Skip to main content

Best never to win a slam - men - 16 Nov 2009

On the subject of the best player never to win a slam, there is a statistical argument for Nalbandian...
Here's the best GS match (W-L) records of players in the open era never to have won a GS title:
1. David Nalbandian 78-29 (0.729)
2. Andy Murray 41-16 (0.719)
3. Tom Okker 73-29 (0.716)
4. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 25-10 (0.714)
5. Alex Metreveli 52-23 (0.693)
6. Harold Solomon 58-27 (0.682)
7. Tommy Haas 88-41 (0.682)
8. Todd Martin 102-48 (0.680)
caveats: Tony Roche has an open era GS W-L record of 0.744 but won a GS title before the open era. Similarly, Roy Emerson's open era GS W-L record was 0.727
considering all open era GS W-L records, Nalbandian is 24th, Murray 27th, Okker 29th, Tsonga 31st, Metreveli 42nd, Solomon 46th, Haas 47th, Martin 49th.
Overall, Borg is 1st, Federer 2nd, Laver 3rd, Nadal 4th, Sampras 5th, Rosewall 6th, Connors 7th, Lendl 8th, McEnroe 9th, Newcombe 10th, Agassi 11th, Becker 12th, Wilander 13th, Edberg 14th, Ashe 15th, Djokovic 16th, Courier 17th, Roddick 18th, Vilas 19th, Hewitt 20th.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Case for Rod Laver as GOAT - 25 Dec 2010

The Case for Rod Laver Two grand slams.   When one considers the near impossibility of winning a calendar year grand slam in this day and age, the thought of one player winning two boggles the mind.   It’s difficult enough to win the career slam – only 7 men have ever done it and only 4 in the Open era.   Winning a non-calendar slam is even more difficult and many great players have won three in a row and fallen just short:   like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Pete Sampras. So Rod Laver should be an open and shut case for the greatest of all time.   But it’s not that simple.   His first grand slam is really negligible and doesn’t count.   It was an amateur slam won in an era when the best players were professionals.   Especially in the 1960’s the pros were gaining more and more credibility.   The sheer number of pros was increasing as more and more tournaments began to be established for pro players.   Laver was by no means considered...
3 comments
Read more

French Open Preview 2017 - Men

French Open Preview 2017 – Men Rafa is back! He is the clear and dominant favourite for the next slam title at Roland Garros.  Can anyone stop him? Immediately after his Aus Open final appearance I began wondering aloud if Rafael Nadal would be ranked #1 by year’s end.  It appears that eventuality could happen as early as July, but it will depend on what Andy Murray does.  Murray has had a reasonably dreadful year – especially for a #1.  He’s won only about 2.3 matches for every 1 he’s lost – which is respectable – just not for a #1.  Meanwhile Rafa just came off a 17 match win streak – all on clay – and has won three of the four big run-up tournaments to the French – Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, but fell in the Rome quarters to Thiem.  Rafa has won 3 of these tournaments and RG in the same year seven times in his career.  Will this be the eighth?  The most serious challenger to Nadal might be 23 year-old Dominic Thiem....
4 comments
Read more

The Case for Bjorn Borg as GOAT

The case for Bjorn Borg   The case for Bjorn Borg as GOAT will always be interesting because the last half or third of his career didn’t happen.   But what he accomplished in the short time he played was remarkable.     He became the youngest man ever to win a grand slam title (to that time) when he did it within days of his 18 th birthday at the French Open in 1974.   No man has won more pro matches, titles, or grand slams by age 24 than he did.   He also has the best match winning percentage at the slams, with Nadal and Federer a distant 2 nd and 3 rd .   In addition to 5 consecutive Wimbledon titles, he only ever lost twice at the French Open, winning there 6 times, 4 times consecutively, and 3 times consecutively he followed up his French victory with the Wimbledon title 4 weeks later – the French-Wimbledon double.   No one else has done that.     His head to head record is top notch.   In the pool ...
1 comment
Read more