8 thoughts on “The 100 Greatest Tennis Players of All-Time”

1. 

   I think you have Jaroslav Drobny twice in your top 100 and overflow list.

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      Thanks for the heads up! Drobny on the overflow list was the error.

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         also Jean Borotra

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            Same deal. The overflow inclusion is the error. Both were removed. Thanks for looking out, Parker!

2. 

   Can’t really argue with the top of the list. My heart says Federer is GOAT but the numbers are against him. The only argument I can think of is that before Federer, we didn’t know that that sort of dominance was even possible. 8 Grand Slams was sort of the benchmark for greatness, and the record was 14. He blew through that and changed the way we think about greatness in tennis. I tend to give some credit for trail blazing, but it’s still a tough road for Fed.
   I’m not particularly comfortable with the top 3 being from the same era but I think the numbers are unsurmountable. It worries me in the same way that Messi-Ronaldo–Lewa does. It has to be at least possible that the circumstances and environment of the time have lent themselves to domination in a way that they didn’t in previous eras. What is true is that tennis in its current pro form is quite young. Even once the open era began, not all players too all the Slams seriously – Borg famously skipped the Australian, others gave short-shrift to the French. And of course without the modern focus on conditioning and medical support, careers tended to be shorter.
   Laver seems to be the one for whom an argument can be made given his Slam as an Amateur and then in the Open era. He was also dominant as a pro once he settled in so it’s tempting to say he’d have won 2-4 Slams a year from 1963-1967. Problem is, when he first came on Tour in 1963, Rosewell had his number. So it’s very likely Rosewell was also supperior in 1962. With the other great pros around in the early 60s, including Gonzalez Hoad I think it quite likely that had the Open era begun 10 years earlier, Laver may not have won a Slam until 1964. Even with domination for a few years after that, it’s hard to get past 15-20 majors which leaves him short of the Big 3.
   I think you’ve done a nice job integrating the pros of the pre-Open era, especially given how different that game was. I do wonder if Lew Hoad is a bit low. Some experts still talk about him as a greatest and Gonzalez said he was the only guy who could match his top level.
   One final thought. I think the guys that came before Federer played in a particularly tough era. Sampras, Agassi and co played in a fully developed Open game, but in one where there were true specialists which made dominating on all surfaces challenging. To win the French you’d have get past a slew of Argentines and Spaniards that would focus on only on clay, and then you’d have to go to Wimbledon and face Goran serving at 145mph.
   Fed and the gang eventually put paid to specialists with their all around prowess, but the conditions helped too. The grass at Wimbledon, for example, became far slower and the bounce more even so that baseliners could compete for the first time.

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      Hey Stirlo, fantastic stuff! I’m the same on Fed. My heart is there, and it was a sad moment for me when the ammunition to defend his spot as the GOAT ran out. I like your line of thinking on Fed being the first to show that level of dominance. I also think there’s something to the idea that Fed’s peak run was the top run ever. Ranking the pre-open era is a slog. It took longer than any other list, and it wasn’t by a small margin. The point you brought up about Hoad is a good example why. For every good thing Gonzalez said about Hoad, Kramer said the same thing about Vines, and Vines said the same about Budge, and so on and so on. I agree on caution being warranted with Laver. It’s easy to assume he would’ve won several majors, but I don’t think that’s a sure thing. Very good point on the specialization of the surfaces in the 80s.

3. 

   Good evening. A top 100 list such as this was an undertaking I always enjoyed putting time toward over the years – tennis being perhaps the sport I knew the best and thus was in a position to attempt it reasonably well. I have since posted this list on the talktennis forum online, which I contribute postings and lists to from time to time. Incidentally, I actually subscribe to a ‘lineal champion’ concept that informs my overall top 100 list as well, borrowed from boxing and modified as needed. It differs some in result and perhaps also in intent from yours. In a sense our lists have a fair bit in common from the standpoint of who is listed and who isn’t, and the orders have some discernible overlap as well.

   I can say from the jump we do operate from almost opposing standpoints. I see from elsewhere on your site that you motivation lies in trying to correct for a reverence toward the past that goes overboard in your interpretation, the example being baseball – which I think is really a bit of an outlier among the various sports and their acknowledgement of bygone eras. Tennis for example, with the exception of Laver, you are likely to go a year or more through the totality of all US broadcasts with nary a name drop of even someone as consequential as Jack Kramer or Don Budge, probably even Ken Rosewall.

   In your list here I am pleased to see a good representation of the games greats dating back to the early 1900s or so. And some relatively high placements for the likes of Vines, Kramer.

   While I wouldn’t want to expend to much of my writing time quibbling over indictable rankings, I do have to question the placement of a player such as Ruud over any number of luminaries from decades past.

   To return to my point, my interest in tackling lists such as a top 100 Tennis players list lay in addressing the problem I saw of far too much sensationalizing of the present. I’ve already had a few friends comment to me they are surprised how the media bonzana has taken off so sharply with Alcaraz and Sinner (the two best ever; playing the highest level of tennis ever seen, etc). Of course I’ve been through this a few times by this point and can recall when Federer first popped on ever scene and somewhere around 2005 people, some of them presumably in positions to know better, began to surmise ‘could he be the best ever?’. Now time wound up validating a fair amount of that commentary, as indeed Federer had an all-time great career – but I personally can’t abide that within the last decade in suppose to have been witness to the greatest quarterback, the greatest soccer player, the greatest college football coach, the greatest swimmer, table tennis champion, NBA team, women’s college basketball team, NFL coach, sprinter, formula one driver, boxer, gymnast, etc etc etc. Some of them, are indeed just that. But not all of them.

   In my conceptualization of the lineal champion concept, from 1919 to present, I identify 12 such persons – (chronologically) Tilden, Cochet, Vines, Budge, Kramer, Gonzales, Laver, Borg, Lendl, Sampras, Federer, and Djokovic. That doesn’t follow that they are my 1-12, as the next tier down has some players (Nadal amongst them) whose overall achievements exceed some lineal champions – but it serves well enough as a rubric of sorts.

   Nevertheless, differences of opinions aside, nice to see others taking an approach to this type project. Great to keep the memory of the history behind our favorite sports alive!

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      Hey Sam!

      I appreciate hearing the perspective of a fellow sports historian and list maker, as well as your take on the lineal GOATs. I understand your skepticism as it relates to many of the GOATs in sports occurring/existing within the last few decades. It seems wrong. However, the bulk of the 20th century in all sports was not accessible to significant portions of the populations. It hasn’t been that long since sports became accessible not only to all races in America, but also to the globe. This has resulted in the largest pools of athletes in history, which puts the degree of difficulty in being the best player in a sport at an all time high. It might be slightly more difficult 25-50 years from now, but the difference between now and then will likely be nowhere close to the difference between 1950 and 2000.

      Sensationalism is definitely rampant in sports culture (and it always has been), which is why it’s important to have foundational components for comparison. Alcaraz and Sinner are off to blistering starts, of course, but Djokovic’s resume is no mystery. The facts are the facts. They have a long way to go as you point out. On a related note, the tennis world misses Bud Collins. He was the last (or one of the last) analyst who routinely and confidently dropped those historical references that you cited as missing from the discourse.