OT: Pro Tennis Thread

[wco81]

Serve and volleyers like McEnroe, Sampras and Becker did well at Wimbledon.

What happened to the grass? I couldn't believe they were using drop shots.

[rhymes450]

Serve and volleyers like McEnroe, Sampras and Becker did well at Wimbledon.

What happened to the grass? I couldn't believe they were using drop shots.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 24,00.html

[JackB1]

The HBO documentary "McEnroe vs. Borg: Fire and Ice" was compelling. Great cinematography, script and narration, just like all HBO documentaries.

Really enjoyed it.

Agree. Great documentary. HBO stuff is always top notch.

I never realized Borg retired so early. I guess he couldn't take watching someone else come in
and take over his top spot?

[10spro]

The HBO documentary "McEnroe vs. Borg: Fire and Ice" was compelling. Great cinematography, script and narration, just like all HBO documentaries.

Really enjoyed it.

Agree. Great documentary. HBO stuff is always top notch.

I never realized Borg retired so early. I guess he couldn't take watching someone else come in
and take over his top spot?

Such is the rumor. Mac's huge win over Borg at Wimbledon created some doubts in the Swede and his inability to come through at the US Open year after year eventually sank him in. He was so young, I remember being in complete shock when he announced that he wasn't going to touch a racket ever again.

[wco81]

Serve and volleyers like McEnroe, Sampras and Becker did well at Wimbledon.

What happened to the grass? I couldn't believe they were using drop shots.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 24,00.html

Thanks, interesting stuff.

No refuge for serve and volleyers.

[rhymes450]

That 1980 Wimbledon 4th set tiebreaker was the most incredible 20 odd minutes of sport I can remember having seen. Watching it again today, Borg's adaptation to the fast surface was amazing. He was playing serve and volley on many of the points, despite his natural baseline game. Watching these highlights of the US Open final a few weeks later, a couple of things occur to me, apart from the fact that it's worth watching all 9 or 10 minutes of the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oxOHvjA ... re=related

The first is how, despite the wooden raquet and the fact that his style was so unusual at the time, Borg was very reminiscent of modern tennis players with his heavy hitting off the ground,

The second is that in all probability nobody has ever volleyed with as much feel as McEnroe did in those years. In recent years, we've seen the unsurpassable elegance of Federer, but there's an unorthodox beauty about McEnroe's game that is on at least as high a plane IMO. I've had a few beers and nostalgia is a powerful drug but McEnroe is my all-time favourite player...bar none.

[rhymes450]

US Open beginning to hot up with some tricky 3rd round matches for the top 3. Fed's already come thru' a pretty stern test against Cilic. Djoko faces Davydenko later today and Nadal has to play Nalbandian, a player who has given him problems in the past. Also looking forward to Del Potro v Simon.

Mardy Fish going well lately and looking good to reach the round of 16, where' he'd meet the winner of Tsonga and Verdasco. Not easy, but he's been playing very well recently.

Donald Young deserves kudos for his 5-set win against Wawrinka.

I know Roddick isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I find his interviews interesting. Just in case anybody else does, here's the link to his post-match conference after beating latest American hopeful, Jack Sock (great name!):

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/interactive ... promo=home

[10spro]

I caught the Federer-Cilic game. After winning the second set, I thought Cilic could push it another level as the Swiss was missing easy shots in that set he lost. But instead it was Federer that took control after that and he just cruised. If his serve is on, he's capable of reaching the semis no problem.

Nadal instead still looks like he's short of a few games preparation coming into the US Open. I saw him in Montreal a couple of weeks ago and I don't think he's 100% healed from his foot problems.

The man to beat is Dyokovic, and Murray had a scare yesterday. I'd like to see DP do well this week. He's probably the guy nobody wants to face. Can't overlook Tsonga and M. Fish who's having a great summer.

[JackB1]

More classless behavior from our Americans...
http://www.sportsgrid.com/tennis/ten...h-you-dumbass/

Fish called Tsonga a "dumbass" when it was an a point in the
match that Fish was obviously losing it and felt the need to
insult Tsonga. But what can you expect from someone who is
best friends with Andy Roddick...the other arrogant American
famous for his passive aggressive insults and general "entitled"
attitude. And now we got this kid Ryan Harrison coming up,
who throws his racquets and hits balls at the crowds and
basically acts like a kid that had his toys taken away from him.

Federer looks more and more like a shining example of a role
model every day, when compared with what we produce in this
country.

