Ken Rosewall may seem an unlikely candidate for Greatest of all Time. The scrawny 5 foot 7 inch Australian from the 1950’s was ironically nicknamed, “Muscles.” And he never won Wimbledon.
The reason Ken Rosewall belongs in this discussion is the number 23. As in majors. The same number currently held by Serena Williams and the greatest number for any man. Of course, some lists of majors show Rosewall at only eight. Why the discrepancy?
It comes down to understanding the tennis landscape of the 1930’s to 1970’s. It used to be that amateur tennis was the true international face of tennis. Professional players were seen by the elite as vulgar money grubbers and open tennis didn’t arrive until 1968, but the move to change started in 1927. That year international tennis superstar Suzanne Lenglen left behind amateur tennis and went on tour as a pro.
The impact of Lenglen can hardly be overestimated. She was far bigger than tennis. It is said they built a new stadium at Wimbledon to accommodate the crowds that came to see her. The French starlet rocked the tennis establishment by lifting the hemline of her dress to the knees and by wearing a soon to be famous bandeau – or bandana. She had personality and pizzazz, and the post-World-War-One public, eager to forget the recent horrors, embraced her as the symbol of a better modernity. There was also the matter of her 181 match win streak that spanned five years. And this came after a previous 115 match win streak.
Tennis and the world at large were in love with Suzanne, and she was nicknamed “The Goddess” or “La Divine.” She revolutionized the game and brought it into the modern era. Sports exploded in worldwide popularity in the 1920’s with the six dominant figures of the “Golden Age of Sport” typically named as Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Jack Dempsey, Howie Morenz, Bobby Jones, and Bill Tilden. But Lenglen may have been bigger than them all.
She came to know her power, and got used to blazing trails. Before turning pro she famously stated,
In the
twelve years I have been champion I have earned literally millions of francs
for tennis and have paid thousands of francs in entrance fees to be allowed to
do so. I have worked as hard at my career as any man or woman has worked at any
career. And in my whole lifetime I have not earned $5,000 – not one cent of
that by my specialty, my life study – tennis...I am twenty-seven and not
wealthy – should I embark on any other career and leave the one for which I
have what people call genius? Or should I smile at the prospect of actual
poverty and continue to earn a fortune – for whom?” (International Tennis Hall
of Fame)
And so the long debate over open tennis began, and it continued until 1968 when Wimbledon finally announced that it was opening its doors to professionals. But back in 1927, another tradition was begun, the US Professional Championships, won that year by the then biggest-name defector from the men’s amateur circuit, Vincent Richards, who had been ranked as high as #2 in 1924 and 1925. Lenglen and Richards went on tour, taking professional tennis exhibitions around North America and Europe. It was financially successful and so the tradition was born that new tennis professionals made their money by going on these ‘barn-storming’ tours of exhibition tennis.
For the most part, women had few opportunities to play in the barn-storming tours, but for the men, amateur tennis and the now-Grand Slam tournaments became something of a rite of passage to this fledgling pro tour. If a player won Wimbledon or the US Championships or was ranked #1 among the amateurs, they might have a chance to join the professionals and make some money at the career for which they had ‘genius,’ as Lenglen put it.
But the barn-storming tours only had room for four or maybe six players to make money. And there were a lot more players who wanted to play to earn. So the pros also organized tournaments. Unfortunately, these tournaments weren’t as successful as the slams at attracting attention, and so the pro tournaments of the 1920’s to 1960’s struggled to establish tradition and consistent crowds.
But eventually three pro tournaments emerged as the most important and came to be regarded as something like the professional majors. These were the US Pro Championships, the French Pro, and the Wembley Pro. From 1927 until 1967, forty-one years, only 81 of these majors were conducted, just less than two per year. The US Pro was the most consistent with 40 tournaments held, followed by 21 Wembley’s and 20 French Pro’s. All three were most consistently conducted in the last half of the 1930’s and then in the last 10 years before the Open Era, 1958-1967.
In many years only one of the pro majors was held (usually the US Pro) so the top pro player could only had one title to their tally of majors per year. But by the time of Rosewall and Rod Laver, the pro majors were being held with enough regularity that pros could compete in three per year. Because of their aforementioned sporadic appearance the pro majors are not a great substitute for tallies of the modern majors, the Open Era grand slams. But they do at least allow us to consider that the top players of 1927-67, the pros, might have higher major tallies than just their numbers at the traditional amateur slams. The biggest pro slam totals belong to Rod Laver – 8, Pancho Gonzales – 12, and Ken Rosewall – 15.
