Tennis 2022

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Stanzin Lama said:
This record, in particular, is just unbelievable and probably will never be repeated.
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It definitely won't be repeated, but that's more so because of the devaluation of doubles and mixed doubles in recent decades. You will rarely see top singles players dedicating any time to doubles matches these days, which was quite different from the 80s and 90s when more of them were doing it, most notably McEnroe and Peter Fleming when John was the #1 singles player in the world.

McEnroe actually has 16 slam titles if you factor in all of them.
 
Raoul said:
It definitely won't be repeated, but that's more so because of the devaluation of doubles and mixed doubles in recent decades. You will rarely see top singles players dedicating any time to doubles matches these days, which was quite different from the 80s and 90s when more of them were doing it, most notably McEnroe and Peter Fleming when John was the #1 singles player in the world.

McEnroe actually has 16 slam titles if you factor in all of them.
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There's an obvious reason why people don't, though. Doubles is a great game in and of itself, but the standard is so much lower that it has no place in a discussion about singles players and the number of Slams won. I remember people pushing for Jamie Murray to be Sports Personality of the Year in the UK when he was at his peak and it was just laughable.
 


Is this the best point ever played? I remember watching it happen and it was exhilarating.
 
I wasn't always a big fan of Serena, much preferring Venus to her; my favourite match between the 2 Williams sisters will always be the 2008 Wimbledon final when Serena played at a high level but Venus still came out on top.

But her body of work has been nothing short of amazing, and she clearly transcended the sport. I believe that the women's US Open final only moved to a prime-time slot from 2001, when there was such a huge amount of interest in watching Venus and Serena battle it out for the title. And of course she has been the no. 1 TV ratings draw in the US for a quite a while, at least since Agassi retired.

When comparing great players across different generations in women's tennis, that is further impacted by the fact that there was no basically no depth in women's tennis outside the top 10 or at most outside the top 20 until the 21st century. Until then, the early round women's matches in grand slams were a complete joke, and 128 player draw sizes in grand slams were clearly excessive. That's in contrast to men's tennis which always had a strong enough level of depth throughout the open era, including when Laver won his grand slam in 1969, Connors and then Borg were on top during the 70s etc.

I think that Serena won her first Serena slam in 2002-2003 when up against the strongest top 10 in the history of women's tennis at the time, and then her second Serena slam in 2014-2015 when the top 10 was weaker than that but still when up against the stop top 100 (at least) in the history of women's tennis at the time.
 
Raoul said:
It definitely won't be repeated, but that's more so because of the devaluation of doubles and mixed doubles in recent decades. You will rarely see top singles players dedicating any time to doubles matches these days, which was quite different from the 80s and 90s when more of them were doing it, most notably McEnroe and Peter Fleming when John was the #1 singles player in the world.

McEnroe actually has 16 slam titles if you factor in all of them.
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It doesn't really matter though, does it. The sheer number has never been achieved. The amount of fitness, dedication, and will power needed to achieve it, even against fodder opponents is a testament to her prolonged greatness. The next best most successful doubles slam player (both men and women) is well below her count. The fact that McEnroe has 16 and Navratilova has 59 in itself speaks volumes of her achievement.
 
Stanzin Lama said:
It doesn't really matter though, does it. The sheer number has never been achieved. The amount of fitness, dedication, and will power needed to achieve it, even against fodder opponents is a testament to her prolonged greatness. The next best most successful doubles slam player (both men and women) is well below her count. The fact that McEnroe has 16 and Navratilova has 59 in itself speaks volumes of her achievement.
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Well yes, except for the fact that no one cares about doubles titles, much less mixed doubles ones. They only care about normal slams.
 
In terms of all time grand slams in singles / doubles / mixed doubles, Margaret Court also holds the record there with 62. I believe that she is the only player in history to win every grand slam in all 3 disciplines at least twice.

The pre-open era vs. open era dividing line doesn't really matter at all in women's tennis. Unlike in men's tennis, there was no separate professional tour, and therefore no amateur vs. professional split, so all players were eligible to compete in all grand slams. However the 'issues' regarding her singles grand slam count are the fact that 11 of her 24 came at the Australian Open which typically had very small draw sizes, in which most of the players competing were Australian, so they were like regional championships at times. None of those 24 grand slams had a 128 player draw size, although as I said earlier, women's tennis didn't properly justify 128 player draw sizes at the slams until the 21st century when proper depth beyond the top 10-20 finally emerged.

Also Wimbledon was clearly the most important grand slam in those days (while in modern times the grand slams are pretty much equal), and she as a serve-volleyer 'only' won it 3 times (the same number of times as the baseliner Evert), compared to Navratilova winning it 9 times and Graf and Serena winning it 7 times. In general though, grand slam counting only became a big deal from the 90s when Sampras closed in on Roy Emerson's record (which previously was considered to be meaningless with Borg not caring about going after it) on the men's side.
 
Raoul said:
Well yes, except for the fact that no one cares about doubles titles, much less mixed doubles ones. They only care about normal slams.
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I don't know who they are, but at least based on this thread, quite a number of people do. I am not inserting the slam counts in the GOAT debate. I don't really care who the GOAT is. I am just admiring the talent of an amazing professional here. The fact that she was able to achieve so much in multiple formats is an incredible achievement. @GuybrushThreepwood, I had no idea Court had the record for most slams at 62. Thank you for the correction.
 
Ladron de redcafe said:
I lean in the same direction. It's Serena, Graf, and Martina for me as well. The focus on slam counts only just became a thing over the past two decades. Just as Emerson wasn't considered the greatest despite holding the slam record prior to Sampras taking it, Court wasn't quite considered the greatest despite the 24 slams. Nobody in tennis thought Emerson was a better player than Laver or Borg, for instance.

