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Note: This piece was inspired by the "Novak GOAT" thread. Forgive the length of it - I like to process my thoughts via writing, so consider this just me sharing my own thoughts on the subject. As I say with regards to statistics, it shouldn't be taken as definitive.
Why Slams Aren't the Only Show in Town
In a way, tennis Grand Slams are like the Super Bowl of American football, except occurring four times a year. Each Slam is, in a way, the culmination of a season or segment of hte tour: The Australian Open is the culmination of the season's beginnings, and it is when the yearly tour really gets going. Then we have the clay season, which culminates with Roland Garros, followed by grass culminating in Wimbledon, and the American tour in the US Open. Finally we have the post-US Open late tour culminating in the World Tour Finals.
But my comparison is rather specific: I'm not merely talking about them being the "big kahuna" of the tour, but the perception and even mis-perception of them, especially among more casual fans and/or those without a fuller context of tennis history, past and present.
Following tennis involves what we could call "spheres of attention." A casual tennis fan might only follow the majors; four times a year, they tune in to the Grand Slams, but that's it. They might hear passingly that Rafael Nadal was in prime form during clay season, but really all they know for sure is whether or not he won Roland Garros. A more serious fan will also follow at least some of the Masters and the World Tour Finals, and maybe a specific lesser (ATP 250/500) tournament here or there, if their favorite is playing or it is local. Diehard fans will follow everything, week by week, with endless depth possible. In truth, the tennis tour is quite deep and varied: beyond the 14 big titles (4 Slams, 9 Masters, and one World Tour Final), there are about a dozen ATP 500s, several dozen ATP 250s, and many Challengers and Futures tournaments (which can be considered tennis's "minor leagues," if we want to switch our analogy to baseball).
Certainly, there is no doubt that the Grand Slams are the biggest tournaments of the tour, and winning one the goal of every player. But they aren't everything when considering the greatness of a player. This is reflected in the ATP point system, where a Slam title is worth 2000 points, the World Tour Final 1200-1500 points (depending upon if undefeated), a Masters 1000 points, the Olympics 750 points, and then the ATP 500 and 250, plus Challengers at 50-125 points, and Futures at 10-20 points. I wouldn't go so far as to say that these point values accurately represent the historical worth of the tournaments, but they do represent their value relative to each other according to the ATP in their ranking system.
The perception and historical legacy isn't at all commensurate with the ranking points. No one, whether fans or players, think that a GS title is worth just twice that of a Masters, let alone eight ATP 250s being equal to one Slam. One-Slam-wonders like Gaston Gaudio and Mark Edmondson are in the history books, for better or worse, while no one remembers players who win handfuls of ATP 250s and 500s but nothing else. Or if we use the maligned-but-still-useful GOAT Points system of ultimatetennisstatitics.com, we can see that the lowest ranked Slam winner of the Open Era is Brian Teacher with 23 GOAT points, which is the same number as Nicolas Almagro, Guillermo Canas, Fernando Verdasco, and Feliciano Lopez. Interestingly enough, I think those last four were all relatively comparable players: what I would call "third tier" players - not regulars in the top 10, but maybe diving in for a short time, but instead regulars i the seeded, top 10-30 range, and with handfuls of smaller titles.
More specifically, Teacher had 8 titles with 1 Slam; Canas 7 titles, 1 Masters; the other three had no big titles, but Almagro 13 titles overall; Lopez and Verdasco only had 7 titles each, but very long careers. In a statistical system like GOAT points, these five guys are all "equal," while, I imagine, any of the four would gladly trade away all of their titles for Teacher's Slam trophy. Teacher's name is carved into the Slam record, while the other four are just good players who played during the Fedalkovic era.
On the other hand, no serious fan will tell you that Gaston Gaudio (winner of the 2004 French Open) was a greater clay-courter than Guillermo Coria, the so-called "King of Clay" before Nadal came along. No one will tell you that slamless Marcelo Rios was an inferior player to Slam-winning Thomas Johansson, or even two-time Australian Open winner Johan Kriek, who is the only multi-Slam winner never to reach an ATP top 5 ranking (he maxed out at #7). Sergi Bruguera won Roland Garros in 1993 and '94, but never reached the QF of any other Slam, while David Ferrer reached 17 Slam quarterfinals, and at least two at every Slam, but never won Roland Garros (his best surface) due to playing alongside You Know Who. Was Bruguera a better player, even a better clay player? I think almost anyone would cede to Bruguera--at least as a clay player--but the point is that it isn't so simple as merely looking at Slam titles.
