I agree with most of this article, and I would also conclude that - to this point - Sampras is #1 on grass, all-time, and wonder how many Slams Pistol could have won if he had played in the weaker era of the 1960s and 1970s during years when 3 of the 4 Slams were played on grass courts. Rod Laver won 2 singles titles at Wimbledon against the best players in the world (1968 and 1969). Jimmy Connors and Stefan Edberg won 2 singles titles at Wimbledon. Andre Agassi won Wimbledon once. However, John Newcombe won in 1970 and 1971 against the best players in the world and he was unable to compete at Wimbledon in 1972 (WCT) and 1973 (Pilic boycott by the ATP) but Newcombe beat Jimmy Connors in the 1975 Australian Open final after Connors had won all 3 of the grass court Slams in 1974. I agree with most of what you have said in this article, but Newcombe winning Wimbledon in 1967, 1970 and 1971 before not being able to compete at Wimbledon in 1972 and 1973 -- then, Newcombe winning the U.S. Open in 1973 and Australian Open in 1975 on grass courts ... Newcombe is more deserving of being among the top 5 or 10 players on grass courts than some of the players mentioned within the article. I would add in Tony Wilding, Henri Cochet, Rene Lacoste, Ellsworth Vines, Jack Crawford, Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzales, Lew Hoad and Goran Ivanisevic as well to be comparable - if not better - than the weakest of the elite players referenced within this article.

Fortunately, enough people realize that the very, very best of all time - highest level of play, individually and in terms of overall depth of the sport, is since the Open Era began 40 years ago (April 1968). OPEN ERA WIMBLEDON CHAMPIONS 7 Pete Sampras (1993-95, 1997-2000) ------------------------------------------ --- 5 Bjorn Borg (1976-1980) 5 Roger Federer (2003-2007) ----------------------------------------- ----- 3 John McEnroe (1981, 1983-1984) 3 Boris Becker (1986-1986, 1989) HISTORIC HONORABLE MENTIONS: From a historical perspective, tennis has sort of been bastardized with several unique international impacts on the sport through the years. 1877-1921: Defending champion was automatically placed into the final round of the draw in the Challenge Round system. Bill Tilden refused to play Wimbledon during most of the 1920s, but Tilden won an unprecedented and unmatched 7 U.S. National Championships (i.e., U.S. Open since 1968). Players from outside Australia, France, Italy and Germany could not compete in the National Championships of these nations until 1925 when "The Great Compromise" was put together to appease Bill Tilden and satisfy the tennis federations involved in international tennis (including the first seeding in the history of sports, insisted upon by Tilden, to keep players from the same nations from meeting each other until the later rounds -- the first seedings were by nation and kept the top Americans from playing each other, the top Frenchmen from playing each other, etc. until the later rounds). GUYS WHO WON 3 OR MORE WIMBLEDON SINGLES TITLES BEFORE 1930: Until 1922 the defending champion from the previous year was automatically placed into the final round in the year he was defending his title (called the Challenge Round system). The U.S. National Championships did away with this and had all champions playing through the draw beginning in 1912 - Wimbledon switched over to this in 1922 .. Bill Tilden had won Wimbledon in 1920 and 1921 and refused to go back to Wimbledon in 1922 because no previous champion had to play through the singles draw before and Tilden would not go along with it as the defending champion from the 2 previous years; however Tilden won a 3rd Wimbledon singles title in 1930. Tilden played through the draw in winning Wimbledon in 1920 and 1930, and the only year in which he was automatically in the final round as its defending champion was 1921.