Tennis greats

Almost seven or eight years ago I had claimed that for my money it was John McEnroe who was the greatest tennis player of at least the so-called Open Era [1]. I want to revisit that topic mainly because so many things are being said about Roger Federer having played 1,000 matches, at a winning percentage of 81.4.

As I have given the link to my earlier post, I will not go over the points again, but would take a slightly different tack, based on a table of minimal statistics, The 1000 Club, given in today’s The Hindu [2].

I reproduce the table below:

Player	Total matches played	Won / Lost	Winning %
Jimmy Connors	1,427	1,156 / 271	81.01
Ivan Lendl	1,310	1,068 / 242	81.53
Guillermo Vilas	1,226	940 / 286	76.67
Andre Agassi	1,144	870 / 274	76.05
John McEnroe	1,079	881 / 198	81.65
Stefan Edberg	1,076	806 / 270	74.91
Ilie Nastase	1,026	730 / 296	71.15
Roger Federer	1,000	814 / 186	81.4

The above numbers reveal a lot and also almost preclude claiming anyone of them the “Best” of the Open Era.

If you went into the details behind the numbers, you would find that in general the rivalries of the 1970s-90s were more, and more varied. Connors had said something like he would chase Borg to the ends of the earth. That does not seem to be the case anymore, the chasing left to the precious few majors and the season-enders, to claim the bragging rights and bag a chunk of the loot.

When Federer and Nadal meet in the on-going Australian Open, they will be playing head-to-head for the 26^th time. Compare that to Lendl v. McEnroe, it was 36 by the time the two guys quit.

The flip side of that argument could be that the talent beyond the first two was too thin. But, the numbers belie that, with five of the eight guys in the table having been contemporaries (even if one excluded Agassi and Edberg as latecomers).

When Pete Sampras was on top, he was the “Greatest” of all time. In my earlier post I shot down that preposterous claim and I seem to have been proven right. It is hardly ever his name is mentioned with much awe, probably because he focused too sharply on the so-called majors. It is quite sad that he lost even that crown, “winner of most majors” to Federer.

To be sure, to play 1,000 matches and have a winning percentage exceeding 80, like Connors, Lendl, McEnroe, and Federer is truly impressive and I do not begrudge the fan adulation the last one gets. But, it is a different matter that he be judged the best of even the limited Open Era. Simple calculation shows that to match McEnroe’s numbers, Federer has to play 79 more matches (say, 16 tournaments, year and a half) and win 12 of them. That is for every tournament he enters, he has to win 5.5 matches for every loss. A tall order, particularly given that his opponents have tasted blood.

There are many things beyond numbers that go to make a player shine among the best; what these are in my opinion I have already written about. The above table, celebrating Federer reaching a milestone has not persuaded me to change my opinion.

References

1.    http://raghuram-ekambaram.sulekha.com/blog/post/2004/10/the-greatest-tennis-player.htm

2.    The 1000 club, the Hindu, January 25, 2012