Reading the Readers: Sept. 16

To put the final nail in the 2014 U.S. Open's coffin, we go to the mailbag. I'll be out the rest of this week, returning on September 22.

Steve,

Serena is 18-4 in Grand Slam finals; Evert was 18-16, Navratilova was 18-14. Do you think that favors Serena, or the other two, in the GOAT debate?—Caryn

Serena is the best against the best, and on the biggest stages. Get her to the latter stages of a major and she has been virtually impossible to stop. If you’re someone who believes that second place shouldn’t count in these debates, that it’s win-it-all or nothing, Serena clearly has the edge.

But I don’t discount runner-up finishes myself; it’s not the same as winning the title, of course, but it’s not the same as losing in the first round, either. Jack Nicklaus won 18 Grand Slams in golf, but his 19 second-place finishes makes you realize how consistently good he was over the course of his career. The fact that Evert reached 34 Slam finals and Navratilova 32 shows their excellence over the long haul.

As far as the GOAT argument on the women’s side goes, I’ll take Chris and Martina over Serena—for now. Slams wins are the biggest arrows in the all-timer’s quiver, but they aren’t the only ones. Another factor to consider is overall titles, and Serena isn’t going to catch up in that category anytime soon—Navratilova won 167 tournament wins, Evert 157; Williams has 63 so far.

Serena has obviously had a different career and different priorities. The majors are where she has always concentrated her efforts; at the Open this year, she said she would trade her five 2014 titles for the year’s last Slam—she probably would have traded 10 of them. And it doesn’t mean that Serena couldn’t eventually be ranked above Chris and Martina on the list of all-time greats. This question will get more interesting if and when she wins her 19th, 20th, 21st majors. How long can Evert’s and Navratilova’s superior overall statistics trump Serena’s superiority at the most important tournaments? I’ll play that parlor game when we come to it.

Steve,

You keep saying [Marin] Cilic is such a “nice guy.” Shouldn’t you be mentioning that he was suspended for a positive doping test last year?—Dan

Yes, we can't forget or ignore that. Certainly, seeing a guy who has never won a 500-level event, let alone a Masters or a major, suddenly play the best tennis of his life to win nine straight sets for the U.S. Open title, one year after being banned from the same tournament because of a positive drug test, is rightfully going to arouse suspicion. And last year I found it interesting that in 2012 the ITF tested Cilic “4-6” times out of competition; that was more than the 1-3 norm for most top players that year. Were the testing authorities suspicious even before he came up positive?

But before anyone offers an opinion on Cilic’s specific case, I'd recommend reading the summary of his ITF tribunal hearing from last fall—pretend it’s a short story by Kafka and it actually makes for some good, agonizing reading. I came away from it believing that Cilic was guilty of carelessness and bad luck—as well as a tragic reliance on his mother’s language skills—but not of deliberately trying to dope. That’s essentially what Roger Federer said when he was asked about Cilic’s suspension at the Open. He said the Croat was “stupid,” but that he felt like he knew him well enough to believe he wouldn't intentionally cheat.

Steve,

You missed Stan in your U.S. Open grades. What would give him for making the quarterfinals?—Arkush

B-