Tennis Frontier

Category: El Dude’s Statistical Fetishism

El Dude Statistical Fetishism Tennis Blog at the Tennis Frontier by Jonathan Northrop.

Open Era Generations, Part Six: Gen 4 (1949-53) – It’s Jimmy’s Show
Open Era Natives
Once we get to the generation of players born from 1949 to 1953, we are firmly in the Open Era. The oldest players of this generation were still teenagers when the Open Era began. Take generation elder statesman Manuel Orantes, born at the very beginning of the timespan in February of 1949: his first Slam was the 1968 Australian Open, the last of the amateur era.
With apologies to Stan Smith, this generation also saw the first American superstar since Pancho Gonzales in Jimmy Connors. Pancho was the greatest tennis player of the 1950s but was past his prime and in his 40s when the Open Era began, although still ranking in the Top 10 as late as 1968. He played long enough to pass the baton to Jimmy Connors, their careers overlapping for a few years (more on that in a moment).

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Click here to discuss “Open Era Generations, Part Six: Gen 4 (1949-53) – It’s Jimmy’s Show” in the discussion forum.

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Best Players by Birth Year (Country, Slam Count)
1949: Manuel Orantes (ESP, 1)
1950: Adrian Panatta (ITA, 1), Phil Dent (AUS)
1951: Roscoe Tanner (USA, 1), Eddie Dibbs (USA), John Alexander (AUS), Dick Stockton (USA)
1952: Jimmy Connors (USA, 8), Guillermo Vilas (ARG, 4), Brian Gottfried (USA), Harold Solomon (USA), Wojtek Fibak (POL), John Marks (AUS), Kim Warwick (1952)
1953: Raul Ramirez (MEX), Jose Higueras (ESP), Corrado Barazzutti (ITA)

Discussion
This generation, that owns a rather middle-of-the-road 15 Slam titles—the same as the previous generation—was dominated by hot-headed American Jimmy Connors, who was the first superstar that belonged entirely to the Open Era. In a way Jimmy had two careers, known equally for both: his peak in the 70s and his incredible longevity that saw his career stretch past two decades and into the 90s. Jimmy was a Top 10 player from 1973 to 1988, a remarkable span of 16 years. Only Andre Agassi has surpassed this span by a single year, from 1988 to 2005, although Andre dropped out of the Top 10 twice while Jimmy’s streak was unmarred (if you’re wondering, Roger’s streak is at 14, so will equal Jimmy if he remains in the Top 10 through 2017).

I like to think of Guillermo Vilas as the gatekeeper to all-time greatness: if you’re better than Vilas, you’re a true all-time great. Vilas was in a way the Andy Murray of his era; he played alongside the peaks of better players like Connors, Borg, and then McEnroe and Lendl. Yet Vilas has a special record to his name: He still holds the most titles for a single year in the more fully documented ATP era (1973 to present), with 16 in 1977 (Rod Laver won 18 titles in 1969, the most in the Open Era). 1977 remains a controversial year as he finished No. 2 behind Connors in the ATP rankings, despite those sixteen titles and two Slams compared to Connors’ eight titles and zero Slams. It is the general consensus that Vilas had the better year and deserved the No. 1 ranking, but in a recent ruling the ATP decided not to reverse previous calculations, so Guillermo will remain the greatest player of the Open Era never to be ranked No. 1.

The rest of the generation is not as well remembered, but includes some strong players, including the lone Italian Grand Slam winner of the Open Era, Adrian Panatta (who is also only one of two Italian Grand Slam winners in tennis history, along with two-time French Open champion Nicola Pietrangeli). Other Slam winners were hard-hitting Roscoe Tanner, whose 153mph serve in 1978 was the fastest recorded until Andy Roddick’s 155mph at the 2004 Davis Cup, and Manuel Orantes, who defeated a peak Connors at the 1975 US Open.

Underachievers and Forgotten Players
There’s no clear underachiever in this generation; no player who seemingly should have won more Slams, no Slam-less player who should have won one. That said, this category is also for forgotten players and I would like to mention Brian Gottfried, Harold Solomon, and Raul Ramirez as the “Slam-less three” of this generation – the three best players of this generation not to win a Slam. These three combined for 67 titles (or 25, 22, and 19, respectively), and 5 Masters equivalents among them. All three are among the twenty or so best Slam-less players of the Open Era; Gottfried could be in the Top 5.

Did You Know?
Jimmy Connors’ first final was at the age of 19 in the 1971 Los Angeles Open, equivalent to a Masters tournament today. His opponent? 43-year-old Pancho Gonzales, who beat Jimmy 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. They had actually played earlier that year at a lesser tournament, which Pancho also won.

Top Ten Players of the Generation
1. Jimmy Connors
2. Guillermo Vilas
3. Manuel Orantes
4. Roscoe Tanner
5. Brian Gottfried
6. Harold Solomon
7. Adrian Panatta
8. Raul Ramirez
9. Eddie Dibbs
10. Jose Higueras
Honorable Mentions: John Alexander, Phil Dent, Dick Stockton, Wojtek Fibak, Corrado Barazzutti.

As with the generations before it, the top of the list is easy – no one would argue against Connors and Vilas, and Orantes is a pretty easy No. 3. Tanner gets the edge for No. 4 over Gottfried, Solomon, and Ramirez, but the “Slam-less Three” are relatively close – they were the Tomas Berdychs and Jo-Wilfried Tsongas of their era. I rank Adrian Panatta behind Gottfried and Solomon in a similar way that I will rank Marin Cilic behind Tsonga and Berdych (at least for now). While we all know that a single Slam title is more coveted than any number of lesser titles, when ranking overall career greatness, Slams titles must be contextualized with other factors—non-win Slam results, other titles, and rankings. Panatta simply wasn’t as good as the players ranked ahead of him. Dibbs and Higueras round out the Top 10.
November 19, 2015
Open Era Generations, Part Five: Gen 3 (1944-48) – Newcombe and the Class of ’46
A Transitional Generation
The generation born between 1944 and 1948 began establishing itself in the mid-60s but was in peak form during the early years of the Open Era. This was the last generation that saw some players with a significant portion of their careers before the Open Era began, although it is also the first generation that saw the majority of its players peak in the Open Era.

Best Players by Birth Year
1944: John Newcombe (AUS, 7), Tom Okker (NED), Alex Metreveli (USSR)
1945: Tony Roche (AUS, 1)
1946: Jan Kodes (CZE, 3), Ilie Nastase (ROM, 2), Stan Smith (USA, 2), Cliff Richey (USA)
1947: Bob Lutz (USA), Zeljko Franulovic (CRO), Gerald Battrick (UK)
1948: Brian Fairlie (NZ), John Bartlett (AUS), Vladimir Korotkov (USSR)

Discussion
There are several players in this generation that have a lasting heritage. John Newcombe, as will be discussed, is a bit of an underrated great, standing in the shadow of his greater predecessors, Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver. But he was the best player of this generation, and tied with Jimmy Connors for second most Slam titles in the 1970s (5) after Bjorn Borg (8).

After Newcombe, the class of 1946 presents a strong year of tennis births, with multi-Slam winners Nastase, Kodes, and Smith, who split seven Slams among them.

