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Was Laver´s 69 season best in open era?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 46.7%
  • No

    Votes: 32 53.3%

Was Laver´s 69 season best in open era?

4K views 52 replies 36 participants last post by  swisht4u 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Yes.
 
#3 ·
I don't know, I wasn't born/know nothing really about it, but it seems like it. 4 slams in one year against those opponents seems pretty impressive.

Also, I always felt like Fed was at his peak in 05-06. Still can't believe Safin snagged that AO in '05.
 
#45 ·
LAVER, for sure. Not only did he win the Grand Slam, he did it against Much Tougher Competition than Roger had.

Djokovic- McEnroe said Nole's year was better than his in 84, so I take his word for it.

McEnroe 84- Also much tougher competiton than Fed 06, destroying Connors at Wimbledon. Connors had beat him in 5 the year before.
 
#4 ·
Do you agree or not?

http://www.tennis.com/articles/templates/features.aspx?articleid=15346&zoneid=9

Tennis.com made 10 best seasons in open era, i would say Roger´s 2006 is better, Laver won 3 slams on grass, and lost 16x that season... also in those times the physicall demand on tennis was nothing comparing to now.
What pisses me off the most, is that the disrespect Laver and his peers receive here at MTF, is mostly based on assumptions like this, that are just plain wrong. Nothing compared to now?? He played 122 matches that year for money that wouldn´t make Fed or Rafa even get out of bed. Also, those guys didn´t have the luxury of tie-breaks, every set was played the long way, so while the game itself might not have been as physical as now, it´s just plain wrong to say Laver & co didn´t ultimately work just as hard.

A calendar GS is a calendar GS, hard to top that.
 
#6 ·
Maybe i should have wrote it is far more physicall today, what is the truth. You can´t deny it. Yes money in sport and tennis wasn´t such big part of everything like today, but we must take in count inflation, exchange-rates and so on, but still he was earning enough for those times, today´s sport is just much more about money. Money side we can´t compare, because the difference is enourmnous. WE can compare his season to say Roger 06, Nole 11 and i am not sure if 3/4 slams on grass are good enough to have better season with 16 losses then the way Roger dominated the field in 06 and Nole did in 3/4 of this season, before he injured.
 
#30 ·
Lol.
 
#14 ·
If Fed would beat Nadal in Paris 2006 after first set 6-1 - then I say Fed 2006, no doubt about it.

But I can barely pick one year and say that´s the best. 69 - three (!) grandslams played on grass, although I like Laver as a personality.
 
#15 ·
Definitely... Laver showed just how hard it is to grab the calendar slam. 42 years later and no one has managed it. Pure domination. Sure it was only grass and clay, but Laver has a ton of other titles on Hard and wood etc.

GOAT season for the greatest to ever play the game of tennis
 
#23 ·
The reason why he managed to win the calender slam is because of the incredibly weak field. Same as why Sampras won so many Grand Slams. Although I have to admit that Sampras's competition was head and shoulders above Laver's.
 
#16 ·
Four majors in a year is still unmatched. It doesn't matter if three of those were played on grass because Laver had no control over that, what counts is that he won them. If, sometime in the future, one of the hardcourt majors was changed to a different surface, do we discount the achievements before the surface change?

As the article says, do you think Federer, Djokovic,, McEnroe, Connors and everyone else on the list would trade their best season for Laver's Calendar Grand Slam season? The answer would be yes.
 
#17 ·
Absolutely, I don't even see why this would be a point of discussion.
The eventual, total achievements/results of any player in a given season is the only objective thing available to designate this, and a complete CYGS season goes above all other achievements. At least imho.
 
#42 ·
:yeah:
 
#22 ·
No doubt. Winning the CYGS makes it the best season ever. I don't care if he lost all the other matches he played.
 
#24 ·
Some people need to get educated about tennis history. Can't compare what happened in Laver's time to the same conditions now.

3 Slams were played on grass, but there were tournaments on wood, clay, hardcourts. The surfaces play the same today besides the different movement. Can't have it both ways discounting Laver, while lauding Federer, Djokovic and Nadal winning 3 Slams a year.
 
#31 ·
This shouldn't even be a question. Ffs he won 18 tournaments that year, on all surfaces. If there'd been slams on hard or indoors he'd have won them as well. He lost 16 matches - so what? He won 120 and he won 18 tournaments including 4 slams.

The results of the poll are an embarrassment to MTF.
 
#34 ·
I answered yes on the poll but this is ridiculous, another excuse of yours to blame Fedtards again for everything. Many people who are watching tennis now probably weren't even born in 1969... heck my mother was 9 years old in 1969 so it is not a question if people were able to watch Laver in his prime because lots of people probably weren't able to.

It's a question of knowing your tennis history, reading up on things, watching old clips on Youtube. Even if people began watching tennis when Sampras entered his prime or during the Borg-McEnroe era, they still wouldn't have witnessed Laver in action. 1969 is too far back to expect everyone here to have watched this.
 
#33 ·
Laver played back when only the biggest of nations even played tennis. I would not really have called tennis a WORLD sport back in 69. But that is my opinion. I just feel that the only people who really played were either English or Australian or American. Again its my opinion... just writing my 2 cents. I did not exist in 69 so I can't really say how the quality of play was. I started watching tennis when Agassi and Sampras started playing.
 
#37 ·
Laver was 31 years old at the time and the amusing thing is, he achieved the calendar slam when he wasn't even at his peak! So in a sense, the year is quite significantly overvalued.

It will always stand on its own, but imo the tour was just too different to really rank it against more modern years.
 
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