[10spro]

Harrison makes McEnroe look good, he's making an ass of his young career.

Djokovic-Dolgopolov played one of the most exciting tiebreakers of the US Open yesterday.

Nadal looked in bad pain as he was cramping over his news conference, here's an interesting article on today's strings.

http://espn.go.com/tennis/usopen11/stor ... ute-string

[rhymes450]

More classless behavior from our Americans...
http://www.sportsgrid.com/tennis/ten...h-you-dumbass/

Fish called Tsonga a "dumbass" when it was an a point in the
match that Fish was obviously losing it and felt the need to
insult Tsonga. But what can you expect from someone who is
best friends with Andy Roddick...the other arrogant American
famous for his passive aggressive insults and general "entitled"
attitude. And now we got this kid Ryan Harrison coming up,
who throws his racquets and hits balls at the crowds and
basically acts like a kid that had his toys taken away from him.

Federer looks more and more like a shining example of a role
model every day, when compared with what we produce in this
country.

I'd definitely cut Fish a bit of slack there. In his post-match press conference (which can be viewed on the US Open site), he admits saying "I don't speak French, dumbass" to umpire Carlos Bernardo (and not to Tsonga) and, with a wry smile, adds, "I probably shouldn't have said that". Tsonga, nice guy that he seems to be, was equally happy not to make a big deal of a minor flare up in a pressure-cooker situation, where the stakes were very high. I've seen quite a few Mardy Fish matches over the last few years and he's never struck me as being a conflictive type. Harrison is a different kettle of...(oh darn, the Mardy pun has become an unkickable habit of mine...almost a way of life...sorry folks)...but then again, he's still pretty young and nobody's perfect. I remember watching a live broadcast of the match featured in the link below and sharing the general surprise when the unthinkable occurred:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9X48FqmoJI

[JackB1]

Harrison makes McEnroe look good, he's making an ass of his young career.

Djokovic-Dolgopolov played one of the most exciting tiebreakers of the US Open yesterday.

Nadal looked in bad pain as he was cramping over his news conference, here's an interesting article on today's strings.

http://espn.go.com/tennis/usopen11/stor ... ute-string

Agree.....that Djoko-Dolgo tiebreak was amazing. Djoko seemed amused at how Dolgo was hanging with him, but
seemed to know it wouldn't last.

Yeah, that Nadal conference thing was weird. The he just disappeared under the desk like he was eaten by a
land shark from below

Really disappointed in Fish's performance and his remarks to Tsonga. Tsonga is probably the most underrated and dangerous
player in the men's draw. He serves so big and he can bang you off the court if you don't bring it. Fish seemed to
just slowly digress over the course of the match until Tsonga had the edge. TSonga vs Federer should be a good one.

So far, it's been a pretty entertaining Open. Once we get to the final 4, it will get very interesting!

[JackB1]

I'd definitely cut Fish a bit of slack there. In his post-match press conference (which can be viewed on the US Open site), he admits saying "I don't speak French, dumbass" to umpire Carlos Bernardo (and not to Tsonga) and, with a wry smile, adds, "I probably shouldn't have said that". Tsonga, nice guy that he seems to be, was equally happy not to make a big deal of a minor flare up in a pressure-cooker situation, where the stakes were very high. I've seen quite a few Mardy Fish matches over the last few years and he's never struck me as being a conflictive type. Harrison is a different kettle of...(oh darn, the Mardy pun has become an unkickable habit of mine...almost a way of life...sorry folks)...but then again, he's still pretty young and nobody's perfect. I remember watching a live broadcast of the match featured in the link below and sharing the general surprise when the unthinkable occurred:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9X48FqmoJI

Fish is quiet most of the time, but I have heard many instances where his "true personality" comes out and he's not the "nice guy" you think he is.

[wco81]

Hmm, so more technology to make the game more baseline-focused.

How boring.

[10spro]

Hmm, so more technology to make the game more baseline-focused.

How boring.

Personally, I prefer the baseline rallies rather than the Sampras one dimensional serve and volley game. Now, that was boring...

[wco81]

If the technology makes most if not all players make themselves baseline players, then it gets monotonous.

Not to mention, serve and volley requires athleticism and risk/reward calculations whereas the baseliners depend on ... technology.

[toonarmy]

If the technology makes most if not all players make themselves baseline players, then it gets monotonous.

Not to mention, serve and volley requires athleticism and risk/reward calculations whereas the baseliners depend on ... technology.

