Rank the 'Tier 2' Greats

First topic message reminder :

Time for a subjective question!

Djokovic's eighth win yesterday moves him level with Connors, Lendl and Agassi on the Open Era slam wins league table.

How do rank this sub-group of 'greats'?

	Connors	Lendl	Agassi	Djokovic
Weeks at 1	268	270	101	132*
Tour final wins	1	5	1	4
Masters titles	17	22	17	20
Career slam	No	No	Yes	No

Lendl and Connors are tough to split. I'll give the nod to Jimmy for longevity and amassing his slam total despite hardly ever playing AO and missing RG for 5 of his peak years.

Then Agassi and Djokovic are tough to split.

Agassi has the career slam and won Wimbledon on fast, low bouncing grass in an era of huge servers.

Djokovic leads on weeks at 1, Masters and YEC and is, I would suggest, more dominant than Agassi was.

By a whisker, I'd say Andre.

So for me its:
1) Connors
2) Lendl
3) Agassi
4) Djokovic

How would you rank them?

It Must Be Love wrote:It's certainly not based on names only, it is our subjective judgements, but all time greats tend to be harder to beat...
Berdych is one of Nadal's easier Slam final opponents.

yeah it is subjective opinions, but the reality which is fact- because reality is indeed fact- is that Federer has proven by any rational standards to be a greater player than Djokovic, so it's reasonable and accurate to forecast that no matter if you flipflopped their ages- Federer would rise to greater heights than Djokovic would. Federer at Djokovics age right now would be a beast in the current competition. He would have won last years Wimby and prob 2 or 3 more in the next few years.

I'm not sure how you could even drag Federer's name into a thread about tier 2 greats, but okay.

Don't we have a sticky for these kinds of discussions?

TRuffin wrote:so it's reasonable and accurate to forecast that no matter if you flipflopped their ages- Federer would rise to greater heights than Djokovic would.  

It is by no means a certainty, but I do have sympathy with you argument despite middle disagreeing with it. BLB put the case very well. I think it would be quite close for sure.

TRuffin wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:It's certainly not based on names only, it is our subjective judgements, but all time greats tend to be harder to beat...
Berdych is one of Nadal's easier Slam final opponents.

yeah it is subjective opinions, but the reality which is fact- because reality is indeed fact- is that Federer has proven by any rational standards to be a greater player than Djokovic, so it's reasonable and accurate to forecast that no matter if you flipflopped their ages- Federer would rise to greater heights than Djokovic would.    Federer at Djokovics age right now would be a beast in the current competition. He would have won last years Wimby and prob 2 or 3 more in the next few years.

I'm not sure how you could even drag Federer's name into a thread about tier 2 greats, but okay.

Interestingly, Federer when he was Djokovic's age was around 2009, when Nadal had already supplanted Fed as the best player on tour. While Djokovic at the age that Federer was at in 09 is by a country mile the best player on tour. So in that respects Djokovic has the nod in his favor. I actually agree that if Djoko played in the weak era he wouldn't rack up Fed's slam count, but I think he would have more than what he has now. And yes I know Fed finished 09 as the number 1 player but he was clearly aided by Nadal's injury and missing a large part of the season. Lets remember what happened in 08 and early 09. Nadal wins the FO, Nadal wins wimbeldon on grass against Fed, and in early 09 he beats Federer on a hardcourt at the AO then he gets hurt and is out for a large chunk of 09 Fed finishes the year number 1 due to that injury. So by 08, fed was clearly second fiddle in the rivalry and in early 09 long after the mono excuse had faded away he was also second fiddle. Djoko at the same age is clearly the best player on tour and has been such for 4 out of the last 5 years.

This is a weak era forum. In the past there were strong posters like tenez who would have torn socal's arguments apart. At present, I don't see anyone who is capable to outlast peak Socal on a weak era discussion.......

Truffin was pretty much spot on when making the point that it's far too simplistic to look at names and associate the lack of Slam success as the barometer to a player's talent. The best players make it to the end of a tournament. Just because it might not be a Nadal or Djokovic, doesn't take the gloss off that achievement.

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:This is a weak era forum. In the past there were strong posters like tenez who would have torn socal's arguments apart. At present, I don't see anyone who is  capable to outlast peak Socal on a weak era discussion.......

Tenez thinks that injury aside, Federer has got better as he's got older. Not sure he'd be as strongly opposed to Socal's argument as you imagine.

LK, no one is saying just look at names, we have to make a judgement based on performance; but I do feel that all time greats are more likely to be tougher competition- just look at the players Murray has lost to during his prime. Even if a player like Berdych/ Tsonga/ Gonzalez/ Baghdatis is in very good form, Murray would still prefer to face that compared to Federer/Nadal/Djokovic on good form.

