Slam count only really became a thing when the internet and later social media arrived on the scene. Prior to that we would just watch tennis and enjoy the beauty of it without obsessing about statistics.
Tennis 2020
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Yeah that's what I thought. Every statistical record has been hyped up the hilt in modern times, with the previous record holders, i.e. McEnroe winning so many matches indoors or something, not even knowing that those records existed in the first place. I first noticed that when they made a big deal about Federer going so long with a straight sets defeat at a grand slam or something.
It also seems that it in previous generations, the Wimbledon title count was more important than the overall grand slam count. For example, Borg emulating Fred Perry and winning his 3rd consecutive Wimbledon title in 1978 seemed to be absolutely huge, with Perry himself appearing on the court during the trophy presentation, while we know he didn't care about going after the overall slam record. On the women's side, Navratilova was desperate to surpass Helen Wills Moody's record of 8 Wimbledon titles which she did in 1990, but didn't really care that much about going after Margaret Court's overall record of 24 singles slams.
It goes to show though that you can't judge players like Borg, Evert, Connors etc, by modern day tennis criteria as it simply wouldn't be fair.
The biggest "what if" will always be Borg not playing in the Aussie and retiring with 11 slams at the young age of 26.
He could've easily kept going for another 5-6 years, especially as there was a bit of a lull in top players from between 81-85.
Don't see any slams being played for rest of the year. Wimbledon about to be cancelled next week and can't see US open being played either unless that gets moved to safer part of America but doubt any of them apart from Indian Wells could hold a slam.
Actually wonder what will happen to the World tour finals in London in November. This was suppose to be London's final year so wonder if it will get next year's tournament.
Actually wonder what will happen to the World tour finals in London in November. This was suppose to be London's final year so wonder if it will get next year's tournament.
Agreed. I guess Borg was the first player in tennis history that made enough money (he was a global sporting icon and basically a rockstar), to be able to retire at that age.
Even someone like Connors who had an impressively long prime, surely won have won noticeably more slams had the modern day conditions applied during his time, i.e. with 4 equally important slams with proper prize money, ranking points and facilities available to him every year.
I was reading as well about how Laver, after he won the grand slam in 1969 and basically secured tennis immortality, then changed his priorities and became far more focused on trying to earn as much money as possible than trying to win more slams, which is perfectly understandable given how the sport had a far more complicated political and monetary situation back then.
A final decision on Wimbledon is set to be announced on Wednesday and apparently it's set to be cancelled for this year.
I was watching some classic tennis match highlights and I figured this is a great chance to educate myself on tennis before my time and also more so on the Women's side.
Are there any classic women matches available on Youtube anyone recommends or any classic men's matches? For the men, preferably not including the big 4, but any early Federer matches would be cool too.
Ideally extended highlights, but I'd be up for watching some full matches too.
I was watching some classic tennis match highlights and I figured this is a great chance to educate myself on tennis before my time and also more so on the Women's side.
Are there any classic women matches available on Youtube anyone recommends or any classic men's matches? For the men, preferably not including the big 4, but any early Federer matches would be cool too.
Ideally extended highlights, but I'd be up for watching some full matches too.
10 classics, which I think / hope are on you tube (at least covered by highlights):
1977 Wimbledon - Borg vs. Gerulaitis
1980 Wimbledon - Borg vs. McEnroe
1984 French Open - Lendl vs. McEnroe
1984 US Open - McEnroe vs. Connors
1988 US Open - Wilander vs. Lendl
1988 Year End Championships - Becker vs. Lendl
1996 Year End Championships - Sampras vs. Becker
2000 Australian Open - Agassi vs. Sampras
2000 French Open - Kuerten vs. Ferrero
2001 US Open - Sampras vs. Agassi
Tennis during the days of Borg-McEnroe-Connors looked like a lot of fun, with a lot of variety in terms of surfaces, playing styles, personalities etc. Borg's achievement of winning the French Open-Wimbledon double in 3 consecutive years from 1978-1980 (and he wasn't that far away from doing it again in 1981) is surely one of the best ever tennis achievements, given that clay and grass court tennis were practically different sports back then, with him engaging in numerous long, 50 shot plus rallies in Roland Garros, and then serve volleying behind his 1st serves and playing so much more aggressively at Wimbledon a month later.
