GAMEOVER wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Mo of course did the Grand SLam in 1953 but more, she won 9 straight slam titles that she played through 51-54. The only ones she didnt win, she didnt play. And taken too early, as well, to ovarian cancer in 1934 after the tragic injury to her leg curtailed her career far too soon.

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 Hi Jon I think you mean 1969 and not 1934 her year of birth. I don't feel I over rated her as she was virtually unbeatable in her short career. A comment was made by Peter Wilson of the Daily Mirror in  1969 that you can become too good at sport and  that  applied to Little Mo. The main interest in her matches was not who would win but how many games her opponents would get. In terms of all time greats we tend to think of the present rather than the past. In terms of cricket some journalists think Ben Stokes is Englands greatest everr cricketer. The Daily Telegraph journalists  a couple of years ago  voted Andy Murray as Britains greatest ever sportsperson  !  Tennis may be but not overall. How is Monica Seles going to be rated as surely Stefanie Graf would not have won as many majors if Monica had not been stabbed. As an aside on the ELO ratings I would rate Mary Pierce as a better player than Conchita Martinez who ranked 22 places higher.

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 I did of course mean 1969 - I actually meant to say she died age 34 and then mistakenly wrote 1934 by coincidence. Anyway, we know what was meant!

Mo's ELO high was good, but not amazing relative to some of the players that will come (2348, Lendl was 2402 and others will be above 2348 for sure). Added to that her relative lack of longevity and she will fall foul to the algorithm marking her down a little. I am not sure I would have rated her at 2, but potentially, she should have been above 19 if looked at in terms of sheer achievement in her short career. Wills Moody will be a reasonable comparison for her; 

On the Graf v Seles thing, not sure Jeff can take into account what might have been's. I am certain Graf will be in the top few, Seles I think will be one of the next few to pop out. My expectation is that we will see McEnroe or Venus Williams next and soon after Seles and Wills Moody   

Exre wrote:

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#19 is a fair position for Connolly when looking objectively at her unfortunately very, very short career, but at the same time she has to be one of the biggest what-if stories in tennis ever. You have to think that she could've been even #1 on this list if not for the unfortunate accident.

It's insane to think that someone managed to have a career that puts her in top 10 all time for women's tennis and top 20 combined when having been forced to retire before age 20. Completely insane.

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 I agree totally; there was a film about her that was out maybe 30 years back called Little Mo (I think) and her career and injury and death. What might have been - if shed remained fit and healthy she could have reached the early years of Open tennis and ended with more slams than anyone 

GAMEOVER wrote:

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Jon, you seem to have forgotten that Little Mo won 9 singles Slams in a row. From the 1951 US Championships to Wimbledon 1954 nobody ever beat her in a Slam. I'd have to check this up but in that period she only lost 4 matches. Lenglen in the 20's and Wills Moody in the 30s were virtually unbeatable as well. We'll see where they finish up . In Slams she played and won 50 matches and only ever lost 5 sets.

-- Edited by GAMEOVER on Thursday 17th of November 2022 09:54:24 AM

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 I havent forgotten at all - I talked about her 9 slams in succession in one of my posts above. I definitely don't under-rate Mo, she was my number 12 and I think that was a very good reflection of how I rate her. But her career was short relatively, and Jeff's algorithm will count her down on that. Whether that is a correct way to measure her career, who knows, I for one had her slightly higher than Jeff.

Wills Moody - I have her in 18th 

Lenglen - I have her 10th 

The other question though is whether their dominance at the times you point out partly reflect a weak set of opposition compared to others - I dont know enough to comment - but the method Jeff is using takes that into account as well. But it looks like, broadly, we have got Mo, Helen WM and Lenglen in broadly the right places between us all. I just dont see Mo as 2nd best ever, sorry!!!     

Jon, we will have to agree to disagree  over Maureen Connolly For a long time I thought the 1951 US Championships was her GS debut but then I found out that she had played in the 2 previous years with  1 win and 2 losses. However her 50 successive wins from the 1951 US Champs included wins over 6 Wimbledon champions, i.e.Fry 6, Hart 5, Brough 2, Gibson 2, Mortimer 1 and Dupont 1 total 17. Only Shirley Fry and Sue Partridge twice and Thelma Coyne once won a set. No comment on Margaret Court.

jsackmann wrote:

 

[...]

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.

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As Jeff said after he got down to his top 22.

And since then he has revealed.

22  Don Budge

21. Pete Sampras

20. Ivan Lendl

19. Maureen Connolly

18. Margaret Court

As he indicated, there are some very interesting mixtures of thoughts from those of you brave enough to come out with lists so that not *everyone* is asking"what's that about, man?!"