On 6/12/2026 2:46 AM, *skriptis wrote:

Of "best player never to have won a slam", assuming it was his to begin with.

Of course, you can pick anything you want so it's not really objective, but let's say we do 8, 4, 2, 1 for a title, final, semi, quarter then it's:

26 Tony Roche 0%
26 Tom ? Berdych 0%
25 Juan Carlos Ferrero 32%
25 Roscoe Tanner 32%
25 David Ferrer 0%
24 Pat Cash 33%
23 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 0%
22 Sergi Bruguera 73%
21 Manuel Orantes 38%
20 Todd Martin 0%

Again Roche, but once he's filtered out, we see it's Berdych, with 26 pts under this scheme (8,4,2,1).

Of course, Gaudio is the "worst slam winner regardless, he's on mere 8 pts for his sole title run, compare that to Berdych's 26 pts.

Percentages represent pts that come from titles. E.g. Bruguera 2 slam titles (16 pts) and 22 in total so 16/22=0.73

So Ruud or Berdych.

But considering Rios was number 1, made slam final and has won ATP1000s, he could also be a logical pick.

Off the top of my head, I would say Berdych ? his nerves blew a *lot* of
great opportunities.

Shocked Tsonga is that high.
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On 6/12/26 12:46 AM, *skriptis wrote:

Of "best player never to have won a slam", assuming it was his to begin with.

So who got "the title back" now that Zverev isn't the guy anymore?

I know this is something sawfish doesn't particularly enjoy, it's kinda statistical, but these kinds of discussion set the boundaries.

I see couple of routes to discuss this.

First of all, sympathy.

People feel it towards players who came up short multiple times, who lost many slam finals, possibly even in a heartbreaking manner.

It's those guys that stick out.

A hypothetical player dominating the tour, winning lots of ATP1000s or even being ranked highly, possibly even number 1, won't incite strong feelings among fans when it comes to slam failure if his failures are quite apparent, say never going past QF.

In that sense all of the success he achieved outside of slams would kinda be irrelevant.

That's why many consider Rios more of a trivia (reaching #1 but not winning slams) than a truly best player never not to have won a slam.

I'm not saying it's the correct view, perhaps he is actually the best, but I'm saying he's not seen as such as I think fans prefer the "tragic element" of losing many slam finals and overall coming up short yet being always there in latter stages of slams.

So if it's all about the slams, then there's only one dilemma, similar to the Olympic medal table dilemma.

Do we count in strict order, gold, silver, bronze, or do we make up some sort of weighting scheme to account for e.g. weight of 10 silver medals vs 1 gold?

In strict order, at least for open era, I will list guys with multiple finals lost:

Gast¢n Gaudio 1010101
Tony Roche 30812
Casper Ruud 30404
Todd Martin 20610
Stefanos Tsitsipas 20608
C‚dric Pioline 20408
Miloslav Me?¡? 20407
?lex Corretja 20306
Kevin Curren 20304
Robin S”derling 20206
Mark Philippoussis 20205
Kevin Anderson 20203
Steve Denton 20202

I included lowest ranked slam winner under this criteria, to get a sense on numbers with titles, finals (not runner ups), semis , quarters and it's Gaudio as the "worst slam champion ever". Some could troll and claim he's the best for excellent conversion rate.

Anyway, Roche actually won a slam in amateurs so he's out, and so it's Casper Ruud, 0 titles, 3 finals, 4 semis and 4 quarters.

3 finals seems a lot, but he actually made slam QF only 4 times, that's actually surprising and quite weak.

Compare to Zverev
Alexander Zverev 1041117

Even without this FO, Zverev had been in 16 QFs to Ruud's 4.

So you wonder if a weighting scheme is necessary?

Of course, you can pick anything you want so it's not really objective, but let's say we do 8, 4, 2, 1 for a title, final, semi, quarter then it's:

26 Tony Roche 0%
26 Tom ? Berdych 0%
25 Juan Carlos Ferrero 32%
25 Roscoe Tanner 32%
25 David Ferrer 0%
24 Pat Cash 33%
23 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 0%
22 Sergi Bruguera 73%
21 Manuel Orantes 38%
20 Todd Martin 0%

Again Roche, but once he's filtered out, we see it's Berdych, with 26 pts under this scheme (8,4,2,1).

Of course, Gaudio is the "worst slam winner regardless, he's on mere 8 pts for his sole title run, compare that to Berdych's 26 pts.

Percentages represent pts that come from titles. E.g. Bruguera 2 slam titles (16 pts) and 22 in total so 16/22=0.73

So Ruud or Berdych.