Nastase is a player whose Slam count doesn’t adequately reflect how good he was. He is perhaps best known for being the first ATP ranked year-end No. 1 player in 1973. He was a Top 10 player for most of the 70s and won a huge total of 58 titles overall, or by some accounts as many as 87—one less than Roger Federer—due to the fact that records were not fully accurate before the ATP in 1973.

Underachievers and Forgotten Players
The first player I’d like to mention is this generation’s greatest player, John Newcombe. While Newcombe, with seven Slams, cannot be considered an underachiever, he is a bit forgotten, for a couple reasons. One, he wasn’t as great as his Australian predecessors in Rosewall and Laver. Secondly, he didn’t quite have the cachet and sex appeal of later tennis superstars Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, and John McEnroe. Yet Newcombe was a great player; while he won three Australian Opens during an era when the field was still weaker than the other Grand Slams, he also won Wimbledon and the US Open twice each, defeating champions as diverse in range as Ken Rosewall (b. 1938) in the 1970 Wimbledon, to Jimmy Connors (b. 1952) in the 1975 Australian Open. Furthermore, Newcombe was one of the few top players of the amateur era whose success translated to the Open Era. With apologies to Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt, Newcombe is the last truly great Australian male tennis player.

I wouldn’t call Tom Okker an underachiever as much as a nearly-great player that never won a Slam. In a way he was his generation’s version of David Ferrer – a player always in the mix, with great results and many titles, but no majors. In fact, as discussed in one Tennis Frontier discussion thread, Okker is a good candidate for the best Slam-less player of the Open Era.

Finally, we have Stan Smith, who is probably the best suited to the title of underachiever, or at least a peak that didn’t match his total career. First of all he was a relatively late bloomer, although less so by his era’s standards. He didn’t reach his first Slam QF until 1970 when he was 23 years old, and won his first of two Slams a year later at 24. For a few years—the first half of the 70s—he was a Top 10 player, and for a couple years—1971-72—he was either No. 1 or co-No. 1. But after 1974 his performance dropped substantially. Throughout the late 70s and into the 80s he was a borderline Top 20 player, but no longer a star. Smith was one of the greatest Davis Cup players, being part of seven US titles. In my National Tennis Careers blog series, I ranked him as the 8th greatest American male tennis player of the Open Era right between No. 7, Andy Roddick, and No. 9, Michael Chang.

Did You Know?
1946 saw three multi-Slam winners born. While many years since then have had two multi-Slam winners born, or multiple Slam winners born, you have to go all the way back to 1921 to find another year that had three multi-Slam winners: Jack Kramer (5, 3 Grand, and 2 Pro), Pancho Segura (4 Pro Slams), and Jaroslav Drobny (3 Grand Slams).

Top Ten Players of the Generation
1. John Newcombe
2. Ilie Nastase
3. Stan Smith
4. Jan Kodes
5. Tony Roche
6. Tom Okker
7. Cliff Richey
8. Alex Metreveli
9. Zeljko Franulovic
10. Onny Parun
Honorable Mentions: Bob Lutz, Brian Fairlie, Vladimir Korotkov, John Bartlett, Gerald Battrick.

The first two spots are easy. Newcombe has a record head and shoulders above the rest, his seven Slams — as much as Kodes, Nastase, and Smith combined. Nastase is a clear No. 2. He had one less Slam than Kodes, but his career was much better. Not only was he the first year-end No. 1 of the ATP era but he won an impressive 58 titles (or 87 by some accounts). Smith also was a stronger peak player than Kodes, although had a weak second half of his career, as mentioned. I was tempted to put Roche above Kodes as he probably had a better overall career, with 26 titles versus Kodes’ 11; but it is hard to argue with Kodes’ three Slams to Roche’s one, even if one of Kodes’ was the 1973 Wimbledon which the majority of top players boycotted due to the banning of Nikola Pilic. But Roche’s lone Slam was during the pre-Open Era in a relatively weak field, defeating Alexander Metreveli, Francois Jauffret, and Istvan Gulyas in the last three matches on the way to the title (who? That’s the point!). Roche also had a Murray-esque 1-5 record in Slam finals.

After the top five, Tom Okker is an easy pick; I was even tempted to edge him over Roche but controlled myself. Cliff Richey is also a relatively easy next pick, but after that the rankings and talent gets murky. But the gap between the top five and Okker is far slimmer than Okker and the rest of the generation, which is pretty weak from that point on and difficult to rank.
November 11, 2015
Historical Smash Shots 1: Generational Diversity in the 1974-75 Rankings
While researching Part Five in my Open Era Generations series (coming later this week), I ran across an interesting little tidbit that I wanted to share (and in so doing decided to start a new segment for this blog, with random statistical bits or “smash shots” that provide angles on tennis today and in the past). Using my Generation Theory, in most years anywhere from two to four generations inhabit the Top 10, with three being the most common; but in 1974 and 1975 fully five different generations were represented in the Top 10 – the only time this has happened in the Open Era.

Take a look at the 1974 year-end Top 10 with their birth years:
1. Jimmy Connors (1952)
2. John Newcombe (1944)
3. Bjorn Borg (1956)
4. Rod Laver (1938)
5. Guillermo Vilas (1952)
6. Tom Okker (1944)
7. Arthur Ashe (1943)
8. Ken Rosewall (1934)
9. Stan Smith (1946)
10. Ilie Nastase (1946)
What are we looking at here? On first glance it looks like a bunch of all-time greats. But notice a couple things. First, as an aside to the point of this article, notice the sheer talent. If we include Pro, Amateur, and Open Era Slams, the above Top 10 includes a whopping 79 major titles. OK, that amazing fact aside, the main point is to look at the wide range of players – the youngest being Bjorn Borg, the oldest Ken Rosewall. The difference? 22 years.

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Click here to discuss “Historical Smash Shots 1: Generational Diversity in the 1974-75 Rankings” in the Discussion Forum.

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Now here’s the fun part. Let’s translate that to today. Let’s place players of a similar age differential in the above list into a hypothetical Top 10 for 2015. Jimmy Connors was 22 in 1974, so we need someone born in 1993 for the number one spot. Swapping age-appropriate players, we get something like this:

“Fantasy 2015”
1. Dominic Thiem (1993)
2. Stan Wawrinka (1985)
3. Alexander Zverev (1997)
4. James Blake (1979)
5. Jiri Vesely (1993)
6. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (1985)
7. Robin Soderling (1984)
8. Marcelo Rios (1975)
9. Novak Djokovic (1987)
10. Andy Murray (1987)
Look at that range – A 40-year old Marcelo Rios still in the Top 10, with 18-year old Alexander Zverev No. 3 in the world — two players 22 years apart!

We really haven’t seen anything like this in some time. The closest thing in recent years, and the last time there were four generations in a year-end Top 10, was 2005 – when Federer’s generation (b. 1979-83) ruled the rankings, with a young teenage upstart named Rafael Nadal (b. 1986) finishing No. 2, and 35-year-old Andre Agassi (b. 1970) making his last appearance in the Top 10. Before that you have to go all the way back to the 80s when it was relatively common for four generations to be represented, although this was mainly due to the anomaly that was Jimmy Connors.

