Greatest Players of All Time - according to Tennis Abstract

GAMEOVER · Pro player

RE: Greatest Players of All Time - according to Tennis Abstract

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
I have 5 cross over players ,the players you mention plus Pancho Gonzalez. I have 8 only pre Open era and the rest the Open era.

Yes sorry I have pancho also , Id forgotten he crossed the border!

GAMEOVER · Pro player

We have player no. 33 and it is Justine Henin. I had her at no. 26. One of those players who lost her 2 Wimbledon finals. Always a mystery to me how she lost to Marion Bartoli in 2007.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
We have player no. 33 and it is Justine Henin. I had her at no. 26. One of those players who lost her 2 Wimbledon finals. Always a mystery to me how she lost to Marion Bartoli in 2007.

Ha, I also had her but as you were 7 places away, so was I - in the other direction - as I had her at 40th!

https://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/10/13/the-tennis-128-no-33-justine-henin/

I am conflicted re Henin as I have always had some nagging doubts which I wont share. But putting those aside, she had the best of backhands and winning 7 slams and with such a high ELO (above 2400 is seriously impressive) peak that she clearly was one of the best players.

Jan · Hall of fame

Loved Henin's backhand!!

jsackmann · Social player

> the WCT event in Bologna , Italy, in around 1970 and he wrote that it was possibly the best tournament of all time

Yeah - after all those years of amateur/pro, and the competing pro tours, that must have been outstanding to finally see.

>what is the best quality match ever played in terms of the standard of the two players going into a match

I was surprised by the answer to this -- it was the 1979 Pepsi Grand Slam final between Borg and Connors. Borg won 6-2, 6-3 ... not so great. Next-best is the 2014 French Open final (Rafa-Novak). Better, but not a classic. Obviously a lot of Big Four matches near the top of this list. Also a Lendl-McEnroe match from 1982.

>4 Pro Slams, which get overlooked by so many in the record books (and shouldnt be as the best players played them, and the standard was higher than Amateur slams)

That's actually a good example of why this is tough to measure. Often the best ~5 players in a pro slam draw were outstanding -- depending on the year, they might have all been better than the best amateur. But after that ... before WW2, the draws were filled out by teaching pros who didn't have much in the way of amateur careers. After, it was often former pros who didn't play much anymore, so no idea how high their level was, but probably not great. Some amateur slams were plenty top-heavy too, but i don't think it was that extreme.

>Vines served big at like 130 mph, presumably the video is slowed down due to tech at the time? Not sure, but more importantly, if you watch the singles action, no one is serving and volleying

Yeah, I don't know about the technology, but that makes sense. I'm not sure how much guys like Tilden and Vines s&v'd, but yeah, it wasn't anywhere close to all the time. They could, but I think they were more likely to come in behind their second shot, or save s&v'ing for key moments in the match. The full-time s&v game started with Kramer (and Schroeder), then they went to Australia in 1946 and destroyed everyone, which inspired Sedgman (and others), and then the Australians almost all picked it up from there.

>if you scroll down to the video of the doubles match at Wembley, you will see the pace and style is much more akin to today

Isn't that a great video?! The wild thing about that, in 1935, Tilden couldn't compete with Vines, and there wasn't a good challenger for Vines, so they made doubles the headline act of the tour! Doubles was bigger then than it is now, but it wasn't *that* big. Yet it seems to have worked. Just imagine a series of exhibitions right now between, say, Ram/Salisbury and Federer/Alcaraz.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thanks Jeff

what is the best quality match ever played in terms of the standard of the two players going into a match

I was surprised by the answer to this -- it was the 1979 Pepsi Grand Slam final between Borg and Connors. Borg won 6-2, 6-3 ... not so great. Next-best is the 2014 French Open final (Rafa-Novak). Better, but not a classic. Obviously a lot of Big Four matches near the top of this list. Also a Lendl-McEnroe match from 1982.

1979 ish was a halcyon period for mens tennis. Borg, McEnroe , Connors , Vilas, Clerc, Gerulaitus and onwards . The BBC went nuts on tennis at the time. I recall the winter and autumn had some amazing live tennis. They showed the Pepsi Grand Slam, of course, it was treated like a sixth major - it was shown for a few years. And we had the Wembley event each November, which followed the womens event in Brighton, the Wightman Cup at the royal Albert hall; the Stockholm Open in 1978, 79 and 80 was shown live (Borg v McEnroe in 1980 after their Wimbledon final); the Davis Cup final in 1978 was live from Palm Springs when Max dismantled GB! And the fifth major, the WCT Finals from Dallas most years in May, and the WCT Doubles from Olympia , then Royal Albert Hall and later Birmingham for a number of years , which was the event around new year.

All of these were shown live on mainstream BBC tv. Amazing in retrospect!

That Lendl v Mac match in 1982 could well have been their Dallas match in the WCT?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I personally feel the overall standard of the top 5 or so in 1979 to say 1984 with Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Vilas was the equal of the early 2010-15 period of the so called Big 4. For
Me it was the most evocative, but I was around 15 to 18 years old so was probably swayed!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
jsackmann wrote:
I can pretty much guarantee that #63 is not in your top 50! (probably not #62 either; I don't have a good feel on the conventional wisdom regarding #61) Then things get tight ... at least half of #51-60 could easily be rated higher, much higher in a couple of cases.

yep, the plan now is one next Tuesday, then hopefully back to three per week starting on the 9th.
Thanks Jeff, I wait with interest !
Wow, this was left field ! I can honestly say I have never, ever, heard of her!

https://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/08/01/the-tennis-128-no-63-ora-washington/
Although I pride myself with the names of the past I have heard of, sadly I have never heard of Ora Washington until now

BBC Radio Five ran a detailed review of the life of Ora Washington tonight to publicise the podcast. Described as maybe the best womens player ever and certainly better , probably, that Wills Moody!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Question for Jeff - given the fact Ora never played anyone else anywhere near this list , or any list, was she able to get an ELO rating and how did you work out where to place her in the list ?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

jsackmann wrote:
> the WCT event in Bologna , Italy, in around 1970 and he wrote that it was possibly the best tournament of all time

Yeah - after all those years of amateur/pro, and the competing pro tours, that must have been outstanding to finally see.