In American football, the greatness of a quarterback is judged by their ability to lead their team to a Super Bowl victory. Tom Brady is considered the GOAT because he's won 7 Super Bowls, with the next guys all the way down at 4 each (Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw). When Peyton Manning was playing, he was considered by most to be more skilled than Brady, but in the end he only won 2 Super Bowls, and no one would consider Bradshaw a greater quarterback. Or we can go back further and look at Dan Marino, who was setting passing records in the 80s and 90s, but never won a Super Bowl. Was it Marino's fault that the Dolphins were never good enough to win? How much responsibility should we place on his shoulders? And should we consider Bradshaw, an inferior talent, a greater player?
Let's circle back around to tennis Slams. If we have two poles: One, that Slams are "everything", and the other following a strictly ATP point valuation, my contention is that the "best" perspective--as far as considering greatness--is somewhere in-between. Other titles, and overall accomplishments, matter. I'll consider four examples: Slam results other than wins, World Tour FInals, Masters, and Rankings.
Slam Results: I always have to chuckle a bit when the silver platter is presented to the Slam runner-up; there is a certain tragicomic element to standing there and receiving a plate. On the other hand, the Slam runner-up beat six players on their way to that podium, and just lost to one, sometimes just by a hair.They probably faced some really good players, and in some instances, even a better (or higher ranked) player than the one they lost to. Or to put it another way, a Slam winner was 7-0 at the tournament, the runner-up 6-1. Meaning, while in the end, it is the trophy that matters as far as bragging rights and accolades, a player's overall results at Slams is important to consider when assessing their greatness.
An example would be to compare the careers of Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka. Both have three Slam trophies to their name, but the rest of their results were quite different. In 61 Slam appearances, Wawrinka has 3 titles, 1 final loss, 5 semifinal losses, and 9 quarterfinal losses. In 52 Slam appearances, Murray has 3 titles, 8 final losses, 9 semifinal losses, and 9 quarterfinal losses. In other words, Wawrinka reached the QF in 18 out of 62 appearances (29%), and Murray in 29 out of 52 appearances (56%). While there are other factors to consider in overall greatness, this implies that Murray was a far more consistent performer at Slams over the course of his career than Wawrinka. We can look back and remember just how ferocious an opponent "Stanimal" was for a few years, but Andy's overall record at Slams is superior.
World Tour Finals: Sometimes called the "Fifth Slam," the WTF is an unusual tournament in that only the top 8 ranked players appear. Meaning, every match is against a difficult opponent. It includes five matches, and two players may face each other more than once. It does not have the cache as Grand Slams, but is the next most important tournament on the tour, and arguably just as difficult to win--if not more so, because unlike Slams, there is no WTF tournament in which the eventual winner didn't have to face multiple top 10 players, while some Slams have been won without facing any or very few.
Masters: As with the Slams, the nine Masters (ATP 1000) tournaments are the bread and butter of top players. Due to their best-of-three format, upsets are more common at Masters than they are at Slams. The Masters are obviously less important than Slams and less difficult to win than the World Tour Finals, but are still important hallmarks of accomplishment and greatness, as far as the weekly grind of the tour is concerned.
Rankings: While Grand Slams and, to a lesser degree, big titles remain the central hallmarks of greatness, there is perhaps no better single indicator of dominance than rankings. The #1 player in the sport has been the best player for the previous 52 weeks or more, which is exceedingly difficult to do. This can be illustrated by the fact that there are far more Grand Slam winners who have never been #1 in the ATP era (1973-present) than there are #1s who never won a Slam. In the ATP era, only Marcelo Rios has been #1 without winning a Slam, while there have been 28 players who have won a Slam without reaching #1 (I'm not including Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, as both would have been #1 if ATP rankings went back before 1973).