Both (and only) Rosewall and Laver are in the position of having won in all three disciplines – amateur slams, professional majors, and Open Era slams. Laver won six, eight, and five respectively, for a total of 19. He also won the grand slam in each discipline, in 1962, 1967, and 1969 respectively.
Rosewall also won a professional grand slam in 1963, claiming all three pro majors that year. Rosewall’s totals are four, fifteen, and four, respectively, for a total of 23. This is the highest major tally that could be claimed by any male player.
And Rosewall’s majors came throughout a long career. The first two were at age 18 in 1953, and the last was at age 37 in 1972. He also made the Wimbledon and US Open finals at age 39 in 1974. He won young, he won middle, and he won old. Rosewall did a lot of winning at all ages.
With 23 majors, three more than Roger Federer’s 20, is it an open and shut case that Rosewall is the current greatest of all time, or GOAT? One of the problems with that assessment has to do with the quality of the majors at that time. Firstly, the amateur majors, while appearing perhaps more legitimate to us (than the pro majors) because they bear the names of Wimbledon, US, French, and Australian, did not have the top-tier fields of the best players in the world. These tournaments had large and reasonably deep fields, but they might be missing the top five or even ten players of their day – because the top players were on the professional circuit, and the slams were only open to amateurs.
So should Rosewall’s and Laver’s amateur slam tournaments even be included in their tallies of majors? One of the problems of not including them, is that it would mean Rosewall and Laver didn’t have the chance to start accumulating majors till they turned pro at age 22 or later.
And what about the pro majors? A problem with their legitimacy is that they tended to have quite small fields. As mentioned earlier, not many players could afford to turn pro since there wasn’t much money to go around. That meant that the pro majors often had fields of only 16 or less players. But at least the world’s very best players could enter.
So perhaps tallies of majors, though they are useful in the Open Era, at least from 1983 or so, onwards, are not the best sole measures of greatness before then. They are an indicator of tennis accomplishment to be sure, and Rosewall’s tally of 23 majors is certainly an incredible accomplishment that indicates he was a great player, but it is not as definitive a measure as it would be for a player accumulating 23 slams now. The fact that Rosewall never won Wimbledon is no strike against him in my reckoning. He was excluded from the tournament for 11 years during his prime, during which he won the biggest tournaments available to him.
The estimates of greatness in Rosewall’s era are more fuzzy and subjective than we may like, but they are all we have. Two of these are time spent as yearend #1 and time spent in the yearend top ten.
Assessing top ten rankings from Rosewall’s era is challenging because they are subjective, since there was no computer to calculate them. Thus ranking lists were only usually published at yearend, and they reflected the weighed opinion of experts – usually journalists, tournament directors, or ex-players. Despite their subjectivity, by pooling the lists released by various publications and bodies, we can at least approximate a measure of reliability in who the yearend top ten were for years before the computer rankings began for men in 1973.
My tallying of such lists reveals that Rosewall was yearend #1 for five years: 1961-1964, and 1970; and that he was in the world’s top ten for 23 consecutive years from 1953 to 1975.
Five years at yearend #1 put him in the exclusive company of only 12 men:
1. Gonzales – 8
2.
WRenshaw – 7
Tilden – 7
Budge – 7
5. Sampras - 6
6.
HLDoherty – 5
Kramer – 5
Rosewall – 5
Laver – 5
Federer – 5
Nadal – 5
Djokovic – 5
This is certainly very elite company, and puts Rosewall in the conversation for GOAT, but is hardly definitive proof that he is THE goat. But looking at his time in the yearend top ten, 23 years is in fact the record. And this ‘23’ might be more significant for his legacy than the 23 majors.
Years in yearend top ten (assuming Federer and Nadal achieve that in 2020):
1. Rosewall – 23
2. Tilden – 22
3. Gonzales – 20
4. Federer – 18
5.
Larned – 16
Connors – 16
Agassi – 16
Nadal – 16
9. Budge – 15
Rosewall first joined the yearend top ten when he was only
19, and finished there at age 41. His
longevity and consistency are incredible.
