Greatest Era

What is the greatest era for mens tennis?

Using a complicated mathematical formula Sky Sports narrowed down the choice to three. Have they chosen correctly? Have they chosen the best players or rivalry's? Have they included anyone that shouldn't really be there? Have they left anyone out?

This is just Open Era.

Do you have the link to SKY article, or is it PPV?

The best era I have seen is the span of Lendl's career at the top from 1981-1991, facing the likes of Borg/Mac/Connors initially, then Becker/Edberg/Wilander finishing off with Edberg/Becker and young Agassi/Sampras/Courier.

Too many straitjackets with Sky's eras, and the Edberg/Lendl/Wilander one was so much more than that what about Becker and then highly entertaining and dangerous cameos from the lilkes of Leconte, Cash, Mecir, and even Mac and Connors still?

You say Lendl/Wilander/Edberg and when that rolls off the tongue it sounds very un-inspiring despite their achievements.

Federer/Nadal/Djokovic is more of duopoly and Djokovic needs time to put himself there. It seems he is there after Nadal and Federer have battled over the past 5 years.

For me it has to be Borg/Connors/McEnroe.

Why? Purely because of the intensity. Connors wanted Borg. McEnroe wanted Borg. McEnroe wanted Connors and vice versa. Literally you had Connors and McEnroe stretching themselves beyond their capacities to beat Borg. It had all the ingredients of a Rivalry. I know we all purr at the tennis Federer can produce and the physical boundaries that Nadal and Djokovic have pushed tennis to, but Borg/Mac/Connors had all of the beauty and the beast of tennis and made it entertaining and thrilling to watch.

I agree of Sky's choice it is Borg/Connors/Mac - but even then they did not really coincide all three together because Connors was, relatively speaking, AWOL during the absolute peak of the Mac-Borg intensity, 1980-1981

Have gone for the Borg/Mac/Connors era but would add that it's a little unfair to include the Fed/Nad/Djoko era in this topic as THEY ARE STILL PLAYING.
Part of the reason I went for Borg etc was that by the time all three had finished - Connors in fact seemed to go on for ever - they had produced three of the greatest players ever. In Connors case you had the guy with the most wins and most titles.
OK, the lengths of their careers was different. But it did mean that when they were playing together you had all-time greats all competing with each other.
Now you could argue that this great v great v great scenario is already happening with our current top 3. But say - unlikely I know - that the Slams dry up for Djoko and Nadal. With the current guys it's a case of wait and see.
The Lendl etc era was pretty good too, especially if you chuck the likes of Becker into it.
:: This posting crossed with other excellent posts above, so apologies for any repetition.

laverfan

I presume they only included open era. Sorry! Who would you have put with Laver. Should they have included it? Where would you put it compared with the ones listed?

Ljubicic.

more importantly could we at least get these gentlemen's names spelt correctly? thank you...

amritia3ee wrote:Ljubicic.

Yeah. Won his one and only Masters in 2010, right?

i forgot who ljubicic beat in that masters 1000 semi final?

I heard it was some no-mark spanish clay court grunter.

:snap:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:i forgot who ljubicic beat in that masters 1000 semi final?

I heard it was some no-mark spanish clay court grunter.

:snap:

Oh, I thought it was the GOAT during his career year.

I think you would need to add to your choices all the players who were/ have been multi slam winners and who were playing at the same periods of the other greats, to provide a fairer representation. So, for example, in the era that you call the Borg/ Mac/ Connors era there were at least two other greats playing: Lendl and Vilas. While the era Lendl/ Wilander/ Edberg is crossed by the careear of several other great champions as Becker, Agassi, Courier and Guga.
I voted for the Borg/ Mac/ Connors choice because in my view if those champions were playing right now they would rule as they did before.

Can you put 'Open Era' and 'Amateur Era' in there?

I voted for Connors/Borg/McEnroe as well. Borg went too soon, and could have achieved so much more if the desire and drive had still been there. Connors was the ultimate street fighter and so much fun to watch, and Mac was just sublime!

JuliusHMarx

The chosen are all in the open era. Sky didn't make it clear if they didn't include the amateur era or they thought the ones chosen were the best including the amateur era.

Have to admit IMO the Lendl, Wilander, Edberg looks to be the weakest. Much as I like Federer and Nadal. Before last year Djokovic couldn't really be included.

Borg, Connors, McEnroe was exciting for a variety of reasons. Tennis was extreemly popular back then and they all pulled in a lot of non tennis and even non sporting fans because of their personalities. I believe Borg even rivaled pop stars in terms of popularity. Of course they all had contrasting styles that made for interesting viewing. The added spice was the interesting relationships between the three (McEnroe admired Borg and disliked Connors. Connors disliked McEnroe. Who knows what Borg thought...)

For a while in the 90's I didn't watch much mens tennis. One of the things that drew me back was McEnroe commentating and also talking about the "olden days". It was particuarly interesting when Borg or better still Connors joined in. I can remember a few interesting rain breaks at Wimbledon...

hawkeye wrote:I presume they only included open era. Sorry! Who would you have put with Laver. Should they have included it? Where would you put it compared with the ones listed?

I would try Laver, Rosewall, Emerson in 1960s, Pancho, Trabert, Hoad in 1950s somewhere, even if the current posters have not seen many of these players play and I have seen just parts of these players' careers.

I hope I'm not being too intrusive but did you watch Pancho, Trabert and Hoad?

hawkeye wrote:I hope I'm not being too intrusive but did you watch Pancho, Trabert and Hoad?

I watched Pancho later in his career, but not Trabert and Hoad. I am ancient, but not that ancient.

The Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm - John Donald Budge - Frederick John Perry

was a memorable era.

Von Cramm was jailed for a year for being homosexual. I remember it as if it was only 74 years ago.

laverfan

Ha ha! I have never even heard of Trabert so I would have been impressed... But if you never saw him or Hoad play how do you know they were great let alone the greatest?

Nore Staat. I think you are just trying to show off. I bet you are not that old...

That's interesting about Von Cramm if it is true. I bet the penalty for a male player today would be far worse than jail unfortunately.

I would say Wilding, doherty and larned. They stand out in particular, those were the good times back in the day when i was just a nipper.

I also had a carrier pigeon, speckled Jim, who i hand-reared from a chick and was my only childhood friend. Good times.

Nore Staat wrote:Von Cramm was jailed for a year for being homosexual. I remember it as if it was only 74 years ago.

So was Big Bill Tilden, and he coached the German team, which Cramm was a part of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Tilden#Davis_Cup_coach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Tilden#Sexuality_and_morals_charges

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,4455340,00.html

hawkeye wrote:Ha ha! I have never even heard of Trabert so I would have been impressed... But if you never saw him or Hoad play how do you know they were great let alone the greatest?

My trusted Bud Collins Tennis history and some old news articles while researching Rod Laver.

hawkeye wrote:

That's interesting about Von Cramm if it is true. I bet the penalty for a male player today would be far worse than jail unfortunately.

See the link to my response to NS's allegation.

laverfan

I have looked at your links and I have to conclude that judged on past standards todays players are boring (unless they are good at hiding stuff).

I'm trying hard to think of something interesting Federers done apart from looking beautiful on the tennis court but stuggling. Has he done anything interesting? At least Nadal in one of the biggest controversial scandals recently accused his rival of "smelling of roses" but that appears more than tame in comparison.

We are starved of gossip...

LF thanks for the additional links.

hawkeye wrote:We are starved of gossip...

They are all a fairly uncontroversial lot compared to the great hell raisers of the past............I think underneath though the same dog eat dog sentiments simmer just as brightly!