Just as we shouldn't ignore non-winning results in Grand Slams, so too should we not ignore rankings below #1. I would argue that being world #2 is similar to being the runner-up in a Slam, being ranked #3-5 similar to being a semifinalist, being #6-10 similar to quarterfinalist, etc. Just as we shouldn't ignore, say, a semifinal loss in a Slam, so too shouldn't be ignore being ranked in the top 5. Meaning, being ranked #2 is no easy task, and shouldn't be ignored because it isn't as "sexy" as #1. One could argue, for instance, that Nadal's record of 579 weeks in the top 2 is just as impressive as Djokovic's record of 339 weeks (and counting) at #1. Or we can look at Federer's record 965 weeks in the top 10, which is 130 more weeks (more than to years worth) than the next guy, Nadal with 835 (although it is likely that Nadal narrows this before all is said and done).
Other Factors: There are numerous other factors to consider, including statistics and accomplishments like overall titles, match winning percentage, Slam inning percentage, finals winning percentage, range of tournaments on different surfaces, head-to-head records versus chief rivals, and so forth. Furthermore, there are the "intangible" qualities of greatness: a player's perceived mentality, heroic moments that become iconic memories, finesse and ability, reputation, etc.
Summarizing Thoughts
The Grand Slams are, and will likely always be, rightfully considered the most important tournaments in professional tennis. They have a long history, with Wimbledon going back to 1877, and are what everyone thinks of when they think of tennis. History generally doesn't remember Masters finals, but will always remember Federer's epic win at the 2017 Australian Open or Nadal's sea-changing win at 2008 Wimbledon, or the iconic Borg-McEnroe clashes. But while they should always be considered as arguably the most important factor in a tennis resume (at least in the current era), they are not the only important factor, and overly focusing on them--without also considering other factors such as other "big title" tournaments and rankings--leads to a distorted idea of what "greatness" means when assessing players and comparing them.
So how to assess overall greatness and compare players, not only within an era but across eras? There is no perfect, fail-proof way to do so, and the further distance in time, the harder the comparison. For instance, it is well known that until the late 1980s, the Australian Open was not as prestigious--or well attended by top players--as the other three Grand Slams. Further, the current centrality of Grand Slams was not always the case.
If we try to compare players from before and after the Open Era began in 1968, it is even more problematic. The top players of the 1930s-60s generally cut their teeth on the amateur tour, which included the Grand Slams, but then moved to the professional tour of which the Pro Slams (Wembley, US Pro, and French Pro) are considered majors. But it is difficult to compare Pro to Grand Slams, due to a very different format. The Pro Slams, the first of which (the US Pro) began in 1927, were usually four rounds. They started as best-of-five matches, but eventually became best-of-three, except for the final. The closest Open Era tournaments are the various year-end finals, in that both included mostly only the best players on tour.
So really we have three orders of majors: Amateur Grand Slams, Pro Slams, and Open Era Grand Slams. And then we have all the other tournaments. And then other statistics, rankings, etc. And this doesn't even touch upon the depth and diversity of talent, technology and health developments, the influence of media, economic considerations, and so forth.
Various websites have attempted to create formulas that take into account a variety of statistical factors, such as Ultimate Tennis Statistics and the subscription-only The Tennis Base, but all have problems (as a side note, TB is particularly interesting in that it has rankings for years before the Open Era, although the site is subscription only, unfortunately). Some years ago I dabbled with my own system, although discovered that it was basically a simpler version of UTS's.
We can also consider the subjective opinions of analysts and sportswriters, or just the rather nebulous "historical reputations." As tennis fans we can consider our own eyeball test, which yields divergence views and lots of debates.
In the end, there is no clear or easy way to rank and compare historical players. What we have are a variety of perspectives or lenses to consider. The problems arise when we approach the issue form just a singular lens, such as Grand Slam titles, which leaves us with ridiculous assertion such as "Roy Emerson was greater than Pancho Gonzales" or "Johan Kriek was better than Marcelo Rios."
That said, to paraphrase a perhaps over-used saying, but a true one nonetheless, the fun of it is in the journey: in considering and talking about it. While we'll likely never know who was greater, Jack Kramer or Jimmy Connors, it is awfully fun to talk about. And because it is fun, I may just may give another go at trying to come up with a set of criteria and offer a list of all-time greats for your perusal. Stay tuned.
