As Wimbledon is upon us I wanted to create an application that allows us to easily compare the different statistics for the contenders to the GOAT, the Greatest Of All Time in the tennis world.
Incredibly we have 3 contenders to this claim playing.
Roger Federer
Rafael Nadal
Novak Djokovic
Others from the past include
Rod Laver
Ken Rosewall
Jimmy Connors
Pancho Gonzalez
Bjorn Borg
Who would your favourite be?
http://analytics.richardfitzsimons.ie/sample-apps/tennisstats/
Let me know if I have missed anyone. Competions change over time. The Open Era means now that anyone, amateur or professional, can contest all competitions whereas before if a player turned professional they could not play in the Grand Slam tournaments(Australian, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open). There were also different competitions, the Pro Series. Yet remarkably Rod Laver won the yearly Grand Slam twice, before and after turning professional.
In the past the Australian Open was not seen as important as the other slams and was skipped by a lot of players. Now it is definitely considered one of the 4 most important destinations on tour.
Surfaces also change. At one point your surfaces were really clay and grass. Now there also different types of hard courts, as well as variations in clay and grass.
It still seems too early to see who will be the next contender after the current 3 mentioned above. Will Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and the other young contenders step up to the plate or will we have to wait longer for the next great contender?