Tennis GOAT Ranking

CasualBystander

Celestial
Had Nadal played around Borg's time, Borg would have ZERO French Open slams, my guess.

We can only face opponents during our time, era, so that's why it's hard to find a GOAT. All these players can't play each other under same conditions. My list attempts to balance out categories.

Borg says in video above that Fed is the best. That should really put this argument to rest.

Hard to say. Byorn Borg had at least one 6-1 or 6-0 set in all his French Open finals and only went 5 sets against Lendl.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Sounds about right but looks no good. Its Björn

I think the ASCII character code you need to use is 0246

It's on the options when pressing and holding the o key on my phone keyboard lol...

Björn
 

Area201

cold fusion
@CasualBystander
39 year old Ivo Karlovic is #1 Server of All-time.

Is he on the list here? No.

We need to look at various factors and balance out.

Does Björn have the coolest name? YES

Does Björn have the highest win match %? YES

Does Björn influence pop culture and even Sci-Fi movies? YES

Is Björn SO respected to be named Captain of Roger's Lavar Cup Team even though he doesn't talk? YES

Is Björn better than Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Sampras looking at the scope of their careers? NO

Would Björn beat Rafa if they played in their prime? We don't know - but.. Nadal crushes his opponents in straight sets in the entire tournament. Looking at FO % Nadal edges him. (He can lose another match and still be ahead.)

Capture1.JPG

Edit: Concession: had he won his US Open finals and won several Australian Open slams, I'd say he'd be neck and neck with Roger as GOAT. Faced with technological advances that were disadvantageous to him- instead of retiring or continue playing the same way - Roger adopted his game by getting a bigger sized racket.
 
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CasualBystander

Celestial
@CasualBystander


Does Björn have the coolest name? YES

Does Björn have the highest win match %? YES

Does Björn influence pop culture and even Sci-Fi movies? YES

Is Björn SO respected to be named Captain of Roger's Lavar Cup Team even though he doesn't talk? YES

Is Björn better than Nadal, Djokovic, Federer, Sampras looking at the scope of their careers? NO

Would Björn beat Rafa if they played in their prime? We don't know - but.. Nadal crushes his opponents in straight sets in the entire tournament. Looking at FO % Nadal edges him. (He can lose another match and still be ahead.)

View attachment 2454

Edit: Concession: had he won his US Open finals and won several Australian Open slams, I'd say he'd be neck and neck with Roger as GOAT. Faced with technological advances that were disadvantageous to him- instead of retiring or continue playing the same way - Roger adopted his game by getting a bigger sized racket.

Borg lost his first year on the tour, and lost once to the tournament champion. Nadal missed the French Open during what I assume was his first or 2nd year with a stress fracture.
 

Area201

cold fusion
After listening to some criticisms of my devised GOAT metrics, I've come up with, what I believe to be, a superior metrics for this title.

Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the new Business-end of the Tour Titles (Slams, WTFinals, Masters) weighted proportionally to their ATP scoring. This method quiets the critics who want to include Masters tournaments and also less likely to have a tie (though Agassi and Connors here are tied at #8).

adiQwOr.jpg


What I noticed is that my 2nd and 3rd categories, effectively cancelled each other out... if a player had a shorter career (Borg) he had higher match win %, but he didn't get the weeks at #1. Vice versa, a player who plays longer, tend to drop in match win % as they lose more matches with age, and more weeks at #1. This is just a general correlation, there are always exceptions. Anyway, I posted this on Twitter and on Reddit, and got very good replies and people liking and sharing my new Goat Ranking system.

Early years they had 2 year end finals, but I can only give credit to the one which is now the WTF (tennis indoor finals). If we go down to the 500 level (below masters tournaments) then the older generation didn't even have a chance to participate in many of them. But all these listed, they all did have an opportunity to play and win against their best rivals at their time. So, the wooden racket guys had to play the wooden racket guys, etc and same terms to win as many of these as they could have. Borg retiring early, unfortunately hurts his ranking in this area and he has fallen behind Ivan Lendl.

I suspect Borg would have had a similar or slightly better career than Lendl (played about 15 years or 5 years more). I don't think Borg would have continued his dominance as the racket technology was starting to be introduced. We just don't know or can give him credit for what he has not achieved unfortunately. From his interviews, he states he HATED traveling. Had he won all his finals in Slams he would be #1, but he did not win them all or participate in eveb.

Djokovic actually was 2nd ahead of Nadal before getting injured and taking a break from tennis. So these are fairly close, if Nadal and Djokovic play till their Federer's age they have chance to surpass even the great Federer who is easily #1 ranked in GOAT status. Andy Murray on the brink into breaking into the top 10.
 
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Area201

cold fusion
One last thing I'd like to add about Borg..

I was thinking over projecting his career titles had he played another 5 years (to age 31 like Sampras) or even 36 (like Federer is today) and if he played the Australian Open, for good measure.

The Australian Open was grass in his years, but later switched in 1983 to hard courts. Going by his success on grass and lack of success on hard courts, we can do a rough estimate that, had he played during his career he would have another 3-4 Slams. So that's 23-24 in count (the Business-end weighted Titles) at age 26 when he retired. Already on par with Sampras at #4 on my GOAT list.

Then from age 26 to 31 his pace would have likely slowed down (as it does with all the top players who get hot for many years in a row) plus the Australian surface changed to hard courts. The changing of the racket technology would have some impact on his success, I believe. He seemed unable to adopt. He came back at age 36 on tour and got his ass kicked using a wooden racket, or tried with metal ones, but lost all his matches. Lets say it was half of his earlier rate, so then he has another rough estimated 6-7 points added to his total tally (in all Business-end Titles). So he would have now total of 29-31. This would place him in the mix with Nadal and Djokovic in GOAT status behind only Roger Federer.

Theoretically this was someone who's career was on par with Roger Federer's, Djokovic's, and Nadals' - had he played to age 36-ish and also participated in every Slam tournament. In practice, he is 6th on my list going by the metrics we can credit him for.

If you read this far, thanks for following my journey on this very popular GOAT debate!

Your reward is this video. @CasualBystander

 
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