Best Tennis Player of All Time: Roger Federer or Pete Sampras?

The discussion about who would be the best of all times is present in every sport. And it seems to be endless, as there are no specific criteria used to determine who would be the winner of what would be the highest possible achievement in a professional athlete’s career. At the end of the day, it is all about personal opinion.

In tennis, nowadays, the conversation goes about Swiss Roger Federer and American Pete Sampras. Sampras is the record holder of major tittles won, having taken home 14 Grand Slam trophies.

Federer has 13, and faces the challenge of trying to tie Sampras’ and then break it. It is possible, he can do it. That is not the point though.

If an analysis about who is the greatest tennis player of all times would rely solely on statistical data, all we needed to do is wait for Federer’s career to end. If he breaks Sampras’ record, he will be the greatest, if he doesn’t, Sampras will still be the one.

Then we would just have to wait and see if another player, like Rafael Nadal, would break the current record at the time, and so on and so forth. That is very boring, and would terminate with a lot of commentators and analysts jobs! This topic must be seen from many different angles.

In my opinion, for example, Federer could already be considered better than Sampras, as he is a better all around player.

The Swiss makes the most of his game out of the baseline, but only because he wants to. He can play at the net, better than Sampras could play from the baseline. Sampras’ strengths were his serve, his volleys, and his overall attacking game.  Federer holds attack and defense in a more balanced manner.

This argument can be supported by the fact that both of them feel more comfortable on fast surfaces, and won all their Grand Slam titles on either grass or hard, but Roger proved himself to be the better player on clay, which is the slowest and both players’ weakest surface, having won four Master Series events in Hamburg (2002, 2004, 2005, 2007) and reached three French Open finals in a row, losing all of them to his nemesis, Rafael Nadal.

Pete Sampras’ success on clay accounts for one title in Rome, in 1994, and a semi final appearance in Roland Garros, in 1996. In addition, I consider Federer’s geniality to be superior to Sampras’.

Some people will say I am crazy if I left the great Australian Rod Laver out of the race, and I would have to agree. Laver was the only player in history to win all four Grand Slam events (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US open) in the same calendar year.

And he did it twice, in 1962 as an amateur, and in 1969, as a professional. But one thing always comes up when this great feat is mentioned: in those years, three of the four tournaments were played on grass (Australia, Wimbledon and US Open).

Currently, they are played in three different surfaces: hard (Australia and United States), clay (France) and grass (Wimbledon), which can be a bigger challenge for today’s players.

Bjorn Borg is an all timer, but he never won a major on a hard surface. Ivan Lendl and Matz Wilander never won on grass. Jimmy Connors and Boris Becker never won on the red clay of Paris.

Pancho Gonzales was number one in the world for eight years, in the 50s and early 60s. Ken Rosewall.had probably the best slice backhand ever, apart from winning all Grand Slams except Wimbledon. where he reached the finals four times.

In 1957 Australian Lewis Hoad, won in Australia, France, London, and lost in the final match of the US Open to Rosewall. It is necessary to mention Don Budge, a little further back, becoming the first man to win all the four majors in the same year, 1938.

There are so many names, so many outstanding players, so many ways to look at the history of the game, written by these great men. Should we talk about titles, strokes, talent, mental toughness? At the end of the day, it is all about personal opinion.

Then who is the best tennis player of all times in my opinion? John Patrick McEnroe Junior! But that is something to talk about next time.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Laver

http://www.atpworldtour.com/tennis/1/en/tournaments/profile/414.asp

http://www.federtennis.it/InternazionaliItaliaAlbidoro.asp

http://www.fft.fr/rolandgarros/pdfpalmares/hommes1996_en.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Rosewall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Gonzales

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Budge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hoad