It's technology that has led to emphasis on serving and volleying as well. Racket tech has made it so that players can serve the ball at ridiculous speeds. The rackets have become so strong that, combined with increased player strength, the serving game has become too pronounced IMO. Give these guys rackets of yesteryear and they would by and large be baseliners compared to today. And as far as athleticism is concerned, it takes more athleticism to be a baseliner than a serve and volley player for the most part. I welcome anything that gets more baseline play back into the game. It makes the game more of a chess match and allows a wider range of styles to be competitive.

[rhymes450]

Interesting article that covers so much, it's pretty hard to assimilate in a single reading and I suspect that some or a lot of it is over my head. Lower tensions giving more power and more spin from less dense string patterns seems logical enough but Fed and Djoko using those combinations of natural gut and synthetic strings with different tensions for mains and crosses is pretty mind-boggling stuff to me. There's possibly a certain amount of marketing going on there too. I'm sure the string manufacturer would like to have it known out there that Nadal's great 2010 was down to their strings. Nadal's change to the black strings (as I call them in my simple way) coincided with the crisis point in his career, which basically lasted from Roland Garros 2009 right through the American hard-court season, the end-of-year Masters Series events, Australia etc. I first noticed that he was using them at Indian Wells and Miami, where he played alright in getting to the semis of both. Then the clay-court season arrived, beginning with Monte Carlo and the "last chance" for the new strings. It saw the beginning of a brilliant run culminating in his Flushing Meadow's win. I suspect it was due more to the fact that he was back on the surface on which he feels most secure than any change of strings. Another things that strikes me is that the grips and manner in which the stroke is executed surely count at least as much as strings in terms of rpm. It seems pretty obvious, at least to me, that Nadal, with a huge western grip and a forehand stroke that often finishes above his head is going to produce more spin than Federer with an eastern/semiwestern grip finishing the stroke across his body. I don't think it's just a question of strings. Also debateable whether strings are as influential as slower surfaces in the demise of the serve and volleyer. A well struck volley coming through fast and low could hardly be much fun for a guy with an exaggerated western grip trying to pick it up, no matter what strings he's using. On the other hand, if the surface is holding the ball up, that same baseliner is going to have loads of time to set up the passing shot, which presumably would be all the more devastating with the new strings. Just a few scattered thoughts on a pretty complex matter. One way or another, tennis is still alive and well IMO...

[wco81]

One way or another, tennis is still alive and well IMO...

Is it? It may be setting revenues, attendance records, though I wonder about ratings at least in the US without big American stars vying for Grand Slams like the Sampras/Agassi days.

Relative to a something like golf, it seems to have fallen behind, even before Tiger came on the scene. Twenty years ago, someone like Greg Norman, who didn't have much success in the actual tournaments, made tens of millions on endorsements.

Biggest tennis stars seem to still depend on tourney winnings, though they also get appearance fees for just playing, not necessarily winning.

[10spro]

One way or another, tennis is still alive and well IMO...

Is it? It may be setting revenues, attendance records, though I wonder about ratings at least in the US without big American stars vying for Grand Slams like the Sampras/Agassi days.

But even in their glory days, tennis was not not and will never be a moving force in America. Not when you have Football, Basketball, and Baseball as your past times. If it continues to break records in revenue shares year after year, then the sport is doing fine. Is America looking for their next Sampras? Sure. But as any avid tennis fan would tell you, the sport is doing fine despite the lack for an American hero. Go To Spain, South America, and places in Europe and tennis would rank just behind soccer.

[10spro]

On the subject of strings, the magic word these days is 'Luxilon'. I remember in my glory days that natural gut was the string to get but I realized that it took a big chunk out of my wallet before I settled for something more like Kevlar which I recommended to my players. Hybrid is a word you hear a lot too these days but I wouldn't recommend 'Luxilon' to a club player. If you don't have good stroke mechanics, poly will gladly expose them for you. If you have a sore elbow or shoulder, it's a sure bet you'll be taking a break from tennis after playing with this particular brand.

It is a stiff unforgiving string but quite durable even with the smallest gauges. What poly does allow you to do is to swing harder so that you can impart more spin to the ball and not have it put a hole in the back fence. The truth is with poly you can hit harder, but only if you are capable of hitting harder properly.

But for the Pros it is a gift sent from heaven. The poly has a dead feel so they can swing hard to create more spin with less length. Its poor tension maintenance isn't a problem as they get multiple racquets restrung daily, whether they play with them or not.

And while at this time of the year a lot of players start falling like flies, don't be surprised if the current strings have some say in their bodies although ultimately I think the horrible long and arduous schedule have to do a lot with players getting injured.

