The greatest tennis player of all time - Part I

This weekend featured Roger Federer adding another title to his list of over sixty tournaments conquered in a marvelous career. I watched the match with some friends at my house and the never ending debate of the GOTA (Greatest of all time) rose with a few parties leaning towards the Swiss Maestro, others Laver, others Sampras and so on. When my turn came to speak I think I gave a reasonable answer that brought me here to blog about it and collect your comments.

Unlike football (soccer), basketball or baseball, tennis is a sport that remain unchanged and without any update for over a hundred years. Then recently it underwent a series of dramatic changes in its gear during a really short period of time, say ten years: the courts changed, the rackets changed, the clothing changed and even the scoring system changed with the introduction of the tie breaker. I would like to compile a list of players who are considered among the GOTA and as you will see, I will be able to come up with an interesting answer to this question, but first let's discuss a few of these changes that tennis suffered and their impact to the sport.

In my opinion there are three major aspects that have to be mentioned:

90sq inch head? 95? Yeah right !!

1. Rackets: from the first tournaments in the late 1800s until the early 1980s, every tennis player carried a weapon in the form of a wooden racket. Despite a few differences in design, almost all wooden rackets had similar appearance: they were heavy, they had similar strings and the head size was ridiculously small. By 1990 they were extinct and replaced by larger, more visually appealing and comfortable rackets. All credit to Rafa Nadal and his amazing topspin, but the reality is that it would have been very difficult to hit his shots with a wooden racket. Federer's whipping forehand would have probably suffered too.

2. The courts: Roland Garros is the only grand slam that remains faithful to its original surface, as the US Open and the Australian open were played on grass. Not only that, but Wimbledon has been known to work extensively on modifying their courts to make them slower in order to allow more baseline rallies and less serve and volley. I personally believe that Pete Sampras, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg took the best out of the grass courts and that it would have been tough to see a baseliner winning Wimbledon in their prime.

Pancho Gonzales could have used the tie break
in 1969 Wimbledon. Then, we prolly wouldn't
have had the "Marathon Match"

3. Tie Break: while not a big change on the hardware of the game, I believe the introduction of the tie break in the game changed the approach and strategy when you step on a court. It has to be relieving to a certain extent to know that if you get to six games all against your rival, you may have a chance to win a set if you win seven out of twelve points. And let's face it: there are players who are better at tiebreaks than others.

So where does this take me?

When my friends asked me who I thought was the GOTA, my reply was straight: that term does not apply for tennis. The statistics and the way the sport is developed simply does not allow it to exist. Let me expand and I'll start with Roger Federer... just to bring interest and spice things up.

Is Roger Federer the GOTA? I don't think so.

Roger own sixteen grand slam titles, two more than his immediate follower Pete Sampras. These titles are distributed between a span of eight years, from 2003 until his most recent one in 2010. He owns all grand slams, with Roland Garros being the only single title; all the other ones he has multiple. One can say the Federer is the most prolific grand slam player of all time. Now about the GOTA, there are a few shadows: the major one is his rivalry against Rafa Nadal. While a candidate himself to be named GOTA, Rafa has clearly established that Federer may own more grand slam titles than anyone, but it is Rafa who owns Roger.  Then comes the dominance factor, and at this point I bring Pete Sampras.

Is Pete the GOTA?
He didn't win on clay, so...

Pete is second in the list of grand slam title holders with fourteen, with the big asterisk being not winning Roland Garros (or not even making it to the finals). However in my opinion, Sampras holds the really important record that matters in tennis when speaking about dominance of the sport: Sampras was number one of the world for six straight years; this feat is remarkable and believe it or not, it is a record that is almost impossible to break. Think about it this way: a player would have to end as number one player for six straight years just to share, the spot with Pete. He would still need to finish as #1 an additional seventh year to break the record and stand alone. You can also think about it this way: Roger Federer couldn't do it. He just made it to four years.

Do you see where I'm going? I will continue my argument in Part II...