The game now is different to the game as it was back then, but that doesn't make it better or worse. In fifty years, there may be an great clay court player, but whilst he may not be considered the greatest on the surface until he wins nine or more RGs, it would be unwise to think that this hypothetical clay player's level would be only on par or worse than Rafa's was at his peak. He as a player and his achievements are timeless, but his absolute level and skills are not. The reason why many of us put Laver as GOAT is because he was so much greater than the competition of his era.

So in that sense, players of the past aren't 'better' than players of today. But as far as absolute comparisons go, ie not adjusting for changes in the game, as great as Laver was, if you brought him to this current era he would get steamrolled by just about anyone. In that case, I am inclined to agree, because the gulf between the top players and the rest of the field is just too large.

Your argument that players were better in the past is patently false, unless by that you mean that the competition between the players were stronger back then than they are now. That said, with that Twitter trash talking nincompoop elected, we'll see how things go down. I won't go into the economy because I can't talk about it whilst being apolitical, so let's just say that the issues we have now didn't exactly just start with Dubya, and it certainly didn't appear out of thin air under Obama either. You also forget that so many modern classics and sequels to old school classics have been released over the last 15 years, and that some of them are so good that they are even considered works of art-Half-Life 2 (2004), The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006), Bioshock (2007), Crysis (2007), Mass Effect (2007), Uncharted (2007), The Witcher (2007), Left 4 Dead (2008), Dragon Age (2009), Fallout: New Vegas (2010), Metro 2033 (2010), Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011), XCOM (2012), The Last of Us (2013), Doom (2016). But you forget that the only game that was bad enough to crash the industry came out in 1982. Everyone remembers Doom, Quake, Half-Life, and Fallout and pines about how games were all so much better in the 80s and 90s. As an avid gamer, gaming has certainly gotten better overall, so I would have to disagree with you.

People look back at the fifties culture fondly but forget about the social issues that we would consider as abhorrent now. The past seems so great because no-one remembers the forgettable bad things of the past.

Top spin 4 pc