>what is the best quality match ever played in terms of the standard of the two players going into a match

I was surprised by the answer to this -- it was the 1979 Pepsi Grand Slam final between Borg and Connors. Borg won 6-2, 6-3 ... not so great. Next-best is the 2014 French Open final (Rafa-Novak). Better, but not a classic. Obviously a lot of Big Four matches near the top of this list. Also a Lendl-McEnroe match from 1982.

>4 Pro Slams, which get overlooked by so many in the record books (and shouldnt be as the best players played them, and the standard was higher than Amateur slams)

That's actually a good example of why this is tough to measure. Often the best ~5 players in a pro slam draw were outstanding -- depending on the year, they might have all been better than the best amateur. But after that ... before WW2, the draws were filled out by teaching pros who didn't have much in the way of amateur careers. After, it was often former pros who didn't play much anymore, so no idea how high their level was, but probably not great. Some amateur slams were plenty top-heavy too, but i don't think it was that extreme.

>Vines served big at like 130 mph, presumably the video is slowed down due to tech at the time? Not sure, but more importantly, if you watch the singles action, no one is serving and volleying

Yeah, I don't know about the technology, but that makes sense. I'm not sure how much guys like Tilden and Vines s&v'd, but yeah, it wasn't anywhere close to all the time. They could, but I think they were more likely to come in behind their second shot, or save s&v'ing for key moments in the match. The full-time s&v game started with Kramer (and Schroeder), then they went to Australia in 1946 and destroyed everyone, which inspired Sedgman (and others), and then the Australians almost all picked it up from there.

>if you scroll down to the video of the doubles match at Wembley, you will see the pace and style is much more akin to today

Isn't that a great video?! The wild thing about that, in 1935, Tilden couldn't compete with Vines, and there wasn't a good challenger for Vines, so they made doubles the headline act of the tour! Doubles was bigger then than it is now, but it wasn't *that* big. Yet it seems to have worked. Just imagine a series of exhibitions right now between, say, Ram/Salisbury and Federer/Alcaraz.

The Pepsi Grand slam was played between the 4 slam winners or , if less than 4 the WCT title winner or maybe someone being runner up in more than one slam. It was played on green clay in Boca Raton.

this year, if played , the field would be Nadal, Djokovic, Alcaraz and , probably , Ruud. We would see Alcaraz v Djoko and Nadal v Ruud as the semis

jsackmann · Social player

>That Lendl v Mac match in 1982 could well have been their Dallas match in the WCT?

It was their semifinal at the Canadian Open.

>Question for Jeff - given the fact Ora never played anyone else anywhere near this list , or any list, was she able to get an ELO rating and how did you work out where to place her in the list ?

No, no rating. I used my best judgment, as that's all I had to go on.

I've seen a few perspectives lately that she might have been better than Wills, etc. Honestly, that's nuts. I don't mean that as a criticism of Ora; far from it. But (a) she didn't learn the game until she was an adult; (b) she didn't have access to any coaching, or very much quality competition; (c) she never played more than a few months of any year. She was undoubtedly a great athlete--we know that from her better-documented basketball prowess--and that certainly helped. But I don't think *anyone* with those limitations can seriously be considered to be the greatest player of her era, short of much more convincing proof.

I suspect what's going on is: (a) we know that Black athletes in other sports (baseball, track and field, etc) were in fact equal or superior to white competition in that era, (b) people don't realize how limited the Black tennis world was at that time (compared to those other sports), and (c) there's a natural urge to overcorrect for the previous generation's mistakes. I definitely understand the last one, and I may well be guilty of that as well; I may have placed her too high.

I mentioned in my piece on her that she wanted to play Wills, and it never happened. That's part of the problem -- lots of people have rephrased that, or misinterpreted it, as Wills avoiding a meeting, or fearing Ora, or something along those lines. Without positive proof either way, we'll never know, but i'm extremely skeptical. I'm not even convinced that Wills was aware of her. That's how segregated American tennis was at that time.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

That Canadian last 4 also included Gerulaitus and Connors, and a few weeks later Connors won the US Open over Lendl (gerulaitus won the Canadian over Lendl) McEnroe was going through a lull and Lendl hadnt learned to win slams then, and Borg was on his way to retirement - all before Macs glorious 1984 of course. They may have had high ELOs but be interested to see if McEnroe at least was near his best which presumably came in 1984?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

jsackmann wrote:
>what is the best quality match ever played in terms of the standard of the two players going into a match

I was surprised by the answer to this -- it was the 1979 Pepsi Grand Slam final between Borg and Connors. Borg won 6-2, 6-3 ... not so great. Next-best is the 2014 French Open final (Rafa-Novak). Better, but not a classic. Obviously a lot of Big Four matches near the top of this list. Also a Lendl-McEnroe match from 1982.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Out of interest, Jeff, what match comes up as the womens highest rated single match? I am going to guess it involved one or more of Court, King, Navratilova, Evert or Graf or Seles (big field I have chosen there!) as opposed to a more recent match up?

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Friday 14th of October 2022 08:25:52 AM

jsackmann · Social player

>what match comes up as the womens highest rated single match?

2003 Australian final (Serena-Venus)
very closely followed by
1992 French final (Graf-Seles)

lots of those four names at the top of this list, and lots of early 1990s and early 2000s.