Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
I won't go so far as to say that Rod Laver is off the radar when it comes to athletes whose reputations have long outlived their careers, but it's remarkable how often his name is tossed into the "Greatest of all time" debate almost as an afterthought:
Oh, yeah, Rod Laver is in that discussion, too. The guy completed two calendar Grand Slams, you've got to give him credit for that …Give him credit? Shoot, the only real issue is whether the GOAT argument is a debate at all, given that posting those two Slams puts Laver in a league of his own. Pete Sampras' 14 major singles titles is an astonishing record, given the era in which he played. Laver would be the first to admit that the game has improved, generation after generation. Roger Federer's 12-and-still-counting major title count, highlighted by those four back-to-back wins at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, puts him in Sampras' league.
But let's get real. The calendar Grand Slam is one of a handful of ultimate achievements in any sport because anybody can do it -- and everybody, theoretically, tries to do it -- planning their entire schedule around the four majors. This isn't one of those impressive, unprecedented, but somewhat oddball feats like Bjorn Borg winning Wimbledon and Roland Garros back to back to back. Yet only two men have taken the biggest, most obvious prize of them all: Don Budge in 1938 and Laver, who accomplished this feat twice ('62 and '69). The only other sport with an accomplishment that has a comparable degree-of-difficulty is golf (Bobby Jones' 1930 Grand Slam is still the only one, although the lineup of the four majors that make up the golf slam has been changed).
Critics will say that the Grand Slam in tennis was an easier feat back when three of the four Grand Slams were on grass. But when you look at how the French Open has flummoxed Sampras as well as Federer (so far), you have to ask: Wouldn't playing so much on grass (unlike Federer and Sampras) have made it that much more difficult for an attacking player like Laver to win on clay?
Others who downplay Laver's achievement will contend the level of competition was that much lower in his era (roughly, the 1960s). But that means unless the game collapses, the next GOAT-grade player will by definition relegate his predecessors to the same ash heap that Laver has -- in theory -- been cast upon by Sampras and Federer. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
And what does it mean that Federer emerged as a threat to Sampras' station just a few years after Sampras retired? Is it coincidence, or is it possible that despite the deeper field, it's easier for the very top players today to squeeze every ounce of potential out of their careers? There are an awful lot of recently retired players running around with six, seven or eight majors, which is a powerful repudiation of the prediction that the Open era will make it impossible for anyone to dominate tennis. If the fields are so deep, why haven't the past 35 slams been won by 25 different guys?
The clincher is that in 1969, Laver demolished the most credible of all criticisms and set the bar for all future players when he completed the only Open-era Grand Slam. It would be the clear and ultimate standard of greatness, but for one thing: it's a single-year accomplishment. But the fact that Laver had already completed a Slam seven years earlier takes the bite out of even that one, doesn't it?
Peter Bodo