Why Slams Aren't the Only Show in Town
In a way, tennis Grand Slams are like the Super Bowl of American football, except occurring four times a year. Each Slam is, in a way, the culmination of a season or segment of hte tour: The Australian Open is the culmination of the season's beginnings, and it is when the yearly tour really gets going. Then we have the clay season, which culminates with Roland Garros, followed by grass culminating in Wimbledon, and the American tour in the US Open. Finally we have the post-US Open late tour culminating in the World Tour Finals.
But my comparison is rather specific: I'm not merely talking about them being the "big kahuna" of the tour, but the perception and even mis-perception of them, especially among more casual fans and/or those without a fuller context of tennis history, past and present.
Following tennis involves what we could call "spheres of attention." A casual tennis fan might only follow the majors; four times a year, they tune in to the Grand Slams, but that's it. They might hear passingly that Rafael Nadal was in prime form during clay season, but really all they know for sure is whether or not he won Roland Garros. A more serious fan will also follow at least some of the Masters and the World Tour Finals, and maybe a specific lesser (ATP 250/500) tournament here or there, if their favorite is playing or it is local. Diehard fans will follow everything, week by week, with endless depth possible. In truth, the tennis tour is quite deep and varied: beyond the 14 big titles (4 Slams, 9 Masters, and one World Tour Final), there are about a dozen ATP 500s, several dozen ATP 250s, and many Challengers and Futures tournaments (which can be considered tennis's "minor leagues," if we want to switch our analogy to baseball).
Certainly, there is no doubt that the Grand Slams are the biggest tournaments of the tour, and winning one the goal of every player. But they aren't everything when considering the greatness of a player. This is reflected in the ATP point system, where a Slam title is worth 2000 points, the World Tour Final 1200-1500 points (depending upon if undefeated), a Masters 1000 points, the Olympics 750 points, and then the ATP 500 and 250, plus Challengers at 50-125 points, and Futures at 10-20 points. I wouldn't go so far as to say that these point values accurately represent the historical worth of the tournaments, but they do represent their value relative to each other according to the ATP in their ranking system.
The perception and historical legacy isn't at all commensurate with the ranking points. No one, whether fans or players, think that a GS title is worth just twice that of a Masters, let alone eight ATP 250s being equal to one Slam. One-Slam-wonders like Gaston Gaudio and Mark Edmondson are in the history books, for better or worse, while no one remembers players who win handfuls of ATP 250s and 500s but nothing else. Or if we use the maligned-but-still-useful GOAT Points system of ultimatetennisstatitics.com, we can see that the lowest ranked Slam winner of the Open Era is Brian Teacher with 23 GOAT points, which is the same number as Nicolas Almagro, Guillermo Canas, Fernando Verdasco, and Feliciano Lopez. Interestingly enough, I think those last four were all relatively comparable players: what I would call "third tier" players - not regulars in the top 10, but maybe diving in for a short time, but instead regulars i the seeded, top 10-30 range, and with handfuls of smaller titles.
More specifically, Teacher had 8 titles with 1 Slam; Canas 7 titles, 1 Masters; the other three had no big titles, but Almagro 13 titles overall; Lopez and Verdasco only had 7 titles each, but very long careers. In a statistical system like GOAT points, these five guys are all "equal," while, I imagine, any of the four would gladly trade away all of their titles for Teacher's Slam trophy. Teacher's name is carved into the Slam record, while the other four are just good players who played during the Fedalkovic era.
On the other hand, no serious fan will tell you that Gaston Gaudio (winner of the 2004 French Open) was a greater clay-courter than Guillermo Coria, the so-called "King of Clay" before Nadal came along. No one will tell you that slamless Marcelo Rios was an inferior player to Slam-winning Thomas Johansson, or even two-time Australian Open winner Johan Kriek, who is the only multi-Slam winner never to reach an ATP top 5 ranking (he maxed out at #7). Sergi Bruguera won Roland Garros in 1993 and '94, but never reached the QF of any other Slam, while David Ferrer reached 17 Slam quarterfinals, and at least two at every Slam, but never won Roland Garros (his best surface) due to playing alongside You Know Who. Was Bruguera a better player, even a better clay player? I think almost anyone would cede to Bruguera--at least as a clay player--but the point is that it isn't so simple as merely looking at Slam titles.
