The Tennis Thread

[ALAUU]

Damn, Federer is incredible but Murray put up an incredible fight.

 

[pellucid]

What an emotional final. Seeing Andy in tears all choked up and unable to speak broke my heart. Great final, well played by both of them and congratulations to Federer on his seventh Wimbledon win!

 

[pixiedust1603]

I was thrilled for Federer and Murray has finally grown on me. He put his heart and soul into that final and shouldn't feel ashamed in losing.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

I am utterly gutted for Andy Murray. I hope he comes back stronger from this; I do think Lendl has had a positive impact on his game. I can't imagine anyone not moved by his touching speech.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/tennis-busted-racquet/andy-murray-breaks-down-runner-speech-video-175529331--ten.html

Come on Andy we need NEW people winning the slams!! Bounce back. I want to see Andy and Nole at the very top!!

As for the women's it was also disappointing for me. i would have loved to see Aggie win her first slam.

 

[YoninahAliza]

I'm so upset with the results of the men's finals... I was so rooting for Andy Murray. I like Federer enough and am impressed that he was able to get a seventh Wimbledon championship but still... isn't it time that someone else won? Though it's clear that both men played a great game, even if I'm a little bitter about the results. And I do believe that Andy's time will come... that he will come back stronger then ever! And please tell me I wasn't the only one who teared up when Andy gave his speech? It was so touching and so sad to watch at the same time.

 

[glitterpeacock]

^ No I was tearing up too, especially when the camera showed his weeping mother.
I wasn't expecting him to cry since he never shows any particular emotion - he's very focused but he can take consolation in the fact that he lost to a sporting genius and a genuinely likeable guy. Us Brits can't be mad at Federer, like pixiedust1603 said. There's always next year!

 

[Scott]

you know,for me i've never been overly taken by murray's personality but the way he endeared himself today my mind has changed.

and to see andy come out the way he did,with all the weight of the UK on his shoulders and almost seem oblivious by it all,i was immensely impressed with. definitely seems to be a new and improved murray on the horizon if he can take this as a springboard and use it as motivation to continue playing confidently.

 

[ChristyLeReveur]

Roger killed it!! Congrats!
he totally deserved it

 

[Scott]

well,petra,vika,maria and sam stosur are all up for ESPY awards this year. even though hands down this should go to petra kvitova for her 2011 season,i'm sure due to these awards being a virtual popularity contest it will go undoubtedly to maria as it always has if it wasn't serena. which isn't a knock on maria at all but i think she should be in the category of best comeback not best player. one final versus li na's french open victory and and AO final run being ignored is a crying shame. and the fact that maria is in the best overall female athlete category is kind of absurd to me because 2011 she had a great comeback but a much storied struggle on the big stages. how does that justify being nominated in that? and i'm really baffled that neither,kvitova,li na nor sam stosur were recognized for best breakthrough. li na especially for what she did as a chinese national.

http://espn.go.com/espys/voting?vote=8083189&lang=en

just click down on the category column on the right-hand top corner to look for the tennis categories.

 

[MyNameIs]

^Is the eligibility period 2011 calendar year or June 2011 through May 2012? If it's the latter, then Maria undoubtedly deserves to win. If it's the former, then I think Vika should win (I'll count AO anyway, lol).

 

[Scott]

okay i had to go back and check how these definitively work. these are for the preceding calendar year preceding a given annual event. which means vika and maria's triumphs this year will count here as well. okay,i apologize for that. still you can't overlook kvitova's magnificent 2011 over two separate winners in 2012. to me it makes things a little too complicated.

that's why i don't know if like this whole voting aspect because i see so many fans who refuse to acknowledge the accomplishments of other players for their favourites. maria is the most popular player alongside serena williams,in this country,especially.....i think that gives girls like them an unfair advantage here. and given ESPN's general lack of professionalism,that's probably why they implemented this and why no other player outside maria,serena and venus have won this in the last 12 years.

to me the espy's are the sport equivalent of the grammy's pomp and circumstance.....as shallow as shallow can get.

 

[Chaky]

I am back from my tfs vacation and I missed arguing about Wimbledon with you guys!

Personally I thought this was one of the best Wimbledons in years. With Rosol throwing a spanner in the works, and Sharapova going out early it was constantly surprising.

I've really come to admire Aga Radwanska in recent months. I guess I like the sort of player who can overcome seeming physical shortcomings and maximises their game. This was why I like Henin so much. Now I'm not saying Aga is at the level of Henin (or Hingis to whom she is regularly compared) but it's definitely fun to see someone with a contrasting game-style up against the big hitters. I was just pleased to see that she wasn't whitewashed against the incredible serving and play of Serena in the final.

Obviously for those that know me, I was overjoyed to see Federer get another title and most importantly regain the no.1 spot at the age of thirty. And that's despite feeling really bad for Andy Murray not being able to get the job done. The British are just desperate for someone from here to win Wimbledon again. It was a weird situation in that final because no matter how much people wanted Andy to do it they love Roger as well.

I guess I feel that aside from Olympic singles gold there isn't much left for Federer to achieve at this point. I would be happy to see Murray win the US Open - Fed's right, he does deserve at least one.

 

[Scott]

you know i was thinking about this in comparison with hingis......aga has done something that hingis never did as the game evolved nor when she returned to the game in 2005....and that is,improving her own game. her serve is better and her groundies are stronger. radwanska to me is a much better player than hingis ever would be in this generation which leads to be hypothesize the notion that if you took aga and put her in hingis' era,would she have been a better player...would she have been a more successful player?

