By Raymond Lee | Monday, January 16, 2023

 

How does the iconic Big 4 of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray compare to the initial Big 4? Tennis historian Raymond Lee digs deep to compare.

Photo credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty

Reflecting on the dominance of the iconic Big 4–Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray–compelled me to contemplate this question.

Was there any other period in time in which several players exhibited such preeminence?

More: Djokovic and Nadal in Opposite Halves of AO Draw

What champion has led the ATP point system the most times at the end of the year?

The leader here is Novak Djokovic with seven year-end No. 1 finishes followed by Nadal and Federer with five apiece. Murray did it once.

The pro Tours stripped the 2022 Wimbledon of ranking points in response to Wimbledon’s ba of Russian and Belarusian players. If Wimbledon had allocated its standard ranking points, Djokovic would have earned 2,000 points for winning Wimbledon and been only 180 points behind No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz despite missing the Australian Open, US Open and some Masters events last season.

Clearly, if Djokovic had played a full or even fuller schedule last season, he would have had a shot for the year-end top spot. Yet despite all this Djokovic finished 5th in the world for 2022. It was, despite all this a tremendous year for Novak. Djokovic may not have been No. 1 in 2022 for ATP points but you could easily argue he was the best overall player when he played. That unfortunately was tough for him at times to play in some tournaments due to various reasons.

Another important award is the ITF World Championship for the year. Novak Djokovic leads with 7, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer at 5 with Andy Murray at 1. This is among the Big Four. Pete Sampras is just behind Djokovic at 6 times ITF World Champion for an individual year.

Nadal is the current International Tennis Federation World Champion for 2022 despite trailing Alcaraz in the ATP point totals.

The first year the Big 4 (in this case the eventual Big 4) all played full seasons or near full seasons on the ATP Tour (I’m not counting the years where they played only a few tournaments and were breaking in) was in 2006. Federer was clearly the best player in the world although Nadal was fighting to dethrone him. Federer has a 92-5 won lost record and won three of the four majors, losing only the French Open to Nadal of course. Nadal handed Federer four of his five losses that year. Federer’s only win over Nadal however was a huge one in the final of Wimbledon!

By the way the Federer’s fifth loss in 2006 was to Andy Murray. He was unbeaten against anyone else! That is one of Federer’s greatest strengths and the strengths of most all time legendary champions: the ability to play at a high sustain level which rarely allows upsets.



The next year 2007 Djokovic improved to No. 3 in the world so the top three were in order, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic followed by Murray at No. 11.

The year 2008 was the first year all four Big 4 champions were the top 4 in the world! Nadal finally dethroned Federer for No. 1 so the Top 4 were in order, Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Murray.

In 2009 Federer regained the top spot followed by Nadal, Djokovic and Murray. The next year 2010 it was Nadal at No. 1 followed by Federer, Djokovic and Murray again trailing the Top 3.

So just when it seemed that the top two would always be Nadal and Federer, Djokovic rose to the top in 2011 starting with a 41-match winning streak to begin the season! Djokovic’s improvement on serve was a strong reason for his newfound strength among other things. That year he was No. 1 followed by Nadal, Federer and Murray.

Since 2011 Djokovic has easily had the most outstanding record on the ATP Tour. At one point in October of 2015 Djokovic had more than double the number of points that the No. 2 player, Murray, had. Djokovic had 16785 points to Murray’s 8250 points! That’s 103.45% higher!

At the end of the year Djokovic was over 92.86% higher than the No. 2 player Andy Murray at 16785 to Murray’s 8750 points.

Just going back to 2005 if we look at the majors, the Big 4 have won 58 of the 67 majors played! That means the Big 4 have won about 87% of the majors during that time span. Truly amazing.

The Big 4 have won a total of 116 Masters 1000 tournaments with Djokovic leading the way with 38 followed by Nadal at 36, Federer at 28 and Murray at 14.

The Big 4 have also won 3 Olympic Gold Medals in singles with Andy Murray winning 2 and Nadal winning 1.

In ATP Finals championships, Djokovic and Federer lead at 6 apiece, Murray at 1 and Nadal has never won the ATP’s year-end championship.

In majors Nadal leads at 22, Djokovic chasing him at 21, Federer at 20 and Murray at 3.

In total tournaments won Federer leads with 103, Nadal and Djokovic are even at 92 and Murray owns 46 titles.

I decided to check out the cumulative ATP point totals to see who leads and adjust them in several areas considering the ATP point system was different in the past. I will call it the Adjusted Point Totals.