In American football, the greatness of a quarterback is judged by their ability to lead their team to a Super Bowl victory. Tom Brady is considered the GOAT because he's won 7 Super Bowls, with the next guys all the way down at 4 each (Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw). When Peyton Manning was playing, he was considered by most to be more skilled than Brady, but in the end he only won 2 Super Bowls, and no one would consider Bradshaw a greater quarterback. Or we can go back further and look at Dan Marino, who was setting passing records in the 80s and 90s, but never won a Super Bowl. Was it Marino's fault that the Dolphins were never good enough to win? How much responsibility should we place on his shoulders? And should we consider Bradshaw, an inferior talent, a greater player?
Let's circle back around to tennis Slams. If we have two poles: One, that Slams are "everything", and the other following a strictly ATP point valuation, my contention is that the "best" perspective--as far as considering greatness--is somewhere in-between. Other titles, and overall accomplishments, matter. I'll consider four examples: Slam results other than wins, World Tour FInals, Masters, and Rankings.
Slam Results: I always have to chuckle a bit when the silver platter is presented to the Slam runner-up; there is a certain tragicomic element to standing there and receiving a plate. On the other hand, the Slam runner-up beat six players on their way to that podium, and just lost to one, sometimes just by a hair.They probably faced some really good players, and in some instances, even a better (or higher ranked) player than the one they lost to. Or to put it another way, a Slam winner was 7-0 at the tournament, the runner-up 6-1. Meaning, while in the end, it is the trophy that matters as far as bragging rights and accolades, a player's overall results at Slams is important to consider when assessing their greatness.
An example would be to compare the careers of Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka. Both have three Slam trophies to their name, but the rest of their results were quite different. In 61 Slam appearances, Wawrinka has 3 titles, 1 final loss, 5 semifinal losses, and 9 quarterfinal losses. In 52 Slam appearances, Murray has 3 titles, 8 final losses, 9 semifinal losses, and 9 quarterfinal losses. In other words, Wawrinka reached the QF in 18 out of 62 appearances (29%), and Murray in 29 out of 52 appearances (56%). While there are other factors to consider in overall greatness, this implies that Murray was a far more consistent performer at Slams over the course of his career than Wawrinka. We can look back and remember just how ferocious an opponent "Stanimal" was for a few years, but Andy's overall record at Slams is superior.
World Tour Finals: Sometimes called the "Fifth Slam," the WTF is an unusual tournament in that only the top 8 ranked players appear. Meaning, every match is against a difficult opponent. It includes five matches, and two players may face each other more than once. It does not have the cache as Grand Slams, but is the next most important tournament on the tour, and arguably just as difficult to win--if not more so, because unlike Slams, there is no WTF tournament in which the eventual winner didn't have to face multiple top 10 players, while some Slams have been won without facing any or very few.
Masters: As with the Slams, the nine Masters (ATP 1000) tournaments are the bread and butter of top players. Due to their best-of-three format, upsets are more common at Masters than they are at Slams. The Masters are obviously less important than Slams and less difficult to win than the World Tour Finals, but are still important hallmarks of accomplishment and greatness, as far as the weekly grind of the tour is concerned.
Rankings: While Grand Slams and, to a lesser degree, big titles remain the central hallmarks of greatness, there is perhaps no better single indicator of dominance than rankings. The #1 player in the sport has been the best player for the previous 52 weeks or more, which is exceedingly difficult to do. This can be illustrated by the fact that there are far more Grand Slam winners who have never been #1 in the ATP era (1973-present) than there are #1s who never won a Slam. In the ATP era, only Marcelo Rios has been #1 without winning a Slam, while there have been 28 players who have won a Slam without reaching #1 (I'm not including Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, as both would have been #1 if ATP rankings went back before 1973).
