What active players are already HOF??

[raptor21_85]

Talkin about players who will definetely be hof for what they have accomplished so far:
On the ladies side, these are my picks:
Serena Williams
Venus Williams
Kim Clijsters
Maria Sharapova????

Oth, these should be locks for the men:
Roger Federer
Rafa
Djoker
Murray?????

[blazza18]

Hewitt

[Slava]

Don't think Murray gets into the HOF without a slam win. He's pretty much been a better version of Tim Henman so far in his career.

[oberyn3]

Don't think Murray gets into the HOF without a slam win. He's pretty much been a better version of Tim Henman so far in his career.

I agree with you about Murray needing to win at least one slam to make it in.

The guys I think are locks are:

Federer
Nadal
Djokovic
Hewitt

And . . .

Roddick (I've never been a big Roddick fan, and I feel a little bit strange even writing this, but the guy's resume should merit inclusion based on the other one slam guys who have gotten in [Chang and Noah]. He finished 2003 ranked #1 was a consistent top 5-10 player for quite some time. He won a U.S. Open, appeared in 5 slam finals total, won 30 titles, etc.).

For the Tennis Hall of Fame, I'd think it would be interesting if they borrowed a page from golf and had some set numerical standards (i.e., a certain combination of specific achievements got you in automatically).

On the women's side:

Serena
Venus
Sharapova
Clijsters

[Dr Positivity]

Locks:
Fed
Nadal
Djokovic
Hewitt

Serena
Venus
Sharapova
Clijsters

Likely:
Roddick
Kuznetsova (2 majors, 4 Finals, 11th all time in earnings, peaked at #2)

[brcl1519]

Lock:

Federer
Nadal
Djokovic
Roddick

Serena Williams
Venus Williams
Kim Clijsters
Maria Sharapova

[anish23]

David Ferrer
will make it... after a few wins.

[SilverQT]

Juan Carlos Ferrero. Murray won't make it unless he pulls out a Slam win soon.

[Slava]

I'm likely one of Ferrero's biggest fans but if he makes it in with one french open win, it'd open the doors for guys like Albert Costa, Guillermo Canas, Gaston Gaudio, Kafelnikov and Moya which kind of dilutes the hall of fame.

[MoMM]

Kafelnikov got nominated along with Kuerten in 2012.

[Slava]

Kuerten deserves because he was dominant on clay for quite a period of time and even beat Sampras to win the Masters title when Sampras was good.

I can't recall much of Kafelnikov but I think he retired early to play professional poker.

[oberyn3]

Kuerten deserves because he was dominant on clay for quite a period of time and even beat Sampras to win the Masters title when Sampras was good.

I can't recall much of Kafelnikov but I think he retired early to play professional poker.

Kafelnikov carved out a very nice career for himself. 2 slams ('96 French Open, 99 Australian Open),Olympic Gold Medal, and made it to #1 in the world.

He retired when he was 29 after 11 years on the tour, which really isn't "early" in tennis terms.

There are definitely worse players already in the Hall.

[MoMM]

Kuerten deserves because he was dominant on clay for quite a period of time and even beat Sampras to win the Masters title when Sampras was good.

Not only Sampras, but Agassi, Norman and Kafelnikov too.

[Doctor MJ]

Don't think Murray gets into the HOF without a slam win. He's pretty much been a better version of Tim Henman so far in his career.

I don't think that should be a requirement for him. People need to understand the context and there's never been a tougher time to win a slam because of 3 amazing players ahead of him. In other eras, he'd have slams.

Right now, the man has been in 9 slam semi's. That puts him in the ballpark of the Changs and Hewitts of the world. If he keeps it up and puts distance between himself and those guys, it shouldn't be a question.

[oberyn3]

Don't think Murray gets into the HOF without a slam win. He's pretty much been a better version of Tim Henman so far in his career.

I don't think that should be a requirement for him. People need to understand the context and there's never been a tougher time to win a slam because of 3 amazing players ahead of him. In other eras, he'd have slams.

If he doesn't win a slam, I think Murray will have a very, very tough time getting in, just looking at the resumes of recent inductees (and those who haven't gotten in). Now, I don't think that should be the case, but, sadly, I don't think the voters agree. The era argument also hasn't historically helped a lot of guys. I look at Vitas Gerulaitis as a prime example. His Australian Open win gets (somewhat justifiably) discounted because it came during the period when most of the top players skipped the tournament and the fact that he was losing in semis and finals to the likes of Borg, McEnroe, and Connors seems to get ignored, too.

I think it will end up being a moot point, because I'd be shocked if Murray doesn't end up winning a slam or two.

[Doctor MJ]

I think you've got a good point, but yeah, people are wrong to fixate on results without looking at the competition, and I don't hold a lot of hope that it will ever change since I've had numerous debates with people who can't grasp the nuances properly no matter how much it's shown to them.

[oberyn3]

I think you've got a good point, but yeah, people are wrong to fixate on results without looking at the competition, and I don't hold a lot of hope that it will ever change since I've had numerous debates with people who can't grasp the nuances properly no matter how much it's shown to them.

