Tennis

Szlia_sl said:

Some good old fashioned slice approach shots still work well on the low bouncing grass, as hitting top spin on a low ball is a perilous exercise.

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Ah, the single handed backhand slice... The Queen of that shot is undoubtedly my favourite (and imo best) female player of all time - Steffi Graf.

Graf in her prime would give Williams a run for her money. Although her serve is not at powerful as some, she had a monster forehand, wicked sliced backhand and amazing footwork around the court. Miss her playing so much

Navratilova > Graff for sure, but she was still great. Serena on a good day beats either of them on their best day, though.

Some crazy shit going down right now. Darcis is ballin'. Listening to stream @ work. Never listened to tennis commentary without watching it live. Intense shit!

Nadal is in some serious trouble at the moment.

Don't count against him making a comeback from 2-0 sets down though.

Adam12_sl said:

Serena on a good day beats either of them on their best day, though.

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It's difficult to compare different eras since racket technology is much different now than the previous eras when Martina and Steffi played. I would say that Graf would definitely be on equal footing with Serena with all things being constant. Graf's biggest asset was her ability to get around the court and her athleticism. She has a amazingly powerful inside out forehand and her sliced backhand would keep the ball so low and deep that it was difficult to generate a powerful counter attacking shot.

On Clay and maybe Grass, I would give Graf the upper hand against Serena but on hard courts, Serena's biggest weapon is her serve and the sliced backhand would not be as effective on that surface so Serena would probably edge ahead with her power. Bear in mind that Graf still held her own and beat big hitters in her era such as Davenport, Hingis and Seles so it would still be a good contest.

oh mer gerdz. Nadal out in 1st. Shit just opened up for Federer, woo!

Ermahgerd

Nadal

I guess the 5th seed controversy can blow over now!

The other day on Tennis TV they were showing the qualifications of 's-Hertogenbosch. It caught my eye, because there was a swiss player being televised: Stephane Bohli. The guy is an ok tennis player, pretty complete game, but if he has a great quality or a big weapon I have yet to discover it in the couple matches I saw of him. He is ranked 381 at the ATP, which makes him the swiss N?7. Why am I mentioning this? Because I watched Bohli playing a no-nonsense match with good stats on serve and win in in two tie-breaker against.... Steve Darcis. Yep. Darcis who ended up being a lucky loser and who lost in straight sets (with a breaker in the first) against Wawrinka. So yeah... some very optimistic belgian fans must be rich right now!

I just saw a set and a half of that Darcis vs Nadal match and found the belgian was not playing out of his skin. He was serving well, dealing with high balls on his single handed backhand with ease (well helped by the surface), hitting a mean slice, constructing the points well and returning a lot of balls. Darcis is not a Soderling or a Rosol, he does not blow people out of the court, but he often outlasted Nadal in rallies as the spaniard looked nervous, was not timing the ball very well and did not get much out of his serve, putting him under pressure time and time again.

In press conference, Nadal congratulated Darcis for his spotless performance, he brushed aside all knee and injury related questions, but mentioned the pre-event press conference done on Saturday when he explained that grass and the lower posture one must adopt when playing on it, makes it the most challenging surface for him to play on at this stage of his career. He also noted that he wanted to play in Halle to get some grass court play in him, but going all the way at the French forced him to take some recovery time.

Note that Tipsarevic, Wawrinka and Fognini are the three other seeds who lost today. In all fairness to them and without insulting Darcis, they faced tougher opponents in, respectively, Troicki and grass lovers Hewitt and Melzer.


PS: Hampton lost

Neki_sl said:

beat big hitters in her era such as Davenport, Hingis and Seles so it would still be a good contest.

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I totally agree with you about the eras, the racket technology changes a lot, and this is especially true for the men. Serena is on such a completely different level at this point though that I just cannot see any woman in history being better.

Hingis was little better than a moonballer, btw, which is why I quoted that part~~

Hingis had no power, but she had a great hand and a tennis I.Q. off the charts. You don't win 5 grand slams in single and 9 in doubles by accident. Her spiritual successor is Radwanska, not Wozniacki. The heiress of this tradition is Belinda Bencic who just won the junior event at the French Open.

Hingis is the Swiss Miss. Do not mock her!

Adam12_sl said:

I'll take Blake as a darkhorse just because it'd be great to see him make a little run.

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I am watching Blake against De Bakker and the dutchman is blowing a gasket: Blake is pummeling him. Winners from everywhere, all the time, hardly any unforced error. 6-1 6-3 for Blake at the moment.

Day 2 seedicide watch:

- Simon [19] lost in straight sets to Lopez, like he did Saturday in Eastbourne's final.

- Querrey [21] victim of shitydrawitis lost in five to Tomic in a duel of grass lovers. The young australian will face Blake next. That should be fun!

- Kohlschreiber [16] had to retire early in the fifth set against Dodig. Not too sure what happened in this one.

A lot of intriguing matches tomorrow, be it because top seeds are facing good underdogs (Tsonga vs Gulbis, Federer vs Stakhovski) or because of style oppositions (Robredo vs Mahut, Hewitt vs Brown, Janowicz vs Stepanek). To test the limits of your speakers, there will also be a Sharapova vs Larcher de Brito. To be fair though the portuguese who had a little run at the French as a teenager in 2009 (endangering her vocal cords and our ears in the process, but stunning us by her over the top fighting spirit and intensity) fell off the radar (sonar?) for a long while and is now 20, so she can very well be a totally different player.

There really is nothing sweeter to watch than a serve and volley guy who is absolutely on fire. Au revoir, Roger~

Fucking hell.

This is crazy shit. Tons of injuries and upsets. Pretty fucked up how much people are slipping around.

ESPN is treating this like a funeral. These tears are fucking delicious!