Is Roger really the greatest?

Back when Pete Sampras was king I'd occasionally find someone to argue about whether or not he was the greatest player in the open era.

My argument was it depended on where the mythical greatest match was played. If Pete played Andre Agassi at Wimbledon, well Pete is going to win that match. But if they play at the French Open, well Sampras was clueless on clay. The one thing Agassi has going for him in the all-time best player argument was that he was one of the rare players to win all four majors.

So I set up a round robin to see if we matched up the 11 greatest men's players -- that's the number of that have really set themselves ahead of the crowd -- and the 12 greatest women's players at each of the four venues what would their overall records be.

Some of the greatest men and women players have been overwhelmingly good at one tournament and not very competitive at another. How would they fare overall?

Here are the top 11 men's tennis players according to the system I've written about before. They are in the order I have them ranked in my all-time system.

Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Mats Wilander, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and Rafael Nadal.

For the women, the field was:

Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Chris Evert-Lloyd, Monica Seles, Margaret Smith-Court, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, Serena Williams, Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario, Martina Hingis, Venus Williams and Justine Henin.

Determining who won was easy. The player with the most career points at a particular tournament. In some cases it was close. Ivan Lendl earned 56 points at the French Open in my system and Mats Wilander earned 55. When I matched those two, Lendl earned the Win for the French because of the one point.

So how did it turn out? There were some surprises on the men's side.

Sampras, 25-15
Federer, 25-15
Lendl, 24-16
Agassi, 23-17
Borg, 22-18
Connors, 21-19
McEnroe, 18-22
Wilander, 17-23
Edberg, 17-23
Becker, 15-25
Nadal, 14-26

Going in I thought Federer would have the edge because he's reached three French finals and dominated in Australia, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. But Federer lost two matches to Agassi, two to Sampras, two to Borg, two to Connors and two to Wilander and one each to the rest.

Of course, Federer has a few years left to add points so perhaps he'll gain enough at Wimbledon to turn around mythical losses to Borg at Wimbeldon or Agassi in Australia. Barring some sudden loss of form he'll most likely overtake Sampras in this ranking as well. Still, I was somewhat surprised.

The other major surprise. Agassi at No. 4. His career grand slam was important as was the emphasis he put on the Australian Open. Played in January, it's a grinder's tournament. Borg and McEnroe put no emphasis on the tournament and Sampras and McEnroe skipped it several times.

Not Agassi. He won it four times, including recording his lone grand slam final win over Sampras in Australia in 1995. So 10 of his 23 wins come from his dominance there.

On the women's side, it was the same top 3 dominating, but Billie Jean King moved up a bit:

Navratilova, 40-4
Graf, 37-7
Evert, 33-11
King, 23-21
Goolagong, 21-23
Smith-Court, 20-24
Seles, 19-25
S. Williams, 16-28
Sanchez-Vicario, 8-20
Henin, 7-21
V. Williams, 6-22
Hingis, 5-23

In the cases of Navratilova and Graf, we can list all of their losses.

First off, Navratilova won 3 of 4 against Steffi, losing only at the French. Graff's other four losses were to Chris Evert at the French and U.S. Open, Margaret Smith-Court at the Australian Open and Evonne Goolagong at the Australian.

Navratilova's other three losses were to Evert and Sanchez-Vicario at the French and Goolagong at the Australian.