Running Wimbledon thread

Having watched Breakfast at Wimbledon since Jan Kodes in '73 (boycott year) and then Jimmy in '74; there have been some great matches but today was very, very close to the best. Fed and Djoker were both hitting lines and hitting the ball hard (did you hear the audio? Fantastic). Usually four straight service breaks is not a sign of great tennis but mediocre tennis, but those were four well played games by both sides.

While I was rooting for Djoker, midway through the 4th I just realized that this was fantastic tennis and I was blessed to be able to watch it; a great feeling.

Djoker can appear to be a bit whinny when he's losing a few points but man does he appear to be resilient.

 

Agassi was way, way down before he bounced back to win the 1994 US Open. Then he got to No. 1 in the world again within a few months. Dipped again in 1997-98 before bouncing back to win the 1999 French and US Opens. His roller-coaster ride might have been the strangest ever for a Hall of Famer that didn't involve serious injury or other stuff, like being stabbed (Monica Seles).

There are lots of ways to measure a career, whether it be by rankings, Grand Slam titles, prize money or whatever. By any measurement, Federer has been remarkably consistent for well over a decade.

 

Yeah, Djoker really overcame a lot of moments when it appeared momentum and the crowd and all were going against him.

I really like all the guys at the top right now: Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Murray. All seem like good sportsmen.

 

I left the gym at 5-2 in the fourth set and didn't look back. FML

 

He was seeded 12th for that tournament. He had to that point, however, expressed such a disdain for the place that many figured it would be the last or least likely Grand Slam he would ever win. Instead, it was his first.

 

Anybody who says tennis is irrelevant is just plain ignorant.

Just because there are no U.S. men challenging for a Grand Slam does not mean this isn't a great era. It's an incredible time.

 

It's as good a time as I can remember.

People remember the Connors-McEnroe era as great --- and it certainly was --- but a tremendous amount of that was tied up in the players' ugly personalities, their tempers and their battles with umpires. Replay technology has taken that out of the equation. And frankly, a classy athlete is better than a boor.

Federer-Nadal-Djokovic > Connors-McEnroe-Nastase

And I don't see a Sampras-Agassi-Courier-Chang era coming anytime soon for those who won't watch the sport unless the competitors squirted out of a womb on American soil.

 

Murray kind of showed his ass a little bit when he got beat, but I think the pressure to repeat finally got the best of him.

 

I agree with you BTE that this is the best era of men's tennis in the Open period (my late father swore Pancho Gonzales was the best of 'em all, but who knows?). But don't forget Borg when recalling the late 70s and early '80s.

 

The beauty of the Borg-McEnroe rivalry was their contrast in styles and contrast in personalities. Baseliner v. serve and volleyer; Fire v Ice on the court (the book title I believe).

I agree though that the current collection of Fed-Nadal-Djoker-Murray is the best collection I've seen. The reason I root for Djoker is that I am fascinated that he's been able to break through the Fed-Nadal ceiling; Djoker was in the lower tier for so long (a good 3 years) it looked like he'd never win a major, then 2011 happened.

 

I just wish there was a real serve-and-volleyer among the top men. Federer does it a little here and there, but certainly not like McEnroe, Stefan Edberg or Pete Sampras used to. The great rivalries seemed to match a serve-and-volleyer against a baseliner. Maybe the modern racquets just make the touch game too hard.

The other complaint about the men's game is that too many of the matches take too long, on all surfaces. Sure, when you get a real compelling high-stakes final, four hours helps to build the drama. But that's the exception rather than the rule. Back 30 years ago, it was rare that even a five-set match went much over three hours. Now some three-set matches are approaching that length. Thus, it's much less often that I'll watch a match start to finish.

 

When talking about great eras in tennis, people often overlook the late 1980s/early 1990s. You had a young Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, an emerging champion in Jim Courier, Michael Chang and an older Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg and Ivan Lendl.

And 39-year-old Jimmy Connors somehow managed to get to the 1991 US Open semis.

And, on the women's side, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles (pre-stabbing), Gabriela Sabatini, Aranxa Sanchez, an aging Martina Navratilova and a very young Jennifer Capriati.

For quality depth, I think that might have been the best stretch of years in my lifetime.