* 7 William Renshaw (1881-1886,1889) ------------------------------------ ----------------- 5 Lawrence Doherty (1902-1906) ----------------------------------------- ------------ 4 Reginald Doherty (1897-1900) 4 Anthony Wilding (1910-1913) ----------------------------------------- ------------ 3 Wilfred Baddeley (1891-1892,1895) 3 Arthur Gore (1901,1908-1909) 3 Bill Tilden (1920-1921, 1930) GUYS WHO WON 3 OR MORE WIMBLEDON SINGLES TITLES AFTER BILL TILDEN TURNED PRO AND THE OPEN ERA BEGAN IN APRIL 1968: During the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and most of the 1960s (through April 1968) the best players in the world were ineligible to compete in the Grand Slam events. Bill Tilden turned professional in the 1930s, the best players during the next 30+ years would turn professional after winning the championships of the biggest tournaments like Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championships. One of the best examples of this was Rod Laver winning all 4 Grand Slam events in 1962 and then losing miserably to the best players in the world (Pancho Gonzales, Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad) in 1963 and 1964 before reasserting himself in the mid to late 1960s for 4 or 5 years before losing in the quarterfinal round or earlier in every Grand Slam event he entered after 1969. 4 Rod Laver (1961*-1962*, 1968-1969) ------------------------------------------ ------------ 3 Fred Perry (1934*-1935*-1936*) 3 John Newcombe (1967*, 1970-1971) GUYS WHO WON 2 WIMBLEDONS: John Hartley (1879-1880) Joshua Pim (1893-1894) Norman Brookes (1907, 1914) ----------------------------------------------- -- Gerald Patterson (1919, 1922) Jean Borotra (1924, 1926) René Lacoste (1925, 1928) Henri Cochet (1927, 1929) Don Budge (1937-1938) Lew Hoad (1956-1957) Roy Emerson (1964-1965) Jimmy Connors (1974, 1982) Stefan Edberg (1988, 1990) Summary: The very, very best of all time at Wimbledon (Bill Tilden in the 1920s, Fred Perry in the 1930s, Don Budge in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Pancho Gonzales in the 1950s and 1960s, Rod Laver in the late 1960s, John Newcombe in the early 1970s, Bjorn Borg in the late 1970s, Pete Sampras in the 1990s and Roger Federer in the early years of the 21st century) had the greatest likelihood of DOMINATING over several years at Wimbledon if and/or when they were allowed to compete against the very best players in the world. Therefore, my all-time top 10 at Wimbledon in men's singles would be: 1. Sampras 2. Federer 3. Borg 4. McEnroe 5. Becker 6. Tilden 7. Perry 8. Newcombe 9. Laver 10. Budge Pancho Gonzales might have been the best player to never win a Wimbledon (some would also say Ken Rosewall and Ivan Lendl, and I would agree with these as the top 3 to never win Wimbledon) ... but the biggest travesty in this is that Bill Tilden, Fred Perry, Don Budge and Pancho Gonzales are probably the only players (maybe Lew Hoad could have been included in this as well) who were good enough to have possibly been able to win 7 Wimbledon singles titles as Pete Sampras did between 1993 and 2000 if they had played Wimbledon enough to achieve this level of success. The ones who lost the most potential success in terms of all-time Grand Slam singles titles before the Open Era because the pros were unable to compete in the Grand Slam events are probably Pancho Gonzales, Ken Rosewall, Fred Perry and Don Budge. These guys could have come close to Sampras' record 14 Slams against the best players in the world during their eras. Rod Laver only won 5 (less than half of his 11) Grand Slam singles titles when competing against the best players in the world. Then, Laver never got past the quarters of any Grand Slam event during the 1970s. Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzales were among the top 4 players in 3 different decades (Rosewall in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; Gonzales in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s) and the same could not be said for Laver. In closing, one of the best things about the Open Era is we have best vs. best and it allows the cream to rise to the top and stay (unlike 1963-1965 when Laver was beaten badly by Rosewall, Gonzales and Hoad after Laver had won all 4 Grand Slam events in 1962) ... that is why we have 5 guys - Borg, McEnroe, Becker, Sampras and Federer - who have collectively won 23 of the 32 singles titles at Wimbledon since 1976. This also applies to the women's singles - 20 of the last 30 women's singles titles at Wimbledon have been won by just 3 players: Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Venus Williams.

Laver only had a losing record against Rosewall in 1963 and 1976 (the first and last years he played), he was dominant over Rosewall the other years. See Wikipedia for confirmation. With regard to the 1970's - Laver turned 32 in 1970 so that's a little harsh to expect him to be at his peak then.