[fsquid]

tennis is pretty dead in the US. Used to be so many tournaments in the US, now there are a few in the Spring and none after the US Open. Maybe if another American gets on a roll.

[wco81]

And I'm telling you, if the next American star is just another baselining, two-hand backhanding Euro-clone like Roddick, they won't be terribly excited.

[rhymes450]

On the subject of strings, the magic word these days is 'Luxilon'. I remember in my glory days that natural gut was the string to get but I realized that it took a big chunk out of my wallet before I settled for something more like Kevlar which I recommended to my players. Hybrid is a word you hear a lot too these days but I wouldn't recommend 'Luxilon' to a club player. If you don't have good stroke mechanics, poly will gladly expose them for you. If you have a sore elbow or shoulder, it's a sure bet you'll be taking a break from tennis after playing with this particular brand.

It is a stiff unforgiving string but quite durable even with the smallest gauges. What poly does allow you to do is to swing harder so that you can impart more spin to the ball and not have it put a hole in the back fence. The truth is with poly you can hit harder, but only if you are capable of hitting harder properly.

But for the Pros it is a gift sent from heaven. The poly has a dead feel so they can swing hard to create more spin with less length. Its poor tension maintenance isn't a problem as they get multiple racquets restrung daily, whether they play with them or not.

And while at this time of the year a lot of players start falling like flies, don't be surprised if the current strings have some say in their bodies although ultimately I think the horrible long and arduous schedule have to do a lot with players getting injured.

Great post 10s. Even for a non-string geek like myself, that's very interesting stuff, so I'm going to pick your brains a bit more, if you don't mind. Since I started playing competitively again at the beginning of 2009, I've used 3 different strings, none of which I know a lot about. I chose the first because it was what the guy at the club who was stringing my rackets used. Then when I broke strings one day and he wasn't around, the head coach offered his services and a string he felt would be good for my game. I went along with that and didn't think it was any better or worse really. Then I won a big roll of this stuff (http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/descpag ... TCF17.html) as part of a prize in the type of mickey-mouse tournament I tend to enter. It's actually a different string in the same range as the one I had been using just prior to that. I started using it and again noticed little difference. I feel very sensitive to surface changes and I'm always whinging for a while when I move from tennisquick, to synthetic hard, to clay, to omni and the ball comes through in a different way. But for strings, the only thing that really seems to affect me is tension. Maybe it's also due to the fact that the strings I've used recently were all very similar. I really don't know because I haven't been interested enough...maybe until now. I'm not even sure if what I'm using is similar to the kind of professional string you're speaking about.

Another thing you mentioned is the durability. Ten years ago, I'd break strings once every 2/3 weeks, playing maybe 6/7 hours a week. I've only got two rackets, so when I hadn't broken strings in either over two months after stringing the rackets with the stuff in the link above, I got a bit paranoid. I had a couple of tournaments approaching and I was afraid I'd break strings in both rackets during the same match. In the end, I decided to go ahead and restring the rackets without waiting for the strings to break. The durability is amazing IMO even with lowish tensions creating more friction of the strings rubbing against each other. I want to keep playing for a few more years so I'm definitely going to keep an eye on the strains I'm beginning to feel in my playing arm. Maybe a change of strings rather than a reduction in tension could be in the offing based on what you're saying.

Good point too in terms of differentiating between amateurs and pros. The degree to which lower-level players should follow the example of the pros in terms of equipment is debateable. I mean, just because Soderling plays with a 400-gram racket...

[10spro]

Rhymes, the strings that you've described should be good enough for any day play or surface. And more importantly, very affordable. I think in the past 5-7 years the part of the equipment that has made some strides in the game are the strings and not so much the make of a racket. In fact I am still playing with the Head liquid metal which is about a 6 years old model but change strings every 2-3 months depending how much I play. Try going Hybrid too, which is a mixture of cross and mains but if you do decide to try the new poly stuff make sure you lower the tension a few pounds. I used to string my synthetic gut at around 66-68 but with the new poly you can adjust it to around 60 pounds or lower/ If you're too concern about the tension of your strings, I just saw C. Wozniacki the other night with a cool little gadget where she was just checking the tension of her strings during her break, instead of tapping the strings with our palms as we old folks would do.

In any case, keep experimenting, if Clay is your surface or you have a slower hard court go for a higher tension.

The US Open should resume today, and the extra rest couldn't have come at a better time for Raffa.