I’m done my best to hopefully accurately work out the numbers.

The cumulative point totals for each individual as on the end of 2022 is this:

Novak Djokovic at 148,803 ATP points however I will add the 2000 points he would have won in a normal year for winning Wimbledon in 2022 so really for total accomplishments he has 150,803 points

Rafael Nadal at 138,552 points which is officially slightly behind Federer but I will add the 720 points he would have won in a normal year for Wimbledon in 2022 for 139,272 points.

Roger Federer at 138,728 points.

Andy Murray at 72,408 points.

Now the system changed in 2009 and the points awarded from 2009 onward were higher. Federer, if we adjusted for this will almost assuredly be clearly ahead of Djokovic at No. 1.



Although that’s not a given to remain that way if Nadal and Djokovic stay healthy and continue to play. They have an excellent chance to surpass Federer but you never know. In Masters 1000 tournaments and majors they are already way ahead of Federer.

I made the adjustments in trying to convert the old system to the new system. I’m going to call it adjusted points as I wrote earlier. I suspected Federer would be the new leader and he was. The new totals are:

Roger Federer at 173,479 adjusted points lifetime Novak Djokovic at 161,875 adjusted points lifetime Rafael Nadal at 155,803 adjusted points lifetime Andy Murray at 73,647 adjusted points lifetime

The other thing is because of Covid 19 there was a freeze on the rating system for 22 months. Federer and Nadal were the ones who benefited from this freeze the most. Federer was injury all year after the Australian Open in 2020. Under normal circumstances Roger would have only 720 points for the whole year. Instead by the end of the year in 2020 Federer had 6630 points. This is 5910 points more than he should have had. Federer only played 6 matches that year 2020 winning 5 and losing 1 at the Australian Open.

Nadal had 9,850 ATP points at the end of 2020 but for performance purposes he should have had around 3,800 ATP points so that’s a negative of 6,050 ATP points.

Unfortunately, Andy Murray has had major injury problems so the freezing of the rankings only benefits him slightly.

I decided to include the 2022 Wimbledon in this lifetime point system since basically we are analyzing the performances of all these greats.


If you include the 2022 Wimbledon in the point system as it should be to get an honest appraisal of these player’s careers. Djokovic gets 2000 more points for winning Wimbledon in 2022 and Nadal gets 720 more points for making the semifinals. Murray gets a few points more also.

The new totals if we ignore the ranking freeze and add 2022 Wimbledon as if it was a normal year and major to the point total the result is:

Roger Federer at 167,449 adjusted points

Novak Djokovic at 158,295 adjusted points

Rafael Nadal at 150,473 adjusted points

Andy Murray at 73,295 adjusted points

It’s very close for the top three. Again because of COVID, Nadal and Djokovic have not been able to play more tournaments and move closer to Federer’s lead in adjusted points.

Let’s examine this a bit closer. Federer played in his awesome career 367 tournaments and accumulated an adjusted 167,449 points. So simple division means that Federer had average 456.26 points per tournament. Remember that the ATP does take the top 18 tournaments per year, but we are using the same formula for all four to get a general idea of the quality of play.

Djokovic has accumulated 158,295 adjusted points in his career in 280 tournaments. This comes up to 565.34 per tournament!

Nadal is at 150,473 adjusted points in 304 tournaments which comes out to 494.98 per tournament.

Murray is the lowest of the four at 73,295 adjusted points in 278 tournaments for 263.65!



I do see Murray is far behind the top three by the raw numbers, but he clearly belongs. It’s unfortunate that due to injury Andy Murray, who is one of the most gifted players I have seen is not closer to the top.

However, if you examine the Murray record before the injury you find that from 2008 to 2016 he was always near the top and in 2016 reached No. 1 in the world. In that period of 164 tournaments played he accumulated a huge amount of adjusted ATP points. I have Murray at 65,910 adjusted points in 164 tournaments which is a 401.89 average per tournament which is superb, especially considering it was for 9 years. Murray was consistently excellent and sometime great.

Murray also performed a miracle in 2013, winning Wimbledon and ending the drought for British men who have not had a Wimbledon title since Fred Perry in 1936!

So here are the new average points per tournament leaders:

Novak Djokovic at 565.34 adjusted points per tournament

Rafael Nadal at 494.98 adjusted points per tournament

Roger Federer at 456.26 adjusted points per tournament

Andy Murray at 265.08 adjusted points per tournament

Now some Federer fans may argue that these adjusted points per tournament have including the Federer decline the last few years, but Federer has been so consistently great in tournaments that it really doesn’t make a huge difference.

