Interesting that reports this morning say that Rafa was serving 10 mph slower than he did against Muzz. You wonder whether he really is that far away ... then you remember just how mentally tough the two playing that Final were last night. I mean, it's not as if Muzz isn't mentally tough compared to normal mortals - he must be to have achieved what he has - but compared to those two, he is nowhere close. Then again, nor was Nole 12 months ago ...

Sorry I'm not sure where's appropriate to ask. I couldn't watch the final and would love to see it. Has anyonne bought one of the DVDs available online in the past and are they tolerable. None of them seem to be totally legit.

Hope next year it features Andy  !

Ah, the doors of those hyperbaric chambers click when you close them do they  

Random time to ask this question and not sure if it was covered previously but I was reading something that said Murray is only the 7th player in the Open era to reach at least the semi finals of all 4 grand slams in one calendar year.

Who are the others. I'm assuming Fed, Nadal and Djoker... but not sure of others

adz1983 wrote:

---

Random time to ask this question and not sure if it was covered previously but I was reading something that said Murray is only the 7th player in the Open era to reach at least the semi finals of all 4 grand slams in one calendar year.

 

Who are the others. I'm assuming Fed, Nadal and Djoker... but not sure of others

---

If you check the articles about this, they all seemed to say Muzz was the 7th without actually listing the rest.

They are:

Rod Laver 1969
Tony Roche 1969
Ivan Lendl 1987
Roger Federer 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Rafael Nadal 2008
Novak Djokovic 2011
Andy Murray 2011

It is probably worth noting that the US Open was held on grass until 1974 then on clay from 1975-7 before moving to hard courts and the Aus Open was held on grass until the mid-1980s, so the surfaces started to become more heterogenous in the 1970s and have started to become more homogeneous (with grass courts being slowed down, etc) since the mid-noughties.

That (plus the fact that Borg only played one AO and Connors only two, while McEnroe regularly gave the AO, RG or even both a miss and Sampras never mastered clay) may go a long way towards explaining why this feat was only achieved once between 1970-2004.

Edit: Oops, I started this post before a 20-minute phone call and Akhenaten nipped in while I was busy.  At least we agree on the list (!) and the comments in the last two paragraphs hopefully go some way towards explaining why the players you mentioned afterwards never managed it.

You could actually make the counter arguement that the fact that four guys from the same era have aheived this feat and so regularly generally contest semi finals suggests that there is a distinct lacking in quality depth outside the top 4. and that other eras had much more real depth meaning the top 3 or 4 guys couldn't dominate so much.  All statistically it really says is that the top 4 from this period have been very much better in Slams than the rest.

In truth ( taking my pedant hat off and considering the actual players ) I do think that while there may be a slight element of truth in that, yes it is very much more to with the players at the top being quite exceptional and Andy has indeed been very unlucky to be around at thi time re his prospects for winning Slams.

indiana wrote:

---

You could actually make the counter arguement that the fact that four guys from the same era have aheived this feat and so regularly generally contest semi finals suggests that there is a distinct lacking in quality depth outside the top 4. and that other eras had much more real depth meaning the top 3 or 4 guys couldn't dominate so much.  All statistically it really says is that the top 4 from this period have been very much better in Slams than the rest.

In truth ( taking my pedant hat off and considering the actual players ) I do think that while there may be a slight element of truth in that, yes it is very much more to with the players at the top being quite exceptional and Andy has indeed been very unlucky to be around at thi time re his prospects for winning Slams.

---

 I don't deny the argument about lack of depth but as you point out the fact that there are 3 AMAZING players all playing at the same time is tough for Andy. We have had few one slam wonders in the last decade. Most of them. Johansson, Gaudio, Ferrero Costa, etc. came at a time just after Sampras/Agassi era and before the current crop.

Would you say there is a huge amount of depth in the women's game just because there seem to be different winners at every slam in last couple of years? To me this feels like the 2002-4 period of mens tennis.