... rather than this ...
This Sunday, Roger Federer will attempt to win his 14th major title. Everyone's talking about how he'll tie Pete Sampras' record if he does that, but in my mind, Sampras' major title record comes with a big asterisk attached to it
I consider Rod Laver to be the real king of major titles. Laver won "only" 11 major titles, but he would have won about 20 if he had actually played in major tournaments from 1963 to 1967. In 1962, Laver won the Grand Slam ( all four major tournaments in the same year ). Immediately after that he turned professional. The major tournaments did not given out prize money in those days, and only allowed amateurs to play. If you actually wanted to make money playing tennis in those days, you had to turn professional, and professionals were barred from playing in the four majors.
In 1968, the Open Era started in tennis. Three of the four majors allowed professions to play in 1968, and the Australian Open followed suit in 1969.
In 1969, the first year since 1962 that he was allowed to play in all 4 majors, Rod Laver won the Grand Slam again. Considering that he won the Grand Slam in both 1962 and 1969, how many major titles might he have won from 1963 to 1967 if he had been allowed to play. I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that he might have won about half of the 20 majors ( actually 21 majors if you count the 1968 Aussie Open he was barred from playing in ) played from 1963 to 1967. If we assume he would have only won 9 of those 20 ( or 21 ) majors, that still would have given him 20 total majors for his career.
So, 14 majors is nice and all, but I' m not going to be too impressed until somebody gets close to 20.
2 comments:
What all of you forget to mention regarding Rod Laver and the topic how many GS he would have won if he would have played from '63 to '67 is the follwoing point:
How many of his 6(from a total of 11) GS titles he earned during his amateur time would he have won if the pros from that time would have played?! Maybe none, maybe 1.. Pancho Gonzalez was then a little younger, Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall at their pick only to mention some of them.. or do you see Rod Laver beating Pancho Segura every time..?!
So.. if you ask the question how many he would have won, you must question how many he woudnt have won as well..
Think about that.
Huh?
You are counting his 5 as amateur, 6 as an open-era pro, and giving him 9 more (guess) as a pro in the '63 to '67 era.
Given that in his first year (63) he was a dud on the then pro tour, if you add the 9 (guess), then you need to remove the first six.
If you did that, Laver ends up with 14, and 1 CYGS. Also, he only played on two surfaces
Federer has 15 (no guesses), with 3 3/4 slam years, and has won on four different surfaces, considering that the Rebound Ace/whatever they have at the AO is a lot different from the USO surface.
So while I agree that it is debatable, it is an exaggeration to credit Laver with 20, especially when you are guessing that he would win 9/20 available majors from '63 to '67. Remember that in '68 he only won one!
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