Australian Open 2009

[Doctor MJ]

Wow I never knew you were a touney player....Anybody famous you have played against?!

I seem to have sold myself a little too highly. I played in tournaments as a youth, not on the pro level. I did play against some nationally ranked players (who were much better than I) that were thought to have pro potential, but none panned out. If you go with the whole I played guys who played X, then you start getting into Roddick, Dent, Bryan Bros. etc.

[Doctor MJ]

I think it's safe to say that Gretzky is the pretty clear-cut choice for nhl GOAT.

Gretzky's about as close as you get, but there are old timers who go with Howe, and a few people who were so impressed with Lemieux's peak they give him the nod (basically the rationale goes, Edmonton won the title after Gretzky left, Pittsburgh was leading significantly worse teams to the title).

[Doctor MJ]

1) He still has a LONG way to go. Borg and McEnroe, to name a couple greats, went from winning slams consistently to none at all very quickly. At various points those guys could have been on pace to smash records as well. Becker won 5 of his 6 slams fairly early on. Etc.

Yeah, this is interesting. While I"m on the "Federer will break 14" bandwagon now, it wasn't that long ago that I was one of the skeptics saying "Y'all are being too optimistic, you can slide from major-winning status incredibly easily". So yeah, same thing can happen with Nadal, particularly with the physical toll the game seems to be taking on him.

I of course hope very much that Nadal proves to be limited only by his talent. I want to see history, simple as that. I'll only cheer against a guy if I dislike him personally, and that's certainly not the case with these two guys.

[TheMartian]

Well, first thing you should already know Doctor is that tennis doesn't have a GOAT. Experts (commentators, journalists, ex-players) never agree on who the GOAT is. Not all sports have a GOAT, basketball barely does but enough people agree on Jordan so he is the GOAT (but still debatable). For tennis to have a "majority GOAT" a player must win all 4 slams titles and also surpass Sampras' record. And only one player is in a position to do that now. Winning the Calender Year Grand Slam would further cement this (make them a "conclusive GOAT").

It seems like you're talking about reaching different levels of GOATness, which contradicts being the GOAT, doesn't it?

Here's a question - if Nadal blows out his back at Indian Wells and has to miss Roland Garros, and Federer wins there in his absence, where would you put Federer? Does it matter if he beats Djokovic in the final, or if it's a guy we never conceived could reach a slam final?

Another thought to ponder - if Nadal's absolute best tennis coincided with Federer's absolute best tennis 2-3 years ago, would the results be the same? It could be argued Nadal is beating Roger Federer on the downward part of his career, not Roger Federer at his best.

Just some thoughts to ponder. I agree that Nadal's chances of being the greatest ever are improved with his win, but:

1) He still has a LONG way to go. Borg and McEnroe, to name a couple greats, went from winning slams consistently to none at all very quickly. At various points those guys could have been on pace to smash records as well. Becker won 5 of his 6 slams fairly early on. Etc.

2) His young age is a big factor. One thing about tennis history is that guys who succeed at young ages tend to stop winning slams at younger ages as well. I'm not saying that will happen to Nadal. He shows no signs of letting up right now. But I bet if you worked out the numbers, the probability of his (elite) career not lasting all that much longer would be very high. Then again, probability doesn't seem to mean much with respect to either of these two players!

^ This. Well said.

[THEmasterWAYNE]

Yeah majority GOAT means most people believe he's the GOAT. Conclusive GOAT means everybody believes he's the GOAT. Very simple.

[Doctor MJ]

Yeah majority GOAT means most people believe he's the GOAT. Conclusive GOAT means everybody believes he's the GOAT. Very simple.

Yeah, nothing wrong with those definitions.

So obviously, you don't see Sampras as majority GOAT right now. Curious where you do see him stacking up.

Someone mentioned Borg before, and of course if you're talking about peak, a lot of people will go with him, but overall career most people don't think he did it long enough.

Other than that, nobody else from the open era gets mentioned with any consistency.

Laver's the main guy who gets mentioned in my experience, and it is because of the Grand Slams, so I'm guessing that's where you're going, and it makes sense. In my experience, these people are still a distinct minority though. Maybe it's different internationally?

On Laver: My opinion of others' opinions is that Laver's Slams accomplishments is extremely overrated. Most of the people bring up the 2 Slams with the space in between implying the guy would have won like 40 majors if not for the pro/amateur thing, and that's of course completely ignorant since Laver never would have won the first Slam if he'd been competing against the pros at the time. I personally rank Rosewall ahead of Laver career-wise (though I do give Laver the nod for superior peak), and I don't know how anyone can rate Laver as GOAT without having Rosewall and Gonzalez right up there as well (yet it happens all the time).

[THEmasterWAYNE]

From what I've read on the internet messageboards majority of people say Rod Laver, hence Laver is the majority GOAT. Not everyone says Laver, so clearly not a conclusive GOAT (far from it, very evenly spread opinion between several players).

I personally won't declare a GOAT until someone has both the Career Grand Slam and the Total Slams Record. The Calender Year Grand Slam helps too, but thats more of a tie-breaker if 2 players both have the Career Grand Slam and Total Slams Record

[Doctor MJ]

From what I've read on the internet messageboards majority of people say Rod Laver, hence Laver is the majority GOAT. Not everyone says Laver, so clearly not a conclusive GOAT (far from it, very evenly spread opinion between several players).

I personally won't declare a GOAT until someone has both the Career Grand Slam and the Total Slams Record. The Calender Year Grand Slam helps too, but thats more of a tie-breaker if 2 players both have the Career Grand Slam and Total Slams Record

I've got to grant you that a quick Google search did turn up more immediate Laver #1's than Sampras #1's. However, based on your standards, let me present to your GOAT: Ken Rosewall.

