- Roger Federer tops the GOAT list, just ahead of Serena Williams
- Novak Djokovic was third on the list compiled by writer and broadcaster Chris Bowers
- Iga Swiatek’s dominant show was overshadowed by chaotic scenes in Cancun
A joy last week to once again hear the calmly assured tone of John Barrett, microphone in hand, joining a fascinating discussion at Wimbledon on who truly is the greatest tennis player of all time.
The former player, administrator, Davis Cup captain and BBC The commentator, still going strong at 92, put his experience at the service of a debate which ended with surprising conclusions. Not least in his own assessment, drawn from a well of first-hand living knowledge whose depth must be almost unrivaled.
The occasion was a conference on the history of tennis, which attracted almost 300 enthusiasts to the All England Club for a series of presentations and lectures on everything from the art of the game to modern social media.
Among them was an attempt by writer and host Chris Bowers to apply a sort of scientific formula to the question of who the GOAT is, regardless of gender, a topic that has never been more prevalent that in the recent era of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal And Serena Williams.
While at pains to emphasize its subjective (and largely slight) nature, Bowers’ underlying thesis was that greatness must be judged beyond mere numerical success.
He therefore developed a weighting system taking into account the number of titles (40%), a conglomeration of factors entitled “power of economic attraction” (25%), the transcendence of simple sport and tennis (15% ) and metrics focused on an era’s relative level of competition, aesthetics, team performance, and doubles. After analyzing these numbers, the winner was… Federer with 93 percent, followed by Serena with 92 percent and Djokovic with 88 percent, slightly ahead of Nadal. The winner was a popular choice in the room, with an electronic poll of 31 percent of attendees giving the Swiss legend the highest number of votes.
When called upon to contribute, Barrett made a point of name-checking Rod Laver and Pancho Gonzales, pointing out the number of events they missed while being unable to play as professionals in the era pre-Open.
Put in the hot seat, however, he expressed the opinion that perhaps the real GOAT was American Maureen Connolly. She played in 11 Grand Slam tournaments and won nine of them. In the early 1950s, she established a match record of 259-16, which included extraordinary winning streaks. That was before she was forced to retire at 19 after a horse-riding accident. She died tragically young from cancer, at the age of 34.
A personal, if somewhat unoriginal, view – which I think survives recency bias – is that the weight of Djokovic’s important titles, particularly achieved in the era in which he was born, must make him the GOAT of both sexes, regardless of any external factor.
And before the notoriously sensitive folks at the online site “Nolefam” rush into a state of frenzied outrage, the whole exercise was designed to stimulate thought and not to provide a non-existent definitive answer.
The glory of Iga forgotten in the farce
You have to go all the way back to 2020 to find a tennis event that unfolded as spectacularly as this year’s WTA Finals.
The scenes in Cancun are reminiscent of the Adria Tour, the ill-fated project during the height of the pandemic that was supposed to provide a bit of entertainment while the regular tour was suspended.
However, it was an improvised production imagined by Novak Djokovic and his associates. The final is expected to be the most prestigious event outside of the Grand Slams and a key asset for women’s tennis.
It is a shame that a dominant performance from Iga Swiatek, which saw her regain the world number 1 spot, is not what we will remember from a week which unfolded from disaster to disaster. You know you’re in trouble when even the television networks, who in tennis are conditioned to give the most positive tone to everything that happens in front of them, start pointing out the shortcomings.
After attributing the event to the Mexican coast at the end of the hurricane season, just 52 days before the start date, almost everything that could have gone wrong did.
Weather, power outages, poor crowds, questionable playing surface, music interrupting play, wrong time and wrong place – that hackneyed old phrase, the perfect storm.
World number 2 Aryna Sabalenka ended up approving one of the many video montages of various misfortunes that appeared via social media.
“I’m dying of laughter or maybe crying,” she commented. If there’s one thing worse than anger, perhaps it’s mockery. One can only feel sorry for the many staff members who will have worked long hours and done their best to make the most of it, having received the ultimate hospital pass from Steve Simon and from the rest of the WTA leaders.
Few players, regardless of country, have been more determined than Isle of Man’s Billy Harris. You had to be happy to see the 28-year-old qualify for the Sofia Open, then play and win his first main draw match at an ATP Tour event yesterday against Marc-Andrea Huesler.
No excuse for the disaster of the Parisian calendar
Last week’s Paris Masters at Bercy delivered a disappointing finale with a predictable winner in Novak Djokovic, but there were plenty of quality matches along the way.
Enough to counterbalance more controversies around the late evening programming, which saw the withdrawal of Jannik Sinner after arriving at 2:36 a.m. at the end of a night session which did not begin until 10:33 p.m.
Yet serious overruns in the daytime schedule were almost inevitable as he was tasked with four matches on the main ground from 11am.
As always, it seems that tournament promoters and officials are the last to notice that, for various reasons, matches are lasting longer than ever. Wake up, wake up. Apparently this whole topic will be discussed in board meetings at the ATP Finals next week.
In the case of Paris in particular, the situation should be calmed by the expected move in 2025 of the tournament from its site, the Accor Arena, which has long since become too large.
It will move to La Défense Arena, in the west of the city, not far north of Roland Garros, in what is Paris’s equivalent of the Canary Wharf financial district.
It is the headquarters of the Racing 92 rugby club and its capacity of 94,000 square meters should make it possible to improve the two formidable outdoor courts which serve as secondary stadiums at Bercy.
