ATP Tennis/Non-India Davis Cup

[PKBasu]

We will just keep going around in circles on this. If you play only in the years you are most effective (i.e., winning more often than not) and then run away, of course you will have a great winning percentage. Ken Rosewall made the Wimbledon and US Open final at age 39, and he won his first Slam singles title at 19. If you add on all the Pro Slams he won, Rosewall was the greatest tennis player of all time -- and Federer is a close second. Consistency across all surfaces is what makes a great player, and Federer's record of consecutive Semi Finals of Slams is peerless -- and far ahead of the next best (as is his record of consecutive Quarter Finals in Slams). Others found ways of not playing the Slams at the first hint of physical trouble, Federer made himself available and consistently made the final 4. That is true greatness: all the rest is fluff and excuses.

[Saniapower]

This is why Roger Federer is the Greatest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyIVWAX1OEQ&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZsdoK2DTRM

[prasen9]

We will just keep going around in circles on this. If you play only in the years you are most effective (i.e., winning more often than not) and then run away, of course you will have a great winning percentage.

Good, the person provided a better quality product.

Ken Rosewall made the Wimbledon and US Open final at age 39, and he won his first Slam singles title at 19. If you add on all the Pro Slams he won, Rosewall was the greatest tennis player of all time -- and Federer is a close second.

If we want to define away the greatest player, then why not define Yuki as the greatest tennis player of all time. When you have no argument using a useful metric, then you define away. There is nothing I can say or argue, if he is the best by definition.

Consistency across all surfaces is what makes a great player,

Then, I should be the greatest player. I lose consistently always.

and Federer's record of consecutive Semi Finals of Slams is peerless -- and far ahead of the next best (as is his record of consecutive Quarter Finals in Slams). Others found ways of not playing the Slams at the first hint of physical trouble, Federer made himself available and consistently made the final 4. That is true greatness: all the rest is fluff and excuses.

When you have a losing record against your top two peers, you just define away. Whatever you have said is fluff and made up definitions.

Funny that some Federer fans (with exceptions such as Prashant and the silent ones) suffer from such an inferiority complex because of his losing record against Nadal and Djokovic that they have to try to assert arbitrarily that Federer must be accepted as the greatest ever because he looks the best and because they say so. I wonder why they are so insecure.

[prasen9]

Before the last paragraph can be twisted and called a personal attack, I wanted to say that there is nothing personal. All I am saying is that the term "greatest" is subjective. We define it differently. For some, the quality of the product is important, for some the quantity is important, and using different metrics, we will always come up with different answers. It seems to me that some Federer fans (with exceptions such as Prashant) are the ones who always come out saying their definition of greatest has to be accepted and the others are invalid. Not!

[Sin Hombre]

Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are all in my alltime top 6 but they have benefited from surface homegenization and improvement in racquet technology which has taken away a lot of variance away from the game.

As far as actual rankings go, I tend to have Sampras at 5 and Djokovic at 6 but the top 4 is a mixed bag between Borg, Federer, Nadal and Laver.

They all have reasons why they should be the GOAT and why they shouldn't.


Borg

In favour
Unparalleled peak

Against
Quitter


Federer

In favour
Consistency and longevity
Statistical domination in a lot of categories

Against
Match up dominated by his main rival
Mental weakness (worst record by far of losing from match point of any ATG contender)


Nadal

In favor
No matchup issues (had a positive h2h against the entire top 40 until he physically fell off in 2014)
Hardest career overlapping 2 other ATG contenders in prime (Federer first half, Djokovic second)

Against
Shortest dominant period of any ATG contender
Grass failures in second half of career

Laver

In favour
2x grand slams!
Banned for 6 years in his prime from competing

Against
Amateur era

[arjun2761]

Agree with most of the analysis above of the top 6 candidates for GOAT.

I have Nadal (4th) bracketed with Djokovic (6th) and Sampras (5th). Of course, Nadal and Djokovic are still active players and can move up if they win a few more slams.

