Well Andy Murray supposedly supports Arsenal, which always struck me as very odd too.
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Katie Swan is having a good week so far - moving up the rankings a bit again thanks in part to a first round win at Bad Homburg over Sloane Stephens. I was perhaps equally surprised to see that Swan appears to be partnering Stephens in the doubles at that tournament - an American former US Open singles champion partnering a British woman who has never got close to the top 100 in singles.
Some coverage yesterday of another Brit, Mingge Xu, aged 14 and not many months, who has a WC into the Wimbledon qualies and would break some age record in the (one assumes rather unlikely) event of her winning all 3 qualie rounds and making it to the main draw.Comment
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I think it's the record set by Gauff - 15 years and 122 days - unless someone else broke it again last year.Comment
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Thanks Satchmo.
Meanwhile, Ryan Peniston, who is having a cracking grass court season so far, has just beaten the unloveable Rune at Eastbourne, great news.
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… and Katie Boulter just beat Ka. Pliskova (the slam finalist one)!Comment
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…. and Jodie Burrage has just beaten current world no.4 Badosa! What an amazing day for British tennis!Comment
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Serena is calling it quits. Chances are she isn't going to go out on a high in New York... but with her, you never quite know. The 2007 Aussie Open title springs to mind on that front - that was arguably more unlikely than her winning in a month's time would be.
I would definitely put her in the top 10 sportswomen of all time, with a strong argument for the greatest ever from any sport - whilst others may have won more consistently than Serena managed (Heather McKay in Squash springs to mind), they did so against weaker overall competition than Williams faced (down).Comment
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The crowd is going to be unbelievable. Her opponents better be ready for that.
Temperatures are supposed to fall (from the current 100+ heat index), which would also help her.Comment
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It's a tough one. I might have a shortlist of Billie Jean King for what she did for the sport overall (on pay and the profile of the game), Babe Didrikson as a multiple-sport champion; Wilma Rudolph, Allyson Felix and Cathy Freeman in athletics.Originally posted by Janik View PostComment
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You can't get to ten with more than two (maybe three) from any one sport.
At least from a US perspective, you have to have women from basketball, football, softball, swimming and volleyball.
Didrikson is a good comp.to Jim Thorpe among the men.Comment
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Raducanu just did something amazing. In less than 24 hours, across 2 matches, she won 17 consecutive games versus Serena Williams and Viktoria Azarenka.
She won the last 7 v Williams and then went 10-0 up on Azarenka before she finally let her get on the board.
In the men's event, Andy Murray performed like the football side who dominate proceesings but lose to a late sucker punch. Norrie hung on and finally Murray's recent cramping issue came to the fore again.
It's a weird one that. I know he is older but he is clearly feeling very well physically but why is he cramping in almost every match after 2 hours? Rusedski says Murray is leaner, is he miscalculating how many fluids he needs these days?Comment
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Another absurd situation now, with Djokovic in the draw for the US Open starting in a week from now, and indeed seeded in the top 8, whilst he will in fact be unable to enter the US to compete in that tournament unless the US changes its rules on visits by unvaccinated foreigners within the next week. Lucky loser to get his seeded spot?Comment
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She seems to be something of a ‘streak’ player. God knows if she can get anywhere near re-creating her greatest one in the next few weeks.Originally posted by multipleman78 View PostComment
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Roger Federer has retired, probably one of the top ten best male players ever.Comment
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The official end of an era. The big 4/big 3 were fantastic entertainment for almost 20 years.Comment
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Yes, it does sadly make the end of it official, even though it's been some time since they've all been fit and competitive at the same time.
Wimbledon 2007, and Nadal taking Federer to five on grass, to the end of 2016 and Murray becoming world #1, was the era for me. It will never be matched again.Comment
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As with Serena it was already basically a done deal, his time had obviously passed. In fact it continued rather longer than anyone could have reasonably expected - back in 2005 the idea that he would still be right at the top in 2015 would have seemed remarkable. Making it official still leaves a hole, though.Comment
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Ooh. BURN!Originally posted by Seven Saxon Kings View Post
I reckon (my lifetime only)- Djokovic
- Nadal
- Federer
- Borg
- Sampras
- Murray
- McEnroe
- Lendl
- Agassi
- Connors
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Murray should perhaps be at 10 in that list, not so much on talent as on impact; he just had less dominance over any particular year or as many fans globally. Very nice guy, great values, but less charisma and a shorter time being regarded as "the best" in the world. Too many defeats as well, maybe (overall win: loss ratio in slams?). And if the courts at Wimbledon had stayed as quick and low as they were in the 90s, I doubt he could have won there, unlike all the others except Lendl.Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 19-09-2022, 00:05.Comment
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I still think Laver was undoubtedly the greatest. Oh those missing 6 years... And he actually managed a grandslam. I suppose his competition was less intense, and I'd definitely put the "Big Three" right up behind him.
(Poulidor) Rosewall also has a case for being in the top 10 as well.
Sorry about the lines. Was trying to do that crossy out thing for Poulidor..
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Laver's in the top 4 but the different levels of competitiveness do make him definitely 4th (or maybe level with Federer). Also there wasn't the range of surfaces in the 60s as now.Comment
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Two Grand Slams. But the first has the same issue as the missing six years, which is that Laver was not the best player on the Pro Tour immediately when he transferred; that remained Ken Rosewall for a time. So whilst Laver's Slam count from ~'64 onwards is seriously understated by his time in the Pros (it would have been way more than 5 in this period), his count prior to switching in '62 (6) is arguably overstated.Originally posted by Logan Mountstuart View Post
Overall it seems likely that the number missed out on is no smaller than the number gained in the amateur ranks, i.e. against other than the best players, but how much the overall total was dragged down is an unanswerable question - did he have get to age 25/26 to be better than Ken Rosewall... or did he simply need 18 months of regular exposure to Rosewall's game to figure him out? Likely some sort of combination of the two, but exactly when the tipping point would have been reached if they were in regular competition from the start of their careers,* as modern players are due to the absence of an amateur/pro split, is an imponderable.
* - further wrinkle is how many matches the figuring out would have taken: Laver and Rosewall played each other 51 times in 1963 alone. That is an extremely high total number of meetings over the course of entire careers outside the closed shop that was the Men's Pro Tour. Djokovic and Nadal have only played 59 times to date, and that is the highest number of meetings for any open era Men's rivalry.Last edited by Janik; 20-09-2022, 15:28.Comment
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Laver's win rate in the pros from the start of 1964 was 9/13, i.e. ~70%. By projection this is 12 Slam titles over the same period, added to the 5 collected in the open era. 17 overall. My take would be to balance some extra misses in the longer form competition of the amateur/open Slams with any extra hits coming pre-1964. So still adding up to around 17 total overall... unless he was already collecting at a rate of three a year prior to 1964, of course.
Another obvious factor holding Laver's numbers down is that, if he had played in the modern era, he would have still been a factor in Slams for another 5 years rather than not getting beyond a QF again from 1970 onwards, when he was only 32.Comment
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