By Bob Markus

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the prettiest one of all. First it was the Wicked Queen, then it was Snow White. But who knows which celebrated beauty came after that. Snow White, after all, must be a little long in the tooth by now. Is she still lovelier than Jean Harlow? Brigitte Bardot? Marilyn Monroe? Elizabeth Taylor? Bo Derek? We know the magic mirror was inclined to be fickle, apparently giving its blessing to every rosy-cheeked ingenue who came along.

In the immediate aftermath of Roger Federer's French Open championship Sunday, there were those who would swear they saw the young swiss star's face in the magic mirror. Roger Federer, they said, was the greatest tennis player of them all, having tied Pete Sampras' record of 14 Grand Slam titles and claiming, at long last, the career Slam.

But when I look into the magic mirror, the reflection is fuzzy. Is that the face of Rod Laver I see? The left-handed Aussie, nicknamed The Rocket, after all won all four Grand Slam events--the Australian, French, Wimbledon, and U.S. Opens--in the same year twice, once as an amateur, once as a professional. He won 11 in all and who knows how many he might have won had he not been banned for five years after turning pro in 1962 immediately after claiming his first Slam?

But wait. could it be Bjorn Borg's face I see? Borg has neither an Australian nor a U.S. Open on his resume, but he won on the clay at Roland Garros six times and on the grass at Wimbledon five times, demonstrating sufficient versatility to squeeze into the picture. Only Sampras, with his seven Wimbledon titles, has won more times there than Borg. And what about Sampras himself? He never won the French Open, but in addition to his domination at Wimbledon won the U.S. Open five times.

Looking deeper into the mirror I think I can see, just barely, the face of Bill Tilden, winner of a record seven U.S. Opens and three Wimbledon titles. He was considered the alltime greatest during his time, a time when the Australian and French Opens were not a factor and there was no Grand Slam, only the Double Whammy.

The mirror reflection gets murkier yet. Can that be who I think it is? Yes, it's clearing up now. And there seem to be two of them. Why, it's Jack Kramer and Pancho Gonzales. They don't have the multiple major tournament victories of the other claimants, but they have a good excuse. They didn't play very long as amateurs and they played in an era when professionals were barred from playing the major tournaments. Kramer won the U. S. Open back-to-back in 1946 and '47 after serving three years in the military in World War II. Then he turned professional, leaving him ineligible to play either Wimbledon or the U.S. Open (a name that lives in irony since it was open only to amateurs). Gonzales won the next two U.S. Opens before, he too, turned pro.

Professional tennis in that period was nothing like it is today. There were no tournaments per se, merely a series of matches between the top players. It should come as no surprise that Bobby Riggs promoted the first big money match long before anyone ever herd of Billie Jean King. It featured a cross-country barnstorming tour against the powerful Kramer, who easily dispatched the soft-balling Riggs, 69 matches to 20. Strengthening his claim to being the alltime best, Kramer then annihilated Gonzales, 96 to 27. Kramer retired and took over promotion of the pro tennis tour and Gonzales became the biggest star. He was the No. 1 ranked professional player for eight consecutve years in the 50s and 60s and in 1970, at 41, was still good enough to beat Laver in five sets in a heralded winner-take-all match in Madison Square Garden.

Ten years ago, Sports Illustrated magazine ranked its 20 favorite athletes of all time and Gonzales placed 15th. "If earth was on the line in a tennis match," the magazine noted, "the guy you'd want serving to save mankind is Pancho Gonzales."

Tony Trabert, who was decimated by Gonzales on one tour, once said of his tormentor: "Gonzales is the greatest natural athlete tennis has ever known. The way he can move that 6-foot 3 inch frame around the court is almost unbelievable; he's just like a big cat."

But Frank Sedgman, one of the top stars of their era, called Kramer the greatest of all time, ranking Gonzales second. But that was then and this is now. Tennis in the Kramer-Gonzales era was dominated by players from the United States and Australia, with an occasional Frenchman in the mix. The game has since gone global, with Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia, Ilie Nastase of Hungary, and the Swedish born Borg among those bridging the gap to the present day international array of stars that includes Federer, Spain's Rafael Nadal and Marat Safin of Russia. The United States, which had pretty much kept pace with the rest of the world when the likes of Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe were waving the flag, has fallen out of the picture. Why? Perhaps the few legitimate U.S. hopefuls like Andy Roddick will have to look at themselves in a mirror. But they might not like what they see.