Cheers mate! I will give some of those a watch.
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As expected, Wimbledon has been cancelled
Would just cancel the whole season. It ain’t safe to travel this year. Just restart again next year. This virus will be devastating especially for the smaller tournaments on tour.
Why cancel though? Why not suspend like with the PL, CL, French Open etc? You could hold it in October - February if possible. It's only April 3rd FFS.
Hold what in October February?
Then what about the other events like Aussie open. You just start to mess with 2021 calendar.
Also tennis shouldn’t be compared to premier league. Premier league can resume, when one country slows down the virus. They also can play with less audience or behind closed doors. Tennis events can’t afford that. TV money in tennis is tiny. Events rely on ticket sales.
Tennis players are travelling all around the world just like F1. They relying on a host of countries to stamp the virus for the tour to get back to normal. That’s why there probably won’t be a F1 season also. You not waiting for one country to stamp out the virus. You relying on a host and currently would you feel comfortable travelling around the world? This isn’t magically gonna go away in 3 months.
Also Wimbledon impossible to play in October to Feb. The grass won’t be in any playable condition. It will be dark by 4pm, so lighting will also be a issue.
The condition of the grass and the weather would make it unplayable during those months. The only slot they realistically could have gone for was where the Olympics was due to take place.
Before the pandemic and crisis, I was worried that tennis had become more star-driven and dependent than ever before, with it's popularity and appeal basically resting on the shoulders of a small handful of superstars in the men's and women's games. Stating the bleeding obvious, individual sports by their nature are always going to be more star-driven than team sports which makes things more precarious for them. However I think things have progressed far too much down that road. Basically most tennis fans only care about a handful of stars, and / or the best players from their own country, which is 100% understandable, but I wonder if the ATP have done a poor job of promoting other players during the big 3 / big 4 eras.
The likes of Federer and Nadal are two of the biggest stars across all sports. Then the likes of Berdych, Ferrer, Thiem etc, who have all had excellent careers, reached grand slam finals, won masters series titles and spent long periods of time in the top 10, could walk anonymously in many city centres across the world without being recognised. Even in Spain, Ferrer was largely ignored by the 'all Rafa, all the time' tennis media over there, even when he made greater contributions to some of their previous Davis Cup wins.
Also financially it's far worse being the 200th ranked player for example in 2020, than it was in 2010, 2000 and 1990, because in that time, the lower level prize money in the sport has increased at a much lower rate compared to playing expenses with inflation (i.e, travelling which can be the real killer, equipment, coaching, nutrition and accommodation for lower ranked players), so financially they are worse off. For tennis to be a remotely worthwhile career financial, as a minimum you have to be established top 104 player so that you qualifying directly for the 4 grand slams, but even you wouldn't be making amazing money once you deducted the playing expenses.
The likes of Federer and Nadal are two of the biggest stars across all sports. Then the likes of Berdych, Ferrer, Thiem etc, who have all had excellent careers, reached grand slam finals, won masters series titles and spent long periods of time in the top 10, could walk anonymously in many city centres across the world without being recognised. Even in Spain, Ferrer was largely ignored by the 'all Rafa, all the time' tennis media over there, even when he made greater contributions to some of their previous Davis Cup wins.
Also financially it's far worse being the 200th ranked player for example in 2020, than it was in 2010, 2000 and 1990, because in that time, the lower level prize money in the sport has increased at a much lower rate compared to playing expenses with inflation (i.e, travelling which can be the real killer, equipment, coaching, nutrition and accommodation for lower ranked players), so financially they are worse off. For tennis to be a remotely worthwhile career financial, as a minimum you have to be established top 104 player so that you qualifying directly for the 4 grand slams, but even you wouldn't be making amazing money once you deducted the playing expenses.
@GuybrushThreepwood And now think of those players ranked 200 in the world who have no income as they can't play and earn prizes...
Agree on the ever increasing star power. You see it in other sports as well where you've got the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Lebron, etc taking their sports to a new level and everyone is happy to ride on that. The different is of course that in those team sports, ever the lesser players earn well.