It would require a longer study to look further into historical trends, and when we get to more recent generations in the Open Era Generations Theory we will look at how things look now compared to in the past. But for now I think it is clear that there is much greater “generational homogeneity” at the top of the men’s game, with seven of the Top 10 being in the generation born 1984-88, with only Roger Federer and David Ferrer from the older generation (b. 1979-83), and only Kei Nishikori from the younger generation (b. 1989-93). As I will discuss later, this is likely to change relatively soon.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): cwkarl / patrickpeccatte / 43555660@N00

(Photo (Creative Commons License): mirsasha / mirsasha / stevenpisano)
November 3, 2015
Open Era Generations, Part Four: Gen 2 (1939-43) – Arthur Ashe and…Who?

After the Glory, the Fall

After the greatest tennis generation came arguably the worst, with only one true standout player in Arthur Ashe who, while being an excellent player, is more historically important as a pioneering black tennis player, still remaining the only black man to win the Australian Open, Wimbledon, or the US Open. After Ashe the pickings become slim, indeed, as we can see here:

Best Players by Birth Year
1939: Wilhelm Bungert (GER), Christian Kuhnke (GER), Nikola Pilic (CRO)
1940: Butch Buchholz (USA), Martin Mulligan (AUS), Bob Hewitt (AUS), Ken Fletcher (AUS), Mike Sangster (UK)
1941: Chuck McKinley (USA, 1 Major), Cliff Drysdale (USA), Marty Riessen (USA), Pierre Barthes (FR), Roger Taylor (UK), Ronald Barnes (BRA)
1942: Frank Froehling (USA), Dennis Ralston (USA)
1943: Arthur Ashe (USA, 3 Majors), William Bowrey (AUS, 1 Major), Clark Graebner (USA), Owen Davidson (AUS)

That’s 5 total Majors, or 6.6% of the previous generation’s total (!). Of the eleven Open Era generations with Slam counts, it is the lowest total – just a bit more than half that of the second lowest (1974-78, with nine Slams). Every other generation other than those two has 14 or more.

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Click here to discuss “Open Era Generations, Part Four: Gen 2 (1939-43) – Arthur Ashe and…Who?” in the discussion forum.

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Discussion
At the risk of belaboring the point, Gen 2 is almost certainly the weakest generation of the Open Era, at least until we get to Gen 12 (1989-93). In truth, this is one generation that is less of a generation and more of a transitional phase from the great 1934-38 generation, which in a way was the last of the pre-Open Era, to the 1944-48 generation which was, in a similar sense, the true first generation of the Open Era. If we were able to nudge Arthur Ashe’s 1943 birth year into that latter generation, we’d have a four year transitional period of 1939-42, which saw no great or even near-greats, and only one Slam winner in Chuck McKinley.

This is also the only generation – aside from the current youngest two – that never saw a year-end No. 1 player (although Harry Hopman ranked Ashe as the No. 1 player in 1968, but this didn’t include professionals). Laver is generally considered No. 1 overall in 1968-69, and then it skipped a generation to Newcombe, Smith, and Nastase from 1970-73, before Connors took over in 1974.

As with other poor generations, this one’s lack of combination is not only because of weak talent, it is also because of nearby great talent – namely, the previous generation. Consider that Gen 2 started entering its prime in the early 1960s when Rod Laver was at the peak of his powers, Ken Rosewall was still an elite player, and Roy Emerson was dominating the amateur tour. This didn’t change, with Gen 1 not really showing signs of decline until around 1970, when Gen 2 was turning 27-31. The point being, by the time Gen 1 was declining, Gen 2 was also showing signs of age. We are possibly going to see a similar phenomena with the current Gen 11 (1984-88) and Gen 12 (1989-93).

As far as Ashe goes, his career spans over two decades from his first appearance at the US Open in 1959 to his retirement in 1979. He drew greater public attention in the late 60s, especially after winning the 1968 US Open, upsetting Tom Okker. He won the Australian Open a couple years later, and then had his perhaps most memorable victory in 1975 at the tender age of 32 when he surprised the tennis world at Wimbledon by beating Bjorn Borg, Tony Roche, and then the world No. 1 Jimmy Connors in the final.

It is difficult to find comparable players to Ashe in terms of achievements. He belongs among the “lesser greats” like Jim Courier, Guillermo Vilas, and Andy Murray – although unlike the latter two he reached No. 1 in the world, but unlike Courier he did so only in brief moments without Courier’s dominance of a couple years. Regardless, Ashe was an excellent player whose legacy is perhaps most important as both a pioneering black player but also the work he did off-court as an activism for social issues, AIDS, and apartheid.

Underachievers and Forgotten Players
We’ll just say the entire generation, except for Ashe. While it is difficult to pinpoint an underachiever, we can call the generation—again, aside from Ashe—as a forgotten one.

That said, if I were to pick out one player as an underachiever it would be Chuck McKinley, who was one of the best amateurs of the early 1960s, including a 48-2 record from 1960-63. He made the 1961 Wimbledon final as a college sophomore in the strong tennis program at Trinity University. He was soundly defeated in straight sets by a 22-year-old Australian by the name of Rod Laver. A couple years later in 1963 he won Wimbledon, defeating Fred Stolle in the final.

That was pretty much it for McKinley. After graduating from Trinity in 1963, he opted to become a stockbroker, playing tennis only sparingly. All told, he played only 67 matches on the circuit, with a 52-15 record including one Wimbledon title (1963), several US Open semifinal appearances (1962-64), and two US Men’s Clay Court Championships (1962-1963), as well as three doubles titles at the US Open (1961, 1963, 1964). He died young at age 45 in 1986 from a brain tumor.

Did You Know?: Arthur Ashe retired from tennis in 1979 after having a heart attack. After undergoing a quadruple bypass surgery that year, he had a second bypass in 1983. Then, in 1988, he had emergency brain surgery after experiencing paralysis in his right arm. A biopsy revealed that he had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion given to him in the second bypass in 1983. Ashe would die of AIDS five years later in 1993.

Top Players of the Generation
1. Arthur Ashe
2. Chuck McKinley
3. William Bowrey
4. Martin Mulligan

Honorable Mentions: Butch Buchholz, Wilhelm Bungert, Cliff Drysdale, Frank Froehling, Clark Graebner, Bob Hewitt, Nikola Pilic, Dennis Ralston, Marty Riessen, Roger Taylor.

Aside from Ashe, this is an almost impossible generation to rank. It is the last generation for which there aren’t good records and really once you get to No. 4 or No. 5, they blur together in historical hindsight. Consider that only Ashe, McKinley, and Bowrey won Slams, and only Ashe and McKinley were ranked No. 1 – and the latter only as an amateur. None of the other players won Slams or were ever ranked higher than No. 4. Martin Mulligan had the highest titles with 16, so slips away from the crowd a bit. At least I tried to narrow down the honorable mentions to all players that are possible considerations for being among the ten best of the generation, but how they exactly rank would just be too difficult to determine.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): Nationaal Archief Fotocollectie Anefo

October 21, 2015
Open Era Generations, Part Three: Gen 1 (1934-38) – Dominance from Down Under

The Great Australians

The generation of players born between 1934 and 1938 was, in a way, more accurately the last generation before the Open Era as it peaked in the 1960s. Yet it was also the generation that was “in power” when the Open Era began, so I am considering it the first of the Open Era.

