Quote:
Originally posted by Kworb
Who else could it be? Court who won half of her Slams by beating 32 player draws with no other top 10 players present? Evert or Navratilova whose only competition was each other? Graf whose Slam total was extremely inflated due to the Seles stabbing?
No, Serena is the only one who can be called the GOAT.
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Graf, Navratilova and Evert are all ahead of Serena.
Graf won 22 slam titles including
at least 4 times in all four of the slams. She was winning slams right from the end of the Nav/Evert era, through the Seles period (and btw, although I agree her slam total would be a bit lower if Seles hadn't been stabbed, we can only go on what actually happened - we can't just take those slams away from Graf, after all she could only beat what was put in front of her), and into the Hingis/Venus/Davenport era.
Evert and Navratilova might have "only" had each other as competition - but that's the same thing as saying that Federer and Nadal "only" had each other as competition for many years. If you manage to win 18 slams when competing year in, year out, against another phenomenal player who is nabbing many of the titles off you, that's a phenomenal achievement.
Serena has won an impressive 14 slams but she's always taking breaks away from tennis due to injury, personal issues and generally not being devoted to the sport full-time. Plus - let's face facts - she has
not been playing in a strong era, especially in this latter part of her career when Hingis/Henin/Capriati etc. have retired, Sharapova is inconsistent and Venus/Clijsters are non-factors near the end of their career.