Agree on the ever increasing star power. You see it in other sports as well where you've got the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Lebron, etc taking their sports to a new level and everyone is happy to ride on that. The different is of course that in those team sports, ever the lesser players earn well.
@saivet
Federer v Roddick 2003 is scary from Federer. There used to be a much better video but the whole channel looks like its been taken down.
Federer v Roddick 2003 is scary from Federer. There used to be a much better video but the whole channel looks like its been taken down.
Some of them are trying to look for other, non-tennis related part time work at the minute, but yes it must be incredibly difficult. But each year during Wimbledon (not this year sadly), that's why I never understand the gripes about the players who lose in the 1st round making £30k plus (I think it was £40k plus last year), when they to get that position they (or their parents) will have had to fork out huge amounts of money on playing expenses.
Yeah team sports have a much safer footing there, as clubs / franchises like Man Utd, Real Madrid, Barcelona, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Dallas Cowboys are always going to be glamorous and popular regardless of which star players came and go. The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the two most valuable franchises in the NHL, despite not winning the Stanley Cup since 1967.
It's very dangerous for individual sports though. Usain Bolt basically saved Athletics, Tiger Woods made golf a lot more popular (and lucrative). When the likes of Federer, Nadal and Serena retire, if the next generation of dominant players do not have the same global appeal and 'X-factor' (I don't think that winning multiple slam titles alone would be enough), then the sport could be in serious trouble. Tennis's popularity does appear to be more fragile and 'built on sand' than it was in previous eras. I know that numerous ATP tour events below masters series level have been struggling for attendances and sponsorship money for a while.
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Maybe it's just silly childhood memories, but I tend to think that 30 years ago people paid a lot more attention to tournaments outside the Grand Slams and maybe the likes of Indian Wells and Miami that are considered 'almost slams' nowadays. But now it just seems few people give a damn about the week-by-week tournaments (unless Federer wins them). It is dangerous for the game as those tournaments fill up most of the calendar.
Cheers mate I'll try to find a better quality stream somweh
The Wimbledon and Australian Open channels are pretty good for extended highlights, so those tournaments are my best hope.
@GuybrushThreepwood I've watched these ones so far.
1980 Wimbledon - Borg vs. McEnroe
2000 French Open - Kuerten vs. Ferrero
1988 Year End Championships - Becker vs. Lendl
1996 Year End Championships - Sampras vs. Becker
Only managed to find good quality extended highlights for Borg McEnroe where that fourth set tie break drama was unreal. Official extended highlights available for the two below, which I've added to my watch later list, so I'm sure I'll get round to them this weekend.
1977 Wimbledon - Borg vs. Gerulaitis
2000 Australian Open - Agassi vs. Sampras
Any one know of any classic ladies matches they'd recommend? Ideally late 90s or in the 2000s as decent Youtube highlights should be available
I definitely think you're right there. I think that Eurosport used to cover a lot of those tournaments as well which helped.
I also think that the masters series events (minus Monte-Carlo although there are worse places to play tennis and train !) being compulsory has had a big impact. In the 90s masters series events weren't compulsory, so players especially the top ones had more flexibility to choose their schedules, and could enter more regular tournaments. For example an event like Indianapolis attracted strong fields and was very popular every year.
Also while having 3 legendary, amazing players winning so much has had big advantages in terms of creating storylines, history, heavyweight matches etc, I wonder on the negative side if that has caused most fans' general interest in tennis has become spread very thinly across fewer players. Those players mopping up nearly all the slams means that that there are fewer multiple slam winners and contenders on the tour, meaning that there are fewer stars. Obviously I'm not blaming the big 3 for their brilliance, but I wonder if it's actually better for the tour to have 7-8 players around with 5 + slam titles, rather than 3 players with 17 + slams, as then you have more star players around to attract interest from fans, when others retire, get injured etc, and so aren't reliant on so few names. I remember watching a documentary on the 1992 US Open for example which looked amazing, and while of course you didn't have anyone comparable to Federer or Nadal around, there were many more 'names of interest' in the draw.
