Official Tennis thread

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
I don't think the thread will survive long (myself I mostly only follow Grand Slams these days, in the past I was a much bigger tennisfreak (on TV)) but I saw quite a few reactions in the football topic. So what the heck, here goes.

Today I read an interesting opinion of Paul Haarhuis (ex-tennis player from the Netherlands). He finds several other players (esp. Sampras) better than Federer.

Sampras had in his best times more concurrence. He had to play vs Becker, Agassi, Courier and Edberg. All top players who won several Grand Slams. The last years Federer only had Nadal as a big concurrent. Looking at the current season Haarhuis also thought Murray and Djokovic were good but overall the top is much smaller than in the past.

Björn Borg never took part in the Australian Open because he wanted to celebrate Christmas at home. And he booked his successes in a smart shorter period of time.

Rod Laver. He was number one of the world without interruption from 1962 til 1969 (inclusive). In both 1962 (as an amature) and 1969 (as a professional) he won all four Grand Slams. An unheard of achievement. In between those years he was not allowed to play Grand Slams because he made money with his sport. How many Grand Slams would he have won if he was allowed?

Haarhuis admits that he finds Federer a world class player. He's unbelievably allround and has no weak points. Physically and mentally he is iron strong. Still he doesn’t find him the best player ever, but he admits that he might change his opinion if he later would win 16 or 17 Grand Slams.
 
A big reason why Federer plays so few multiple Slam winners is that he smashed most of his generation into oblivion. Back in the early 2000s people thought players like Hewitt, Safin and Roddick would win several Slams each. They had lots of potential, but Federer was simply better.

On a different note, does anyone here play themselves? I quit playing regularly a few years ago, but I still like the game a lot.
 
Forostar said:
Björn Borg never took part in the Australian Open because he wanted to celebrate Christmas at home. And he booked his successes in a smart shorter period of time.
I find that really quite hilarious, for a professional sportsman to do that.
His successes are quite remarkable, as you say, in that he retired at 26.

Shadow said:
On a different note, does anyone here play themselves? I quit playing regularly a few years ago, but I still like the game a lot.

I play every couple of weeks, not competitively only against my younger brother, but I'm such a bad loser that (to my shame) I conceded last time after losing the first set on a tie-break.  :blush:
 
So, Federer can win his sixth Wimbledon title. First he has to beat Andy Roddick, but he did that in two other Wimbledon finals in 2004 and 2005. However, Roddick is serving very solid and looks stronger than ever.

If Federer is going to win his record breaking 15th Grand Slam title, he will also come closer to the Wimbledon record of 7 titles, achieved by:

* Pete Sampras, who won all the titles from 1993-2000 apart from 1996 when Richard Krajicek was stronger.
An excellent performance of Krajicek because we're talking about Sampras's only singles defeat at Wimbledon between 1993 and 2000!   B)

* William Renshaw, who won from 1881-86 and in 1889.
 
I missed the matches yesterday, but suprised Roddick won, although I'm not a Murray fan at all. In the previous round, Roddick's match against Hewitt was fantastic and so close. Serena Williams' against Dementieva was also very good.
 
What an insane final. I've only just recovered from the suspense of the fifth set.
 
That last set just wouldn't end (almost)! The fact that Federer broke Roddick's serve just once in a match over 4 hours long, and it was in the last game, says it all. Roddick looked absolutely shell-shocked at the end.
 
I had the tennis scoring rules explained to me five times in a row today and still didn't understand them.
 
It put the women's game to shame didn't it .Am I right in thinking that the women's champion gets the same prize money as the men's, if so, how do they work that out?
 
Perun said:
I had the tennis scoring rules explained to me five times in a row today and still didn't understand them.

I don't understand cricket. Like tennis, an English upper class game(?)
 
The basic rules of Cricket are actually quite simple:

As a bowling team, you have to knock the bails off the stumps that the batsmen is defending or running to. Or if a batsmen hits the ball and it is caught without bouncing - its out.

As the batting team, you have to score runs by running between the two wickets.


What could be simpler? ;)
 
ewok_keffiyeh3.jpg


This one?
 
Kopfanatic said:
It put the women's game to shame didn't it .Am I right in thinking that the women's champion gets the same prize money as the men's, if so, how do they work that out?
I'm not sure it'd be right to value the men's game higher because of one's personal preference for it or considering it to be better quality, but the fact that one is 5 sets, the other only 3, means it isn't equal.
 
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