 

[Scott]

seriously,espn should really think about just changing their female player award to the sharapova or serena williams award because no one else even gets recognized. i feel like the other nominees are mere filler to bolster their significance as a genuine award.

 

[kournikov]

Congratulations to Serena Williams and Roger Federer. I was definitely expecting a Sharapova-Serena final, but Maria went out early, props to my girl Serena winning, beating Kvitova, and Azarenka easily (I expected a tougher fight from those two), YES SERENA WON, take that all you naysayers after she lost in the 1st round of RG, you really think she would just go away from the game like that?. She also won doubles with Venus!.

Roger is such a legend, not my favorite player, but props to him, I was suprised he beat Djokovic, and in shock that Nadal lost early. Too bad Murray didn't win, it would have been a great moment in tennis to watch.

 

[Chaky]

you know i was thinking about this in comparison with hingis......aga has done something that hingis never did as the game evolved nor when she returned to the game in 2005....and that is,improving her own game. her serve is better and her groundies are stronger. radwanska to me is a much better player than hingis ever would be in this generation which leads to be hypothesize the notion that if you took aga and put her in hingis' era,would she have been a better player...would she have been a more successful player?

That is a very interesting question and one which I'm hard pressed to answer.

We know that Hingis struggled towards the latter stages of her career with the new power game of the Williams sisters. Her comeback was relatively successful but only to a point and she still faced the same conundrum, which she was never able to satisfactorily solve.

I wouldn't say Aga has solved that problem either. But unlike Hingis she has played most of her career in a 'post-Williams' era where a lot of the girls hit harder than they ever did before. So perhaps she is more accustomed to dealing with it than Martina and would have had similar, if not greater, success.

I see a lot of talk about how Hingis was a much better thinker on court than Aga and that Aga gets too much credit for it. It's so hard to say. Her anticipation is fantastic which looks impressive when she able to counterpunch against the more one-note ballbashers. But maybe Serena doesn't get enough credit for being a good on-court thinker. Married with her power game it's unstoppable at times. She could have crumbled in that 3rd set against Aga but she figured out where it was going wrong and put an end to it.

 

[Scott]

see i think that's where aga shines her brightest compared with hingis...her anticipation. aga gets her racquet on many more balls than i ever recall from hingis. and she quite often hits good shots at that. it is difficult to gauge who is better as a thinker but to give aga a boost,to be able to counter that amount of power and still construct her points the way she does,at this point,it's hard not to think aga has a bit more going for her.

i do agree with you about serena. it's an attribute about her that i think gets lost in all the commentary of her game,as if to say she's that one-dimensional. no. not only is serena a thinker but i find her quite versatile as a player as well. the way she changed her tactics,and started working the points more in that third set was evident of those abilities i believe.

i just wanted to say a huge congrats to jennifer capriati and guga kuerten on their inductions into the hall of fame today. jen was very emotional when speaking on the adversity and the difficulties she's faced these last few years and maintaining that yearning to return. i couldn't help feeling for her as i know it's been tough for her having to end it not on her terms. monica gave jen her intro but i missed it,unfortunately. and guga's mum gave him a very moving intro as well. it was really sweet and very personal. loved it. guga was very humble as always and was really taken by the honour.

 

[kournikov]

So I was bored and decided to do some stats look ups. I'm a fan of Venus and Serena so I was curious as to what their head to head combined record is against big players.

DAVENPORT 24-17
HINGIS 17-17
DEMENTIEVA 16-8
HENIN 15-8
MAURESMO 15-5
CAPRIATI 14-7
CLIJSTERS 13-9
SELES 13-2
PIERCE 12-4
SHARAPOVA 11-6
IVANOVIC 11-1
JANKOVIC 10-10
KUZNETSOVA 10-6
AZARENKA 10-1
VICARIO 9-7
GRAF 4-3
KVITOVA 4-1

*Interesting facts, Jankovic and Hingis are tied with them.

 

[Scott]

yeah JJ remarkably is the only active player who has a strong record against both. of course,they all happened when JJ was playing her best in the 2007-08 seasons.

another interesting aspect in that too is how much both sisters matched-up differently with certain players. lindsay davenport,for instance,had a much better h2h against venus(13-14)whereas elena dementieva played her best against serena(5-7). otherwise,lena would simply get overwhelmed by venus' wingspan. amelie and kim clijsters also played better against venus but never serena.

 

[Scott]

hey guys i was just looking and this year's olympics this will be the first we've ever had more than two players bearing flag duties. novak djokovic,tsvetana pironkova,maria sharapova,agnieszka radwanska,max mirnyi,marcos baghdatis,stephanie vogt and horia tecau. and with rafa pulling out quite unfortunately,that would have made it 9 players.

so far the bigger nations like the US or GB haven't announced their flag bearers. i'm really supporting they bestowing the honor to serena and with what andy murray just did,as an outsider i can't imagine anybody else. but i bet on the american side,somebody like hope solo,phelps or that lochte will get it though.

btw,super news yesterday....amelie mauresmo was announced as the replacement for nicolas escude as fed cup captain!!! and she says,in that typically honest momo way,that don't expect miracles at this point but she did go on to say she is very keen and committed to getting marion bartoli back on the squad again. i think mauresmo will be able to convey herself in a more thoughtful manner than the petulant way escude went about things. and marion in-turn,last week,expressed her undying support of mauresmo taking the position as captain so it gives us hope.