Well every pro seems to think that he was 'all dat'. The majority claim Laver to be the best ever. And like I said its difficult to judge based on titles, ie Lavers 11 to Feds 18 (19?), considering Laver was forced to miss out on 21 slams.
What if there was some French king who played the original tennis who could trash the pair of them blindfold though..... neither of us have seen that nor have we seen later. We had the privilege of watching Federer v Nadal.
Well there is video and film of Laver (not so sure about the French King though ) You can't base 'Greatest of ALL time' on just who played when you watched.
Given later was in effect an amateur gentleman with a tiny wooden racquet I reckon I can. It's the same as the golf, 70 year old lads will tell you backwards and forwards about guys from ye olden days before they were born. There jack Nicklas is prob it regarding top man but guys sill roll out legendary amateurs etc or woods who cannot be called goat cos he has blown up. Tennis is seeing the last hurrah of the greatest imo.
Well golf is a **** game, so couldn't say much about that. Smacks a bit of: there was no football before the Premier League
4 losses on french open. I meant just a comparisson of how many finals they'd been to. I could reverse it and say how many finals/GS fed would have won if he was playing during peak nadal/djoko. I haven't made that comparisson though Think i have already said that begrudgingly. I was just refuting fed who said Nadal wasn't great at other courts AND Fed was great on clay court. My point was Nadals achievements on grass and hard court are comparible to Feds on Clay. So either Nadal is a great all rounder (but obviously the greatest on Clay) or Fed was on the brilliant on Hard and Grass but not Clay.
Laver was playing in the 1960s, not the bloody 1910s, that those boots are clearly from. Hey maybe we should dicuss the GOAT footballer, but lets discount Pele (same era as Laver) and only say its between Ronaldo and Messi as they have the advantage of playing in the modern era with all the advances in coaching, nutrition, pay, the changes in footwear and the ball its self that have taken place. Wooden rackets were being used right up to and into the 1980s, so everyone before then must be an amateur we can ignore. Also you're claiming someone who achieved so much with lesser technology, ie a wooden racket, is worse. Surely the modern rackets help the current players more than a wooden racket. Anyway my point wasn't that Fed isn't the GOAT, along side Laver I'd say he probably is. I'm saying its problematic to compare players from different generations in order to declare a Greatest, especially if you consider the issue of pro and amateur earlier on (something Fed never had to deal with because of players like Laver and Fred Perry (who was the first professional Tennis player).
Actually i would have to say peles achievements have to be taken with a oinch of salt as well... not at world cups but some of those brazilian records are as dodgy as ****. I mean 1000 goals when you could be counting what amounts to playing a bunch of painters is dodgy as.... But there you go.... Breaking into the pro scene now imo is way tougher than rocking up in amateur era.... way way tougher
You seem to have a odd view of Tennis before the Open Era. Tennis hadn't been the sport of 'Gentlemen' players since the late 1930s. Fred Perry was the son of a Labour Politician (when Labour was made up of real Working class people) from Stockport. By the 1960s the majority of players were from ordinary families (not poor but also not upper class toffs who were playing for fun) Laver and Newcombe were both sons of Butchers. They were also professional in all but name, as in they were playing and training pretty much full time but without being paid for it. A number had already started to turn pro as they could no longer afford to travel round the world playing tennis and only getting a handshake and gift voucher they weren't expected to cash (this is genuinely true). The IFT, was about 20 years behind the times expecting players not to make money off the sport, probably cause of the toffs that were still running world tennis.
When Perry won Wimbledon the organisers refused to present him with the winner's tie in a ceremony as they felt since he was from a working class family he was beneath it so they left it on the back of a chair in the changing rooms. Him jumping over the net was part tactics, part finger up at the Wimbledon committee and its snobbery Little article here https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/the-tricks-fred-perry-played-to-stay-one-up-at-wimbledon/
