3. From the summer of 1977 through the fall of 1979, Vitas Gerulaitis reached at least the semifinals in six of the eight Grand Slam events he played, winning once. In 1979 that run was endangered in Queens, when he dropped the first two sets against Tanner and was broken to start the third. But Gerulaitis rallied to win that set and the following two, stunning Tanner. In the finals, he fell short against McEnroe, who won his first of three straight U.S. Open crowns. Gerulaitis enjoyed a final flash of greatness in 1981, reaching the semifinals where he lost to McEnroe yet again.

4. Jan Kodes did not win nearly as many matches or titles as Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Goran Ivanisevic or Thomas Muster, but he makes this list for two reasons: he captured three Grand Slam singles titles versus two for Kafelnikov and one each for the other two, and he outperformed them in New York City — Muster never reached the semifinals and Ivanisevic did just once and Kafelnikov twice. In 1971, Kodes beat both the top-seed John Newcombe and the third-seed Arthur Ashe before losing to Stan Smith in the finals. In the 1973 finals, he pushed Newcombe to five sets, coming within one set of being disqualified from this list.

Women

1. Evonne Goolagong Cawley is nearly Borg’s equal on the women’s side: She captured 68 Open era titles (sixth most) and reached 18 Grand Slam finals (fifth most), winning seven of them. But in New York she always fell just short. Starting in 1973, she reached four straight finals, losing in three sets each time to Margaret Court, Billie Jean King and Chris Evert before breaking the pattern in 1976 by falling to Evert in straight sets.