Federer (1st) ,Laver (2nd), and Borg (3rd) are my top 3.

One "scientific" ranking is here. Pretty much every ranking on the web by experts or magazines has Federer as the GOAT, while the 2-9 does vary a fair bit.

[prasen9]

Agree with most of the analysis above of the top 6 candidates for GOAT.

Agree with Sin Hombre's analysis largely too.

I have Nadal (4th) bracketed with Djokovic (6th) and Sampras (5th). Of course, Nadal and Djokovic are still active players and can move up if they win a few more slams.

Federer (1st) ,Laver (2nd), and Borg (3rd) are my top 3.

My position is that I do not see a scientific basis for ranking any one over the other. We can use different metrics to produce different results. All of them are great in my eyes and I cannot determine and do not care who is the greatest.

One "scientific" ranking is here.

This is largely a weighted sum of some features. The weights determine the end rankings. If you weight the losses in GS's more, etc., you will get a different result.

Pretty much every ranking on the web by experts or magazines has Federer as the GOAT, while the 2-9 does vary a fair bit.

This is exactly what I am saying. Only the Federer fans are trying to establish this "GOAT" thing where in reality, each great has their strengths and weaknesses some of which were listed by Sin Hombre. I don't know why. Yes, one reasonable answer could be that the experts and magazines say so because that is the objective truth. But, given his losing record against his peers (Djokovic, Nadal), and his having a poorer record wrt Borg with respect to % of matches won, etc., both of which are important metrics (in my mind) in determining an undisputed GOAT, I do not see that as being "the" objective truth. So, in my mind, there is no undisputed GOAT. [Which is sort of in line with Arrow's impossibility theorem and reminds me of Godel's incompleteness theorems.]

Maybe we human beings have a tendency to try to rationalize what we feel instinctively. A set of people like Federer's style of play to be "beautiful" and given that they like it, they try to expound his game as the greatest ever!

I would be interested in hearing what people think of what should be the "formula" to determine the greatest. Maybe people can list what "factors" (statistics/metrics) they think should be relevant and what their intuitive weights should be ... Now that debate would be interesting and may improve my understanding of the matter.

[Prashant]

I would not argue, at all, with labeling those 6 as the best ever in any order - Arjun's or Sin Hombre's or anyone else's. As Prasen has explained, ultimately these are opinions, and all these guys have had amazing careers, and the final ranking comes down to which of several metrics you value the most. I'm only arguing about any system (eg. PKB's) that excludes Borg from the list. If you want to put him fourth behind RF & Nadal & whoever, that is fine. To say that he doesn't belong in the conversation is nonsensical. My personal ranking would probably be Borg - Federer - Nadal - Djokovic - Sampras - Laver, but I'd have to think long & hard about the order of the last 3. I'd penalize Laver only because he got to play 3 out of 4 GS every year on grass.

And, I'm sympathetic to both sides of the longevity vs peak argument, I really am. But an astonishing 8 year run is more than enough to counter any longevity concerns. We are not talking about a six month flash in the pan here. That is longer than the career of a large number of very good tennis players. Notice that I never brought up Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe in my discussion, even though Connors 1974 was statistically the best season anyone has ever had.

[prasen9]

I try to stay away from really old guys like Laver ... and just qualify my statements by saying after 1970, 1980 or Open Era, etc.

While not being in contention for best ever, apart from our three musketeers, Borg, Connors and McEnroe come to my mind ... wait, there is Sampras. And then, I have to think of Lendl if I am thinking of McEnroe. And, Agassi was the only one who won all four GS before these three ... But, if we are bringing in Lendl and McEnroe, why not Wilander ...

I give up. I cannot rank.

Maybe we should table the discussion. It is possible that Federer will rectify his head-to-head numbers with Nadal and Djokovic, especially, given that he now picks and chooses the surface he will play in. And maybe his win % too due to this. So, let us wait until F.,N.,D. are all done and then consider their entire career's work.

