Does Andy Murray deserve the title as one of tennis’ all-time greats?

One of the greatest of all time?

Before beginning work on this article, I composed a list of my all-time greats in the history of tennis in an attempt to gauge where Murray stands on this elite list. Roger Federer topped the list, followed by the likes Bjon Boerg, Rod Laver, Pete Sampras and Rafael Nadal.  Djokovic came in at number 8, and Murray was placed 14 on my list, so I ask if this is worthy of a mention in topics such as the one we are discussing here? (My full list is at the end of the article)

In order to answer this, we first need to determine what we class as “all-time greats”. It will vary from person to person, but my view is that the top 10 – 15 in history are classed as the all-time greats. For example in football we do not just talk about Pele, Messi, Maradona etc when we talk about the all-time greats of the sport, but instead players like Zinedine Zidane, Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Moore, George Best are often hailed as “all-time greats”. If we follow this logic, then we would have a nice list of about 15 players – past and present – who deserve the title as an “all-time great”, and so I think it is only sensible that we judge tennis in the same way.

Secondly there is the question of how one judges players from different generations, and what bases one forms an opinion on. Is it the number of Grand Slam titles to their name? Is it the amount of wins amassed in their career? Or is it the way they dominated an era?

I will attempt to use all of the following when reaching a judgement as to the extent of Murray’s quality, and determine where he stands in terms of the greatest of all time.