When the Open Era began in 1968, the youngest players of this generation were turning 30 years old. The generation still dominated for the first few years, winning six of the first seven Slams (two to Rosewall, four to Laver) through 1969, but then the decline really started with the new decade in 1970. While Laver remained a strong player for several more years (top 10 through 1975), he never won another Slam. Rosewall won three more, one in each year during 1970-72, and was in or near the top 10 through 1977, which he finished at #12 at the ripe age of 43, but clearly the baton had been passed in the 70s.

This first generation was dominated by the Australians, with 66 of the 76 Slams won by the men from Down Under. In tennis history the late 50s and 60s is possibly the greatest period of dominance by a country, perhaps only revivaled by the last and greatest period of American dominance in the 1990s.

Best Players by Birth Year (with Slam total):
1934: Ken Rosewall 23 (AUS), Lew Hoad 5 (AUS)
1935: Mal Anderson 2 (AUS)
1936: Roy Emerson 12 (AUS), Ashley Cooper 4 (AUS), Alex Olmedo 3 (USA)
1937: Andres Gimeno 1 (ESP)
1938: Rod Laver 19 (AUS), Manuel Santana 4 (ESP), Fred Stolle 2 (AUS), Rafael Osuna 1 (MEX)

Total Slams: 76 (best of the 13 Gens and all-time), including 50 Grand Slams and 26 Pro Slams.

Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall playing doubles at the Wimbledon Championships in 1954 or 1955. (courtesy Wikimedia Commons: State Library of Victoria).

Discussion
It would be hard to argue that this is not the “GGOAT” – greatest generation of all time, in 139 years of tennis history from 1877 to 2015. Rosewall and Laver alone would make it a contender with any generation, but adding in Hoad, Emerson, not to mention Santana, Cooper, Stolle and Olmedo, and it is head and shoulders above every other generation in terms of Slam count. Of course part of this is due to the “doubling up” of Amateur and Pro Slams during the 50s and 60s, but regardless, 76 majors is a lot – more than double that of any generation of the Open Era.

Rosewall and Laver are on the very short list of greatest players. Laver had a higher peak, being the dominant player of the 1960s, bookended by Calendar Slams in 1962 (as an Amateur) and 1969 (the first full year of the Open Era), but Rosewall had greater longevity, with an incredible span of 20 years between his first Slam title in 1953 and his last in 1972 – four years longer than the second longest record of Bill Tilden’s sixteen years (1920-35), twice that of contemporary Rod Laver’s ten years (1960-69) and far more than the longest of the Open Era, Pete Sampras’ thirteen years (1990-2002). To put it another way, Rosewall’s first Slam title came seven years before Laver’s first, and his last came three years after Laver’s last. During those 20 years he won 23 majors in all, eclipsing Laver’s 19. Yet at their best, Laver was more dominant, not only over Rosewall but the rest of the sport. Laver won a record 200 titles, well surpassing Rosewall’s 133.

Roy Emerson is both over and under-rated, depending upon who you ask. All 12 of his Slam titles came before the Open Era, and most when the best players in the sport—including his contemporaries Rosewall and Laver—were on the pro tour. Yet Emerson held his own against the young Laver, and still dominated the amateur tour for a few years. Yet in terms of career greatness he is perhaps more comparable to players with half his Slam count.

Underachievers and Forgotten Players
Many who saw Lew Hoad play, or played against him, claim that he is the most talented player in tennis history. For instance, Pancho Gonzales claimed that Hoad’s “game was the best game ever. Better than mine. He was capable of making more shots than anybody. His two volleys were great. His overhead was enormous. He had the most natural tennis mind with the most natural tennis physique.” Gonzales also said that Hoad “was the only guy who, if I was playing my best tennis, could still beat me.”[1]

Hoad was plagued by injury and, according to Jack Kramer, laziness and lack of interest [1]. Kramer also claimed that despite the mystique around Hoad, saying “when you sum Hoad up, you have to say that he was overrated. He might have been the best, but day-to-day, week-to-week, he was the most inconsistent of all the top players” [1]. In other words, if we read between the lines a bit, it would seem that while Hoad was one of the most talented players of his generation, with his best level being as good or better than anyone, he did not have the consistency and focus to make him a truly great player, which is why he is less remembered than players with higher Slam counts.

While a career that included five Slams can hardly be considered disappointing, we can easily see a player in Hoad that was as talented as his more successful contemporaries in Gonzales, Rosewall and Laver, yet without the career achievements.

Did You Know?: Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall played each other 144 times in all, including 46 times in 1963. Laver won the head-to-head 80-64. Rosewall led 34-12 their first year of playing each other in 1963, with Laver dominating most years after. However, Rosewall won their last two matches in 1976. For some of the only available footage of this great rivalry, check out this video here.

Rod Laver at the 1976 ABN World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam (courtesy Wikimedia Commons: Rob Bogaerts, Nationaal Archief Fotocollectie Anefo)

Top Ten Players of Generation One

1. Rod Laver (AUS)
2. Ken Rosewall (AUS)
3. Lew Hoad (AUS)
4. Roy Emerson (AUS)
5. Manuel Santana (ESP)
6. Ashley Cooper (AUS)
7. Alex Olmedo (USA)
8. Fred Stolle (AUS)
9. Mal Anderson (AUS)
10. Andres Gimeno (MEX)

Honorable Mention: Rafael Osuna (Mex).

Due to limited records it is difficult to give accurate rankings before the Open Era. But it is relatively easy to see the above players in groups. The first group is comprised of Laver and Rosewall; the two are very close, with Rosewall having superior longevity but Laver having a higher peak. Actually, Rosewall—along with Pancho Gonzales–is perhaps the least mentioned inner circle great, but by any reasonable way of accounting he is certainingly one of the five or so greatest players of all time – this despite the Tennis Channel’s egregious ranking of him as only the 13th greatest male tennis player of all time in their “100 Greatest of All Time” in 2012, behind the likes of Roy Emerson and Andre Agassi, among others [2].

The next group is another pair, Hoad and Emerson. Many would rank Emerson over Hoad, but Hoad was a much better player. Then we have another pair, “Manolo” Santana and Ashley Cooper, both with four amateur Slams, both very strong players but not the very best of the generation, the Andy Murrays and Guillermo Vilases of their time.

The final group includes Olmedo, Stolle, Anderson and Gimeno. Olmedo has the edge in Slam totals with three, Stolle and Anderson with two each, and Gimeno with only one – that one being the 1972 French Open which he won at 34 years of age. Actually, Gimeno is the only player other than Rosewall who who won a Slam after the age of 32 during the Open Era. Anderson had a long and storied career. He won only two Slams – the 1957 US Open and the 1959 Wembley Pro, but made a Slam final as late as 1972 at age 36, losing to the 37-year old Ken Rosewall in the Australian Open.

Regardless of the exact ranking, it is a very strong group – dominating tennis from the late 50s into the 70s, perhaps partially due to the weakness of the following generation, which we will look at in the next installment.