Even in Federer’s last tournament he accumulated 720 points in reaching the semifinal of the Australian. The quality per tournament was always excellent, even in Federer’s decline years. That is a part of Federer’s greatness, the fact that he generally was extremely healthy and kept himself in great shape.

To get a clearer idea of the numbers Roger Federer had 151,454 adjusted points at age 36 which is the age Nadal is currently. Djokovic will be 36 later this year 2023. Roger Federer’s 151,454 adjusted point total is behind Djokovic’s current total of 158,295 adjusted points. He is slightly ahead of Nadal who has a current adjusted point total of 150,473.

The Djokovic number of adjusted points per tournament of 565.34 is mind boggling! It is amazing that he is some distance in adjusted points per tournament ahead of even super greats the level of Nadal and Federer! Djokovic’s unbelievable greatness in almost every tournament is very rarely matched in sports history!

I have written that I did not believe any foursome in tennis history have dominated tennis to the degree the Big 4 have over the last decade plus. It did occur to me that I was perhaps looking at it the wrong way!

The parameters for tennis greatness over the last number of years seems to be only the number of classic majors won. The problem is that in many years, especially in the early Open Era there were big money tournaments that may have surpassed the majors in prestige. And of course, while most of the majors were still held in high esteem players did not necessarily have to attend them as they do now.

For example, many players skipped the Australian Open for various reasons for many years until the early 1980s. Some players were not allowed to play the French Open because they were playing World Team Tennis.

Also by only including the majors in the calculation you are NOT getting the full view of the greatness or perhaps non-greatness of the player. Most of the tournaments in tennis aren’t majors and you have to look at everything! It’s like buying a house and just looking at the outside but not the inside. You don’t get the full picture.

It is however an easy way to gauge greatness for some. I don’t believe it’s close to be thorough enough.

There were a few tournaments that were of higher prestige or at least at the same level as the old classic majors. Tournaments like the WCT Finals were immensely important in the early 1970s to a number of years later. If memory serves John Newcombe said his goal for 1974 was to win the WCT Championship and Wimbledon. I’m not sure which one was his first priority. Arthur Ashe was voted the number one player in 1975 due to his winning the WCT Finals that year and Wimbledon. So basically, Ashe won two majors that year in the WCT Finals and Wimbledon.

So, in answer to the question whether any past Big Four comes close to matching Djokovic, Nadal, Federer and Murray my best guess would be the foursome of Borg, Connors, McEnroe and Vilas from 1976 to 1980.

McEnroe was also a huge factor starting in 1978 with a little preview of his greatness in 1977 at Wimbledon but McEnroe was not a full-time player for couple of those years.

Borg during that time period won 5 Wimbledons, 4 French Opens, 1 WCT Championship and two End of Year Championships. Borg had to miss the 1977 French Open because he played World Team Tennis and was not allowed to play the French, otherwise I would tend to think there was a high probability he would have won it.

Connors was No. 1 in 1976. He was clearly the best player in tennis in the period from 1974 to 1976. Borg was great of course but in observing the two playing at that point it seemed Borg had trouble adjusting to Connors’ powerful flat groundstrokes, even on slower surfaces like Har Tru which they had at the US Open for a few years. Of course, everyone had that problem against Connors. That’s one of the many reasons Jimmy Connors was great.

From 1976 to 1980 Connors was in the finals of the five majors out of six that he entered. He won two of the five finals, beating Borg in 1976 and 1978 in the US Open. He lost to Borg at Wimbledon in the finals in 1977 and 1978 and he lost to Borg in the semifinal in 1979. At Wimbledon in 1976 he lost to Roscoe Tanner in the quarter-finals when Tanner served brilliantly. When Tanner serves well, especially on grass he was capable of beating anyone in history.

Connors or Borg probably would have won more majors if they had entered the Australian Open during this time period.

In this same period Connors won the WCT Championship twice in 1977 and 1980 plus the Grand Prix Championship in 1977. The Grand Prix Championship is the World Tour Finals of today.

Record keeping is not exactly the greatest for this period and there is conflicting information but best as I can tell Connors won an amazing 49 tournaments in these 5 years, almost 10 a year. I believe about 18 of those tournaments were approximately equivalent to Masters 1000 tournaments of today.

The third player I’m putting there may be a surprise, it’s Guillermo Vilas who was always a great player but often was overshadowed by players like Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Wilander and Lendl.

