Greatest Players of All Time - according to Tennis Abstract

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Greatest Players of All Time - according to Tennis Abstract

indiana · Tennis legend

So Tilden, Evert and Federer the next 3 out in some order ?

Probably more agreement about the first 2 of these but I have an inkling re Fed too.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Im expecting Tilden and Evert next out, after that I have to say the order is hard to say. Not entirely sure Lavers ELO peak will take him above Fed and Rafa, or the order of Fed and Rafa. And stacking up the other women versus the men, good luck with that one !

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

And 9 is Chris Evert

www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/12/03/the-tennis-128-no-9-chris-evert/

GAMEOVER · Pro player

JonH comes home wrote:
Im expecting Tilden and Evert next out, after that I have to say the order is hard to say. Not entirely sure Lavers ELO peak will take him above Fed and Rafa, or the order of Fed and Rafa. And stacking up the other women versus the men, good luck with that one !

Chris Evert is no 9

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Exre was again the crystal ball gazer having Chris at 10. Gameover and I both went for 14.

Jeff has also published a schedule for all the remaining entries - Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday each week now until 22 December for number one.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

When we look at Chris alongside Navratilova , and the mens side of Connors, Borg, McEnroe - that 1970s period , late 70s ,
Early 80s , was undoubtedly the best era of tennis players of all time combined. The golden years.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

So 5 men and 3 women left

Graf, Navratilova, Serena Williams
Djokovic, Federer, Laver, Nadal and Tilden.

Wow.

Exre · Improver

Seems like an appropriate placing all in all for Evert. I think she gets a little bit underrated because she was eventually slightly overshadowed by Navratilova and as such has never really been in the so called GOAT discussion in the last 30 years. Point being that you can make cases for some of the women who are behind her on this list, like Wills and Lenglen. But Chris was clearly weaker than Martina on the fast courts so she has to sort of "settle" for being considered "just" the greatest female clay courter of all time.

As a related topic, to me, Djokovic as of late has made it appear that Nadal and Federer won't really be in the discussion for who's "the greatest" in the end, which is kind of too bad. For a few years there the three of them were so close to each other in achievements that you couldn't make much difference between them. I would've preferred that the question remains more ambiguous - and not only because I'm not a Djokovic fan as such. But right now it looks like Djokovic could end up with enough distance to the other two in most aspects so that the infamous "GOAT debate" will be limited to him vs. the past greats like Laver and then whoever becomes the next dominant player. Alcaraz? Holger "I believe I can beat [Rafa's Roland Garros title] record" Rune? Or someone further down the line.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Exre wrote:
Seems like an appropriate placing all in all for Evert. I think she gets a little bit underrated because she was eventually slightly overshadowed by Navratilova and as such has never really been in the so called GOAT discussion in the last 30 years. Point being that you can make cases for some of the women who are behind her on this list, like Wills and Lenglen. But Chris was clearly weaker than Martina on the fast courts so she has to sort of "settle" for being considered "just" the greatest female clay courter of all time.

As a related topic, to me, Djokovic as of late has made it appear that Nadal and Federer won't really be in the discussion for who's "the greatest" in the end, which is kind of too bad. For a few years there the three of them were so close to each other in achievements that you couldn't make much difference between them. I would've preferred that the question remains more ambiguous - and not only because I'm not a Djokovic fan as such. But right now it looks like Djokovic could end up with enough distance to the other two in most aspects so that the infamous "GOAT debate" will be limited to him vs. the past greats like Laver and then whoever becomes the next dominant player. Alcaraz? Holger "I believe I can beat [Rafa's Roland Garros title] record" Rune? Or someone further down the line.

Yeah, I wont do the crystal ball gazing piece but I think youre right re Djoko and that debate. The biggest question maybe djokovic versus which of the 3 women left for overall top place and, indeed, which womens player will come out on top?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Rafa is 8!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/12/06/the-tennis-128-no-8-rafael-nadal/

I had Rafa as #11, as did Exre. Gameover was almost spot on with Rafa at 7, good call.

Rafa's PEAK ELO was only in the 2370 range, lower than the other names to come in this list I would guess but still sixth best of all time.

8th feels very much about right

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Tuesday 6th of December 2022 02:28:03 PM

Exre · Improver

Yes, #8 is about right I think. The funny thing is that in a sense I had Nadal too high since I thought he'd be ahead of Tilden, so for the men only I placed him 4th instead of 5th.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

the question I have always had is a) Would Nadal or Borg have won if they played a French final at their respective peaks. Most people would say Nadal but I wonder?

and b) if we put the top men and , separately, the top women, into some sort of all time tournie, say an all time Wimbledon, could we use Peak ELO's (or some algorithm) to run a virtual tournament . say the top 16 men in a mens event and ditto the women?

It seems the natural extension, particularly to folks like me who live a semi fantasy world most of the time, haha

GAMEOVER · Pro player

No. 7 is Bill Tilden higher than we rated him.