Just as we shouldn't ignore non-winning results in Grand Slams, so too should we not ignore rankings below #1. I would argue that being world #2 is similar to being the runner-up in a Slam, being ranked #3-5 similar to being a semifinalist, being #6-10 similar to quarterfinalist, etc. Just as we shouldn't ignore, say, a semifinal loss in a Slam, so too shouldn't be ignore being ranked in the top 5. Meaning, being ranked #2 is no easy task, and shouldn't be ignored because it isn't as "sexy" as #1. One could argue, for instance, that Nadal's record of 579 weeks in the top 2 is just as impressive as Djokovic's record of 339 weeks (and counting) at #1. Or we can look at Federer's record 965 weeks in the top 10, which is 130 more weeks (more than to years worth) than the next guy, Nadal with 835 (although it is likely that Nadal narrows this before all is said and done).
Other Factors: There are numerous other factors to consider, including statistics and accomplishments like overall titles, match winning percentage, Slam inning percentage, finals winning percentage, range of tournaments on different surfaces, head-to-head records versus chief rivals, and so forth. Furthermore, there are the "intangible" qualities of greatness: a player's perceived mentality, heroic moments that become iconic memories, finesse and ability, reputation, etc.
Summarizing Thoughts
The Grand Slams are, and will likely always be, rightfully considered the most important tournaments in professional tennis. They have a long history, with Wimbledon going back to 1877, and are what everyone thinks of when they think of tennis. History generally doesn't remember Masters finals, but will always remember Federer's epic win at the 2017 Australian Open or Nadal's sea-changing win at 2008 Wimbledon, or the iconic Borg-McEnroe clashes. But while they should always be considered as arguably the most important factor in a tennis resume (at least in the current era), they are not the only important factor, and overly focusing on them--without also considering other factors such as other "big title" tournaments and rankings--leads to a distorted idea of what "greatness" means when assessing players and comparing them.
So how to assess overall greatness and compare players, not only within an era but across eras? There is no perfect, fail-proof way to do so, and the further distance in time, the harder the comparison. For instance, it is well known that until the late 1980s, the Australian Open was not as prestigious--or well attended by top players--as the other three Grand Slams. Further, the current centrality of Grand Slams was not always the case.
If we try to compare players from before and after the Open Era began in 1968, it is even more problematic. The top players of the 1930s-60s generally cut their teeth on the amateur tour, which included the Grand Slams, but then moved to the professional tour of which the Pro Slams (Wembley, US Pro, and French Pro) are considered majors. But it is difficult to compare Pro to Grand Slams, due to a very different format. The Pro Slams, the first of which (the US Pro) began in 1927, were usually four rounds. They started as best-of-five matches, but eventually became best-of-three, except for the final. The closest Open Era tournaments are the various year-end finals, in that both included mostly only the best players on tour.
So really we have three orders of majors: Amateur Grand Slams, Pro Slams, and Open Era Grand Slams. And then we have all the other tournaments. And then other statistics, rankings, etc. And this doesn't even touch upon the depth and diversity of talent, technology and health developments, the influence of media, economic considerations, and so forth.
Various websites have attempted to create formulas that take into account a variety of statistical factors, such as Ultimate Tennis Statistics and the subscription-only The Tennis Base, but all have problems (as a side note, TB is particularly interesting in that it has rankings for years before the Open Era, although the site is subscription only, unfortunately). Some years ago I dabbled with my own system, although discovered that it was basically a simpler version of UTS's.
We can also consider the subjective opinions of analysts and sportswriters, or just the rather nebulous "historical reputations." As tennis fans we can consider our own eyeball test, which yields divergence views and lots of debates.
In the end, there is no clear or easy way to rank and compare historical players. What we have are a variety of perspectives or lenses to consider. The problems arise when we approach the issue form just a singular lens, such as Grand Slam titles, which leaves us with ridiculous assertion such as "Roy Emerson was greater than Pancho Gonzales" or "Johan Kriek was better than Marcelo Rios."
That said, to paraphrase a perhaps over-used saying, but a true one nonetheless, the fun of it is in the journey: in considering and talking about it. While we'll likely never know who was greater, Jack Kramer or Jimmy Connors, it is awfully fun to talk about. And because it is fun, I may just may give another go at trying to come up with a set of criteria and offer a list of all-time greats for your perusal. Stay tuned.
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