Works Cited:
[1] Quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Hoad
[2] http://admin.tennischannel.com/goat/71.aspx

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): State Library Victoria Collections

Hoad/Rosewall and Rod Laver photos: Wikimedia Commons

September 30, 2015
Tennis Generations, Part Two: Before the Open Era

If we were to look at each tennis generation as a player with a count of Major titles—either pro, amateur, or Open Era Grand Slams—by far the greatest would be the generation born from 1934 to 1938, mainly on account of two players: Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver. This generation was, in many ways, the generation that brought tennis from the amateur/pro split into the modern Open Era in 1968.

But tennis didn’t begin with this generation. Before focusing further on the First Generation of the Open Era, let’s take a brief look at what came before…

Generations before the Open Era
The oldest player in terms of birth year to win a Slam was John Hartley, born in 1849 – he won the third Wimbledon in 1879; the first Wimbledon in 1877 belongs to Spencer Gore, born a year later in 1850. This makes the first tennis generation of the entirety of its history being those players born in 1849-53, with possibly older players playing but none winning a major. Given that there were at least seventeen generations before Rosewall’s and Laver’s, this makes the current youngest generation–those players born 1994-98 like Nick Kyrgios, Borna Coric, and Alexander Zverev–the 30th five-year generation in tennis history. We are just starting to see players of the 31st generation, born in 1999-2003, appear deep in the rankings. As of this writing, the highest ranked player of Gen. 31 is No. 757, Felix Auger Aliassime, born in August of 2000.

The main point here is that while modern tennis can be seen to have begun with the Open Era in 1968, it was actually past the mid-point of tennis history as a whole. Or to put that chronologically, we’re in the 48th year of the Open Era, which began in the 92nd year of Wimbledon, thus the Open Era began almost exactly two-thirds of the way into tennis history as a whole.

I will not attempt to detail every generation, but thought it worthwhile to list some of the better players as they arrange within pre-Open Era generations, with their Slam title count—including Amateur and Pro—in parentheses:

1849-53: John Hartley (2), Spencer Gore (1)
1854-58: Frank Hadow (1)
1859-63: William Renshaw (7), Richard Sears (7), Andre Vacherot (4), Henry Slocum (2), Ernest Renshaw (1)
1864-68: Arthur Gore (3)
1869-73: William Larned (7), Reginald Doherty (4), Paul Aymé (4), Robert Wrenn (4), Wilfred Baddeley (3), Oliver Campbell (3)
1874-78: Lawrence Doherty (6), Norman Brookes (3), Malcolm Whitman (3)
1879-83: Anthony Wilding (9), Max Decugis (8), Maurice Germot (3)
1884-88: Rodney Heath (2)
1889-93: Bill Tilden (15), Maurice McLoughlin (2), R Norris Williams (2), Robert Lindley Murray (2), Pat O’Hara Wood (2)
1894-98: Jean Borotra (4), William Johnston (3), Gerald Patterson (3), James Anderson (3)
1899-1903: Henri Cochet (11)
1904-08: Frank Crawford (6), Rene Lacoste (7)
1909-13: Fred Perry (10), Ellsworth Vines (8), Hans Nusslein (6), Adrian Quist (3), Gottfried von Cramm (2)
1914-18: Don Budge (10), Bobby Riggs (6), Frank Parker (4), John Bromwich (2), Don McNeill (2)
1919-23: Jack Kramer (5), Pancho Segura (4), Jaroslav Drobný (3), Vic Seixas (2), Ted Schroeder (2)
1924-28: Pancho Gonzales (17), Frank Sedgman (7), Budge Patty (2), Dick Savitt (2)
1929-33: Tony Trabert (7), Neale Fraser (3), Mervyn Rose (2), Nicola Pietrangeli (2)

I tried to account for every Slam winner, although if I missed someone I apologize to their grand- or great-grandchildren.

Top 10 Greatest Players Before the Open Era
1. Pancho Gonzales
2. Bill Tilden
3. Don Budge
4. Fred Perry
5. William Renshaw
6. William Larned
7. Ellsworth Vines
8. Anthony Wilding
9. Henri Cochet
10. Jack Kramer

Honorable Mentions: Laurence Doherty, Bobby Riggs, Frank Sedgman, Reggie Doherty, Pancho Segura, Jack Crawford, Tony Trabert, Rene Lacoste, Hans Nusslein, Jean Borotra, Bill Johnston, Gottfried Von Cramm, Jaroslav Drobný, Vic Seixas, and many others.

This is a hard list to compile, because it spans about a hundred years. But it is relatively easy to rank Gonzales and Tilden as No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, both being among the very best players in tennis history – on the short list of GOAT candidates. Tilden had a remarkable career that spanned three decades. He didn’t win his first Major until he was 27 years old, and won his last in his early 40s, making the 1945 US Pro semifinal at the age of 52. Pancho Gonzales remains one of the most underappreciated greats in the history of the game, perhaps largely because historical memory tends to be shallow and only notices “two Grand Slams” in his tally. But Gonzales also won 12 Pro Slams and 3 of the 4 Tournament of Champions, which are consider Majors by some – so he has a total of 17 Major titles, tied with Roger Federer and behind only Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver. He was, by a significant margin, the greatest player of the 1950s before Rosewall took over in the later part of the decade.

Don Budge is perhaps best known as the only player other than Rod Laver to win the Calendar Slam. While he won all of his 10 Majors during a relatively short six-year span, he was as dominant in the late 30s as any player has ever been over a few-years span. Perry and Renshaw round out the Top 5, and then it becomes tricky to rank players, as the context of the game was so different and we can’t look at tennis records of, say, the 30s and 40s with the same criteria as we can the Open Era. But regardless, the above 10 are probably the 10 greatest players before the Open Era, with a handful of honorable mentions fleshing out the list.

Up next, we’ll look at the great generation of players, born between 1934 and 1938, who dominated tennis from the late 50s into the early 70s, and the dawn of the Open Era.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): boston_public_library / killingtime2 / boston_public_library

September 23, 2015
Open Era Generations, Part One: Introduction

Preamble

While I’ve followed tennis in a very casual way going back to vague memories of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, it is only in the last half decade or so that I’ve become a serious fan. I mark the beginning of my interest in tennis back to a vague memory of liking Bjorn Borg and disliking this new young upstart named John McEnroe who seemed to have his number. While I was only around seven years old at the time and cannot pinpoint the exact date, I imagine that this was due to either of McEnroe’s defeats of Borg at Wimbledon or the US Open in 1981. My favorite players in the 1980s and 90s were Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, and Pete Sampras; I remember enjoying Edberg’s defeat of Jim Courier in the 1991 US Open, memorable because my friend and classmate (this was senior year in high school) had played with Courier and was cheering for the American.

My tennis fandom remained casual until just a few short years ago. There isn’t an exact moment when I went from “casual” to “serious” fan, as it was a gradual transition over a year or two, but it happened sometime in the 2008 to 2011 range. While I had been a (casual) fan of Roger Federer, my all-time favorite player, since early on, it is interesting (for me, at least) to consider that during my tenure as a diehard tennis fan—someone who follows all of the big tournaments and some of the smaller ones—I have only really truly loved the game while my favorite player has been past his highest peak. In fact, it could be the legendary 2008 Wimbledon final that drew me into a greater interest in the sport, the match that saw the baton of greatest player passed from Roger to Rafa. So I cannot be accused of being a fair weather fan!

