so who is the best tennis player of all time?

[Ken Gargett]

How dare you not mention Ivan Lendl...

seriously? i thought the bloke was allergic to grass.

[Ken Gargett]

So do you think Harry Potter's quidditch game would have been as good had he not had the Nimbus 2000?

not a chance.

but are we going with skill or athleticism for quidditch?

[Ken Gargett]

I appreciate the support the Aussie contingent on this board will throw to Laver, who was preposterously great. That said, I'm not going to give undue credit to slams that were on grass for 75% of them. If three of the Majors were on grass, Fed would have won tons of Slams.

And I don't do the "Rafa beats Fed most of the time therefore Fed can't be the best" thing either. Let's be honest, For stretches, both Watson and Trevino owned Jack, but you certatinly can't rate them ahead of him.

Fed wins for the same reasons that Jack wins. Less for the wins themselves, which are tops, but for the collective excellence shown over a career. Ask any golfer and they'll tell you that Jack's number of top 5's in Majors is a much sicker number than the sick number of Majors he won. I forget the number of consecutive and total semis Fed has played in in majors, but until Rafa and Djoko get there, which will never happen, one guy stands on top, in my humble estimation. On four different surfaces (US Open and Aussie hardcourts are totally different).

The better question was who was the best serve and volleyer. Tough to go against Pete.

by any standards, fed is and always will be one of the greatest, but "the" greatest is surely far less certain.

understand the rafa - fed thing but it is a hole in his game. and a question mark. 8 out of ten in majors and 19-9 overall is very dominant. even against djokovic in majors, federer only leads 5-4. there is possibly an argument that fed's best years came when the opposition was not as tough as some eras. then along came nadal and others.

and hard to argue with the grass thing but you can't blame a bloke for the surfaces on which he plays. not laver's fault that there was bugger all on hard court then (it would be like a situation where they develop a new surface in a few years - you can't bag federer for not winning on it). but even when hard court came in, in that grand prix hardcourt circuit thing of the 70's, up to '75, laver won 18-2. that is a hell of record against the best in the world, especially as he was probably getting to well past his best. no player comes close to laver in domination on every surface.

all that said, laver won several on clay in france. fed got one - and if you look at the players he encountered, it was close to a dream run for fed. sonderling in a final? if he'd faced a fit nadal in that one, hard to believe he'd have ever got a french.

but the main issue in a comparison surely has to be that hole in laver's career. fed had 4 1/2 years as number one. laver had at least seven in a row. yet for almost all of that period, he could not play in majors (but won a heap of the professional equivalents). then won slams either side, many years apart. take away federer from the 25 or so majors when he was the top in the world and he would have a far less impressive record.

agree re sampras and serve/volley. in fact, aside from clay, at their best, i'd take sampras over federer. he is, for me, the second best ever.

[canadianbeaver]

I picked Agassi but I need to clarify my answer... when he HAD HAIR.

[LeafLover]

Federer is definitely one of the most popular tennis players of all time because of his greatness. He really is a maestro on the court. As a competitive junior tennis player, I understand the game and it's difficulties. Roger is amazing and makes everything look effortless. It's too bad that Nadal is in his head. The problem is that Nadal's ground strokes are tall looping heaving topspin going to Roger's backhand. And, one of the hardest shots to hit is a one handed backhand above the shoulder. Still, Roger makes that looks effortless. Nadal is Roger's kryptonite because of Nadal's strategy against him. Ironically, other players try this same strategy (attacking Roger's backhand) without any success.

Rod "the Rocket" Laver is definitely the best statistics-wise. Amazing feat. That's long term dominance.

[LeafLover]

On the woman's side, I vote for Steffi's legs.

[Ken Gargett]

On the woman's side, I vote for Steffi's legs.

she did have grerat legs. and one could almost forgive sharapova her grunting. sabatini was pretty impressive on a court. and sometimes even as a player.

whoever you think of as the best of the blokes, that final last night was one of the great games. for djokovic to win in five - apparently the longest ever final in a major - with a day less to recover, after playing five sets against murray, is truly amazing. he keeps this up and he is going to sit happily with the tops from any era.

[LeafLover]

forgive sharapova her grunting

If you close your eyes, some of the grunting can be very...um...nice. LOL.

[Ken Gargett]

If you close your eyes, some of the grunting can be very...um...nice. LOL.

now the blokes are grunting just as much. far less nice.

[sighuber]

To me, Federer at his peak was the best I have ever seen. Sampras was great too (and he kicked my butt in a big tournament when we were 12) but I still have to have to give the nod to Federer. Djok is awesone too but its too early to put him in the elite company of the others.