But considering Rios was number 1, made slam final and has won ATP1000s, he could also be a logical pick.

He could, but Rios came off as such a joyless asshole that it made
people *happy* to see him fail to get a major.







--
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A mathematician dies in an air crash. What are his final words?

?Statistically, this shouldn?t be happening.?

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--- PyGate Linux v1.5.16
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 12/06/2026 5:46 pm, *skriptis wrote:

Of "best player never to have won a slam", assuming it was his to begin with.

So who got "the title back" now that Zverev isn't the guy anymore?

I know this is something sawfish doesn't particularly enjoy, it's kinda statistical, but these kinds of discussion set the boundaries.

I see couple of routes to discuss this.

First of all, sympathy.

People feel it towards players who came up short multiple times, who lost many slam finals, possibly even in a heartbreaking manner.

It's those guys that stick out.

A hypothetical player dominating the tour, winning lots of ATP1000s or even being ranked highly, possibly even number 1, won't incite strong feelings among fans when it comes to slam failure if his failures are quite apparent, say never going past QF.

In that sense all of the success he achieved outside of slams would kinda be irrelevant.

That's why many consider Rios more of a trivia (reaching #1 but not winning slams) than a truly best player never not to have won a slam.

I'm not saying it's the correct view, perhaps he is actually the best, but I'm saying he's not seen as such as I think fans prefer the "tragic element" of losing many slam finals and overall coming up short yet being always there in latter stages of slams.

So if it's all about the slams, then there's only one dilemma, similar to the Olympic medal table dilemma.

Do we count in strict order, gold, silver, bronze, or do we make up some sort of weighting scheme to account for e.g. weight of 10 silver medals vs 1 gold?

In strict order, at least for open era, I will list guys with multiple finals lost:

Gast¢n Gaudio 1010101
Tony Roche 30812
Casper Ruud 30404
Todd Martin 20610
Stefanos Tsitsipas 20608
C‚dric Pioline 20408
Miloslav Me?¡? 20407
?lex Corretja 20306
Kevin Curren 20304
Robin S”derling 20206
Mark Philippoussis 20205
Kevin Anderson 20203
Steve Denton 20202

I included lowest ranked slam winner under this criteria, to get a sense on numbers with titles, finals (not runner ups), semis , quarters and it's Gaudio as the "worst slam champion ever". Some could troll and claim he's the best for excellent conversion rate.

Anyway, Roche actually won a slam in amateurs so he's out, and so it's Casper Ruud, 0 titles, 3 finals, 4 semis and 4 quarters.

3 finals seems a lot, but he actually made slam QF only 4 times, that's actually surprising and quite weak.

Compare to Zverev
Alexander Zverev 1041117

Even without this FO, Zverev had been in 16 QFs to Ruud's 4.

So you wonder if a weighting scheme is necessary?

Of course, you can pick anything you want so it's not really objective, but let's say we do 8, 4, 2, 1 for a title, final, semi, quarter then it's:

26 Tony Roche 0%
26 Tom ? Berdych 0%
25 Juan Carlos Ferrero 32%
25 Roscoe Tanner 32%
25 David Ferrer 0%
24 Pat Cash 33%
23 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 0%
22 Sergi Bruguera 73%
21 Manuel Orantes 38%
20 Todd Martin 0%

Again Roche, but once he's filtered out, we see it's Berdych, with 26 pts under this scheme (8,4,2,1).

Of course, Gaudio is the "worst slam winner regardless, he's on mere 8 pts for his sole title run, compare that to Berdych's 26 pts.

Percentages represent pts that come from titles. E.g. Bruguera 2 slam titles (16 pts) and 22 in total so 16/22=0.73

So Ruud or Berdych.

But considering Rios was number 1, made slam final and has won ATP1000s, he could also be a logical pick.

I'd exclude Roche as he won a slam and made 6 finals, like Medvedev. In
open era he lost 2 slam finals to Laver and 1 to Rosewall. That's as
hard as it gets. He also is arguably the best volleyer of all time.

From the others my gut feeling is Mecir and Tsitsipas are the best to
not win a slam, in terms of talented players. Mecir absolutely slayed
all the Swedes for a few years there, pity he fucked his back. He lost
2 slam finals to Lendl. Tsitsipas led Novak 76 62 in FO final and fell
away. Also lost AO final to him. If I had to pick 1 guy for the title
it would be Mecir. Yes Ruud made 3 slam finals, but as you said he only
had about 4 good slam results overall. Plus he was well beaten in those finals. Mecir is the guy who could beat anyone at his best, not sure I
can say the same about Ruud and the rest?





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