Exre wrote:

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So it's Novak Djokovic at #4 and one thing becomes official: Rocket Rod Laver is Tennis Abstract's Greatest Men's Tennis Player of All Time.

www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/12/14/the-tennis-128-no-4-novak-djokovic/

Glad that debate is settled!

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 at one point in my own internal debate, I did have Laver as number one! 

My notes show I went Laver, Rosewall, Borg, Federer, Rosewall, back to Laver and then settled on Borg. Demoting Laver to 3rd male eventually!

Shows how hard this all is!!

I had Steffi as 4th overall (2nd woman) and Martina 2nd overall (top woman), with Laver in 5th overall (3rd man). It may well be that two women take the top two places, that would be interesting as an outcome. 

Exre wrote:

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Well, ultimately it's kind of a moot point whether the top player ends up being male or female since in singles competition they exist on completely separate landscapes.

Funnily enough I didn't get anyone's ranking so far bang on correct, but as JonH has repeatedly pointed out, plenty of players one away!

Also, to be sincere for a moment, I am happy that there is a mathematically sound way to rank Rod Laver as the greatest of all time because I think he often gets somewhat lost in the discussions since seemingly it's not just me who's confused about pro tennis before the Open Era but probably the large majority of tennis fans!

What ends up happening is that lot of people do this frankly very crude act of basically pretending that tennis before 1968 never even happened when they take up the task of comparing the achievements and statistics of players across history. So Laver in a lot of discussions I've seen sort of gets demoted to this sort of discourse: "Oh yeah Rod Laver of course won the Grand Slam in '69 which was mighty impressive and I guess he played some tennis before the Open Era too, but anyway, The Big Three has won more Majors than..."

I'm sure you get the idea!

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 I agree - I think theres two things that happen, both to do with near termism. We look at old videos and see the players playing in a style and form that looks poor compared to today, no top spin backhands, shots look weaker, players dont look as fit - and immediately assume todays player would be the historic player. But so much has changed, the rules on serve, the equipment, the fitness training etc etc. we have no way of saying how Laver from 1960s would have fared in 2022. Results and stats help us. Laver played through to the early 70s at a decent level, crossed over with connors, who crossed over with McEnroe and Borg, who crossed over with Lendl, then Becker and edberg, Agassi and Sampras, through to todays players. But we can never tell. We also look at it and just think what we are seeing now must be the best ever - it is the same with the football; Messi and Ronaldo are getting lauded as such, certainly Messi right now. But Maradona, Pele , Ronaldinho, di Stefano, Puskas, Beckenbauer, Platini, Zidane, Best, Moore, Mathews. The way the game is played, the equipment, the tactical approach. The expectations on a forward player. Etc etc have all changed - Id swear til Im blue in the face Maradona is the best ever. But those who never saw him can only go on hearsay and what they themselves have seen ie Messi. But I never saw any players pre 1972 when I got interested so cant really judge Pele, or anyone of previous eras. Messi is being lauded as best ever if Argentina win on Sunday- but George Best played for Northern Ireland and never played let alone won a World Cup!

at least in tennis , folks like Jeff can give it a go! Football, presumably , as a team game, is impossible?