JonH comes home wrote:

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if you want a sport with predictable results go back to squash in the 70/80/90.

jahangir khan and jansher khan went years without being beaten. on the womens side it was heather mckay a few years earlier.

it was so predictable that it became about the draw and hoping against hope you would be in the opposite half to jahangir.

but it always raised the question for me - was he the best ever as everyone likes to suggest or was the opposition weaker than we might have thought...

in tennis, i have been reading Open Tennis by Richard Evans, which chronicles the period and the players, and events of open tennis from the late 60's to late 80's. The way he talks about the players in those eras make me think we miss a trick by thinking that todays players are necessarily miles better and , thus , makes us conclude that the big 3 are clearly the best ever, of all time, no doubt - they may have the most slams, does that make them the best ever. they have the best equipment, uniform court speeds largely, entourages to look after their needs, their travel, their fitness, can pick and choose their schedule. transplant mcenroe, laver, rosewall, borg, lendl, becker, ashe, and so on and so forth into today and how do we really know they wouldnt be as good and effective as the big 3 - i personally would put borg up against nadal, mcenroe up against djokovic and laver up against federer and reckon we would have a pretty close best of 3 now versus then match.

but the big thing that makes it for me is personality and storyline. tennis is a sport and it is entertainment. and the big 3 storyline has got predictable and stale, imo. the womens side is at another point where it needs some of the smorgasbord of talent to come through and become the personality and have a little dominance. a little dominance is a good thing; someone that wins 1 or 2 slams a year works, they get put up as the big name and the person to shoot at. 3 players winning all the slams year in year out is desparately boring after around 10-15 years of it...

the answer is for a happy medium. the men need one or two of the guys below the big 3 to come through now, it is vital. the women need perhaps a little more stability and maybe one or two of the big names to be just that little bit more dominant; the women has the potential personalities in osaka, barty etc, just need to dominate a little more.

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 Indeed Jon, that's the in between I have talked about. As long as so many of the best women players are not performing consistently near their best in the biggest tournaments and, as you say, there to be really shot at the tournaments lose a lot for me. Latter stages populated by lower ranked players who yes may have produced one or rwo performances well above their norm earlier but are quite likely not to repeat does leave for me a loss of occasion ( great though it is for these players ). You risk the non quality and possible pained looking away of say the Bartoli vs Lisicki Wimbledon final ( and I liked both players ). Can be dramatatic but not how I want. Sorry, claims for the outstanding health of women's tennis leave me personally a bit dumbfounded and reduced to that earlier "Wow".

Incidentally I don't think any of us want the other extreme of real predictability. Hence my own tiring of Nadal and Djokovic, and Federer before, true greats though they are ( mayhe about the best ever but that as you indicate remains quite a debate ). but the onus there is on orher players to step up. 

 

junior wrote:

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Not really, Federer/Mirka, Fabio/Flavia, Novak/Jelena, Jack Sock/Sloane stephens. just some off the top of my head.

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 Wait what? Sock/Stephens?? 

flamingowings wrote:

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Sakkari and Tsitsipas for the sweetheart double? (They are dating)

The bun of steel was out in force today. I like Sakkari, she's definitely been 'seen' a bit more than others.

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 I'm no expert here but I thought he was dating Theodora Petalas.

 

On the tennis Sakkari was absolutely top class today. Fully deserivng of her place in the last 4. She had a plan to attack Swiatek's forehand time and time again and it worked. Haven't seen anyone else get close to this type of win against Swiatek at Paris in the last two events.

Would be the worst thing for Sakkari if she were to win this tournament. For her own sake hope she doesn't

I mean kudos to her if she does, her name will go down in history and its something that will never be forgotten. However there will always be two giant asterixs next to it as: the one where everyone else lost and she was (and I hate this idea but people will think it) "the best of a bad bunch" and her victory will go down as similar to a Bartoli or Schiavone who sort of walked through a GS. And the other would be the Thiem asterix, meaning mentally she looks like she won't be able to cope with the pressure of having won a GS and may never recover from it or repeat the result (not only thiem, other women examples, jankovic, ivanovic, etc).

junior wrote:

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I mean kudos to her if she does, her name will go down in history and its something that will never be forgotten. However there will always be two giant asterixs next to it as: the one where everyone else lost and she was (and I hate this idea but people will think it) "the best of a bad bunch" and her victory will go down as similar to a Bartoli or Schiavone who sort of walked through a GS. And the other would be the Thiem asterix, meaning mentally she looks like she won't be able to cope with the pressure of having won a GS and may never recover from it or repeat the result (not only thiem, other women examples, jankovic, ivanovic, etc).

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 To be fair, Zidansek and Krejcikova would be in the same position - Pavlyuchenkova is older and more experienced. It's a strange year with the top-ranked players all going out.

Well Krejcikova has won. A big moment for her, but perhaps she will handle it better than Sakkari, as she is up at the top in doubles, even though she has yet to win a slam there either, reaching semis and finals.