Anyhow, the reason I offer an overview of my tennis biography is to lay the groundwork for what is to follow – to provide context and perhaps a sense of why I am writing what I’m writing, and why I write this blog at all, for that matter. It is simply this: I write these articles to share my own learning experience. I am very curious and autodidactic by nature and because I’ve only followed tennis closely for about half a decade, I am constantly researching this or that tidbit from the past. In a way I’m both trying to fill in my own limited (but growing) knowledge of the sport’s history, but also enjoy taking variant angles using statistical analysis to better understand the game. This blog is my sharing my journey with you, the reader.

And now for the caveat: I am not a tennis player, not an expert on the game itself or its history. I am, first and foremost, a fan of the game. None of these statistics are meant to be definitive in any way; a common misunderstanding about statistical analysis in sports—particularly in baseball, if only because no other sport is as statistically analyzed (and fetishized) as baseball—is that statistical models and advanced metrics are somehow meant to replace firsthand knowledge of the game and/or be definitive. Now some “statnerds” might take this a bit too far, but for the most part it is generally understood that statistics are secondary and complementary to real knowledge of the game.

That said, statistics have their uses and are neglected in the tennis world. There are a few pockets on the internet where tennis is analyzed statistically, but it is rare.

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Generation Theory
So what’s this all about, you might be asking? Well, I’m going to be starting a series on tennis generations, using what I call “Generation Theory,” which is a tool or lens that is quite useful for understanding tennis history. The theory is based upon the idea that a generation is roughly five years in length, that once you have two players that are more than a few years apart they are of a different generation.

This begs a couple questions: One, where to draw the line between generations? This is pretty arbitrary. At first I was going to use half-decades, neatly dividing each decade into two generations. But I soon found that it wasn’t the optimal way of grouping players. I then decided to use Roger Federer as a baseline. Federer was born in August of 1981, so I asked what would happen if we used him as the middle of a five-year generation? That made Generation Federer those players born between January 1, 1979, and December 31, 1983. This also lined up well with Rafael Nadal, born in May of 1986 — the midpoint of the next generation, 1984-88. It was almost too perfect, but what better two players to center Generation Theory on? I then went forward and back and found that players grouped well within those parameters, with few exceptions.

Again, generational divisions are arbitrary. In this model Juan Martin del Potro and Kei Nishikori are of two different generations, which may seem strange considering that they were born in consecutive years; in this system, del Potro is of the same generation as Robin Soderling, who was born in 1984. We could look at “Generation del Potro” as being those players born within a couple of years of him, thus 1986-90. So in that sense we could use a five-year tennis generation: in a player-centered way, that is spreading out a five-year umbrella centered on an individual player’s birth-year, or in a static way, which is based upon Federer (and, conveniently enough, both Nadal and Pete Sampras) and spreading the generations out from there, each generation beginning with the year that ends with either a 4 or a 9 (e.g., 1974-78 and 1979-83). This series is based on the static approach, although at different times and in other articles I might use the player-centered approach.

This series will be focused on the Open Era, beginning with the 1968 French Open, which has technically seen 16 different generations play in it. The oldest player that I could find who played in an Open Era Grand Slam was Pancho Segura, who was 49 years old when he played in the 1970 US Open. Segura, if you’re not familiar with him, is a lesser great of the 40s and 50s – who we could call “The Other Pancho” after the greater Pancho Gonzales. Segura had one of the longest careers in tennis history, being a top college player in the mid-1940s before going professional in 1947, and then playing his last professional singles match at the 1970 US Open, at 49 years old, although he played doubles until 1975 when he was 54 years old. A different era, no doubt!

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Thirteen Generations of the Open Era
For the sake of this study, I am going to focus on those generations that made a significant impact in the Open Era. My criteria for the first generation will be a Slam title within the Open Era, which would be the great 1934-38 generation that included Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver, two of the very greatest players in tennis history. So 1934-38—bookended by Rosewall’s birth in 1934 and Laver’s in 1938—is the First Generation of the Open Era, with the youngest generation of players on tour born in 1994-98 the Thirteenth Generation (although as of this writing there are actually a few ranked players from the 1999-03 generation, including Canadian Felix Auger Aliassime ranked No. 751 as of August 24, 2015; Aliassime was born in August of…wait for it…2000).

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This Series
After this introductory piece, each article will be dedicated to a different generation, with the first briefly discussing older generations and then focusing on the First Generation of the Open Era, those players born between 1934 and 1938. I will probably do a summarizing piece, so this means that this will be in fifteen parts and likely spread out over two or three months. It will be my intention to publish one or two articles a week, so stay tuned and I hope you enjoy joining me on my journey through the thirteen generations of Open Era tennis!

Author Note (9/2/2015): I timed this series poorly, starting right before the US Open, so with my apologies I’ve decided to push it back until after the US Open is finished. Look for the next part in this series a day or two after the US Open finals. Best regards ~JN.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): wallyg

August 27, 2015
National Tennis Careers – Part Six: Summing Up

After surveying Open Era tennis through the five nations with the highest Slam totals, we’re left with a few questions and unexplored areas which I’ll try to tackle in this concluding segment.

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Click here to discuss National Tennis Careers – Part Six: Summing Up in the discussion forum.

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Who’s left?
The “big five” tennis nations include many, even most, of the all-time greats of the Open Era. Let’s take a look at the other nations and their players by Slam count:

Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic (12): Ivan Lendl (8), Jan Kodes (3), Petr Korda (1).
Serbia (9): Novak Djokovic (9)
Germany/West Germany (7): Boris Becker (6), Michael Stich (1)
Argentina (6): Guillermo Vilas (4), Gaston Gaudio (1), Juan Martin del Potro (1)
Russia (4): Yevgeny Kafelnikov (2), Marat Safin (2)
Brazil (3): Gustavo Kuerten (3)
Croatia (2): Goran Ivanisevic (1), Marin Cilic (1)
Romania (2): Ilie Nastase (2)
South Africa (2): Johan Kriek (2)
United Kingdom (2): Andy Murray (2)
Austria (1): Thomas Muster (1)
Ecuador (1): Andres Gomez (1)
France (1): Yannick Noah (1)
Italy (1): Adriano Panatta (1)
Netherlands (1): Richard Krajicek (1)

Before Djokovic is through, Serbia’s Slam count should surpass that of the Czechs as a whole.

Slavic Surge?
I almost titled this last part “Slavic Surge!” because it would seem that the tennis from Slavic countries has been on the rise. But it wasn’t quite as extreme as I thought. There are some strong Slavic players currently in their peaks, namely Djokovic, Berdych, Cilic, and Karlovic. There are some younger players with some upside, including Damir Dzumhur (23, No. 100), Grigor Dimitrov (24, No. 16), and Jiri Vesely (22, No. 45). But there is only one player that looks like a potential future star, and that is the 18-year-old Croatian Borna Coric, who is currently ranked No. 37. So while Slavic tennis is strong, it is hardly dominant (Novak aside).

