GAMEOVER wrote:

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jsackmann wrote:

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>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.

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 Not likely to get into the top 128 but South Africa's Kevin Anderson has been a Grand Slam singles runner up twice in recent times. Although they were under the American flag Johan Kriek was a two time Aussie Open champion and Kevin Curren a two time runner up in Slams in the 1980's. As for the ladies you have to go back to Sandra Reynolds  as a 1960  Wimbledon singles finalist.  She also had a successful doubles partnership with Renee Schuurman. At the moment Egypt's Mayar Sherif  is also making progress in the women's game.

It is also interesting to note that current British players Cam Norrie and Kyle Edmund were both  born in Johannesburg. Virginia Wade although born in Bournemouth went to South Africa as a baby and developed her tennis skills on the courts of Durban. Additionally her mother was South African. 

However in the pre Open days South Africa was well represented in the Slams.  

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 thanks Gameover - yes, the South African men I had thought about but didnt think their careers strong enough to get into the lists - a lot of players over their careers had a slam final or two on their CV. I was racking my brains to see who might be top, cant remember El Shafei's CV now but he was a name that struck me, but clearly didnt tear up trees!! Cliff Drsydale of course had longevity, but no slam finals so interesting that he got above the Kevins' (I put Kriek to one side - his Aussie Opens were possibly the weakest Aussie Opens ever!!)  

GAMEOVER wrote:

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Jon, Cliff Drysdale was runner up to Manuel Santana at the 1965 US Championships. He was also  US Open doubles champion in 1972 with Roger Taylor.

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 Sorry, I meant slam wins

 

Jon you had Lendl  at 21 so  just one out whereas he was my  25.

GAMEOVER wrote:

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Jon you had Lendl  at 21 so  just one out whereas he was my  25.

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 Indeed, pretty close! 

I'm a bit late to do this since Ivan was already revealed, but here's the remaining 20 (now only 19 left) players in the order I put them:

1. Stefanie Graf
2. Martina Navratilova
3. Novak Djokovic
4. Roger Federer
5. Rod Laver
6. Suzanne Lenglen
7. Helen Wills
8. Serena Williams
9. Margaret Court
10. Chris Evert
11. Rafael Nadal
12. Maureen Connolly
13. Bill Tilden
14. Monica Seles
15. John McEnroe
16. Björn Borg
17. Ken Rosewall
18. Ivan Lendl
19. Pancho Gonzales
20. Venus Williams

It felt like an impossible task to put most of these players in any sort of order to be honest!

JonH comes home wrote:

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Exre wrote:

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I'm a bit late to do this since Ivan was already revealed, but here's the remaining 20 (now only 19 left) players in the order I put them:

1. Stefanie Graf
2. Martina Navratilova
3. Novak Djokovic
4. Roger Federer
5. Rod Laver
6. Suzanne Lenglen
7. Helen Wills
8. Serena Williams
9. Margaret Court
10. Chris Evert
11. Rafael Nadal
12. Maureen Connolly
13. Bill Tilden
14. Monica Seles
15. John McEnroe
16. Björn Borg
17. Ken Rosewall
18. Ivan Lendl
19. Pancho Gonzales
20. Venus Williams

It felt like an impossible task to put most of these players in any sort of order to be honest!

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 Indeed - agreed - and thanks , it Looks like at first glance you have all the same 20 players as Jeff, so well done for that! But another interesting order! Be very interesting to see if Graf does actually make it to number one, probably more likely though than my choice of Borg, haha. 

out of interest, was that your top 20 regardless, or just the 20 we know are

left ? Would you have had anyone else on the list if youd have done it at an earlier date in the process?

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Wednesday 16th of November 2022 07:05:32 AM

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 I only have the same players because I finished the list this week and removed everyone who was already revealed! I'm not a genius!!!

 

If I had made this earlier, I would've thought that Sampras gets in ahead of Venus, and maybe would've thought that Don Budge and Jimmy Connors make it in too, but like I've said before, my knowledge of pre-open era tennis is patchy so the problem really was and still is that I don't know exactly how dominant Tilden, Gonzales, Rosewall etc. really were at their highest peak compared to the dominant players who've been there during my lifetime.

 

And this is also why I'm not confident in how I've rated those players.

Also, I will admit to being a big admirer of Federer's game so in some sense he's the best I've ever seen, but do I think his results will objectively put him up as high as I've placed him? I'm not sure about that either!

-- Edited by Exre on Wednesday 16th of November 2022 08:28:31 AM

-- Edited by Exre on Wednesday 16th of November 2022 08:31:12 AM