4) Martina Navratilova
Tennis measures its all-time greats by results in the four major tournaments and almost nothing else. Certainly Martina Navratilova answered the bell in Grand Slams time and again. Overall Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles championships, including nine Wimbelodons, the tournament many consider the crown jewel of the tennis world. At one point she won six-consecutive Slam singles championships, tying Margaret Court, Maureen Connolly Brinker, and Don Budge on the men’s side for the longest such streak.
From 1983-1988, Navratilova made 19 consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearances, a record that is unmatched by any man or woman in tennis history. Martina had streaks of making 6- and 11-straight women’s Grand Slam finals. Thus, for a stretch of 17-straight tournaments, she was either the best or 2nd-best player in the world. She also won slams in three separate decades, the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. Perhaps the most astound statistic to me was the fact that four times she won Wimbledon without dropping a set the entire tournament!
Between mixed doubles (10), doubles(31), and singles (18), Navratilova compiled 59 Grand Slam championships. Such a number is frustrating to all writers because there simply aren’t words to sum up how impressive that kind of domination is. “Versatility,” “perseverance,” “intelligence,” “commitment,” and “excellence” are inadequate to describe the career of Martina Navratilova, but they will have to do.
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| #4 Martina Navratilova |
3) Roger Federer
I have to borrow from my cohort/mentor/life coach Eric to sum up the debate raging in my head over the top men’s player of all time, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal? As he eloquently put it, “How do you reconcile the fact that the ‘greatest of all-time’ wasn't even the greatest of his own time?” Perfectly said, and a really hard argument to crack.
I settled on Federer for a mixture of reasons: part personal bias, part logic, and part historical analysis. In the broadest context, looking at tennis as a whole, Federer has to be considered the best men’s player ever because he has dominated the history of the game. He owns the record books, so he must take precedence over every other man that has ever picked up a racket. Nadal is no doubt great, but he does not yet have the number of Grand Slams to match up with Federer. In addition, the more recent dominance of Novak Djokovic over Nadal has helped accentuate the fact that domination of one personal matchup does not mean dominance of the entire historical landscape of tennis.
Nadal and Federer are going to be forever inseparable when we debate greatness and this era of tennis because of their thrilling rivalry, but I have to look at Nadal’s career conquests over Federer as more of a matchup problem for Roger than proof that Rafa is the greater all-time player. The best comparison I can draw is the year the Patriots went 16-0 and then lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. The Giants could not claim they were the better team, but they matched up well enough to emerge victorious Super Sunday. Of course, Nadal is obviously a much greater figure in his respective sport than the 2007 Giants, but the comparison is valid.
Federer has a variety of shots and an artistry to his game that simply overwhelms nearly every person he has ever faced on the court. Nadal counters with perhaps the best defensive game we have ever seen, able to track down Federer’s miraculous strokes and answer with thundering forehands, impossible angles, and blinding speed. Federer also began his dominance at a time where absolutely nobody stood up to him, nor could they. Nadal was the first player to have the mental fortitude to stand up to Roger and believe that he could—and should—beat him.
Nadal could be number one only by virtue of his relative domination of Federer, but we can’t really compare how he would have fared against Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, or Roy Emerson, men Federer has surpassed on the all-time Grand Slam list, since Nadal has yet to reach the career accomplishments of those players.
Simply put, Roger Federer is like Jack Nicklaus, and until somebody surpasses his number of Grand Slam titles, he is the greatest. Nadal may be the equivalent of Tiger Woods chasing down the legend, but he has yet to get there.
Federer has won every single major tournament, and has 16 total slams, two more than second all-time Pete Sampras, who was widely regard ten years ago as the best male player ever. Federer has won the 6 Wimbledons, 5 US Opens, 4 Australian Opens, and 1 French Open. He won Wimbledon and the US Open each five years in a row and the Australian three out of four years during a stretch of his career. Nadal’s domination has spread to every major, and he has 10 total, but six of them have come at the French Open, showing that he’s not as versatile a player as Federer.
Comparing Federer and Sampras is a relatively simple exercise. Number two all-time in men’s singles Grand Slams, Sampras never advanced past the semi-final round at the French Open. Federer’s career winning percentage is just over 80%, while Sampras is right at 77%. In 2004, 2006, and 2007, Federer won three out of the four grand slam tournaments, excluding just the French Open, which he claimed for his first and only time in 2009. In 2005 he slacked off, winning just two out of the four possible Slams.
His numbers are undeniable as is his domination, but what is really the tipping point for me is the way Roger plays the game. So refined, so precise and yet not without emotion. He cares, he falls to the court in ecstasy even after his sixteenth major win, and his variety of shots is something nobody has ever seen. Sampras thrived off of a great serve, good net game, and stunning forehand. Nadal is great because of his speed, strength, baseline game, and mental toughness.
Yet nobody in the history of the sport has had quite the variety, nor displayed the true essence of tennis beauty quite like Federer has on the court. Moving effortlessly, mixing slice, with power, and unbelievable top spin combined with a deadly accurate and powerful serve. He also possesses a type of “oh by the way” beautiful net game that he uses only when necessary. Whatever skill you can think of, whatever talent you could possibly want on a tennis court, Federer has to the fullest.
Federer may not have quite the numbers of some of his female counterparts lower on this list, but you have to measure him at least in some extent relative to the standards of men’s tennis. Since he has been by far the gold standard in the history of the men’s tour, it merits his high placement on the list. Heck, he could be the top player given his historical domination relative to other men, but our top two spots were so statistically impeccable that I had to bump the most aesthetically pleasing and dominant male player ever to number three on my unisex list.
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| #3 Roger Federer |
--from @AdamHocking
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