5 greatest men's tennis players of all time
Tennis is one of the most popular games in the world and has been graced by many great players over the decades. The sport can be very demanding at the highest level as it tests both the physical stamina and the mental focus of a player. Whether one is trying to return a 200 kmph serve, attempting to get to a ball at the baseline, or surging towards the net, one needs to be supremely fit and agile.
At the same time, it is a surface-oriented game and the playing conditions can vary a lot. A tennis match can be played on a slow clay court, a much faster grass court or a more neutral hard court, and the requisite skill-sets also keep changing according to the playing surface.
Over the decades, Tennis has been graced by some great champions who have enthralled us with their performances. The game has undergone a lot of evolution too as the wooden racquets have been replaced by the graphite ones and players have got fitter and stronger.
Therefore, it is not easy to select top 5 players in the history of tennis. However, we have finalized an all-time list on the basis of their overall career records, performances at Grand Slams and completeness of their game.
5. Bjorn Borg (Sweden)
The Swedish champion remains the only player to have shown unrivaled supremacy in both the French Open and the Wimbledon. Borg had won 6 consecutive French Open titles and 5 consecutive Wimbledon titles before retiring at the age of only 27. He had made it to a 6th consecutive Wimbledon final in 1981 but lost to John McEnroe. He retired soon after that, maybe because he had already achieved everything by then.
Besides McEnroe, Borg enjoyed great rivalries against the likes of Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and Ilie Nastase but remained the pick of the lot by some distance. He was a baseliner who used to commit very few errors and wear his opponents down with his clinical efficiency. Borg won 11 Grand Slams and 64 career singles titles. He was known as “the Iceman” because of his ice-cool and seemingly unaffected demeanor.