GAMEOVER wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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steven wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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Thanks Gameover.

www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2022/04/23/the-tennis-128-no-94-kitty-mckane-godfree/

I just love the write up Jeff does, he clearly researches well and writes well to make the story really interesting

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Yes, I dread to think how many player biographies he has read / has on his shelves, and it became clear last year that he was spending lots of time going through old newspaper archives too - I think that was mainly to try to add results from pre-Open era tournaments but it clearly inspired this too, or maybe he always intended to do this right from the start.

Like you, I'm pretty sure Suzanne Lenglen will be in the overall top 10 (and, I would guess, the highest-ranked pre-WW2 player on his list).

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 In terms of the top 10, I expect 5 women and 5 men. The womens strike me as Lenglen, Court, Navratilova , Graf and Serena Williams. The men is much more open - our current big 3 , Sampras, Borg, Laver , Rosewall, and perhaps room for a Pancho Gonzalez, Jack Kramer and or Bill Tilden if he rates pre open pro tennis highly , which is algorithm should do. But 5 men from those ten I would guess at. 

but it is a fascinating process and run down! 

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 Jon re the top  5 women there is an argument for Maureen Connolly to be there. Here career was short and after winning the 1951 US Championships she never lost in a singles match at a Slam tournament. She also won  the Singles Grand Slam in 1953. Between the 2 World Wars there was also Helen Wills Moody. It will be interesting to note who he rates better of Jones or Wade. I would go for Jones  but Wade has the advantage of the spread of titles won at Grand Slams. Court should be devalued because of the quality of some of her opponents in her Australian championships wins . Might be devalued for other reasons as well. What about Billie Jean King or Chris Evert? Re the men Rosewall  scores because of longevity. Lew Hoad would have done the Grand Slam in 1956 if he had not been frustrated by Rosewall at the US Championships. There's also Don Budge before the war who did the Grand Slam. Agree with your comment about being fascinating.

-- Edited by GAMEOVER on Saturday 23rd of April 2022 05:59:54 PM

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 There are so many arent there and all those you mention are also very strong contenders. 

its a large part of why Ive never agreed the narrative that Federer , Djokovic and Nadal are the 3 greatest players ever - just count the slams they say and they did at a time when the competition is at its best ever, as well. but Ive never bought that narrative- quantity doesnt mean quality and are these players they beat really that good? Ive always felt the best era, for me, was that of Borg, Mcenroe, Connors, going through Lendl, Wilander and Becker and Edberg, before petering out when Sampras and Agassi took over. Maybe from 1971 and Laver and Rosewall at the Dallas WCT Finals as open tennis evolved and matured into the era of Borg et al from 1974/5 through the 80s. 

they may not have the quantity of slams, but more of them shared the titles around and the quantity of events that they played was ridiculous as well. 

>There are so many arent there and all those you mention are also very strong contenders.

One of my projects for this summer is to investigate alternative mathematical systems so that I can have 23 players in the top 10.

For those interested but not clear what this is about, here is an overview and list of players rated to date

below is cut and paste from Jeff Sackmann on Tennis Abstract:

You know what tennis really needs? More arguments about the greatest players of all time.

Really! I could take or leave the Djokovic-Federer-Nadal debate, and I dont need to read another word about Serena versus Margaret Court. But the quest for greatness is what defines elite athletics, and the appreciation of elite performance is an essential part of what it means to be a fan.

Too much of tennis history has been lost, forgotten, or caricatured. The 150-year story of lawn tennis is full of larger-than-life figures, underrated champions, and local heroes. I dont know about you, but I want to know a lot more about those players. I wish I had a deeper understanding of earlier eras, especially those that came before the dawn of the Open Era in 1968.

Thats why Im writing the Tennis 128.

* * *

In a couple of days, Ill begin counting down the 128 greatest tennis players of all time. The list includes men and women, and it takes into account more than a century of play, from 1919 to the present. Ill publish an essay about each one. Well dive into who they were, what they accomplished, and how they fit into the overall arc of tennis history.

(Why 1919? Its a convenient starting point. It was the first full season after World War I, and it gives us about 100 years to work with. There were great players before the war, of course, and theres no clear dividing line between pre-modern and modern tennis. But the game has changed so much that while I can just manage a comparison of Helen Wills to Billie Jean King or Serena Williams, its a much bigger stretch to somehow consider Lottie Dod.)