I guess men's tennis being so heavily dominated by European players has had an impact as well. Smaller tournaments in the US used to have maybe two of Sampras, Agassi, Courier, Chang playing in them, plus other US players ranked in top 20 / 50. Nowadays the best European players generally aren't going to player in smaller US tournaments below masters series level. Similarly, and understandably, there has been a big decline in South American tennis, and so fewer talented South American players to take places in those clay court tournaments to attract interest from local fans.
Yes that 4th set of the 1980 Wimbledon was amazing. I think the 5th set was high quality tennis as well even if it didn't have that same drama. I think that the Connors-Borg-McEnroe golden era helped cause a tennis boom around the world.
Enjoy those 1977 and 2000 matches, they are both treats !
For the women, I think that a sizeable number of the best matches that I saw from the 90s and early 2000 were indoors. Generally (obviously with exceptions), I thought that clay court tennis brought out the worst in many of the women's players (which never really had a culture of clay court specialists like the men's game did, although the early 90s looked good on the surface), while indoor tennis brought out the best in many of the them.
The following matches would be an enjoyable watch I think:
- 1991 Wimbledon - Graf vs. Sabatini
- 1992 French Open - Seles vs. Graf
- 1999 US Open - Hingis vs. Venus
- 2000 US Open - Venus vs. Hingis
- 2000 YEC - Hingis vs. Seles
- 2001 Australian Open - Hingis vs. Serena
- 2002 YEC - Serena vs. Capriati
- 2003 US Open - Henin vs. Capriati
- 2005 Wimbledon - Venus vs. Davenport
- 2005 YEC - Mauresmo vs. Pierce
- 2006 YEC - Mauresmo vs. Clijsters
- 2007 US Open - Henin vs. Venus
- 2007 YEC - Henin vs. Sharapova
- 2009 Wimbledon - Serena vs. Dementieva
For me the late 90s-early 00s was a golden age for women's tennis.
@GuybrushThreepwood cheers mate. I'll give as many of those a watch as I can.
I'm really looking forward to it now.
I've watched a tonne of highlights with the big 3, so this is quite refreshing, though some of them do bring me a joy, especially the Nadal wins
I'm really looking forward to it now.
I've watched a tonne of highlights with the big 3, so this is quite refreshing, though some of them do bring me a joy, especially the Nadal wins
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Hes the best ever the goat as young people might say, the reason I love tennis. Roger Federer
Laver Cup cancelled - given a combination of the pandemic and Roland Garros scheduling the tournament during the Laver Cup they had no choice.
Also a decision on the US Open will be made in June where they say it's unlikely to be played behind closed doors.
Also a decision on the US Open will be made in June where they say it's unlikely to be played behind closed doors.
Whhoops.... Someone at the insurance company did screw up the calculation
My favourite vid, better than any player ever.
US open will probably be pushed back.
Tennis like F1 will struggle. Football with the TV money and also they can rely mainly on one country to fix the virus. There’s less travelling around the globe in football. Obviously teams in European competitions there might be a risk factor. For premier league to restart they just need one country to sort their shit out.
But with Tennis and F1 you travelling to a new location every week. I just don’t see how these sports can go without a vaccine or if majority of the countries have stamped it out. Playing without fans is out the question for tournaments. You giving up 7 days or 14 days ticket sales away and tournaments will collapse without that. If US open says they can’t play without fans then no tournament can.
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The Djokovic stuff about vaccines is a touch odd. I’m assuming his intention was to be a touch more nuanced that it has been presented as but given the timing it looks a bit off.
I watched this earlier, he has no clue about instagram
Understandable there was a lot of talk in Spanish so was clueless for chunks of it, but it was enjoyable.
Thought Novak's hour long lives with Murray and Stan respectively were good too.
For once I'm in total agreement with him. What he said is reasonable (he clarified his remarks today). He is saying we don't know enough to make a decision on taking a vaccine. Athletes are concerned about what will be going into their bodies, as am I.
I wish people would stop to think about this and do some research. Vaccines take a long time to be developed. If you forego safety measures, it can be absolutely deadly. I am terrified that people are so casual about this, and also suggestions that this might be forced on us. I mean we are free people, it's crazy to act like we have no choice what we put in our bodies.
