Official Tennis thread

Perun said:
What's a wicket?
See, now it gets a little confusing. It could be the bails and stumps, or the 22 yards in between the two sets of bails and stumps, the current batting partnership, the state of the 22 yards of ground, a batsmen being given out...... :huh:
 
When I was in England ten years ago (Christ, it's been that long already), I saw a cricket match. I was thrilled, because everything was so cliché English: a big manor in the countryside, a huge lawn with not a single blade of grass sticking out, a huge buffet with at least twenty people queueing, and a cricket match going on with people in perfect white clothing... I watched it for a while, and every time I thought I started understanding the game, somebody scored a wicket.
 
Can you score a wicket?

In a Portugese newspaper article ridiculing English football fans before a match a few years ago, they described cricket as "playing baseball with an oar". That pretty much sums it up. The only way to watch a cricket match is with the Barmy Army.
 
Agassi - drugs - wig

A bit late but I guess it shouldn't go unmentioned here: Agassi used drugs during his career.

Quite a shock because I admired him. What do you guys think of it?

This is a more funny confession:

He admitted that his long hairstyle was a wig

agassi_becker_1513992c.jpg


The tennis ace said he was so distracted by thoughts of the hairpiece falling off and causing him huge embarrassment during his first Grand Slam final that he lost the match.

Agassi made the confession about his locks, which won him a legion of female admirers, in his new autobiography, Open.

He said: "Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole.

"I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?"

He wore the wig for the French Open in 1990, the first time he had reached a Grand Slam final.

"Then a fiasco happened," he said. "The evening before the match I stood under the shower and felt my wig suddenly fall apart.


"Probably I used the wrong hair rinse. I panicked and called my brother Philly into the room.

"It’s a total disaster!" I said to him. He looked at it and said he could clamp it with hair clips.

"It took 20 clips. "Do you think it will hold?" I asked. "Just don’t move so much," he said.

"Of course I could have played without my hairpiece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was really wearing a wig?

"During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off.

"With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi’s hair has fallen from his head.

It was Brooke Shields, who he married, who suggested he cut all his hair off

"She said I should shave my head," he said. "It was like suggesting I should have all my teeth out.

"Nevertheless, I thought for a few days about it, about the agonies it caused me, the hypocrisy and lies."

After an 11-minute haircut, his appearance had changed dramatically.

"A stranger stood before me in the mirror and smiled," he said.

"'My wig was like a chain and the ridiculously long strands in three colours like an iron ball which hung on it."
 
I think the fact that his drug admission was the use of Crystal Meth when he was about 150th in the world just shows that recreational drugs aren't the way forward in sport. In terms of the fact that he lied to the Tennis Organisations about using drugs is way more serious.

And I saw the wig article on the BBC a while ago, pretty funny stuff really.

Edit: Also Cricket is awesome.
 
It's amazing how he managed to type the one thing that would really infuriate at least me.
 
Yeah it was pretty good. Federer is just a winning machine, Nadal's way of playing is just too strenuous on the body it seems so he can't keep up.

Murray didn't really seem to have much chance despite playing really well.
 
Not that this is what you were suggesting, Jonsz, but Federer is far from a "machine".  Now, Lendl was a machine -- played nearly flawless technical tennis, wouldn't beat himself, won a bunch of matches, and bored everyone to tears.  Federer is great because he comes up with amazing shots, often at key moments in the match.  He has elevated tennis as an art form, which is why past tennis greats like McEnroe, Sampras and Borg speak in reverential tones about how much better he is than anyone has ever been. 
 
Just thought it was worth mentioning that Federer hasn't made a semi-final of the current French Open ending a streak of 23 consecutive Grand-Slam semi's. Pretty astonishing stuff when you consider the next best run is 10. A testimony to his ability and fitness here.

The Men's Final is tomorrow between Soderling and Nadal whilst earlier today Francesca Schiavone beat Sam Stosur in the Ladies Final.
Wimbledon. Court 12. Mahut v Isner. Sets: 2-2. Games: 42-42.

Crazy times.
 
Fun fact I just read: Björn Borg won the 1978 French Open playing a total of 159 games. Isner and Mahut have played 163 games so far.



New records set in the match:

- Longest match ever.
- Longest set ever, both by duration and by number of games.
- Most aces in a match ever, by both players.
 
This delay is a big help to Isner, who couldn't even move to return serve when I was watching at around 41-41.  Not sure how he stayed on his feet to get to 59-59 (which is basically the equivalent of a three-set match later).  Probably just hoped he'd ride his big serve to the darkness suspension that ultimately occurred.  Good for him.  In a way, this death match reminds me of the movie, They Shoot Horses Don't They?  How about a new rule -- after 20-20 in the fifth, a tiebreak. 

By the way, I met Isner on my flight back from Paris, he sat across the aisle from me.  He's tall.  He was also a bit surly, though I'll excuse it because he was flying home after losing in the first week of the French Open, so he couldn't have been in the greatest mood at the time.  I had never heard of him before, but was pleasantly surprised to recognize him on TV in this epic match. 
 
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