If you take players from the 60s seriously, then you should take the pro majors that existed back then seriously too. So here's the leaders of true majors (which doesn't include the Grand Slams until they turned pro):

1. Ken Rosewall 19
2. Pete Sampras 14
3. Rod Laver 13
(tie) Roger Federer 13
5. Bjorn Borg 11

If you still wish to count the Grand Slams from the pre-open era, I don't think that's right, but Ken Rosewall still leads:

1. Ken Rosewall 23
2. Rod Laver 19
3. Bill Tilden 14
(tie) Pancho Gonzalez 14
(tie) Pete Sampras 14

And of course, Rosewall won on all surfaces, and at each Grand Slam venue. Beyond that, he won the 60s pro equivalent of the Calendar Grand Slam in 1963.

So you see my frustration with the Laver-Rosewall situation? Laver gets mentioned everywhere specifically for his success at majors, and he had a contemporary with even greater success who rarely even gets mentioned. It's honestly crazy.

Were it Laver who had these obscene results, I'd probably put him at #1 because it would fit with the dominance everyone claims for him. But since a guy who often isn't in people's top 10 is the one doing it, I just have to take Laver's dominance with a grain of salt.

Anyway evaluating your metric, I don't think it's unreasonable to have that as your general basis and to knock Sampras for not being a factor on clay. Knocking Federer though for not winning on clay is not reasonable. Being able to consistently get to the finals at a major and just losing to one guy all the time is most definitely good enough that it shouldn't be used against him except by the guy beating him. So yeah, presuming Nadal ends up in GOAT contention, that will be a big edge for him, and a major blow for Federer, but the notion that Andre Agassi should get an edge on Federer based on the French is just silly.

[THEmasterWAYNE]

I agree Rosewall is MAJORLY underrated, his level of play may well have been ahead of anyone and everyone in history

Either way, neither Agassi nor Federer can be GOAT because Agassi doesn't have the Total Slams record, and Federer doesn't have Roland Garros, and the GOAT is all I'm going to discuss. I'm not in to ranking players in an order beyond NUMBER ONE, and although there is no NUMBER ONE in history right now I do feel I have the definitive criteria to declare an all-time NUMBER ONE without apprehension, hesitation nor degradation, discreditation nor deregulation when the criteria is met by the said NUMBER ONE aka GOAT player

[Ong_dynasty]

I agree Rosewall is MAJORLY underrated, his level of play may well have been ahead of anyone and everyone in history

Either way, neither Agassi nor Federer can be GOAT because Agassi doesn't have the Total Slams record, and Federer doesn't have Roland Garros, and the GOAT is all I'm going to discuss. I'm not in to ranking players in an order beyond NUMBER ONE, and although there is no NUMBER ONE in history right now I do feel I have the definitive criteria to declare an all-time NUMBER ONE without apprehension, hesitation nor degradation, discreditation nor deregulation when the criteria is met by the said NUMBER ONE aka GOAT player

I do not think Agassi has ever been considered the best..He is always there and there abouts...But never number 1...Kinda like a Hakeem Olajuwan.

I agree with you with the need of the Roland Garros. But I do not think you can really knock Federer when he is playing against the best in that surface. Anybody can see that he has the game for Clay but he is just unstuck with Nadal. Any other era (Except maybe for Borg's run) he would have had atleast one Roland Garros. As I said, he isnt as useless in clay as somebody like Sampras so Im not knocking him that badly.
Its like knocking a boxer for not being able to go to 4 weight classes because the 4th weight class is owned by the best who ever boxed in that weight class (I can't think of a similar analogy in sports with the different surfaces)
I do think the closest resume we have for the G.O.A.T would be federer when all is said and done..and then hopefully Nadal can break that.

[THEmasterWAYNE]

No, I'd never knock Federer, but like everyone else he has no chance at GOAT status without the French Open and Total Slams record (and that all comes down to Nadal being on the tour or not).

While Nadal has no chance at GOAT status without the US Open and Total Slams record which seems very likely at his current winning rate and his results on hardcourt over the last 6 months

[Doctor MJ]

No, I'd never knock Federer, but like everyone else he has no chance at GOAT status without the French Open and Total Slams record (and that all comes down to Nadal being on the tour or not).

While Nadal has no chance at GOAT status without the US Open and Total Slams record which seems very likely at his current winning rate and his results on hardcourt over the last 6 months

Well, but obviously you do knock Federer for exactly that if it gets in the way of his being a GOAT contender. But also obviously, since you treat the GOAT as something that can be vacant rather than always actually ranking the players, you aren't playing a strictly logical set of rules, so this is par for your process.

[THEmasterWAYNE]

Well I've said before that most sports don't have a GOAT, and tennis is definitely one of those sports. If other people wish to delude themselves into believing that one player (usually Laver it seems) is above all others then that's up to them. I think its unfair to declare such things without evidence. And for me that evidence is the Total Slams Record (logical) and winning all Four Slams (also logical). If you are looking for a "GOAT contender" then obviously all the retired player have no chance at this because they have all either not obtained the Total Slams record or have not captured all Four Slams. Any "GOAT contender" must come from today's tour therefore and that would be Federer (needs a French Open and to overtake Sampras' Total Slams) and Nadal (needs a US Open and to overtake Sampras' Total Slams). There is my "strictly logical set of rules"

[Doctor MJ]

C'mon now. GOAT is just supposed to mean the best guy that there's been. Obviously, there has to be one of those. Maybe my use of "logical" isn't fair, but you're clearly getting cute here.