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Post by janie on Apr 8, 2011 19:32:17 GMT -5
Just wondering who invented this term? Was it Corswandt? Because it's a great name and it's really taken hold.
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Post by DBBN on Apr 8, 2011 21:14:17 GMT -5
I think it was him.
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Post by lexpretend on Apr 9, 2011 4:48:35 GMT -5
Generation Suck is Wozniacki, Azarenka, Radwanska, right? The generation after them is even worse
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Post by Old Hag on Apr 9, 2011 12:28:43 GMT -5
I think the generation after them is the true Generation Suck. Corswandt just hates Sunshine and Ratwanska a lot.
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Post by janie on Apr 9, 2011 13:10:28 GMT -5
Ah. Still, it's got a great sound to it. Though since sucky Woz can beat almost everyone, the other generations out there need even worse names.
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Post by DBBN on Apr 9, 2011 14:33:41 GMT -5
THE DASHA GAVRILOVA SLAM STARTS NOW Will they be Generation Shit?
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Post by Wagasi on Apr 9, 2011 14:51:54 GMT -5
THE DASHA GAVRILOVA SLAM STARTS NOW Will they be Generation Shit? We should save some epithets in case the generation after them is even worse.
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Post by janie on Apr 9, 2011 14:58:10 GMT -5
I just hope we've seen the last Generation Shriek. I wish I could find a video/audio clip of two eagles fighting over a rotten fish!
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Post by The Chloe on Apr 9, 2011 15:04:10 GMT -5
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Post by The Chloe on Apr 9, 2011 15:05:34 GMT -5
I just watched that thing three times. I'm not sure what part is my favorite, it's all so very good.
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Post by janie on Apr 9, 2011 15:16:23 GMT -5
Wow! Great stuff, that whirling. And the shrieks at the start were perfect!
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Post by Wagasi on Apr 9, 2011 16:57:34 GMT -5
The honey badger don't give a shit guy should totally re-narrate that video.
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Post by DBBN on Apr 9, 2011 18:54:39 GMT -5
Generation Cyril Suk!
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Post by Iorix on Apr 10, 2011 9:17:27 GMT -5
I started using that soon after learning that there was a TV series about US soldiers in Iraq titled "Generation Kill".
Of the many labels/nicknames that I've tried to spread over TF, it's the only one that has actually caught on ("The Hair" is only used by some people in here and by TBE at TF, "Dropshot Dame" caugh on for a while but is now forgotten).
I group youngsters as follows:
Generation Suck - b. 1988-1989-1990 Generation Wack - b. 1991-1992 Generation Slut* - b. 1993-1994
* TF meme about Robson on account of an interview she gave once in which she complained about the loose behaviour of some of her contemporaries.
As for why it caught on, I suppose there's a consensus that, for the first time in decades, a whole generation of elite players is going to retire without being surpassed by younger contenders on the big stage.
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Post by The Chloe on Apr 10, 2011 10:07:38 GMT -5
The Hair upsets me, because I was using that for a dude, but it only took off when you used it for somebody else. Not to imply that you saw me using it and then used it, only that you are clearly much better at starting memes than I am.
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Post by lexpretend on Apr 10, 2011 13:18:46 GMT -5
Generation Slut! Wozniacki and Azarenka look like they'll be better (in terms of ability to put up results) than the Jankovic/Safina/Ivanovic phase, at least. And to be fair, the previous generation's insistence on constantly retiring/re-retiring/part-timing has meant that they haven't had that many shots at them.
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Post by janie on Apr 10, 2011 13:41:53 GMT -5
Ha, I want to root for people in Generation Wack.
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Post by lexpretend on Apr 10, 2011 13:44:57 GMT -5
It's the Generation Wack ones who seem to be really underwhelming - Pavlyuchenkova leads the '91 contingent, then Jovanovski/Halep/Hercog/Oudin/Pervak/Vandeweghe/Martic. Not one name there you can envisage even coming close to a Slam win. The '92 lot is led by McHale, Watson, Linette and the Pliskova twins
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Post by janie on Apr 10, 2011 14:32:14 GMT -5
Oh, my! That group IS wack. Pathetic. Someone from Gen. Slut really needs to step up and just muscle aside the wacks.