He first became yearend #1 at age 27 (some say 26) and was last there at
age 36, which is also incredible. He was
in the yearend top five for 16 straight years (matched only by Bill Tilden), from
ages 23 to 38.
Although his later years were in the Open Era, making the top ten in 1953 probably didn’t require as much talent as it does now when there are thousands of players from across the globe competing in professional tennis. It doesn’t mean Rosewall wouldn’t have made the top ten if he were a nineteen year old now, but it’s undoubtedly true to say that the field in tennis is much deeper now than it was 70 years ago. So perhaps, Rosewall would not amass 23 years in the top ten, if his whole career had been in the Open Era. Or maybe it would have made no difference – such was his talent and greatness.
When talking about tennis greatness and GOATness, people often have two different notions in mind. One notion concerns who played the best tennis at their peak, and the other concerns who accomplished the most in their career. The two are very different things. Many ex-players list Lew Hoad among the very best players of all time. It can be hard to understand why since he was a direct contemporary of Rosewall (born the same year), yet won only four amateur slams, no pro slams, and no open era slams. But experts of the day say that when Hoad was ‘on’ he was insurmountable, playing tennis at an unbelievable level. The same is often said of Ellsworth Vines, who won three amateur slams and four pro slams in the 1930’s. And this is what is often meant, I believe, when former players speak of Roger Federer. At his peak, the tennis he plays is almost unbelievably good. But with Federer, there is also the list of his many accomplishments and the (supposed) slam record of 20 majors, to bolster his claims to GOAT.
But this peak level argument is not the case with Ken Rosewall. Almost all their contemporaries pick Laver as superior to Rosewall, despite the fact that these contemporaries also say they dreaded playing Rosewall more. But they almost universally agree that Laver could play at a higher level than Rosewall.
For me, determining who could play the best at their peak is hopelessly subjective. I favour the idea that GOAT should be about determining who accomplished the most in their tennis career. Given the changing standards of what was important to accomplish for tennis players of different eras – eras when no majors existed or they were poorly defined or were unavailable to the best players – it is important to understand what the players accomplished in their available context. So when considering Rosewall for GOAT, what I’m trying to determine is if the accomplishments he set out to achieve – the ones ‘available’ to him, make him worthy of GOAT consideration.
Up until age 22 (1957) when he turned pro, Rosewall was trying to win on the amateur circuit, including the amateur majors, of which he won four – not bad for a 22 year old, a feat matched only by Ashley Cooper, Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, and Boris Becker. After that he was primarily occupied with getting a shot to tour with the established professional #1, who at that time was Pancho Gonzales. The idea was to get to be the #2 pro, the top contender, so that he could play the headline barnstorming tour against the current #1. This was how to accumulate the most money as a pro player. Rosewall got that opportunity in 1957, but was displaced in 1958-59 by Hoad. However, Rosewall re-emerged as the #2 in 1960, (some said he was #1) that year, and was firmly #1 in 1961 (although some argue for Gonzales).
During this time he was also trying to rack up tournament wins at the pro majors, something he did very successfully, with a leading tally of 15. His Grand Slam of pro majors in 1963, shows that Rosewall was one of the greatest ever. To so thoroughly dominate a year is a rare accomplishment. But it was not unique, since Laver won all the pro majors in 1967, and even more impressively, all the open slams in 1969.
In the Open Era, Rosewall was again trying to win the slam tournaments. He won another four, all after the age of 33.
Throughout all these periods, a consistent measure of greatness was placement in the yearend top ten and the yearend #1 ranking. This is probably most translatable to today’s measures of greatness. Rosewall’s five yearend #1’s are an amazing accomplishment but not unique.
At the end of the day, the strongest arguments for Rosewall’s consideration for GOAT are his incredible longevity at the top of the game – his 23 years in the top ten, his tally of 23 majors (of three different types), his pro grand slam of 1963, and finishing yearend #1 five times. By my judgement, Rosewall is among the greatest players of all time, but Gonzales’ eight years at yearend #1, Tilden’s many votes for GOAT from both his contemporaries and those that followed in the next 50 years, Laver’s three grand slams (one amateur, one professional, and one open), and the slam tallies of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic against much deeper fields than Rosewall faced, all elevate these players past Rosewall for GOAT consideration.
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