Greatest Players of All Time - according to Tennis Abstract

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

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

GAMEOVER · Pro player

JonH comes home wrote:
23rd is Alice Marble - I had Alice in my list at 42nd so was some way out

www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/11/07/the-tennis-128-no-23-alice-marble/

I had Alice Marble no.30 on my list. Not in my final 24.

Exre · Improver

Great article on Marble. Crazy to think that she won 128 matches straight practically right before retiring from tennis because of the war and everything.

My feeling is that Graf might end up at the very top with this sort of Elo formula. I also suspect that Jeff might have to use his own judgement with some of the women's players like Lenglen, because how can an algorithm make sense of someone who 1. didn't play for a very long time and 2. in contrast barely lost any matches at all for several years. Lenglen never lost more than one match in any single year if I'm not mistaken? In any case they feel like kind of algorithm-breaking numbers.

Also interesting to see GAMEOVER's and JonH's personal lists and how much some of the placings vary!

I personally don't think Borg is going to make the top 10 because his time at the very top was only just about the five years and a third of the algorithm looking at longevity numbers beyond that might hurt him a bit, maybe even compared to, say, Ivan Lendl.

If I was to be brave I'd even venture that Lendl might well end up ahead of both Borg and Sampras.

I did have my own full top 20 drafted as well but I really don't know enough about the early players to make sense of where to slot them in to be honest.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, similar. I don't know enough about the earlier players nor have looked at the ELO methodology and players' scores ( ELO as you say may be left with issues re some of the early players ) to have any confidence in making a list of predictions.

With sadness I went for Djokovic as top male player because to my mind he comes out ahead of Federer and Nadal in that great recent era and I am thinking beats Laver.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Exre wrote:
Great article on Marble. Crazy to think that she won 128 matches straight practically right before retiring from tennis because of the war and everything.

My feeling is that Graf might end up at the very top with this sort of Elo formula. I also suspect that Jeff might have to use his own judgement with some of the women's players like Lenglen, because how can an algorithm make sense of someone who 1. didn't play for a very long time and 2. in contrast barely lost any matches at all for several years. Lenglen never lost more than one match in any single year if I'm not mistaken? In any case they feel like kind of algorithm-breaking numbers.

Also interesting to see GAMEOVER's and JonH's personal lists and how much some of the placings vary!

I personally don't think Borg is going to make the top 10 because his time at the very top was only just about the five years and a third of the algorithm looking at longevity numbers beyond that might hurt him a bit, maybe even compared to, say, Ivan Lendl.

If I was to be brave I'd even venture that Lendl might well end up ahead of both Borg and Sampras.

I did have my own full top 20 drafted as well but I really don't know enough about the early players to make sense of where to slot them in to be honest.

Hi Exre - good comments and I fear you are correct re Borg! Lets see your top 20 - as Eric Morecambe said mine is all the right notes just in the wrong order! So you cant do worse than that !

jsackmann · Social player

Many astute comments from Exre ;)

>I also suspect that Jeff might have to use his own judgement with some of the women's players like Lenglen, because how can an algorithm make sense of someone who 1. didn't play for a very long time and 2. in contrast barely lost any matches at all for several years. Lenglen never lost more than one match in any single year if I'm not mistaken? In any case they feel like kind of algorithm-breaking numbers.

I do have some tricks up my sleeve for (almost) undefeated players like Lenglen and Wills. I may get into the details when the first of those two comes up. You are right that the usual Elo algorithm doesn't quite know what to do with them -- it gives us a lower bound, but without more difficult competition, it can't do better than that.

Great to see everyone's lists ... it is also reassuring to see so much variation. There are a few names (including one or two coming up very soon) that I feared *everyone* would agree were grossly underrated, but it seems like opinion is refreshingly mixed on the order of the top ~20.

GAMEOVER · Pro player

We have player no. 22 who is Don Budge. The first player to win all four majors in the same year. I had him at no.11.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
We have player no. 22 who is Don Budge. The first player to win all four majors in the same year. I had him at no.11.

I went the other way and had Budge at 31.

https://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/11/10/the-tennis-128-no-22-don-budge/

will read the narrative tomorrow, time for an early bed!

GAMEOVER · Pro player

Pete Sampras is no. 21. I had him No. 9 but Jon you were far closer at no. 19.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
Pete Sampras is no. 21. I had him No. 9 but Jon you were far closer at no. 19.

Indeed - some of course thought Pete may be the best ever at one time, perhaps the best on grass at least, but I think he came in a relatively weak era and never really found clay to his liking .

so around the top 20 and therefore the top 10 men or thereabouts feels about right to me

https://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/11/12/the-tennis-128-no-21-pete-sampras/

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I like Jeffs tie break analysis and how Pete played the big moments well- my memory of Pete is that he often got to 4 or 5 all in sets, it would seem even and maybe he was playing within himself, then boom, break and set 6-4 or 7-5. I dont know how many sets relative to other players he won by one break near the end, but that is my memory of him. I always felt Federer did the same.

Petes rivalry with Agassi was of course the big one of the time - opposites in every aspect really , style of play , personality etc etc. Pete had a 90 percent win loss record at Wimbledon and really was the King of grass - and of course his match and loss to Federer there was a true passing of the baton in so many ways .

indiana · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
INow posting in the correct thread ...

Interesting that among the men there appears to be only one player left to come up born between 1960 ( Lendl ) and 1981 ( Federer ) and then 5 more years to 1986 ( Nadal ).

We have the Connors / Borg / McEnroe / Lendl era and really just Sampras (1971) of true note until the Federer / Nadal / Djokovic / Murray era. Such as Becker and Edberg were very good but have been put in their place.

So.I guess when looking at Sampras's successes the fact that his general contemporaries were part of a relatively crap era before the latest crap era has to be taken into account and no doubt his ELO figures will take this into account to a large extent. I guess Federer also got a wee bit of a start against that poorer era.

Ah, if Andy had been around a decade or two sooner just think what prizes he might have clocked up. So pleased though that Jeff's exercise has him as high as he is even wirh 'just' 3 Slam titles and ( not neing biased, honest ) think that that s a good reflection on his methodology.

Ii guess in the great, crap great etc rhere was also an earlier gap between Laver (1938) and Connors (1952) and some not so great olayers tyen too that picked up a few Slam titles. I do hope for our future tennis enjoyment that there will be a new great era to come along quite soon.

So there is clearly going to be no man born between 1960 and 1981 in the overall top 20.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Interesting to see Andys peak ELO is higher than Petes who in turn is effectively equal to Becker as well. Shows what a career Andy had and could have had in a different era .

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Looking back through the top 128, we have obviously yet to see who the greatest European, North American and Oceania players will be.

Asia came quite early with Kei Nishikori, Li Na being the only other in the list.

Top South American was Gabriella Sabatini of course, Vilas not far behind and others like Bueno, Segura and Delpo appeared.

But there has been no African player - no surprise really. If Jeff reads this, who was the top African player of all time in your listing and where did they appear? I cant think of a top womens player from Africa, Ros Fairbank is one name but shes not going to be anywhere near the list; Bob Hewitt maybe (despicable man) or Ishmael El Shafei of Egypt of course; Ons Jabeur may be to top new ?

jsackmann · Social player

>who was the top African player of all time in your listing and where did they appear?

I haven't made a precise ranking of the players outside the top 128, but Cliff Drysdale is inside the top 150, and Amanda Coetzer would've been around #200. Jabeur didn't register before this season; I don't think her 2022 season would be enough to come close to Coetzer (yet). Coetzer's peak Elo was ~2150 and Jabeur's so far is a bit above 2100.