Possible Future Slam Winning Countries
So who might the next Slam winners be? Specifically, which countries have the most possible future Slam winners? Well, that is for a future study that I’m working on. But I will say that as we’ve seen in the previous segments, there isn’t much on the horizon for Spain or Switzerland, and only really the Ymer brothers in Sweden; in the US there are a few prospects, and Australia at least has “K&K”: Kyrgios and Kokkinakis.

All in all there doesn’t seem to be a central location for tennis right now or the foreseeable future. We can sum up the Open Era by looking at early dominance by Australians, namely Ken Rosewall, Rod Laver, and John Newcombe, then the rise of Americans in Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, and Sweden in Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, and Stefan Edberg. Along with German Boris Becker and Czech Ivan Lendl, Americans and Swedes dominated tennis from the mid-70s into the early 90s, with Sweden dropping off as Edberg retired, but the United States remained dominant into the 21st century, led by Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. But then the US dropped off precipitously, and Switzerland and Spain took up the rulership of men’s tennis, with Serbia playing its part.

What the future will bring, well, it is a truly global world out there. There’s no sign of any of the five great tennis nations regaining their dominance. There are some glimmerings of improvement in Australia, and a bit in the US, but nothing substantial or worthy of the term “future dominance.” We’re going to see a shared effort, it would seem.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): kulitat / mirsasha / Kiu Kaffi

July 24, 2015
National Tennis Careers – Part Five: Switzerland

The Maestro, Stan, and Some Other Guys

When I began this series I was curious about Swiss tennis before Roger Federer took the tennis world by storm; I wondered whether there was some hidden jewel in the past who went under the radar due to lack of Slam wins but perhaps still had a strong career, perhaps the Swiss version of an Alex Corretja or Thomas Enqvist? Well, the simple answer is this: No, there wasn’t. There are a couple players who had decent careers, but really Swiss tennis began with Roger. And then Stan. And then…well, that’s about it.

Let’s take a look at the Swiss tennis career:

That’s a pretty extreme picture. Consider that no Swiss player reached the 4th round of a Slam in the first ten years of the Open Era — not until Colin Dowdeswell made the 4th round of the US Open in 1978, defeated by a teenage John McEnroe. But even Dowdeswell was English-born, playing for Switzerland from 1977-81.

Fast forward to 1985 and we have the first appearance by a Swiss player in a Slam quarterfinal in the Open Era, one Heinz Günthardt, who also appeared in the US Open quarterfinal that year, but never another Slam quarterfinal. Günthardt won five career titles and had a career high ranking of No. 22; he was a better doubles player, with 30 titles to his name and a career high ranking of No. 3.

1991 saw Jakob Hlasek reach the French Open quarterfinal where he was defeated by a 21-year-old Andre Agassi, and then five years later Marc Rosset reached the semifinal of the French Open where he was defeated by Michael Stich. Rosset also reached the quarterfinal of the 1999 Australian Open.

So before Roger Federer, in the Open Era Swiss players only reached one semifinal and four quarterfinals.

For those of us looking back, it is easy to forget the impact that Roger Federer had on the tennis world. He was a strong junior player, winning the 1998 US Open Junior final and ending the year with the No. 1 junior world ranking. His first professional tournament was also in 1998: Gstaad, where he lost in the first round to No. 88 Lucas Arnold Ker. To put that in historical context, Roger’s first pro tournament was when Bill Clinton was in the White House, Boris Becker was still playing tennis (he lost in that Gstaad final to Alex Corretja); it was also Pete Sampras’s last year as No. 1. Saving Private Ryan, There’s Something About Mary, and The Big Lebowski were in the movie theaters. In other words, it was a long time ago!

A lot has been written about Federer elsewhere so I won’t go into too much detail, but over the next five years he gradually worked his way up, entering the Top 100 in 1999, then perhaps really gaining attention when he defeated a declining No. 6-ranked Pete Sampras in the 4th round of the 2001 Wimbledon. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the passing of the baton from the only two seven-time Wimbledon champions (well, along with William Renshaw in the 19th Century). 2002 saw Federer enter the Top 10 and win his first Master’s, but it wasn’t until 2003 when he was almost 22-years-old that Federer won his first of seventeen Slams and the first of seven Wimbledon titles. He then proceeded to win 12 of the next 18 Slams, including all but five in the four years from 2004-07. It was a level of dominance not really seen in the Open Era.

Roger’s reign was tarnished only by a young Spaniard named Rafael Nadal, who repeatedly kept him from winning the French Open and had the match-up edge overall. The baton was finally passed in 2008, a year that saw Roger suffer from mononucleosis. Roger regained the No. 1 ranking in 2009, but lost it again in 2010 and only gained it back for a short period in 2012. We can see now that Roger’s peak lasted from late 2003/early 2004 to early 2010, and he has been one of the two or three best players in the sport from 2003 to the present day – thirteen years of incredible consistency and elite performance perhaps unequaled in Open Era history.

Five Greatest Swiss Players of the Open Era
1. Roger Federer
2. Stan Wawrinka
3. Marc Rosset
4. Jakob Hlasek
5. Heinz Günthardt

No. 1 and No. 2 are easy. Even before Stan’s rise to the top over the last few years, he’d probably rank as No. 2 – or at least similar to Rosset and Hlasek. But Wawrinka has been somewhat of a meteor recently, winning the two Slam finals he’s been in — over Nadal and Djokovic no less. He is 30 years old but shows no sign of declining. After that Rosset and Hlasek are close, but Rosset has eight titles to Hlasek’s two, although Hlasek’s Slam results and ranking history are slightly better, but just slightly. The two are very close. Gunthardt is a solid No. 5, and then there’s a huge drop-off.

After those five, there really are no significant Swiss players in the Open Era. George Bastl was not a great player by any means, with a career high ranking of No. 71. But he is known for one thing: defeating Pete Sampras in the first round of the 2002 Wimbledon, one of the greatest upsets in Slam history. There are a few others: Claudio Mezzadri, Roland Stadler, Marco Chiudinelli, and others – but few even broke into the Top 50, and other than the five listed above, as far as I can tell only Mezzadri won a tournament.

The Future
As with Spain, there really are no Swiss prospects on the horizon. After Federer and Wawrinka, the next highest ranked Swiss is 23-year-old Henri Laaksonen who is ranked No. 289. There are no Swiss teenagers in the Top 1,000 players, with 20-year-old Enzo Sommer being the youngest in the Top 1000 (No. 929). The point being, there is no one on the horizon to replace Federer and Wawrinka once they’re gone.

And when will they be gone? Roger turns 34 in a few weeks, and Wawrinka turned 30 earlier this year. Wawrinka should be around at least for another couple years, if not longer. Roger, despite no longer being the player he was five or six years ago, is still ranked No. 2 in the world. He will seemingly play as long as he wants to, as long as he takes joy in playing. He is already approaching Andre Agassi longevity; Agassi remained an elite player through 2005, the year he turned 35, and retired in 2006; the equivalent to Federer of Agassi’s 2005 would be next year, 2016. Jimmy Connors is another comparable player in terms of possible longevity; Federer’s current year is, age-wise, equivalent to Connors’s 1986; Jimmy would have two more years in the Top 10, 1987-88, and of course had that semifinal run at the 1991 US Open just a bit shy of his 39th birthday.

