Top five male tennis players of all time

You should add "IMO" at the end of our title. Because, the fact is, injuries and consistency are major factors that determine the Greatest. Borg retired so early. Why? Perhaps he had injuries or didn't love the sport enough to keep playing. Understandable, since he was leaps and bounds ahead of anyone ever, in terms of achievements. But tough luck. He didn't keep playing and we shouldn't ponder on how much he "would've" achieved. Just like how much Rafa "could've" achieved if he was not injured. Roger wasn't just consistent. He was consistent at the TOP. We can credit David Ferrer for his consistency, but he was never at the top. Without factoring consistency, I can say I think Del Potro and Wawrinka are the best ever, because they put on a performance of a lifetime within a certain period of time, which is capable of demolishing anyone at the other side of the net. But see, you chose Nadal because he does that more often. You factored in consistency. Safe to say, Roger and Rafa peaked at the same time. Because Rafa peaked at a younger age. They both complete each other. But Roger was the bigger half. Much bigger. And get this, when Novak started peaking, Rafa's baseline A-game struggled against Novak. Roger somehow, had no problem with the same Novak. He even beat him 6-0 in 2011 Cincinnati, not to mention Roland Garros, which I believe proves that at the big 3's peak, he's the 2nd greatest clay court player of this era, possibly ever. Another thing. Records aren't a lie. You don't have to read between the lines. Winning percentage is great, but that numbers is bound to decline. Weeks as no.1 and Most majors however, are where the numbers won't decline. Weeks as no.1 just shows how long you were at the top of the hill against the active players. That's the most accurate measure of who is at the top the longest. Not opinion, fact. You can't be the king of the hill by getting injured all the time.

i never expected a sane person to rank nadal ahead or great Roger, i assumed you are a great fan of Nadal, thats all

Connors at 3? Clearly you know nothing about tennis. For me as it stands today. Federer Laver Nadal Sampras Borg Djocka# #Djocka will likely finish ahead of nadal and sit in the top 3 in my opinion. Only time will tell how high he will go. Connors might just make some peoples top 10 but only just. He had a 68% win record at grand slams. Djocka Federer etc are above 80%. Djocka already has more wimbeldons and aus opens than connors. Remember almost everyone on this list has retired or is about to retire soon (Federer). Djocka is in the conversation and is only really halfway through his career. Just the fact that he is sitting at 5th on this list tells you just how good he is.

for me best three are 1. Roger Federer 1. Rod Laver 3. Jimmy Connors first two can not be questioned, as they are the prime contender for number one spot jimmy connors how this man can be forgotten, he has won most singles titles reach a GS semi final at the age of 40 no one (even federer) can dream of winning that much titles and why samprass is there, he reach french semis one time, and has never been an all around player putting djoker in the list is a big joke

Federer beaten again by Novak at Wimbeldon. I think federer played some of the best tennis of his career last night, but Novak's defensive abilities were out of this world. We watched in my opinion the greatest player of all time (as it stands) against the player who may become the greatest, or at least number two behind him depending on how many slams he can win. If Novak can win two grand slams a year on average for the next 3 seasons that takes him to 15. 16 slams if he takes out US open later this year. If he stays fit I think that this is possible. In my mind he could win more. If he takes out the prized French Open next year he may win 3 slams next year. Given the opposition that Novak has had during his career. Fed and Nadal younger years, and now Murray, Stan, Fed and nadal. I think that even if he finishes with a couple less slams than Federer he still may be seen as the greatest. Federer in his prime beat the likes of bagdatis, hewitt, safin, philippoussis and Roddick. Most of his slams were against this type of opposition. Novak has beaten nadal murray federer wahrinka etc. Chalk and cheese in my opinion.

Wrong.. Are we talking about both Men and Women? If only Men it is as follows: 1. Roger Federer 2. Rod Laver 3. Rafael Nadal 4. Sampras 5. Novak Djokovic*** *** still in the prime of his career and will surely win a couple more slams that will lament him as perhaps being higher than sampras.

Roger vs Rafa dificuld election...

