed to win 2 on medium pace HC.
Why not discuss on this hypothetical that if no surface was change then think How many AO Sampras would have cleaned.
So now play hypothetical AO Borg win ( when he failed to win single uso) to Sampras hypothetical grass AO slam( when he also won 2 AO on HC) and for me Sampras again came on top
This single reason alone put Sampras> Borg.
And there is yec, Sampras has 7 yec over Borg 3 .
I will repeat again that if we are playing hypothetical then think of Sampras, Sampras changed all his game plan according to fast surface and grass and this even hindered his growth as a junior ( because of his style change from 2 bh to 1 bh)
Now he started playing and suddenly surface was changed from grass to Slow medium HC and Sampras still managed to win 2 on medium pace HC.
Why not discuss on this hypothetical that if no surface was change then think How many AO Sampras would have cleaned.
So now play hypothetical AO Borg win ( when he failed to win single uso) to Sampras hypothetical grass AO slam( when he also won 2 AO on HC) and for me Sampras again came on top
NAS
Hall of Fame
Another Point Borg failed to maximized his slam numbers, don't forget us open was on clay for three years but Sampras never got this easy slam years. Just think AO change surface for three years from 94 to 96 to grass.
My Point is very simple if Borg failed to win single us open even on clay, I am not going to give him hypothetical AO wins
My Point is very simple if Borg failed to win single us open even on clay, I am not going to give him hypothetical AO wins
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