re: Is Novak Djokovic's 2015 the Best Season Ever?

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17 titles and 16 losses meant Laver played in 33 tournaments in 1969. That is impressive in its own right given he won all 4 majors, which represented at least 2 weeks each.

Other things to consider are that Laver also played men's doubles that year, and the tie-breaker was not adopted until 1970. The man played a lot of tennis in 1969.

Laver did not get to play in the majors from 1963-1967 because he was a professional, and the majors were amateur tournaments. That means Laver did not get to play any majors from age 23 to 28.

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The flipside of that argument is that there were only 8 "open" tournaments that year, which can lead one to reasonably speculate about the level of competition in the rest of the events. They may have been more akin to what we would refer to today as an 'exhibition'. That's basically what pro tennis was (a series of traveling exhibitions ) before the Open Era, and really a few years into the open era. Before even 1974, tennis was still kind of a wild west free for all.*

None of the above is meant to disparage Laver. I think it's safe to say that he was the best player in the world for at least the period between between 1964 and 1969, which is nothing to sniff at. He's clearly an all-time great, but it's just difficult to make apples to apples comparisons between him and guys in the Open era.


*This book here probably has excellent info on all that stuff, but I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to reading that monstrosity: LINK