For me, I love stats and always have, not just sport stats but all kinds. I keep track of every tennis record I can think of, prestigious and otherwise, and love when they are bettered. I'm not dependent on them, I watched tennis also in periodes where no records were threatened, but it certainly adds to the attraction. That's another reason WTA is less interesting to me, between Court, Evert, Navratilova and Graf all the important records are set and look extremely unlikely to be challenged in the future. I had hopes Hingis might do something there but of course she burned out early. Still managed 209 weeks as #1, best of her generation, but that's a far cry off Graf's 377.
I am afraid once Federer, Nadal and Djokovic has retired ATP will suffer a similar fate, difficult to see who will challenge any kind of records then. Someone will emerge eventually, but it could take many years....
The "era" question I'd rather not discuss, you can't do anything more than beat your contemporaries anyway.