I'm not anti vaccine - I'm pro going through the correct safety measures and testing to ensure we don't end up with horrible side effects.
I don't think Novak or anyone else should be demonised for wanting to know more before making a decision imho.
I hate anti vaxxers with a passion and I'd love to pounce on Djokovic, but he does have a point here.
Remember when everyone was freaking out about the "swine flu" in 2009? The WHO started a huge vaccination programme, and one of the vaccines administered was "Pandemrix". It worked, nothing remarkable happened... at first. A couple of years later, a suspicious amount of people that had been administered Pandemrix developed Narkolepsy. I wrote a piece for a newspaper about a woman that suffers from it after getting the vaccine in 2009. She frequently suffers seizures that leave her unable to move - as if asleep - while her brain is completely awake. It's still incurable, she can't work anymore and she takes a truck load of pills every day to function as normally as possible. All because of the prick of a needle.
Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of mankind, but administering one that and had to be developed as quickly as possible hasn't been extensively tested for years can be risky . It's still a super low percentage of people that developed Narkolepsy after getting Pandemrix, but still. And if your body is your capital, you're extra careful.
Remember when everyone was freaking out about the "swine flu" in 2009? The WHO started a huge vaccination programme, and one of the vaccines administered was "Pandemrix". It worked, nothing remarkable happened... at first. A couple of years later, a suspicious amount of people that had been administered Pandemrix developed Narkolepsy. I wrote a piece for a newspaper about a woman that suffers from it after getting the vaccine in 2009. She frequently suffers seizures that leave her unable to move - as if asleep - while her brain is completely awake. It's still incurable, she can't work anymore and she takes a truck load of pills every day to function as normally as possible. All because of the prick of a needle.
Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of mankind, but administering one that and had to be developed as quickly as possible hasn't been extensively tested for years can be risky . It's still a super low percentage of people that developed Narkolepsy after getting Pandemrix, but still. And if your body is your capital, you're extra careful.
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I assumed after his first comments that something along those lines would be the case and gave him the benefit of the doubt accordingly. But, tbh, I’m not absolutely sure his clarification is necessarily in line with your position (which is obviously reasonable).
Given the chance to clarify he has left quite a bit open and declined to clarify the most fundamental aspect of the story; whether he’s actually opposed to, or or at least not in favour of, vaccines (which, again, is his right, but, a little like the Gimelstob case, it leads people to question both your central argument and the motives behind it). And let’s be very clear, he opened up that line of questioning with, if we’re being really generous, a loose statement about not being in favour of vaccination, that could be read as a general disinclination towards vaccines.
And also, while they are separate people and entitled to their own opinions, the 5G/Corona/internet nutter video his wife posted - flagged as being fake content by Instagram and from which she later backed away from with the usual “I’m just intellectually curious, Aguys, just asking questions” certainly skewed hard in the direction of the less generous interpretation of Djokovic’s comments. At a time when husband was being grilled for comments on that topic.
When all is said he’s entitled to whatever opinions he likes. Just as people are entitled to question those. The difficulty, for me at least, is that, it looks a bit disingenuous, in a slightly detached, polemic way.
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This would be a good thing to happen for tennis.
I actually read his statement in detail so that bit on twitter isn't all he said. Yes he didn't clarify if he's definitely anti or not, but he did have good points in there I thought which related to my thoughts as well.
I don't know about 5G and stuff like that though
Agree with what you say here except i don't hate anti or pro vaccine people. Everyone has a right to their opinion. However, I am aware of what happened with Pandemrix. Anyone of us could be the unlucky person who gets the worst side effects of this new vaccine.
I just don't want them to rush this which is very important. I'm also uncomfortable with not being able to ask a question or be wary of something without people jumping down your throat as what happened to me in the Anti Vaccers thread
Tsitsipas becoming a #banter merchant in his time off is fine by me.
https://tennistonic.com/tennis-news/165414/was-tsitsipas-making-fun-of-zverev-in-his-latest-video/
https://tennistonic.com/tennis-news/165414/was-tsitsipas-making-fun-of-zverev-in-his-latest-video/
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Keep it light, Novak.
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