Posted on 07/03/2011 9:15:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic won his first Wimbledon title Sunday, and he beat defending champion Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 to do it.
Djokovic, who was already guaranteed to take over the No. 1 ranking from the Spaniard on Monday, extended his mastery over Nadal this season with a fifth straight head-to-head victory.
Djokovic assured himself of the top ranking just by reaching the final.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I haven’t watched tennis in a long time. When did they allow grunting?
Jimmy Connors was quite a grunter, but Monika Seles was probably the worst grunter or squealer of all times. So you have to go quite a few years back...
Djokovic has been the “hottest” winning male tennis player in many years—the last match he lost besides the one in the French Open I think dated to last year! That’s the type of performance you normally associate with Roger Federer about a half decade ago or Pete Sampras during his peak years.
Congratulations to Nole!
Zivela Srbija! Kosovo je Srbija!!!!
Nole’s father is from Kosovo, and Nole is Serbian patriot and a great supporter of Kosovo Serbs. He is a real champion, on and off the tennis court!!!!
Sorry SB ...
Monica Seles gruntometer = 93.2 db
Maria Sherapova = 101 db
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4118708.stm
Tennis today bites. Uninspiring automatons. Here’s Conners in 1991 at age 39, against Kriekstein, 24, in the US Open Semi-finals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TLnhJRt2HE&feature=related
That was a match for the ages.
This is why I would like to see a return to perhaps a "reference" tennis racket made of one material, a standardized-size head, and standardized material for the string. That way, everyone has to play with the same racket type, and it will force players to stop emphasizing the power game so much and emphasize more the strategy-based game.
Djokovic also snuck up to the net at times and had some easy putaways as a result. It’s strange to watch Wimbledon and see matches where no one goes to the net like a number of matches I saw. While Djokovic can hardly be called an attacking player, he showed what going to the net from time to time can do your opponent. Just the thought that your opponent might be at the net can rattle players. Nadal has basically a monotonous game of big topspin shots and little else. He’s fast and tough to beat on a slow surface, but he’ll have problems with players like Djokovic who are as fast and have more variety to their game and accuracy to their shots.
Thanks for the link. I remember that match. I sat glued to the TV for the entire game. Wow! And then Connors went on to beat Paul Haarhuis, an up and coming young player at that time in the quarters to reach the semis at age 39. Just fantastic!
That's a bit too restrictive. What they could do is to decide on a maximum racket head size and then reduce that size slowly, with a few sq cm per year, until you reach the head size that was common during the late 80s. I think that was a period when there was a pretty good balance between the base-line players an serve-and-volley players. Of course it depends a lot on the ball weight as well.
LOL What an absurd claim. Oh, by the way, Bill Tilden was clocked (using film analysis) at hitting serve at 163 with your vaunted wooden racquets. Search: Bill Tilden fastest Serve
Monica was loud but it's gotten completely out of control.
‘Tennis today bites.’
No, it dosent. In men’s tennis, we are entering another golden age: Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray....all brilliant players. And superb players like Tsonga and Del Potro are right behind them. And Roddick is still a great player on his day.
The Wimbledon finals of 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 were superb finals and 08 and 09 (Fed vs Nadal, Fed vs Roddick) were epics and two of the greatest Wimbledon and Grand Slam finals ever.
And this year’s final was a superb match, some of Djokovic’s shots were incredible.
‘Uninspiring automatons’
Nadal a robot?. Or Djokovic?. Or Murray?. Tsonga?. Roddick?.
All the above show huge passion during games and are FAR from robots. If anything the 90’s had much less passion and more robots.
I love the old tennis, players and matches, but as a tennis fan, I also recognise great players and games that stand up to any that are from the past.
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