Regarding the GOAT debate in women's tennis, Serena has a strong claim because she has 23 slams and an argument can be made that the athleticism of the sport is higher than it was 3 or 4 decades ago. But I - like you - don't think it's that simple.
Steffi won 22 slams in 12 years compared to Serena's 23 in 23 years while playing against stronger competition, such as Navratilova. She won the Golden Slam in 1988 which eclipses anything Serena has every done, and has double the career grand slams that Serena does. Peak for peak, Steffi was simply more dominant, winning 6 consecutive slams at her best. She also has Serena comfortable beat as far as weeks at number 1 go.

Navratilova has a staggering 59 grand slams (!) in total (singles, doubles, and mixed) and is 2nd all time to Graff in weeks at number 1. And would have won a lot more slams had she not had the misfortune of having to come up against Evert and Graf.
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It is definitely between those two IMO but there is some context that needs to be added here. Graf throughout her career was 100% focused on tennis whereas Serena had a period where she was trying to do all kinds of stuff. I think it was Chris Evert who wrote an open letter to her saying she was throwing her career away.

It's speculation but I reckon peak focused Serena beats peak Graf more often than not. They did in fact play twice in 1999 and it was 1-1. Serena was 17/18 and Graf was 29/30 with a whole bunch of Grand Slam wins under her belt. Both matches were tough 3-setters. Graf had sufffered injuries and was past her best but she still won the French Open that year so she wasn't totally washed.
 
Novax out of US Open due to No vax
 
SinNombre said:
Indeed she is but often brushed under the carpet.
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Agreed, cant stand her. The way she screams over the net at the other girl on a cushioned, unmissable volley. And the croud an commentators cheer like its lion like heart and will to win. Even though she's stones of muscle mass on most of her adversaries.
6-1 6-0 yea well done enthralling contest.
 
Rafa finally avoids Nick in his quarter (and half). He's got a fairly easy draw for a change.
 
Havent followed Tennis since Wimbledon, but Nadal is nowhere near fit right? Played 1 match since and lost.
 
So... Novax won't play US Open and has a three year ban on Australia, meaning his next GS will be the French Open 2023
 
Devil77 said:
Such a stupid stubbornness. Glad that he’s treated by the same standards as common people.
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Why didn't he just faked the whole thing? Pretty sure his political connections could had emitted an official vaccination certificate and they could even film the event of him taking a fake vaccine just for the credibility.
I guess now is too late to go that route, because no one will believe a word of him about vaccination. He just "officially" became the anti-vax movement PR. It's really nothing to be proud of, a bit like being the official face of the flat earth movement.
 
Could be the last match for Serena meanwhile. 2-3 in the first set so far, crowd is very loud.

At the same time Tsitsipas is losing 11-0 :D
 
Errrm Raducanus shorts tonight are a little hiked up on one side. Just saying
 
Nadal just lost the opening set to a kid from Australia making his Grand Slam debut.
 
Horrible draw for Raducanu. Also, considering how many points she is likely to lose even if she reaches the final, coupled with the Wimbledon points loss she'd have been better off finishing runner up last year.

She's almost certainly out of the top 64 after this tournament which will make her stuttering form even more of an issue in the months to come unless she's offered wild cards into to the tournaments to defend the meagre points she has.
 
Drawfull said:
Horrible draw for Raducanu. Also, considering how many points she is likely to lose even if she reaches the final, coupled with the Wimbledon points loss she'd have been better off finishing runner up last year.

She's almost certainly out of the top 64 after this tournament which will make her stuttering form even more of an issue in the months to come unless she's offered wild cards into to the tournaments to defend the meagre points she has.
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Her shot selection has been awful in this match. She is just throwing away points.
 
Emma Raducanu bows out in two straight sets

The more I see her more I'm convinced her US Open win last year was a complete statistical anomaly
 
Suedesi said:
Emma Raducanu bows out in two straight sets

The more I see her more I'm convinced her US Open win last year was a complete statistical anomaly
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She has had without a doubt the worst 52 weeks for any pro after winning their maiden GS. (not counting anyone who suffered a major injury).

Well on the path to be considered the flukiest GS winner of all time, even by WTA standards.
 
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Hats off to Rinky. Ombelievable!
 
saivet said:
Thiem no surprise but wasn't expecting the other two! Halep out on the ladies draw bit of a surprise too
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It’s not really a surprise with Tsitsipas anymore - he’d fit right in on this United squad with his mentality.
 
Suedesi said:
Emma Raducanu bows out in two straight sets

The more I see her more I'm convinced her US Open win last year was a complete statistical anomaly
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I've watched all her matches since the win last year and there have been flashes of good play that shows it's in there - she had a very open draw though last time out granted. The media are making too much of her injuries and not enough of her coaching choices I reckon. If her dad gets out the way / coaches stick around for longer than 2 tournaments each she's got more wins, maybe slam wins, in her future.
 
njred said:
Her shot selection has been awful in this match. She is just throwing away points.
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Yes it was pretty bizarre and coupled with basic lapses of concentration when points were 'won' (netted passes/drops) or coasting (40:15 up in the second set then gets broken 'cos she appears to think that that game's in the bag) and it wasn't a good performance at all. But then, it's similar to a lot of her matches this past 12 months: cruising then switching off.
 
Obviously she can still say she has won a GS and she's still very young but the drop off in quality since that tournament would alarm me. She needs to take some time to get a good team around her because it doesn't feel like she is being advised well in certain areas of her career.
 
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