Talk About Tennis 2.0

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:01 am There is a reason she is 29 and her highest ranking has been 38.

The reason is she could not hold her nerve in the past. She was notorious for blowing matches.

I expect her to reach the top 15 by the end of the year.

jazzyg wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:26 am ...

The reason is she could not hold her nerve in the past. She was notorious for blowing matches.

I expect her to reach the top 15 by the end of the year.

Hope you are right, and I am wrong.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:32 am

jazzyg wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:26 am ...

The reason is she could not hold her nerve in the past. She was notorious for blowing matches.

I expect her to reach the top 15 by the end of the year.

Hope you are right, and I am wrong.

My confidence in that statement is waning now that I see she is 45th in the year-long race. Not sure how much a fourth-round U.S. Open result will help her, and of course she got zero points for her Wimbledon quarterfinal.

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:25 am

Deuce wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:07 am

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 1:58 am
Also, this is Serena's longest US Open match ever.

^ Seriously? In 20+ years, and usually going deep?
Wow.

that's what Twitter said. There probably aren't many three-hour best-of-three matches, period. And she often won quickly. Also PMac confirmed it. Also P-Mac confirmed it.

Hmmm... I've seen plenty of 3 hour + best of three matches live - at all levels.
Still surprising that in all those matches over 20 + years, none have been as long as tonight.

Djokovic and Nadal once played a five-hour three-set match on clay.

There are plenty of three-hour women's matches, but Serena never played many long points at the U.S. Open because of her serve and aggressiveness, and she usually did not play many games because she was winning comfortably. I'm surprised but not shocked by it being her longest match.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 7:02 pm

meganfernandez wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:55 pm ...

Maybe they push men toward other sports with a bigger tradition in China.

Boy, not a lot of respect for Jiri Vesely... Maybe tennis isn't a big sport for the Czech men, either. And the population isn't huge - only 10 million, similar to Portugal, Greece and Sweden, none of which produce many top players these days, other than Tsitsipas (and that's Mouratoglou).

I did say to a lesser degree. The Czecks have produced some very good male players, but nowhere near the amount of very good and downright great females.
And the 10MM population makes it even more difficult to understand. That is the population of BOGOTA. They do know what they are doing.

I think "nowhere near" is a bit harsh. Ivan Lendl, Jan Kodes. Also one can recall certain Jaroslav Drobny.

jazzyg wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 2:57 am There are plenty of three-hour women's matches, but Serena never played many long points at the U.S. Open because of her serve and aggressiveness, and she usually did not play many games because she was winning comfortably. I'm surprised but not shocked by it being her longest match.

2% of WTA tour-level matches go three hours or more

mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 4:18 pm ...

I did say to a lesser degree. The Czecks have produced some very good male players, but nowhere near the amount of very good and downright great females.
And the 10MM population makes it even more difficult to understand. That is the population of BOGOTA. They do know what they are doing.

I think "nowhere near" is a bit harsh. Ivan Lendl, Jan Kodes. Also one can recall certain Jaroslav Drobny.
[/quote]

Ok. Maybe a bit harsh. But the Czecks female players is a verifiable star list: Navs, Mandlikova, Sukova, Kvitova, Krejcikova, Novotna and the entire current brigade.
Sure, there have been a good bunch of Czech men that have been very good, but I would say: advantage, Girls. There are always 3-4 Czechs in the mix (which, right now, has no men in it).

Two percent is a lot in my book. That means an average of three at every slam. Not a rare event.