Yet while Roger seems immortal, at some point he’s probably going to slip enough that he won’t want to play anymore. I suspect that we have at least through next year of Roger playing at a high level, and maybe a year or two beyond that. But who knows? What we do know is that Roger is still here, and we should enjoy him while we can.

July 15, 2015
National Tennis Careers – Part Four: Australia

A Long Time Ago, Down Under…

Of the five nations discussed, Australia peaked the earliest. Truly, Australia dominated men’s tennis in the late 1950s to the early 1970s led by two of the very greatest players of all time: Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall. Australia remained strong at the beginning of the Open Era, with Laver’s Calendar Slam in 1969, and the baton partially passed to John Newcombe, who was one of the few amateur stars that was able to maintain a similar level during the Open Era.

Other top Australians before the Open Era include Frank Sedgman, Lew Hoad, Fred Stolle, Ashley Cooper, and Roy Emerson. Emerson held the Grand Slam record of 12 until Pete Sampras broke it, although it’s often considered overrated due to the fact that he dominated the Amateur Slams when the best players were playing pro – namely his countrymen Laver and Rosewall. Hoad is another “what if” story; Jack Kramer compared him to Ellsworth Vines as players with immense talent but lacking drive. Pancho Gonzales claimed that Hoad was the only player who could beat Gonzales when he was playing his best; others, including Ken Rosewall, voiced similar sentiment. Regardless, Hoad’s career was plagued by injury and even if he was arguably the most talented player of all time, his record places him as a lesser great: with five total majors to his name.

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Click here to discuss “National Tennis Careers – Part Four: Australia” in the discussion forum.

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Let’s take a look at the Open Era record:

As you can see, Australia dominated for the first few years of the Open Era then gradually petered out in the mid to late 70s and never recovered. There were a few bright spots – Pat Cash in the mid-80s with Australia’s lone Slam between 1976 and 1997, and then a short era of strength during the late 90s and early 2000s, when number ones Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt won two Slams each. Yet after Hewitt’s early peak and quick decline, Australian men’s tennis has been at a low during the last half decade or so. But there may be hope, but more on that in a moment…

Ten Greatest Australian Players of the Open Era
1. Rod Laver
2. Ken Rosewall
3. John Newcombe
4. Lleyton Hewitt
5. Patrick Rafter
6. Tony Roche
7. Pat Cash
8. Mark Philippoussis
9. Mark Edmondson
10. John Alexander

Honorable Mentions: Malcolm Anderson, Dick Crealy, Phil Dent, Kim Warwick, Mark Woodforde, John Marks, Roy Emerson.

It is a bit tricky ranking the Australians of the Open Era as the top three all saw large portions of their careers before the Open Era, with Laver and Rosewall both seeing the bulk of their accomplishments happening before. But even if we rank them only by what they accomplished after the Open Era began, the top three remain the same.

A brief word on Rosewall and Laver. The two are forever linked, not unlike Borg and McEnroe or Sampras and Agassi or Federer and Nadal. If we look at all-time greatness as merely a combination of longevity and accumulated career statistics, then Ken Rosewall would probably be considered the greatest player of all time due to his all-time best 23 Slam titles, including 8 Grand Slams and 15 Pro Slams. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that in all major tournaments, Rosewall played in 55 semifinals; consider that Bill Tilden (37), Roger Federer (36), Pancho Gonzales (34), Rod Laver (32), and Jimmy Connors (31) all made it to 31-37 Slam semifinals — all more than four year’s worth less than Rosewall. Certainly, many of those were Pro Slams, which were shorter than today’s Grand Slams, but the fact that he is so far above everyone else is remarkable. But Laver had the greater peak – the two Grand Slams and the overall dominance during the 1960s and over Rosewall. Also, Laver’s 200 titles is by far the most in tennis history. Regardless, both men are on the very short list of GOAT candidates.

John Newcombe is a bit underappreciated historically. I think this is partially because he played alongside the greater Laver and Rosewall, although was quite a bit younger than both, but also that he was surpassed later in his career by Connors and Borg. But Newcombe was, along with Arthur Ashe, the “bridge player” of the Amateur and Open Eras and was a top player for almost twenty years, including a shared No. 1 ranking in both 1970 and ’71. His overall record is comparable to players like Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg.

There’s a big drop-off from Newcombe to the rest, with Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Rafter easy No. 4 and No. 5 picks. In a way the two have opposite careers: Rafter’s much shorter, only about a decade, and with a later peak, his last five years being his best; Hewitt’s has been quite long, with his best years early on. Having witnessed the diminished version of Hewitt over the last eight or nine years it is easy to forget that for a short period of time he was a truly great player. He is known for being the youngest world No. 1, at 20 years old, and if you looked at his career through 2002 when he was finishing his second year-end No. 1 ranking, at just 21 years of age, with two Slams and two World Tour Finals under his belt, you’d think he would be one of the all-time greats. But he never won another Slam and was eclipsed not only by Roger Federer, but Andy Roddick and a number of other players. Where Rafter retired as the No. 7 ranked player in the world, it has been a decade now since Hewitt has finished in the Top 20.

Tony Roche’s peak was before the Open Era started, although he remained a good player deep into the 70s. Some might argue with the ranking of Philippoussis over Edmondson given that the latter won a Slam while the former did not, but Philippoussis was a superior player with an overall better career, and could be considered an underachiever. The last spot goes to John Alexander just edging out Phil Dent.

The Future
Let’s take a look at the Australian men in the Top 100, through Wimbledon:

25. Bernard Tomic (22)
41. Nick Kyrgios (20)
68. Sam Groth (27)
69. Thanasi Kokkinakis (19)
84. James Duckworth (23)
97. John Millman (26)

Kyrgios dropped 12 spots when he couldn’t repeat last year’s quarterfinal appearance, although he still made it to the fourth round this year and has shown improvement overall this year, with a good chance of approaching the Top 20 by year’s end. Kokkinakis also shows some promise, being one of four teenagers currently in the Top 100. Bernard Tomic is also having his best year yet, although he has less upside. He is best known for reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinal in 2011, losing to Novak Djokovic. Tomic has still not reached the second week of a Slam since then, and is known to be somewhat of a playboy, but now ranked No. 25 he seems at least primed to be a Top 20 player. Groth is already 27 but looks to be a late-bloomer; his powerful serve might see him around for awhile. Duckworth is another interesting name, someone who was more highly regarded a few years ago but has progressed slowly. The top ranked 18-year old is Omar Jasika, ranked around No. 300, who won the Junior US Open and has won two ITF tournaments this year so far, so he bears keeping an eye on.

There is hope for Australian men’s tennis, with Kyrgios and Kokkinakis possibly the best young prospects since Lleyton Hewitt came up 15 years ago, and Tomic, Groth, and Duckworth a solid supporting cast. Some have criticized Kyrgios for his diva antics, but as Jan Kodes just reminded us, Kyrgios is only just 20 years old, and many greats were also temperamental at that age. Kodes believes that Kyrgios has what it takes to win a Slam and is about “three years away.” We shall see.

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Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): Duncan

July 11, 2015