Roger vs Rafa the best all time!

This kind of ranking has to be done only with retired tennis players as the carrier of fed, nadal and djoko are far too be over and many thing can still happen (bad or good)

Well.. we all know that Roger is the best of all times. But of course. There are Nadal fans aswell. :)

well realisticly, whats the maximum age that players usually win their last grandslam or the age a player naturally loses his domination...when it comes to tennis this age appears to be around 29/30...now when did the big four arise, precisely, when federer turned 29...now, you cant compare a player way after his prime with a player at his prime...so what you'd have to compare is Djokovic now vs Federer 6-10 years ago...now thats pretty much impossible... also you can well argue that there were no big four during federers era because he didnt let them...and finally federer dominated his era and continues to be a top player way past his era. thats something Nadal will never manage...its reasonable to assume that because of his age, winning a grandslam has become much more difficult for federer. Its best of five, this means a considerable additional effort not only for each match, but even more so throught the entire tournament. the man is 33, about to become 34 in August and still world number 2 in tennis and is still capable of beating every player in the line up...that single fact, if not his enormous list of records, the completeness of his game, his fair play, his great sportmanship and what he has done for tennis make him that bit more complete than nadal is. today we have seen novak losing against stan simply due to power and precision, Federer does play much more versatile than that....I am sure we will all miss his style, his amazing handling of the raquet, his variation in the game etc, when he'll finally quit playing tennis one day... comparing the big 4 to each other seems somewhat possible, while already compring them except for nadal to federer seems somewhat far stretched because of the difference in age. comparing federer to laver on the other hand does not make a lot of sense to me. it seems unlikely that a player like nadal relying mostly on power, speed and top spin could have had a lot of success back in the days and also the sport has become much more athletic, so laver would probably have had his problems agains nadal on todays surface with today's balls... for me, considering the eras of tennis I have seen, which are the last 12-15 years, Federer is the most complete player considering on and off court...he has his unmatched records on court, he is known for his fairplay, he has been a role model for millions of athletes around the world and he has done a lot for tennis...all in all just great sportmanship

Federer is no doubt everyone's favourite tennis player. He has won many grand slams and has a fantastic record but you have to look deeper. Federer had almost no competition for much of his career. There was no big 4 when he won the majority of his slams. As soon as any stiff competition has come along he hasn't looked like winning anything. Nadal for me tips Federer due to his head to head record, and winning 9/10 french opens is just ridiculous. To boot Nadal has a better hard court head to head record. However my opinion is that neither will be top of the list for long. Djokovic has a great record against both and this will likely get even better as Federer ages, and Nadal's body starts failing him. He is racking up grand slams at a quick rate and shows no signs of this slowing. All this during a time when undoubably men's tennis is at it's most competitive. He has no weaknesses and is in my opinion the most complete tennis player the world will ever see. If he wins the french tomorrow night he will become the first player in the Nadal era to beat Nadal and win the french. Federer won it in 09 but remember Soderling knocked out Nadal so this wasn't as big an achievement as many made it out to be.

Come on before Nadal, Djoker and Murray came along, Roger beat some pretty mediocre competition. I'll agree he dominated but Lleyton Hewitt is far from stiff competition.

I agree with you that Nadal is the best ever but I disagree with your reasoning. Will to win and his desire to win are nice but contribute nothing to this argument. Nadal is the greatest because of the competition he had to face, Who did Federer beat to win majors before Nadal and Djoker came along? Martin Safin? Lleyton Hewitt? Nadal has had to beat Djoker multiple times and Federer himself. Nadal is the best player in the greatest era of tennis ever.

Yes, I ask people the question 'who would you want to have play a match for your life' and I would go for Nadal, then Djoker, and maybe Connors third. I think Fed got lucky a few years ago when Nadal was out for seven months, and had bad knees when he lost to Soderling at the French. If healthy, he wouldn't have lost to Robin and would have more than likely cleaned up on Fed that year.. possibly preventing Fed from at least one more major victory. So the score in slam titles would likely be 17-14 (or at worst 16-15) with Nadal ahead. I see Nadal as a Mike Tyson type who scared crap out of opponents even before they stepped into the ring; and Federer as Muhammad Ali who didn't scare opponents in that same way at all.