This may all sound familiar. In 2020 and 2021, Joe Posnanski wrote a similar series for baseball, counting down his top 100 players. He published it a few months ago as a giant book, The Baseball 100, which you should buy. Joes project is the inspiration for this one. Im not as good a writer as he is, so Im giving you 28% more players to make up for it.


A few more all-time greats well be talking about
If you think its audacious to the point of silliness to try to rank 100 years worth of tennis players, youre right. Its ridiculous. There are short careers and long careers, number ones with no slams and multi-slam winners who never reached number one. Theres the amateur era and the Open Era, and there were separate professional tours during the amateur era that meant some of the best players on earth went a decade without playing each other. There are at least 20 players with some plausible case for the #1 spot.

* * *

Any best-of-all-time list is subjective. Still, I tried to make mine as objective as possible. The ranking is primarily based on an algorithm that incorporates three things: a players peak, their five best years, and their entire career. Those components are measured by Elo ratings. I only considered seasons above a fairly high threshold, and there are no negative values for bad seasons. Im interested in how good players were at their best, not whether they stuck around for too many seasons at the end.

The ranking is almost entirely based on singles performance. Doubles used to be more prominent than it is now, but greatness has always been defined primarily as excellence on the singles court. In a few instances, Ive broken ties in favor of the better doubles player. Ive also moved a (very small) handful of players toward the top of the list because of their off-court contributions to the game.

In general, I follow Roger Federers edict that you can only compare players to their own eras. Objectively speaking, todays players are better than those of the past. They take advantage of personalized training and nutrition, technologically advanced rackets and strings, high-quality coaching from younger ages, and all the tactical knowledge developed by their predecessors. In that sense, Novak Djokovic is unquestionably better than Bill Tilden, and so is Adrian Mannarino. Thats not a very interesting way of approaching the problem, though. The Tennis 128 reflects the fact that there have been strong eras and weak eras, but the ultimate test of any player is how they performed against their peers.


Suzanne Lenglen and Bill Tilden, pretending not to despise each other
The ratings for amateur-era players rely on the exhaustive womens tennis database Ive assembled that goes back to the 1910s, as well as the impressive records put together at TennisArchives.com and in Chris Jordans book, The Professional Tennis Archive. These datasets arent perfect, nor are they complete, especially for mens tennis before World War II. But they are more than enough to allow us to compare the greatest players of all time.

Some details you might wonder about: Several active players made it on the list, which I finalized before the 2022 season began. However, if someone has a great year before I unveil their ranking, I will move them up to reflect that. Something to keep in mind when Andy Murray wins the next three majors.

A few notable players dont fit neatly into a pre-1919 or post-1919 bucket. If their post-1919 performance gets them on the list, I use their entire career to give them a ranking. If they werent good enough after World War I, theyll have to wait for another list.

Many players lost years worth of opportunities to World War II. Ive made minor adjustments in some of those cases, but in general, players are rated based solely on what they accomplished on court. It isnt quite fair to those who hit their peak years in the early 1940s, but its hard enough to accurately measure players based on what they did achieve, let alone what they could have done. The same reasoning applies to injuries that altered or ended careers, unfair as many of them were.

Its engrossingat least for meto dig into the mechanics and edge cases of rating systems, but I dont want to distract from the main purpose here. There are several dozen more outstanding players who missed the cut and wouldnt be out of place on the list. If your favorite player doesnt show up, dont fret: Its not because he or she isnt good enough, its just because I personally dislike you. Theres not much of a difference between #97 and #127, or between #50 and #80. The closer we get to the top, the more likely that a single place on the list really means something, but even there, differences between erasnot to mention men and womenallow for no final answer.

* * *

Ready? Ill unveil #128 on Thursday. The plan is to reach #1 in December. If all goes well, itll be December of 2022. You can expect three new players each week, usually on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Later today, Ill release a podcast episode with Joe Posnanski, author of the Baseball 100 and the inspiration for this project. We talk about both greatest-of-all-time lists as well as the Australian Open. There will also be an episode with Carl Bialik focused on player #127 later this week. Throughout the year, Ill host occasional podcast episodes with experts on more of the 128 players.

