Best ever tennis player (Slams only - mens')

[Tigers_eye]

Pete: 14 grand slams, 18 finals says it all. Unfortunately has no French open.
Lendl: 19 finals appearance is all time leader, 8 slams.
Agassi: In modern era only person to have all 4 grand slam titles (No way near his wife though). 14 finals appearance, 8 slams.
J Conners: Never over with him. Fights to the last minute. 15 finals appearance, 8 slams.
Rod Laver: 17 finals appearance, 11 titles, 2 Grand slam years.
B Borg: 16 finals, 11 titles. Retired at the age of 26 wow!!! 90% wins in grand slams. played only in 1 Aus open. 41 matches in row in wim still a record.
Federer: you all know. Cool as cat! No competition from anyone in his era. 6 of 6 slams.

Edited on, September 21, 2005, 5:51 PM GMT, by Cats_eye.

[Fazal]

I guess he is yet to be born.

And the father is already listed in your poll.

[Tigers_eye]

That would be hard to follow. mother with 22 slams, with a grand slam year, father with 8 wow!!

[Arnab]

Federer: you all know. Cool as cat! No competition from anyone in his era. 5 of 5 slams.

Federer has won 6 out of 6 slams before you made the title post.

If by 'best' one means the ultimate combination of allround skill with a display of explosive power at the right moments, an ability to take the level up several notches during crucial moments and critical stages of matches, physical finesse, flexibility, hunger for trophies, determination to slug it out even in the face of an imminent loss, unassuming nonchalance and fluid grace on court - Federer is the best player of all time.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally posted by Arnab
Federer has won 6 out of 6 slams before you made the title post.

thank you for correcting me. Yes he won 6 of 6 slams. 100% final record is amazing. I can certainly see, barring injury, he can easily double his stats. (downloaded a database from tennis association history table where they still didnot have the 2005 US open posted. I guess it is still present sorry for the 5 of 5 stat)

[chinawoman]

Federer is the man to beat

[mwrkhan]

I voted for Sampras. If Federer continues like this for another 5-6 years he could easily overtake him.

[chinawoman]

Originally posted by mwrkhan
I voted for Sampras. If Federer continues like this for another 5-6 years he could easily overtake him.

yep but i still thin Federer is the best

[cricman]

The diffence between Federer and Sampras was the competition or i say lack there of.

Guys remember Sampras at 32 whipped Roddick 6-2 6-2 6-2 at the open.

There are only 3 other right now that i can say that can beat federer. Hewitt, Safin and Nadal. Where as in the sampras era i could name you 10-15.

[mwrkhan]

Originally posted by cricman
There are only 3 other right now that i can say that can beat federer. Hewitt, Safin and Nadal. Where as in the sampras era i could name you 10-15.

On a good day I think Roddick might be able to do it as well.

[Arnab]

Originally posted by cricman
Guys remember Sampras at 32 whipped Roddick 6-2 6-2 6-2 at the open.

This is a horrible attempt at historical comparison of tennis players.

When Sampras was 32, Roddick just joined the pro tour and was only 19. Roddick was not even at his peak at that time and didn't have enough experience.

On the other hand, entertain this fact: both Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin, when they were only 20 and relatively inxperienced, won their respective first Grand Slams beating Sampras, a 11-year veteran of sport and 10+-times Grand Slam champion at the time when he played them. What does this fact signify? That Hewitt and Safin are better than Sampras in terms of skill? That Hewiit and Safin possess talents at an young age that Sampras couldn't even muster even having won so many slams? No! This kind of approach to historical comparison is wrong. You CANNOT take a win or a loss in one single match and based on just that match make proper historical comparisons.

Maybe when Lleyton and Safin beat Sampras in US Open finals, Sampras was relatively off his form. We cannot be sure of even that. If he was off form, then how did he manage to reach the final in the first place? Maybe Sampras's playing level at 32 years old was not quite the same as his playing level at 25 years old. This seems more plausible. We need to compare statistics of his first service, 2nd service, ace counts, unforced errors, etc. from his early years and later years. Then we will begin to have an inkling of a true historical comparison.

Accordingly, one needs to analyze Federer, Safin. Roddick, Hewitt's entire career stats to understand their career evolution, the peaks and lows of their form.

For example, before 2003 Federer had a losing record against Hewitt and Safin, now he has a solid winning record against them. Couple this with the fact that Hewitt and Safin have not dropped form since their early years but have actually improved in skill, stamina, competitive nature, etc. since 2000/2001, and you arrive at a pretty logical conclusion that Federer at his peak simply plays way better than any of these guys. It's not the lack of competition that makes Federer good, it's because Federer is SO good that his competition seems relatively lacking.

There are only 3 other right now that i can say that can beat federer. Hewitt, Safin and Nadal. Where as in the sampras era i could name you 10-15.

Just plain bad analysis.

You are compring the ENTIRE Sampras career with Federer's peak performance period (which is now). The scope of you analysis is wrong. Of course Sampras lost to a lot of people over his whole career. So has Federer before he reached his peak (pre-2003 fall) and so will he in the future (we don't know when it will start). When Sampras was at his peak (1993-1995), very few people beat him. It was AFTER 1996 that Sampras started to lose to more players, mostly because he had to change his playing style because he developed a medical condition called Thalassemia minor.

Federer is unbeatable now not because his competition is lagging. Another entirely plausible reason (and I am pretty sure that this IS the reason) is that Federer at his peak plays at such a high level that it is difficult for other players to beat him; he has taken the game to a whole new level.

In fact, that's exactly what Agassi has acknowledged right after this year's US Open final. He said that Federer is a better player than Sampras was. Agassi is probably the perfect man to assess and compare the two players. He actually played high-quality, extremely competitive tennis against both of them and having played Sampras around 30 times and Federer around 20 times, he knows their games inside out. Agassi's career span (1987-2005) contains Sampras (1988-2002) and Federer's (1998-2005) entire career span. I will take Agassi's testimonial against anybody else's when it comes to the comparison of Federer and Sampras.

Edited on, September 22, 2005, 9:25 AM GMT, by Arnab.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally posted by Arnab
Federer is unbeatable now not because his competition is lagging. Another entirely plausible reason (and I am pretty sure that this IS the reason) is that Federer at his peak plays at such a high level that it is difficult for other players to beat him; he has taken the game to a whole new level.

It may be true. More like Tiger Woods.
*********
The best player should win in every surface. Shouldn't he? He is the best in Tennis in his era atleast. Should be able to win in any condition. The females did that. Navratilova, Graff etc.
In that case Rod Laver is untouchable. And in this era only Agassi comes close. We can only wait and see what Federer does in coming French opens.

[battye]

Pat Rafter