However, McEnroe and Lendl were not factors in the early years of Connors and Borg’s prime so I decided on Vilas as the third player out of the past Big 4.

John McEnroe who is the fourth player in this past Big 4 only played in the years 1978 to 1980 won 35 tournaments during this period including 2 US Opens, 1 WCT Championship, 1 Year End Championship and 5 essentially Masters 1000 level tournaments. It is an astounding record considering that he just started and only played 3 years!

Guillermo Vilas the Poet

Vilas in some ways was a major television star on Public Broadcasting in the United States. It seemed that in 1974 Vilas was always playing a match on the weekends against players like Solomon, Dibbs, Nastase, Raul Ramirez etc. The broadcast had the Great Bud Collins and Donald Dell and it usually lasted for around five hours including doubles. Vilas because of this become super popular in the United States because he often seemed to dominate the Summer Clay Court circuit.

In some ways I would compare Vilas to an older version of Nadal but with a one handed backhand. Perhaps a Vilas fan would say Nadal was a younger version of Vilas. Both had heavy topspin on both sides, and both were immensely strong. I got the feel that Vilas would win the World Arm Wrestling championship if given time to practice. Vilas’ backhand was a great shot. Bud Collins compared it to Laver’s and that is perhaps the ultimate compliment for one handed backhands. Vilas’ topspin forehand had very heavy topspin and was an excellent shot although it was not quite as versatile as his backhand.

Vilas was quick, had great stamina although not quite as great as Borg’s, good volley and a great overhead. Like Laver he could flick shots off his backhand for winners.

Vilas in the years from 1976 to 1980 won about 37 tournaments including 2 majors in 1977 in the French Open and the US Open over Jimmy Connors. Vilas’ year in 1977 is comparable to virtually any great year in history. He won, according to the great book “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” 17 tournaments with a 145-14 record and a 50-match win streak although the ATP recognizes only 46. So, in this period Vilas won 4 majors, which are 2 Australian Opens, 1 French Open and 1 US Open.

Bjorn Borg The Iceman

Borg from 1976 to 1980 had arguably the greatest peak in tennis history, especially in 1978 and 1979. Borg had some injuries in 1980 that imo caused some decline although he had super results.

Borg won an amazing 76 tournaments in this 5-year span including winning 21 tournaments out of 28 in 1979. In these 5 years Borg as I wrote earlier won 5 straight Wimbledons, 4 French Opens, 1 WCT Championship and 2 Year End Championships plus about 11 tournaments that were Masters 1000 level equivalent.

If Borg just played one year, let’s say 1979 you could argue he would already deserve to be in the Tennis Hall of Fame. Some players have gone to the Tennis Hall of Fame winning fewer tournaments in their career and equivalent number of majors won. The 11 Masters 1000 tournaments that Borg won is very impressive considering the players did not have to enter the tournaments in those days. Borg only entered 19 of these tournaments, winning 11 of them.

The Fallacy of Borg and the US Open

People have given reasons why Borg didn’t win the US Open. The fact is we ignore an obvious reason, simple bad luck and bad timing. Martina Navratilova didn’t win a US Open for a while due to some bad luck but eventually she won several US Opens. I do believe that if Borg continued to play he would have broken through at the US Open.

When the US Open was in Forest Hills, NY and was on grass, Borg, while excellent on grass simply wasn’t as good as the top players on grass like Newcombe and Connors. If the tournament had stayed on grass Borg, assuming the same improvement in tennis strength probably would have won several US Opens.

Then in 1975 the tournament switched to Har Tru, which is a faster clay. During those years Borg was superb on Har Tru but Jimmy Connors, with his flat power and consistency was just plain better imo. Frankly Connors was imo better than any player in the world at that time. I watch Borg play Connors in 1975 and 1976 on Har Tru. Jimmy Connors was clearly superior in 1975, winning the US Open semi in 3 close sets 7-5 7-5 7-5 and fractionally better in 1976 in the US Open final with Connors winning a close four set match.

I believe Borg made the leap in 1977 to become the best player in the world on all surfaces, including Har Tru but he had I believe a muscle injury below his right shoulder in 1977 and defaulted to Dick Stockton. Borg had suffered the injury just before the US Open started.

Borg that year was the top seed at the 1977 US Open and deservedly so. He was dominant on all surfaces that year winning 13 of 20 tournaments including Wimbledon over Jimmy Connors. Later imo Borg would improve even more so if the tournament had stayed on Har Tru imo it would had been like the French Open and by that I mean it would be in a way Borg’s private tournament to win.