Of course, if you are using the # of GS titles won, finals appearance, semi-final appearance, and quarter-final appearance, Federer is king. This does show that he has played at a very high level the longest. But Borg never lost in the first round of a GS

Also, Federer's overall record is perhaps not that good because he is playing while old, but, maybe because he was a very slow starter before he became The Federer. His first four years were not that great wrt GS. Then, he hit his strides. Borg hit his strides in his second year.

[PKBasu]

Objective criteria: Ken Rosewall won 23 Slam titles (8 of those we all know as Slams, and 15 Pro Slam singles titles -- there were 3 Pro Slam events every year until 1967), Laver won 20 (11 official Slams, 9 Pro Slams), Federer has 18. (The other great in the pre-Open Pro era, Pancho Gonzales, had 17 Slam titles, 15 of them Pro Slams).

[prasen9]

So, what you are saying is that whoever wins the most GS tournaments is the greatest player of all time. Under that definition, the conclusion is undeniable.

What we (I and perhaps Prashant) are saying is that that metric is not the be-all and end-all wrt deciding the GOAT.

BTW, I just remembered that the Australian Open used to be on grass until 1987 and it was generally considered a lesser slam in comparison to the other three (at least by some players). So, Borg not playing the Aussie Open is not hiding from hard court. We don't doubt his calibre on grass, do we? Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

Nevertheless, except for the 1969 and 1971 tournaments, many of the best players missed this championship until 1982, because of the remoteness, the inconvenient dates (around Christmas and New Year's Day) and the low prize money.

I think Borg played until 1981 or so.

[prasen9]

Borg was an over-achiever at a young age, but we have his whole career to look at -- which ended at 25. That he didn't play the Australian (on his worst surfaces -- grass and hard courts) preserved him for the other two Slams (FO and Wimbledon). In the end, he failed to win the US Open, and never turned up at the AO. A great player but not one of the best of all time.

I am scratching my head at this. Borg was not good on grass courts? Here are the W-L records at Wimbledon. Borg: 51-4 (92.7%, best until today). Federer: 84-11 (88.4%). Actually, in Wimbledon, Sampras has a better record than Federer: 63-7 (90%).

And this is not because Federer played until he is old. But, because he was not very good in his first few years. His last 4 years at Wimbledon: 2R, F, F, SF. His first 4 years: 1R, 1R, QF, 1R. If anything, by playing longer, Federer is actually improving his lacklustre record (wrt win %) in his first 4 years (in comparison to the greats; we would be jumping with joy if any Indian player made the QF in his 3rd year) by playing until he his old.

[rajitghosh]

Objective criteria: Ken Rosewall won 23 Slam titles (8 of those we all know as Slams, and 15 Pro Slam singles titles -- there were 3 Pro Slam events every year until 1967), Laver won 20 (11 official Slams, 9 Pro Slams), Federer has 18. (The other great in the pre-Open Pro era, Pancho Gonzales, had 17 Slam titles, 15 of them Pro Slams).

In the pro circuit in the 60's Rosewall used to toy with Laver the only person to have 2 Grand Slams. This when Laver had a powerful serve and power groundstrokes and Rosewall was 5'8". Rosewall's main rivalry was with Pancho. Rosewall and Pancho were the greatest players of an era when depth in tennis was quite good.

[SaniaFan]

I thought there was a separate thread for GOAT. Also discussing cattles is not a good idea for Indians these days. This can lead to unnecessary tension amongst the sections of people.
PS: I know goat is not considered as cattle but it is close enough!!

[PKBasu]

I didn't say Borg wasn't good on grass courts, just that grass wasn't his best surface. Borg had a 61-11 career record on grass (slightly worse than Federer's 100-15), and won only one grass title other than his 5 Wimbledon titles. So there is no guarantee that he would have won an Australian Open title on grass had he bothered to play in the Australian summer (and prepare for it, rather than hibernating in Sweden).