*Official* Tennis Thread

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Haha, this is the quietest womens match I've watched all tournament. Furthers my assertion earlier that the Williams sisters only screech as a psycological counter towards the ridiculous **** they get on tour.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Well it's certainly livened up now. Working their way into the match, one grunt at a time.

 

[Matt79]

Serena the greatest woman tennis player ever?

 

[pasag]

Strangest shot by Serena in that final game.

 

[SirBloody Idiot]

Haha, this is the quietest womens match I've watched all tournament. Furthers my assertion earlier that the Williams sisters only screech as a psycological counter towards the ridiculous **** they get on tour.

Haha was thinking the exact same thing. Silent as anything for most of the match.

 

[Anil]

Serena the greatest woman tennis player ever?

hmm i would say no...even if we don't consider margaret court because of having played in the 60s when the competition and quality were much lower...there is still martina navratilova, chris evert, steffi graf and pre-stabbing monica seles to consider...but she certainly is one of the greatest ever...

 

[Jono]

Serena would be getting almighty close though. It all depends how long she wants to go for.

Serena paying 2.37 was amazing really.

She's such a legend

Hopefully the Williams can win the ladies doubles titles here as well.

 

[Anil]

Serena would be getting almighty close though. It all depends how long she wants to go for.

statistically and in terms of era dominance, she has a fairly long way to go to reach the levels of martina, chris, steffi and even those 2-3 years of monica when she won almost everything in sight(against a pretty classy field consisting of graf, sanchez-vicario, sabatini etc)....one can argue that she never showed the same level of dedication and committment to the sport but i doubt if she will reach the heights of achievement of the 1st 3 mentioned...in terms of raw skill, she is probably right up there with them though...

 

[Jono]

Yeah Graf was a legend. 22 grand slams. Ridiculously brilliant.

 

[Anil]

Yeah Graf was a legend. 22 grand slams. Ridiculously brilliant.

and martina with her singles & doubles dominance...

1. ranked No. 1 in the world for seven years
   
2. won 18 singles and 41 doubles grand slam titles
   
3. holds 167 singles titles, more than any other player, male or female and 178 doubles titles
   
4. holds a record nine wimbledon singles championships
   
5. has won more singles matches than anyone in tennis history with a 1,440-213 win-loss record
   
6. won singles and doubles titles at the same event a record 84 times
   
7. in 1984, set the record for the longest consecutive match win streak at 74

and chris evert with a stupendous 90% career win record:

1. chris reached the semifinals or better in 48 of all 49 grand slams she entered during her first 16 years on the tennis circuit, between the 1971 us open through the 1987 wimbledon championships.
   
2. chris won at least one of the four possible grand slam singles titles for an unparalleled 13 consecutive years, an open-era record.
   
3. chrissie won 6 of 8 us open singles titles between 1975 and 1982, the only female player to win that title on 2 playing surfaces: clay and hard court. at one point, she won a string of 4 us open singles titles in a row. she holds the record for most career singles victories at the us open, with a total of 101.
   
4. evert holds the record for most french open singles titles, winning 7 total. this is all the more impressive when one considers that she did not even play in this clay court grand slam event in 1976, 77, or 78 when she was both #1 in the world and undefeated on clay, considered unbeatable at the time on that surface.
   
5. evert won a record 125 consecutive matches on a single surface, clay, spanning a near 6-year period between august 1973 and may 1979; when she was finally beaten, the score was 6-4 2-6 7-6 (7-4) in the semifinals of the italian open against tracy austin. she didn't lose again on clay until the '81 french open, for a staggering 197-1 match record on clay surface court.
   
6. evert won a record 157 tournament singles titles after her 289th event. when martina navratilova matched her record, it was after navratilova’s 343rd event. she is currently second to navratilova, who topped out at 167 titles.
   
7. evert won more than half of the tournaments she entered throughout her 20 year career, made the finals in 76% of them, and made at least the semifinals in 90% of all the events she entered.

 

[Matt79]

Martina and Evett's dominance over such a long period actually argues slightly against their case. Was the competition depth actually there? Serena has competed against Hingis, and most of all Venus, as well as many tough fully professional challengerd in that time such as Davenport and Henin, and when fit she's brained them all.

