The greatest grasscourt player of the Open Era - is it Federer, Sampras, McEnroe, or someone else?

Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer or Rod Laver – who is the greatest grasscourter of them all?

When it comes to tennis, there are legends and then there are grass-court legends.

Today’s era consists of four Grand Slams where two are played on hard courts, one on clay and one on grass. But prior to 1975, the Grand Slams consisted of three grasscourt events, so there was nothing special about the surface. Wimbledon wasn’t exactly treated as a place to test a player’s specialized skills. But now, Wimbledon being the only grass court Major, it is widely regarded as the best place to test a player’s skills on grass. And since grass is considered to be tennis’s ‘original’ surface, it is widely believed that the more the wins at Wimbledon, the greater the player.

Before 1968, professional players were not allowed to play in the Grand Slams; the Majors were reserved for amateurs. But with the advent of the Open Era, all players were allowed to take part and ever since then, the Slams have produced some truly great grasscourt players who were also Wimbledon champions.

Rod Laver (who has played matches in both the Open Era and in the era prior to it, that is, before the year 1968) is regarded as one of the best grasscourt players in the Open Era, along with Bjorn Borg of Sweden, John McEnroe and Pete Sampras of USA and Roger Federer of Switzerland, who all arrived at the scene after the year 1975. Various comparisons have been drawn with regard to these players and their achievements but it is quite tough to pick out the best one amongst these, since each is a legend in his own right. Nevertheless, all of them cannot hold the number 1 position and there can be just one – the best of the best.

So in order to determine who deserves to be known as the best amongst these, their grass court careers and style of play need to be analysed.

Let’s start by looking at their Wimbledon careers.

NAME	NUMBER OF WIMBLEDON WINS	YEARS ACTIVE
ROD LAVER	4	1963-1976
BJORN BORG	5	1973-1983
JOHN MCENROE	3	1978-1992
PETE SAMPRAS	7	1988-2002
ROGER FEDERER	7	1998-CURRENT

Statistically speaking, Sampras and Federer seem to be the greatest, followed by Borg, Laver and then McEnroe. But the latter group of players did not play for the same number of years as the top two or the same number of Grand Slams. Laver in fact was not allowed to play in the Grand Slams at the peak of his career since he was a professional and not an amateur, and Borg retired at the age of 26, so he probably had many Wimbledon wins taken away.

Taking away the what-ifs, a real comparison can only be drawn between Sampras and Federer. Since they have equal number of wins, they seem tied at the first place. But what might give Federer the edge over Sampras is his overall grasscourt win percentage, which is a whopping 87.14% (122 wins to a mere 18 losses), as compared to Sampras’s 83.47% (101 wins to 20 losses).

But then statistics are not always the best means to measure a player’s skills. It’s like the Simpson’s paradox – in a tennis match, you might win lesser points in total, but still win the match. So Laver, Borg and McEnroe might have lesser titles than Federer and Sampras, but they might still be placed above the other two in other respects of their games such as Laver’s several successive wins in grasscourt tournaments and Borg’s undoing of several of the top players of his era during his Wimbledon wins. And you can never discount McEnroe for his amazing serve and volley skills and, well, his sledging! :D

Now coming to their style of play on grass. Each one had their own strengths that they thoroughly exploited to make them world champions. Let’s look at their strengths.

NAME	STRENGTH
ROD LAVER	SERVE, FOREHAND, BACKHAND STRENGTH
BJORN BORG	STAMINA, TOPSPIN
JOHN MCENROE	AGILITY AND VOLLEY
PETE SAMPRAS	BEST SERVE – FIRST AND SECOND, VOLLEY
ROGER FEDERER	BEST BASELINE GAME

Laver’s serve and his ability to deliver powerful backhand shots were what set him apart, and Borg was one of the first ones to play with extreme topspin – his overall game was quite unorthodox for its time. The Americans were both famous for their legendary serve and volley games, and Federer can do a bit of it all!

Given all the comparisons, it’s still hard to place any one of these players on top since they are all amazing players in their own right. But if one really has to choose just one, then my vote would go to Rod Laver owing to his various records, his two calendar Grand Slams (six of those eight Slams came on grass), his overall style of play. And to think how much more he could have achieved had he been allowed to play at all the Grand Slams of his time!