It Must Be Love wrote:

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:This is a weak era forum. In the past there were strong posters like tenez who would have torn socal's arguments apart. At present, I don't see anyone who is  capable to outlast peak Socal on a weak era discussion.......

Tenez thinks that injury aside, Federer has got better as he's got older. Not sure he'd be as strongly opposed to Socal's argument as you imagine.

He thinks so? well in this case he is no longer peak tenez...........

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:This is a weak era forum. In the past there were strong posters like tenez who would have torn socal's arguments apart. At present, I don't see anyone who is  capable to outlast peak Socal on a weak era discussion.......

Tenez thinks that injury aside, Federer has got better as he's got older. Not sure he'd be as strongly opposed to Socal's argument as you imagine.

He thinks so? well in this case he is no longer peak tenez...........

He's always thought Federer is getting better as he gets older (injury aside), and he hasn't changed his mind on it.

Well the last time I heard from him, Fed was still playing decent tennis. The point is that you can even get a little better technically, but if your legs stamina and reflexes are no longer the same your overall performance inevitably declines. And this is what happend to Federer and to the 99% of tennis players who have preceded him......

Jeremy_Kyle wrote:This is a weak era forum. In the past there were strong posters like tenez who would have torn socal's arguments apart. At present, I don't see anyone who is  capable to outlast peak Socal on a weak era discussion.......

I actually had no problem with Tenez and hope he is doing well. Unlike some he was always polite and energetic. He of course was wrong the vast majority of the time but wherever he is I hope he is doing well i just disagree with most of his takes on tennis.

It Must Be Love wrote:

CAS wrote:
Djokovic may have had more slams if he didn't have the tough era he grew up in perhaps but he's going to have one hell of a time in the next few years to make up for it!

This is a very astute point, and Socal can vouch for me that I predicted 2 years ago that there would be a far weaker period after Nadal turns 30 or so. Obviously we don't know the future yet, but I have a feeling my prediction will come good.

I do kind of agree Djokovic could have had more slams if he didn't have Nadal, Federer and Murray around but at the same time I really dont think peak Federer would have allowed Murray to win 2 slams but especially not allowed Wawrinka and Cilic to win slams either.

so the whole debate some people make of 'Federer has 17 slams because of his weak era' I just think over a career it evens out, just like it will for Djokovic. Socal and other Djokovic fans may have to argue with future gen fans saying Djok has it so easy post 2013 etc

CAS wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:

CAS wrote:
Djokovic may have had more slams if he didn't have the tough era he grew up in perhaps but he's going to have one hell of a time in the next few years to make up for it!

This is a very astute point, and Socal can vouch for me that I predicted 2 years ago that there would be a far weaker period after Nadal turns 30 or so. Obviously we don't know the future yet, but I have a feeling my prediction will come good.

I do kind of agree Djokovic could have had more slams if he didn't have Nadal, Federer and Murray around but at the same time I really dont think peak Federer would have allowed Murray to win 2 slams but especially not allowed Wawrinka and Cilic to win slams either.

so the whole debate some people make of 'Federer has 17 slams because of his weak era' I just think over a career it evens out, just like it will for Djokovic. Socal and other Djokovic fans may have to argue with future gen fans saying Djok has it so easy post 2013 etc

It may even out, it may not. It probably won't even out for Nadal, maybe so for Djokovic.
Also Socal has already said it's very possible that Djokovic will have a much easier 3-4 years ahead, so he doesn't look like one who is trying to deny it.

It Must Be Love wrote:

CAS wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:

CAS wrote:
Djokovic may have had more slams if he didn't have the tough era he grew up in perhaps but he's going to have one hell of a time in the next few years to make up for it!

This is a very astute point, and Socal can vouch for me that I predicted 2 years ago that there would be a far weaker period after Nadal turns 30 or so. Obviously we don't know the future yet, but I have a feeling my prediction will come good.

I do kind of agree Djokovic could have had more slams if he didn't have Nadal, Federer and Murray around but at the same time I really dont think peak Federer would have allowed Murray to win 2 slams but especially not allowed Wawrinka and Cilic to win slams either.

so the whole debate some people make of 'Federer has 17 slams because of his weak era' I just think over a career it evens out, just like it will for Djokovic. Socal and other Djokovic fans may have to argue with future gen fans saying Djok has it so easy post 2013 etc

It may even out, it may not. It probably won't even out for Nadal, maybe so for Djokovic.
Also Socal has already said it's very possible that Djokovic will have a much easier 3-4 years ahead, so he doesn't look like one who is trying to deny it.

Nope exactly, I don't deny it. So far the strong or golden period we had with 4 great players playing at a high level at the same time looks to be ending or may already have ended. 2008-2012/2013? There is a caveat here I think we have to see how Nadal comes back and if Murray can kick on to give this stronger period of competition more life. If Nadal plays half a year or not at all and Murray is up and down and then none of the young guys comes up strong then we have a weak era.