 

[Anil]

Martina and Evett's dominance over such a long period actually argues slightly against their case. Was the competition depth actually there? Serena has competed against Hingis, and most of all Venus, as well as many tough fully professional challengerd in that time such as Davenport and Henin, and when fit she's brained them all.

the same has been said of federer and in my opinion it is not really a valid argument...and for martina and chris evert, first and foremost they had each other, the greatest rivalry in women's tennis...then chris evert had billie jean king(don't think martina played her as much) as a rival during the initial phase of her career, others would include evonne goolagong, tracy austin, andrea jaeger, hana mandlikova, virginia wade and towards the end of their career, graf, sanchez-vicario, sabatini & seles...

 

[Pratters]

The women's game was far less competitive 20 years back compared to today. First rounds to fourth rounds used to be mere formalities while players have to earn their wins now. For every Williams, there is a Kuznetsova and Demienteva out there.

 

[Son Of Coco]

The women's game was far less competitive 20 years back compared to today. First rounds to fourth rounds used to be mere formalities while players have to earn their wins now. For every Williams, there is a Kuznetsova and Demienteva out there.

I'd say, apart from Graf, Williams would wipe the floor with the others mentioned from previous eras (Seles might make a contest of it too). But when comparing records she's still obviously behind a few.

 

[Anil]

outside of the williams sisters, the top and middle-level women's players are distinctly average...it speaks volumes of the quality of women's tennis when dinara safina is the official world no 1...in this decade we have had hingis, the williams sisters & henin and for a brief period sharapova & mauresmo who have been truly worthy of that position....of these hingis and henin faded out by their mid-20s, mauresmo is over the hill, the oft-injured sharapova is struggling to stay afloat, leaving venus and serena to hold up the quality end of the wta tour...if you notice, when venus and especially serena are on song, they still swat aside their early round opponents the same way graf, navratilova and chris evert used to do...dementieva and kuznetsova are good players, they are nowhere near the class of a hingis or henin or the williamses...

 

[Son Of Coco]

outside of the williams sisters, the top and middle-level women's players are distinctly average...it speaks volumes of the quality of women's tennis when dinara safina is the official world no 1...in this decade we have had hingis, the williams sisters & henin and for a brief period sharapova & mauresmo who have been truly worthy of that position....of these hingis and henin faded out by their mid-20s, mauresmo is over the hill, the oft-injured sharapova is struggling to stay afloat, leaving venus and serena to hold up the quality end of the wta tour...if you notice, when venus and especially serena are on song, they still swat aside their early round opponents the same way graf, navratilova and chris evert used to do...dementieva and kuznetsova are good players, they are nowhere near the class of a hingis or henin or the williamses...

Yes, I agree. I think if you had Williams up against some of the players from the past thought she'd be too strong for them. Obviously it's hard to compare across eras as the top women today are generally a different build from those of the past. I think in any era there's only really been a few who have been really in a position to challenge at any one time. Of those mentioned in past eras as very good some have been too mentally fragile to challenge for long periods of time (see Sabatini). I don't think any era of women's tennis has had challengers lining up for the title.

I think Venus's demolition of Safina is indicative of which players truly belong at the top. As Serena's comments indicated, I think both William's sisters would have viewed Safina's position at the top with scorn.

 

[Anil]

Obviously it's hard to compare across eras as the top women today are generally a different build from those of the past.

because of the difference in courts(speed, make), better strength and fitness regimens, vastly different equipment(racquets, balls etc), there is no definitive way to compare across eras especially the greatest few...hence the comparison of individual achievements...

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Come on A-Rod!

 

[Matt79]

Want Rog to win to keep the prospect of a Fed-slam alive going into the US and next year's Aus. The French is always the big stumbling block and it's unlikely he'll be in as good a position to do a slam again.

 

[Sanz]

outside of the williams sisters, the top and middle-level women's players are distinctly average...it speaks volumes of the quality of women's tennis when dinara safina is the official world no 1...in this decade we have had hingis, the williams sisters & henin and for a brief period sharapova & mauresmo who have been truly worthy of that position....of these hingis and henin faded out by their mid-20s, mauresmo is over the hill, the oft-injured sharapova is struggling to stay afloat, leaving venus and serena to hold up the quality end of the wta tour...if you notice, when venus and especially serena are on song, they still swat aside their early round opponents the same way graf, navratilova and chris evert used to do...dementieva and kuznetsova are good players, they are nowhere near the class of a hingis or henin or the williamses...

Same can be said about Men's Tennis, No one is in the class of Roger and Rafa, nowhere close. French Open Finals was just ordinary, the fact that Someone like Soderling was able to reach the finals tells the sorry state of Men's Tennis.