This is actually mine exactly too.

I don't think the head to head is meaningless in general, but it is only indicative of how well your game matches up against someone else's. Davydenko had a 6-5 h2h with Nadal, Roger had a 19-2 h2h against Davydenko. What does that tell you about overall greatness? Nothing. Ferrer has never managed to beat Federer, he's managed to beat Nadal 6 times. Nadal has a dominant H2H against Roger. Ferrer can beat a player who has a dominant h2h against Roger, but not Roger. Again, what does that tell you about overall greatness? Nothing. The h2h argument is basically almost completely void, because (to paraphrase Nadal himself) if you beat a guy every time you meet him, and that guy still wins the title, he's the better player. The only reason it's touted so passionately is because it is really the only argument anyone has against Roger. You cannot make an argument for Nadal being the GOAT without bringing up the h2h with Roger, because as of yet, he has very little in the way of potent records to single himself out otherwise. He has Roland Garros and he has the masters (which will probably be overtaken by Novak the rate he's going) You have to bring up the Roger h2h for the argumemt for Nadal to hold much weight.

I can't edit my comment anymore, but basically, when Rafa finally made a final and Roger wasn't there it was RG 2010, at that time Roger would have been 29, the age Rafa is now. Think about Rafa's current form compared to Roger's who was breaking a streak of 8 consecutive Grand Slam finals between Roland Garros 2008 and Roland Garros 2010. I also think Nadal and Djokovic have benefitted greatly from the homogenisation of court surfaces. This was proved pretty convincingly with the blue clay in 2012. Nadal and Djokovic couldn't adapt and went out early, Roger won the tournament. The two singles winners? Roger and Serena, two players who had to get used to adapting. Nadal won Wimbledon twice, but since the surface has been sped up again, he's not managed to make it into the second week. Before 2009, only Agassi had won the career slam with the varying surfaces, in the 6 years following that feat is looking to be repeated by 3 guys in quick succession. 3 excellent players, no doubt, but it speaks volumes about how the surfaces play.

The weak era excuse actually one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. Why are you calling Roger's era weak? Because they didn't win slams? Didn't get to number 1? You wanna know why they didn't win slams or get to #1? Roger. It's akin to saying the current era is weak on clay because no one but Rafa has won Roland Garros. It's not that this is a weak clay court era, it's that Nadal is BETTER than them. The new balls era wasn't weak, Roger was just better than them. If you want to call Roger's era weak, all you've got to do is ask yourself how weak this era must be then for him to still be #2 in the world 10 years after his era? How can you argue Nadal or Djokovic have stronger competition when a 'weak era' 33 year old is still higher ranked than most of this era?

I love how this article basically says 'Roger owns all the records, but I like Nadal more so I'm going to put him ahead.' You can't compare Nadal as Roger's 'era' because he WASN'T Roger's era. Nadal's era is Djokovic and Murray. Nadal hasn't been able to dominate his competition the way Roger could, that's why he's 'playing against more players'. From post Roland Garros 2005 to Roland Garros 2010 EVERY slam final Nadal made, Roger was there to meet you. Roger only missed 1 GS final in that time, Rafa 7 slam finals and met Roger in all of them, Roger made the other - what - 11 and met other players. His domination of the sport was total. If you want more proof, Djokovic (who didn't make it to world #1 until 2011) has more weeks at number 1 than Nadal who reached number 1 in 2008 for the first time. Roger? Has more than both of them combined. Furthermore, Roger holds the records for the most Wimbledon and US Open titles won, up until Novak won the AO this year he also held the open era record for most AO titles won. Nadal, holds the record for most RG titles won. I say this as a Nadal fan, I think 30% of the tour is played on clay and 70% of Nadal's overall titles are on clay. You want to call him the greatest of all time and say he can beat anyone on any surface with a winning H2H against almost every player, why hasn't he won more when 8 months of the tour is played on hard?