[frenchkiwi]

in the fully professional open era ie minus its quite messy early years (sorry perry budge gonzales laver emerson - i'm too young to comment)...

for mine, players who couldn't win majors on all surfaces have to be struck off. they could be great players but you can't rank them in the greatest of all time for lack of versatility... goodbye sampras who couldn't buy a ticket to even the final of the french open, goodbye Mcenroe (although he at least made the final) and Borg, goodbye lendl who never won wimbledon on grass ... a little easy but that simplifies things a bit.

down to only five fellas then - connors wilander agassi fedex nadal. that's where it gets complicated. the first three all had amazing, long-lived careers... the last 2 ain't done yet. nadal and fedex have the best win-loss ratios, but they haven't done the end of career bow out (like Wilander's whose ratio dropped to 70% after a poor end of career... the others all stand above 80%). so it's pretty hard to make a call until they've retired...

nadal the born and bred clay-court spaniard beating federer to take out wimbledon has to be one of the most amazing feats of recent memory. (and then he did it again).

if either of them re-emerge to dominate the current triumvirate (with djokovic) in the next few years they will have a stronger claim to being the Greatest. particularly since these last few years are now as competitive at the very top as they've ever been...?

[Yoruba Hacker]

if either of them re-emerge to dominate the current triumvirate (with djokovic) in the next few years they will have a stronger claim to being the Greatest. particularly since these last few years are now as competitive at the very top as they've ever been...?

Fed will be 31 by this year's US Open. I think his likelihood of "dominating" the other two guys is zero. If he can pick up another major or two, that would make it awful tough to argue against him.

But again I say, he's still there. Another semi in a major. And he still throws a scare in Djoker.

[mk05]

Yoshi with that egg racket is pretty dominant on grass.

[perfectform]

Ok so I just voted Hewitt to spite Ken for putting him on the list and not my man Lendl. Seriously ken? Hewitt?

[Ken Gargett]

Ok so I just voted Hewitt to spite Ken for putting him on the list and not my man Lendl. Seriously ken? Hewitt?

i think it did make it very clear that hewitt might not have been the most serious selection. one for the home team - though no one fought harder to come back in five. always admired that about him. and when he whipped sampras, the day before 9-11, for the us open, he was unstoppable. but seriously, he is not a contender.

our friend f/k's point re all surfaces is a really valid one. otherwise, i suspect sampras would be more highly ranked by many. but had he enjoyed federer's draw when fed won it, i think even sampras would have got there. it is a point against sampras and also fed. and quite a few others - not suggesting borg a contender but interesting that his successes came at wimbledon and paris.

but then for me, it becomes a point very much in favour of laver, who dominated on all the surfaces he played for many years - not just a blip here and there. and with respect, merely because you are too young to have seen someone doesn't rule them out. would you then argue that bradman is not the best ever batsman?

and i agree that it is unlikely that we'll see fed win another major - but, a favourable draw, a few injuries and who knows. he is still very close. after the 1/4s here, the bookies had him fractionally behind djokovic as fave. but against a fit djokovic and a breathing nadal, he is in strife. i've never seen him look so rattled as he did when playing nadal. actually looked scared.

[perfectform]

i think it did make it very clear that hewitt might not have been the most serious selection. one for the home team - though no one fought harder to come back in five. always admired that about him. and when he whipped sampras, the day before 9-11, for the us open, he was unstoppable. but seriously, he is not a contender.

Sorry, I didn't see where you said that previously, and I was just ribbing you a bit.

Let's not forget Lendl did make 2 Wimbeldon finals back to back as well as a minimum of 2 wins in each of the other three slams. Anyhow, more of a sentimetal pick than anything, personally.

Top three in no particular order would be Laver, Sampras, Federer. Joker, still too early to tell but he's on his way to being the next Federer.

[Ken Gargett]

Top three in no particular order would be Laver, Sampras, Federer. Joker, still too early to tell but he's on his way to being the next Federer.

completely agree with those three, tho that would actually be my order, and so impressed with djokovic

[ducksofdeath]

Speaking of grunting, the most dominant female player, until she was stabbed, was Seles:

From January 1991 through February 1993, Seles won 22 titles and reached 33 finals out of the 34 tournaments she played. She compiled a 159–12 win-loss record (92.9% winning percentage), including a 55–1 win-loss record in Grand Slam tournaments.

Seles was the top women's player heading into 1993, having won the French Open three consecutive years and both the US Open and Australian Open in consecutive years. In January 1993, Seles defeated Graf in the final of the Australian Open, which to date was her third win in four Grand Slam finals against Graf.

And then an obsessed Graf fan had enough...

[Yoruba Hacker]

Surprised not even a peep about your boy Rafterman. He gave Pete fits for a while there. If he hadn't hurt his shoulder, who knows...?

Plus he repped for Oz better than Hewitt and FullofPoopoo ever did.

[Ken Gargett]

Surprised not even a peep about your boy Rafterman. He gave Pete fits for a while there. If he hadn't hurt his shoulder, who knows...?

Plus he repped for Oz better than Hewitt and FullofPoopoo ever did.

another terrific player but, even as a loyal fellow qlder, i don't think he can, or would expect, to be named at that level.

interesting stuff in the new york times about the reaction to laver by the top players and the utter reverence in which he is held by them.

it also talked of how djokovic now just needs the french this year to become the first player to win a slam since laver in 1969. the problem with that was that with laver, they didn't even bother to count slams unless they were all in the same year. still, novac only needs the french (plus wimbledon plus the us open) to get there. and the way he is playing...