Here’s a sample of how Borg played on the same surface against Jimmy Connors at the 1979 Pepsi (another prestigious tournament in those days) who I think played quite well but lost in straight sets. The rallies were fantastic but Borg, with his great speed, spin, consistency and power was built for that type of surface.



You must also consider that often these players were playing only two classical majors a year. They probably would have added to their classic majors total if they played all 4 majors a year like most of the top players do today.

So combined these 4 greats won about 194 tournaments, 15 classic majors, 4 essentially majors during that time in the WCT Championship over this short 5-year time span. They also won 4 Year End Championships. Orantes won the Year End Championship in 1976 when Vilas was the only one of the 3 that were playing the tour lost to Fibak in the semifinal.

Is it dominance on the level of the Big 4 today? In some ways yes. Certainly, in winning percentage all of them compare with the recent Big 4. Connors and Borg surpassed 90% in some years. Vilas was an unbelievable 145-14 in 1977. According to the Bud Collins History of Tennis Vilas won 80 of 81 matches the last half of 1977 including winning 13 of 14 tournaments!


John McEnroe the Natural

During these five years all of them except for McEnroe had arguments for number 1 during the period of 1976 to 1980. McEnroe would be No. 1 numerous times in later years. No one else outside of these four could be considered for the top spot in this time period. Some have said that they thought McEnroe’s play in 1979 was superior to that of his great year of 1984. I really don’t believe that, but it does indicate how great John McEnroe’s play was at that time.

McEnroe only played full time in the years 1978 to 1980 for the 5-year period from 1976 to 1980 we are looking at for past Big Four dominance. McEnroe won 35 tournaments during this period including 2 US Opens, 1 WCT Championship, 1 Year End Championship and 5 essentially Masters 1000 tournaments. It is an astounding record considering that he just started and only played 3 years.

John McEnroe is a player I feel have been severely underrated over the years. Most tend to only look at the classic majors. McEnroe of course has done extremely well in the classic majors winning 7. But he also won 3 Year End Championships, was No. 1 four years in a row and also won 5 WCT Championships! You add in his great Davis Cup accomplishments and that’s a career that is unbelievably great.

Just one note about McEnroe, everyone raves about his great serve and volley game and rightfully so. However, what is forgotten was his great return during his best years. He could take the ball so early, return serve and approach the net seemingly in a microsecond if he wanted to. And at the net sometimes it seemed that he couldn’t be passed.

John McEnroe’s best year was in 1984 he was 82-3, won 13 of 15 tournaments including Wimbledon and the US Open. McEnroe won Wimbledon easily over Jimmy Connors in a match some have called the highest level anyone has ever reached. I wouldn’t rule that out, but I do think there can be arguments for other players reaching levels perhaps that high like Laver or Hoad. Jimmy Connors, himself has had matches in which people looked at him in awe. His matches against Ken Rosewall at Wimbledon and the US Open were awesome. People couldn’t believe how well Connors played at Wimbledon in the semi in 1975 against Roscoe Tanner. The experts compared his play in the 1975 Wimbledon semi to Ellsworth Vines at his best which is the highest praise because historically Vines at his best was considered to be unbeatable by many. Knowing Connors was hurts before playing that match makes it more incredible.

Here's John McEnroe playing Jimmy Connors in the 1984 Wimbledon final. If memory serves McEnroe made only two unforced errors that day.



Jimmy Connors Genius Ball Striker

I also feel the same about Jimmy Connors. Connors’ consistency was superhuman. He never seemed to play badly, and he hit the ball as solidly as anyone that ever lived. It seemed almost a guarantee that Connors would be at worst in the semi-final of any tournament he played in during his best years and even in his decline period.

Connors of course is the “official” ATP record holder for most tournaments won at 109. However, record keeping in tennis can be pretty shoddy imo. Some sources have Connors winning around 150 tournaments.

Laver is clearly the all-time leader with over 200 tournaments won. Of course, Laver played many years prior to there being an ATP.

Connors was a lot more versatile than people give him credit. He didn’t have the overpowering serve of a John Newcombe but it was a very high percentage nicely spun serve. Connors rarely double faulted and he held serve a high percentage of the time. He could up the power on his serve if he had too. If I recall I saw him ace Ivan Lendl I believe 3 times in a row once! He could drop shot, lob well and mix up spins and pace. And he had that awesome two handed backhand, possibly the greatest backhand in the history of tennis.

