Tennis Frontier

Tag: open era

  • Open Era Generations, Part Six: Gen 4 (1949-53) – It’s Jimmy’s Show

    Open Era Generations, Part Six: Gen 4 (1949-53) – It’s Jimmy’s Show

    Jimmy Connors Guillermo Vilas

    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.

  • Open Era Generations, Part One: Introduction

    Open Era Generations, Part One: Introduction

    Open Era Generations 01 - Tennis Hall of Fame

     

    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

  • National Tennis Careers – Part One: United States

    National Tennis Careers – Part One: United States

    Jimmy Connors John McEnroe Pete Sampras

    Introduction to the Series

    Imagine if each country had a tennis career. Rather than individual players, you have nationalities; rather than an individual career, you have a national one. As a thought experiment, I decided to compile the top Slam-winning countries in Open Era history, from the 1968 French Open to the 2015 French Open. How would these “national careers” look, as if they had careers spanning 48 years? What would their stories be? I looked at and compiled the best results from players of a given nationality, created a “national career chart” for the Open Era, and in doing so gained a deeper understanding of the history of men’s tennis. I’d like to share that research and understanding with you.

    For this exercise I looked at the top five nations by Open Era Slams: The United States (51), Sweden (25), Spain (21), Australia (20), and Switzerland (19). Beyond those five, only Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic has double digits (12); Serbia (8), Germany (7), Argentina (6), Russia (4), and Brazil (3) all have more than two. The countries with two are Croatia, Romania, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; the countries with one are Austria, Ecuador, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

    This will be a six-part series, the first five articles covering the “Big Five” tennis nations, and the sixth part being a summarization, with a look at recent years and some thoughts about the game going forward. Look for further installments every few days to a week through June and July.

    In each article I will briefly overview the trajectory of the nation during the Open Era, looking at the top players and compiling a Top 10 list for each nation. For these lists I am using a statistical system that takes into account Slam results, titles, and rankings. For the most part I am faithful to the system, although in one or two cases I add a subjective element – usually as a tiebreaker. Also, for these lists I am including some players who played before the Open Era, but only those players that played a significant portion of their careers in the Open Era. Finally, I will look at the current national players, including a glimpse at any potential up-and-comers.

    On to the New World…

    PART ONE: THE UNITED STATES

    RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

    The United States is the greatest tennis nation of the Open Era–actually, tennis history as a whole–and it isn’t particularly close: With 51 Slam titles during the Open Ea they have more than any other two nations combined, and include greats and multi-Slam winners such as Pete Sampras (14), Andre Agassi (8), Jimmy Connors (8), and John McEnroe (7), as well as lesser greats such as Jim Courier (4), Arthur Ashe (3), Stan Smith (2), and single Slam winners Roscoe Tanner, Vitas Gerulaitis, Brian Teacher, Michael Chang, and Andy Roddick.

    Now let’s take a look at the performance timeline:

    Screenshot from 2015-06-10 13:42:35

    As you can see, there’s a build-up in the early years of the Open Era with Stan Smith and Arthur Ashe being among the best players in the sport, that blossomed with the first great American phase of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, who together won 15 Slams between 1974 and 1984.

    After that there was a lull in the mid-to-late 80s as Connors and McEnroe declined, until Michael Chang won his lone Slam in 1989, the harbinger of the second great American era of Courier-Sampras-Agassi that dominated the 90s and into the new century. Finally we have a last gasp in 2003, with Agassi winning the Australian Open and Andy Roddick winning the US Open, and decline since then. Roddick retired in 2012 as the last Slam-winning American. His last Slam final appearance was the epic 2009 Wimbledon, and since then an American has only reached the second week of a Slam three times.

    Top 10 Americans of the Open Era

    1. Pete Sampras
    2. Jimmy Connors
    3. John McEnroe
    4. Andre Agassi
    5. Arthur Ashe
    6. Jim Courier
    7. Andy Roddick
    8. Stan Smith
    9. Michael Chang
    10. Vitas Gerulaitis

    Honorable Mentions: Roscoe Tanner, Brian Gottfried, Harold Solomon, Todd Martin, Eddie Dibbs, Cliff Richey, Brad Gilbert, Aaron Krickstein, Brian Teacher, Tim Mayotte, Gene Mayer, Bob Lutz, Jimmy Arias, Marty Riessen, Eliot Teltscher, Tom Gorman, James Blake, Steve Denton, MaliVai Washington, Bill Scanlon, Dick Stockton, Tim Gullikson, Mel Purcell, Mardy Fish, John Isner.

    Determining the Top 10 greatest American players was relatively easy as there is a drop-off from Gerulaitis to the rest of the pack. That said, the Americans are so strong that there are several players not in the Top 10—namely Tanner, Gottfried, Solomon, and Martin—that would be in the Top 10 of any other nation, with the possible exception of Spain.

