Australian Open? Pfft!

It's a long way a way (unless your Australian), played at the wrong time of year and doesn't have the history of the other three slams. The Australian Open? Pfft! Let's see what the slam records of the top players look like when they can't use AO titles to pad out their CV's.

Federer 13
Sampras 12
Borg 11
Nadal 10
Connors 7
McEnroe 7
Lendle 6
Aggassi 4
Wilander 4
Becker 4
Edberg 4
Laver 4
Newcome 3
Djokovic 2

I have only included slams won in the open era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Grand_Slam_men%27s_singles_champions#Most_Grand_Slam_singles_titles_.285_or_more.29

Well that proves it - Rafa is the goat (did I jump to the correct conclusion )

History is no great indicator of whether a competition has as much merit as others, the indicator is whether the best turn up to compete - therefore it is probably fair to say that the AO in the late 70s did not have as much cachet as Roland Garros for instance, but hard to make that claim now.

Dubai didn't have a racing history but the prestigious races there are attracting the top horses because of the huge prize money on offer and so the winners are feted as much as the winners of the classics here, and just as valuable at stud.

History is an ongoing process!

So we're demoting the status of one of the slams?

Who does that benefit most? ..... Ah, I see....

The French Open has always been one just for clay specialists. It's never been a test of who the best overall player as so few players are good on it. What do the figures look like without that one?

Never mind the AO.

Personally I don't think players should be able to "pad out their CV's" with Wimbledon and the US either

Wimbledon .... played on funny green stuff (it's for cows isn't it ... ), wrong time of year (all that rain ....). Oh and that tube at Southfields can get horribly congested with spectators.

US Open .... it's a long way away (unless you're American), far too noisy at night, and played at the wrong time of year (players carrying injuries towards end of season)

Sorted.

You could have saved yourself a lot of time HE.

(edit : just one other change please. Can we maybe move RG to April ?
Ah.....I love Paris in the springtime .......... )

Born Slippy wrote:The French Open has always been one just for clay specialists. It's never been a test of who the best overall player as so few players are good on it. What do the figures look like without that one?

Wimbledon has always been one just for grass specialists. In the last 30 years it's not been a test of who the best overall player as so few players are good on it. What do the figures look like without that one?

I'm sorry HE, this article doesn't seem like very convincing logic.

It Must Be Love wrote:I'm sorry HE, this article doesn't seem like very convincing logic.

Very true.

But it is funny.

And I doubt its raison d'etre had any connection with logic to begin with.

Without Wimbledon, Fed would still be a 10 slam champion. Almost the equal of Borg and Nadal.

the brighton international tournament is the most important ever and tim henman won the last ever won in its 5 year history, thats gotta be worth 50 slams, end of.

break_in_the_fifth wrote:Without Wimbledon, Fed would still be a 10 slam champion. Almost the equal of Borg and Nadal.

Just thought I'd bump this one to tease HE

Not sure what this is trying to show...Federer is still top, lol.
Yes AO wasn't seen as important years back...certainly Borg hardly went. Even Sampras and Agassi missed it a few times. But since late 90s it's a firm fixture on the slam calendar and to this end Federer and Nadal have both entered it fully.

We know Rafa wasn't as adept on HC in the earlier part of career and now he's facing 2 HC guru's in Djokovic and Murray plus Federer is still no slouch on the surface. It's to Nadal's credit he got to 2 finals there (4 HC slam finals since 2009) but no-one is going to say he's as comfortable on HC as Federer is/was. They're both legends of the sport with differing surface abilities.

Whether there should be 2 HC slams, or whether AO should take place at a different time of year is another debate.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

Born Slippy wrote:The French Open has always been one just for clay specialists. It's never been a test of who the best overall player as so few players are good on it. What do the figures look like without that one?

Wimbledon has always been one just for grass specialists. In the last 30 years it's not been a test of who the best overall player as so few players are good on it. What do the figures look like without that one?

So are we saying the US Open is the only true test? Seems a good call to me.

The way USO was before 2001 - yes it was the true complete test for a player. Since then it's just another medium paced HC now.

What player in their right mind would choose the Australian Open if they could only win one slam trophy? Where it is placed on the calender means players come into it less prepared than for other slams.

It's not just in the distant past that players chose to give the AO a miss. Several multi slam winning all time greats chose not to travel to Australia. It's only perhaps with the recent obsession with the number of slam wins being the only way to define how "great" a player is that more interest is placed on Australia.

I find it interesting that omitting the AO from the CV of the very top players doesn't change much. Federer isn't so far ahead and Nadal has dropped behind Borg. But in some ways perhaps this list is more reflective of the comparative ability of different players. I mean the standard list has Wilander on par with McEnroe and Lendl on par with Connors. Pfft!

Hey HE, all time greats Korda and Johansson will be chewing your arm off with those comments!

I bet Lleyton Hewitt would have loved to add one to his cv - just saying!

It may lack the prestige of Wimbledon or the electricity of New York, but it's still a grand slam.

The cynic in me thinks that if a certain Spanish someone had 4 or 5 AO titles then this article would never have been written.