I cant remember the last time I was so excited to embark on a new project. I hope youll join me and follow along.

* * *

128. Beverly Baker Fleitz

127. Stan Wawrinka (podcast)

126. Jean Borotra

125. Li Na

124. Betty Nuthall

123. Michael Stich (podcast)

122. Ashley Cooper

121. Angela Mortimer

120. Kei Nishikori

119. Adrian Quist

118. Bill Johnston

117. Darlene Hard

116. Ted Schroeder

115. Rosie Casals (podcast 1 | podcast 2)

114. Andrea Jaeger

113. Karel Koeluh

112. Shirley Fry

111. Goran Ivanievi (podcast)

110. Frank Kovacs

109. Anita Lizana

108. Molla Mallory

107. Jim Courier (podcast)

106. Sarah Palfrey Cooke

105. Petra Kvitová

104. Vinnie Richards

103. Tony Roche

102. Jadwiga Jdrzejowska

101. Ashleigh Barty

100. Dorothy Round

99. Tom Okker

98. Zina Garrison

97. Frank Parker

96. Elena Dementieva

95. Vitas Gerulaitis

94. Kitty McKane Godfree

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Sunday 24th of April 2022 07:01:58 AM

I doubt Andy is going to add much to his palmares!

jsackmann wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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 by the way, if this is Jeff Sackmann who wrote the above, its a fascinating project and I am finding it fascinating - I look forward to the every couple of days updates and associated biogs very much . 

im also keen to see how much this years action eg Rafa winning the AO , maybe the FO next month, etc end up moving the dial in the top end of the list. And whether, for example, Iga Swiatek comes though into the list given she has a high ELO and is now dominating proceedings in 2022 , which she hadnt done when you compiled it initially at the end of 2021! 

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Thanks! It is me (though I'm not sure how much that sentence serves to confirm that) -- Steven pointed me to the thread yesterday.

I try to resist spoiling too much, but I can say Iga's not going to make it. A really great season might get her into the back quarter of the list, but I'm not going to re-order it to make room, at least not this year. I have Rafa and Novak penciled into specific spots, but I fully expect to do some juggling in November. 

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 I would like to add I'm glad it is really  you the compiler of the worlds top 128 from 1919. It  makes one look back on the greats of the past and not just concentrate on the present.I've made a list of the remaining names I would expect to be there. 

GAMEOVER wrote:

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jsackmann wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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 by the way, if this is Jeff Sackmann who wrote the above, its a fascinating project and I am finding it fascinating - I look forward to the every couple of days updates and associated biogs very much . 

im also keen to see how much this years action eg Rafa winning the AO , maybe the FO next month, etc end up moving the dial in the top end of the list. And whether, for example, Iga Swiatek comes though into the list given she has a high ELO and is now dominating proceedings in 2022 , which she hadnt done when you compiled it initially at the end of 2021! 

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Thanks! It is me (though I'm not sure how much that sentence serves to confirm that) -- Steven pointed me to the thread yesterday.

I try to resist spoiling too much, but I can say Iga's not going to make it. A really great season might get her into the back quarter of the list, but I'm not going to re-order it to make room, at least not this year. I have Rafa and Novak penciled into specific spots, but I fully expect to do some juggling in November. 

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 I would like to add I'm glad it is really  you the compiler of the worlds top 128 from 1919. It  makes one look back on the greats of the past and not just concentrate on the present.I've made a list of the remaining names I would expect to be there. 

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 How many have you got aligned so far, Gameover ? 

GAMEOVER wrote:

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Jon , I wrote out a list of men and women not yet on the list after we knew  Kitty Godfree  was  no. 94. However since I have 102 names obviously at least 8 of those are not in the top 128. I find it impossible to disseminate between   Suzanne Lenglen and  Maureen Connolly and Martina or Steffi. If you've lived in the era players played you have a better idea. Interesting to see what Jeff comes up with. As an aside  in 1984 Martina won 74 matches in a row, Steffi won 66 in a row in 1989/90 and now Iga  currently on a mere 23 is regarded as a major achievement. 

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 You are more dedicated than me - I will just see how it unrolls over the next 8 months or so!