I know, it gets pretty frustrating. It shocks me when it doesn't just come from casual fans. Tennis Channel just aired a program where they ranked the top 100 players of all time. They combined the men and women, which is all sorts of stupid, IMO. Anyway, they had Roy Emerson ranked ahead of both Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzales. Basically, Rosewall and especially Gonzales were penalized because they left the amateur ranks. Meanwhile, Emerson continued racking up slams against inferior competition. So, according to the experts whose opinions were solicited to come up with this list, Gonzales' and Rosewall's careers would have been viewed more favorably had they had the same or even less success against inferior competition. Gonzales dominated the professional game, and was still having success in the Open Era despite being in his early-mid 40s.

Now, I can understand a casual fan looking at the record book, seeing 12 "slams" next to Emerson's name, and immediately thinking he was a better and more accomplished player than Rosewall and Gonzales. There's no excuse, however, for anyone who's ever seriously followed the sport to make that mistake. Nothing against Emerson, but, even when he held the slams record, no one, and I mean absolutely no one, considered him the greatest men's player ever or even that he belonged on the short list.

They also had Nadal ahead of Borg, which, at this point in Nadal's career, is also quite silly.

[Doctor MJ]

I think you've got a good point, but yeah, people are wrong to fixate on results without looking at the competition, and I don't hold a lot of hope that it will ever change since I've had numerous debates with people who can't grasp the nuances properly no matter how much it's shown to them.

I know, it gets pretty frustrating. It shocks me when it doesn't just come from casual fans. Tennis Channel just aired a program where they ranked the top 100 players of all time. They combined the men and women, which is all sorts of stupid, IMO. Anyway, they had Roy Emerson ranked ahead of both Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzales. Basically, Rosewall and especially Gonzales were penalized because they left the amateur ranks. Meanwhile, Emerson continued racking up slams against inferior competition. So, according to the experts whose opinions were solicited to come up with this list, Gonzales' and Rosewall's careers would have been viewed more favorably had they had the same or even less success against inferior competition. Gonzales dominated the professional game, and was still having success in the Open Era despite being in his early-mid 40s.

Now, I can understand a casual fan looking at the record book, seeing 12 "slams" next to Emerson's name, and immediately thinking he was a better and more accomplished player than Rosewall and Gonzales. There's no excuse, however, for anyone who's ever seriously followed the sport to make that mistake. Nothing against Emerson, but, even when he held the slams record, no one, and I mean absolutely no one, considered him the greatest men's player ever or even that he belonged on the short list.

They also had Nadal ahead of Borg, which, at this point in Nadal's career, is also quite silly.

Sigh, I feel better hearing you rant oberyn. You just harped on two things that I hate so much:

1) Combining men and women

2) Exaggerating the importance of the Grand Slam in the pre-Open era by people who should know better.

With the former, I understand the temptation since I don't see a harm in ranking the best athletes of the century across sports, but it should go without saying that any list like that is just fluff. To have tennis experts spend their time on fluff rather than the meaningful in-gender comparisons is just silly.

With the latter, I just don't understand at all. I have to assume that a major part of it is the idea of a simplistic canon for casual fans to latch on to, but why is that a good thing? I understand trying to make people get interested in all-time records, but casual fans were never going to care about Emerson's "record" anyway. All they are doing is inducing a band of pseudo-historians among the people who would otherwise be prime candidates as future legit tennis history buffs.

[oberyn3]

1) Combining men and women

Yes. If one isn't going to take gender into account and pretend that there's no difference between the men's game and the women's game, then, based solely on accomplishment, there's no reason for any guy to have been higher than #5. Court, Evert, Graf, and Navratilova should have been #1-4 in whatever order. No guy's got 24 slams (Court). No guy's won at least 4 of every slam (Graf). No guy's won 167 singles tournaments or 9 Wimbledons (Navratilova). No guy won a slam every year for as many consecutive years as Evert or dominated any surface the way Evert dominated clay.

2) Exaggerating the importance of the Grand Slam in the pre-Open era by people who should know better.

This drives me absolutely crazy. When people started talking about Sampras going after the slam "record" I had a feeling this was going to happen. I have no problem with using # of slams to judge players from, basically, 1988 on. As far as using it to evaluate and compare players from the pre-Open era? Hell, no.

To draw a comparison with another sport, ranking a guy like Pancho Gonzales based on the number of "slams" he won, would be like someone ranking the greatest golfers of all time and downgrading Bobby Jones because he never won the Masters.

[Doctor MJ]

To draw a comparison with another sport, ranking a guy like Pancho Gonzales based on the number of "slams" he won, would be like someone ranking the greatest golfers of all time and downgrading Bobby Jones because he never won the Masters.

Yeah, clearly the thing that most annoys me is not that Emerson gets a mention, but that there are people who know Emerson's name but don't know Gonzales, or even Rosewall. It's one thing to not know Tilden, but quite another thing to know the wrong guy from an era.

It's also just a shame that when Sampras was dominating we weren't seeing Gonzales comparisons, simply because their games should make comparisons obvious, and it would have been a fantastic time to have experts chime in on the two.

Although to be fair, I feel like tennis has some of the most extreme ego-driven old-timers around (possibly because they'd been so ignored). To here Gonzales and Budge talk, tennis has been getting worse in talent in every possible way as the talent pool as grown far more deep. Hard to take that too seriously.