    Clearly the Top 4 are relatively easy, although some might quibble about the order of Connors, McEnroe, and Agassi. But using my system, Connors is actually closer to Sampras than he is to the rest, while McEnroe just edges Agassi. Further down we become more controversial. Courier had a higher peak than Ashe, but Ashe was good for so long; those two are also very close, but the edge goes to Ashe. Roddick, Smith, and Chang are also very close and most might rank Smith higher than Roddick due to his better peak, but I ranked them according to my system, which acknowledges that despite being dominated by Roger Federer, Roddick was still one of the best players in the sport for a decade. Finally, Gerulaitis is a big step behind the first nine, but even further ahead of No. 11 (Roscoe Tanner).

    Pre-Open Era Greats
    American greatness in men’s tennis did not start with Jimmy Connors, or even his precursors, Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith. While this series focuses on the Open Era, it would be remiss on my part not to mention some of the best players before the Open Era: Bill Johnston, Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, Jack Kramer, Tony Trabert, Bobby Riggs, Pancho Segura, Vic Seixas, and Pancho Gonzales. Tilden, Gonzales, and Budge are probably all among the dozen or so greatest players in tennis history, with Vines, Kramer, and Riggs not too far behind.

    Pancho Gonzales in particular remains one of the most underrated all-time greats, perhaps mainly because he only won two Grand Slams. But he also won 12 Pro Slams and the Tournament of Champions three times, so essentially has 17 Majors to his name – as many as Roger Federer, and more than any player other than Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver. Gonzales was almost certainly the greatest player of the 1950s, just as Rod Laver was of the 1960s (with Ken Rosewall bridging the two decades as second fiddle to both). I place Gonzales, Tilden, and Sampras as the Trinity of greatest American tennis players, with Budge, Connors, McEnroe, and Agassi after them, then Vines, Kramer, Trabert, Riggs, Segura, Seixas, Ashe, and Courier following in some order.

    But the key here is to get a sense that American greatness in men’s tennis goes back virtually to the beginning of the sport. Richard Sears won the first seven US Opens, from 1881 to 1887, although it wasn’t until 1908 that an American won a Slam outside of the US–John Alexander at the Australian Open–and not until 1920 when an American first won Wimbledon, the great Bill Tilden. The first American to win the French Open was Don Budge in 1938. The United States remained dominant through the 1950s, until a pair of Aussies led the way for dominance from Down Under…but more on that in a later installment.

    Will the Empire Rise Again?
    Other than Roddick, American tennis has been slim since the retirement of Andre Agassi. Consider also that in 1990 fully 35 of the Top 100 were Americans; today it is only six, and none in the Top 10. Players such as James Blake, Mardy Fish, and John Isner have been decent but unremarkable. Some players such as Donald Young, Sam Querrey, and Ryan Harrison have displayed varying degrees of promise but have all disappointed in different ways.

    What about the future? Is there any hope? First of all, let’s look at the Americans currently in the Top 100, as of June 8:

    18. John Isner (30)
    31. Jack Sock (22)
    39. Sam Querrey (27)
    51. Steve Johnson (25)
    57. Donald Young (25)
    72. Tim Smyczek (27)

    Given their ages, the only player who looks to have solid upside is Jack Sock, who is memorable for his solid run at Roland Garros this year, defeating Grigor Dimitrov, Pablo Carreno Busta, and Borna Coric before being defeated by Rafael Nadal in the fourth round. While it seems unlikely that Sock will become an elite player, he at least seems like a probable Top 20 regular, and perhaps could challenge for a spot in the Top 10. But it seems very unlikely that Sock will rise above the level of Fish, Isner, and Blake.

    What about younger players? Beyond the Top 100 there are two that are especially worth taking note of: 18-year-old Jared Donaldson, currently ranked No. 152, and 17-year-old Francis Tiafoe, ranked No. 279. Clearly these two are a long ways from making a mark, but Donaldson is just around the corner, and Tiafoe has only just gone pro and is showing promise. Keep your eyes on these two. Also on the radar is 21-year-old Bjorn Fratangelo, ranked No. 144 – but he needs to move fast if he’s going to make his mark.

    Summation
    American men’s tennis clearly saw its golden age from the early 70s to the early 00s, but has really been in a slump for over a decade now. While it may be that American tennis will never regain its glory, it is worth mentioning that there have been slumps before. After dominance in the 1930s to 50s, from Bill Tilden to Pancho Gonzales, the Australians took the mantle during the late 50s and 60s before Ashe and Smith, and then more fully Jimmy Connors, took it back in the 1970s. Yet unlike that era, when fading great Pancho Gonzales played long enough–into his mid-40s–to see Jimmy Connors emerge, there are no elder statesmen to pass the mantle – Agassi is ten years gone; even lesser great Andy Roddick has been gone for almost three years now (can you believe it?).

    So it seems that we’re left with a moderate view: that American tennis will probably not return to its dominant position in the sport any time soon, but that better days are ahead.

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    Cover Photo (Creative Commons License): robbiesaurus / bootbearwdc / craigoneal