Let’s not forget his great return which could tear apart net rushers. Many have called Agassi’s return superior to Connors. Unfortunately, we don’t have stats for the Connors return at his peak but from observation alone I believe because of his greater quickness over Agassi I think Connors returned a greater percentage of serves than Agassi did! I felt he drove first serves back better than Agassi. A good example was his returns against Tanner at the 1975 Wimbledon semifinal. Because of the greater Connors quickness, I felt he could win more points from defensive positions than Agassi allowing Connors to break serve more often.

In a way Connors was sort of a classic player but with a lefty two handed backhand. That backhand is as I wrote earlier one of the greatest all-time shots in tennis history. The forehand was excellent and his approach shots were super.

The Incorrect Narrative of the 1975 Wimbledon

The general feeling and narrative by many in the media was that Arthur Ashe used junk to win the 1975 Wimbledon and it was that brilliant strategy that allowed him to beat the seemingly unbeatable Jimmy Connors. The narrative did make sense except that what was little known was that Jimmy Connors suffered a bad injury.

I always thought that the strategy Arthur Ashe used to play Connors in the 1975 Wimbledon final had given too much credit. Yes, it seems like a great strategy and Ashe did play well that day. The problem is that Connors suffered a bad injury in the first-round match at the 1975 Wimbledon. Yet he still reached the final despite that. Connors had a knee injury and hairline shin fractures that only got worse as he continued to play in the tournament. This is according to Jimmy Connors’ superb book “The Outsider, a Memoir.” The injury apparently got worse as the tournament progressed. While we never will know whether Ashe would have won the 1975 Wimbledon title if Connors was at 100%, I will write that if Connors was healthy, I would have thought Connors would have won despite Ashe’s new strategy.

Here's a sample of Connors’ at his best at the 1974 US Open on grass against the great Ken Rosewall.



Conclusion

It’s truly stunning to see the statistics of the Big 4 of recent years. Just when it looked like Nadal and Federer would win every tournament all of the sudden the gifted Djokovic enters the picture and Andy Murray shortly thereafter.

What is also great about this Djokovic dominance is that he was doing it with Federer, Nadal and Murray at their top physical levels. Federer was 29 when the year started in 2011 when Djokovic started the season with a long winning streak.

And somehow the gifted Andy Murray interrupted the Novak Djokovic dominance and become No. 1 in 2016.

If the past Big 4 of Borg, Connors, McEnroe and Vilas played by today’s rules they probably would have played fewer matches but perhaps would have even had higher overall winning percentages. After all if you play too much there has to be more injuries due to wear and tear and fatigue.

Vilas for example played 159 matches in 1977. That is an incredible number of matches played. Now Vilas was a physical specimen, but it is nevertheless a shocking number of matches to play.

McEnroe played 109 matches in 1979 but he also had a full schedule of doubles. That is a huge schedule.

Federer in his most active year played 97 matches in 2006, same amount for Djokovic in 2009. Nadal played 93 matches in 2008 and Murray 87 in 2016, the year he finished number 1. So they didn’t play nearly the amount of matches in 1 year as the past Big Four of Connors, Borg, Vilas and McEnroe.

So the past Big 4 from 1976 to 1980 won 5 Wimbledons, 4 French Opens, 2 Australian Opens, 5 US Opens, 4 WCT Finals, 4 End of Year Championships aka World Tour Finals nowadays. Connors or Borg were No. 1 in all those years. This past Big 4 won just about every title.

I guess partly due to the better organization of the ATP in having players go to the majors and to Masters 1000 tournaments I would say that the Big Four of Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Murray have a superior record to the Big Four of the past in Borg, Connors, McEnroe and Vilas. I give huge credit to the fact that they all dominated for a longer period of time. Also it was incredible how often a good number of the current Big 4 were at least into the semifinals of every big tournament.

Overall, it is very clear that the current Big 4 of Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Murray are the most dominant foursome in the Open Era but the past Big 4 was about as dominant for a short period. Nadal and Djokovic will probably be adding to their super records in the future.

Raymond Lee is a Tennis Now contributing writer and tennis historian who lives in New York. He has written about tennis for decades serving as a contributing writer for Tennis Week Magazine and TennisWeek.com. Check out Raymond Lee's Articles: Cheers & Tears: Reviewing an Emotional 2022 Season and  Holy Grail: Why Winning the Calendar Grand Slam is Toughest Task in Sport.