Growing up playing tennis, I tried to style my game after Jim Courier. And my favorite player of all-time is Goran Ivanisevic. I have weird tastes and all this tennis talk is making me miss the old days.
2 great players. I especially liked Goran (I won't try to spell his last name). You ever see any of Kafelnikov? He came a little later. Kinda reminded me of Goran in that he had all the talent but was not the most thoughtful player IMO. He seemed to basically just try to hit every shot as hard as he can. I believe he won the French once?
I would put Federer at the top. I think Novak has surpassed Sampras, and may eventually surpass Fed. Then Nadal would be fourth. So for right now... 1. Fed 2. Djokovic 3. Sampras 4. Nadal Federer has excellent quality to all parts of his game. People often talk about Federer's movement which is really good but not exceptional. What is exceptional is him reading the opponents shot which makes the movement look better than it actually is. More than any player I've ever seen Federer can read where his opponent is going to hit the ball, and so he'll start moving to that position sometimes before the ball is even struck. I don't mean that he's just leaning that way because he suspects it's going there... Fed will actually commit to the move way earlier than anyone I've seen, and he does it consistently. Novak, has the best return in the history of the game. Nobody has ever had his skill at returning the serve. Novak may not quite have Federer's ability at reading his opponents shot, but his movement is insanely great, his flexibility and balance add into the mix to make his overall court coverage the best there is out there today. Novak has worked incredibly hard to improve his game, conditioning, health and mental toughness. He's amazingly clutch in pressure situations. He plays smart, hard, has great sportsmanship, and doesn't really have any weaknesses. 3. Sampras was amazing. I never liked him, but that doesn't change how good he was. He could rely so much on his serve, that once he had a break, he wouldn't have to exert himself in any more return games, and he was able to keep his serve so well that it didn't matter. He had pace, placement, and the rest of his game was strong as well. 4. Nadal has super heavy striking of the ball that makes his hits really difficult to get a good whack at. He runs hard and has really good court coverage. He's good on all surfaces, and the best there's ever been on Clay. My favorite players are none of these guys, though I do really like Novak. Marcos Baghdatis is my favorite. I used to like Chang a lot, and when I was just a tike, I loved Yannick Noah. I was too young to play tennis or know anything about then, but I do remember my brothers and I cheering for him.
This is something that isn't mentioned too often but the surfaces have indeed changed dramatically. Clay court tennis was a different beast, Grass favoured the big servers and offensive players. Clay was for the grinders and scramblers. Goran and Rafter challenging the 2001 Wimbledon final featured the styles best suited to the surface: Big Serve and Serve/Volley. Regarding racquets, it's surprising that there doesn't seem to be any kind of regulation, or that it's so loose. Though it has allowed for a guy like Federer to prolong his stay at the top. He changed up about what, two-three years ago? Who do you guys have pegged for the most slam success out of the young guys right now? No one really stands out to me. Dimitrov? Raonic? Kyrgios?
So many players from the 80's forgotten. I find it impossible to compare them to players in the 90's/00's because of the complete change in equipment and the more subtle differences in surfaces. It really is a different (and in my opinion worse) sport. So....just to defend the guys from MY era of tennis (70's, 80's) I'll rank them solely. 1. Borg 2. McEnroe 3. Lendl 4. Conners 5. Edberg 6. Becker 7. Wilander 8. Villas 9. Gerulaitis 10. Agassi (just starting his career) Keep in mind also that Lendl was the real "first" power player that resembles players of the 90's and beyond. And although he was formidable, was not in my mind better than Borg, McEnroe, and maybe even Conners overall. Those guys could stand up to that style of play then and could even now were they playing with todays equipment IMHO.
Yup, Yevgeny was another dude I enjoyed. Not sure why, but I rooted for those players that just wanted to physically outplay the opponent without much emphasis on the mental part of the game. :grin:
i was a physical player in juniors... And that just further tested my opponents mental game. I remember in the woodlands clay court championship I was playing to two seed who beat the **** out of me in the first game. I looked at him and said, well it looks like I can't out hit you, so be prepared for the next game to go 20 minutes. 3 hours later he rolled his ankle from me making his ass run so much. One of my fondest memories, although I had a ton of people retire from cramps/ ankle injuries during juniors.