But Alex is right, Woz and Azarenka are stepping up and separating themselves from the rest of that group.
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Post by lexpretend on May 17, 2011 9:59:54 GMT -5
This seems as good a place as any for this, which I did earlier while procrastinating. Top senior ranked up-and-coming girls by birth year. 1991 (all in top 200)14. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova RUS 51. Bojana Jovanovski SRB 55. Polona Hercog SLO 69. Simona Halep ROU 88. Ksenia Pervak RUS 89. Melanie Oudin USA 90. Coco Vandeweghe USA 109. Petra Martic CRO 130. Misaki Doi JPN 132. Kurumi Nara JPN 137. Valeria Savinykh RUS 144. Kai-Chen Chang TPE 157. Noppawan Lertcheewakarn THA 169. Sally Peers AUS 178. Kiki Bertens NED 197. Camila Giorgi ITA 1992 (all in top 300)81. Christina McHale USA 119. Heather Watson GBR 177. Magda Linette POL 179. Lara Arruabarrena Vecino ESP 202. Elena Bogdan ROU 234. Isabella Holland AUS 237. Paula Ormaechea ARG 242. Beatrice Capra USA 243. Maria Joao Koehler POR 249. Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor ESP 253. Kristyna Pliskova CZE 255. Sachie Ishizu JPN 256. Valeria Solovieva RUS 266. Karolina Pliskova CZE 270. Richel Hogenkamp NED 278. Qiang Wang CHN 1993 (all in top 400)138. Sloane Stephens USA 145. Zarina Diyas KAZ 170. Michelle Larcher De Brito POR 181. Ajla Tomljanovic CRO 188. Caroline Garcia FRA 208. Aleksandra Krunic SRB 251. Kristina Mladenovic FRA 262. Timea Babos HUN 306. Maryna Zanevska UKR 313. Monica Puig PUR 358. Valentyna Ivakhnenko UKR 372. Lauren Davis USA 397. Cristina Dinu ROU 1994 (all in top 500)235. Laura Robson GBR 276. Saisai Zheng CHN 311. Kateryna Kozlova UKR 336. Krista Hardebeck USA 353. Eugenie Bouchard CAN 357. Annika Beck GER 370. Daria Gavrilova RUS 394. Elina Svitolina UKR 395. Jessica Pegula USA 420. Nigina Abduraimova UZB 425. An-Sophie Mestach BEL 427. Alison Van Uytvanck BEL 436. Sabina Sharipova UZB 476. Sofiya Kovalets UKR 1995 (all in top 600)414. Madison Keys USA 488. Anna Shkudun UKR 518. Irina Khromacheva RUS 626. Jan Abaza USA 655. Yulia Putintseva RUS 673. Carina Witthoeft GER 1996 (all in top 1000)555. Ashleigh Barty AUS 799. Anne-Liz Jeukeng-Nkamgouo USA 839. Marianna Zakarlyuk UKR 991. Donna Vekic CRO So...that's, like, at least a generation in there. More than one of those names will be a Slam winner! But lord only knows who. Speculation, information and hand-wringing goes here
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Post by lexpretend on May 17, 2011 10:03:11 GMT -5
The demise of USian tennis is probably overstated, too, given that there are USian representatives in each age group. Pretty much every one of the 1991 girls has already started to regress
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Post by Traveling Man on May 17, 2011 16:00:41 GMT -5
I wonder if Dokic, Lucic and Stevenson were a prelude to "Generation Suck"? Sure they're more accomplished and had meteoric starts, but faded into oblivion and nothingness relatively quickly. And yes, there were other girls who covered the slack so it wasn't Generation Suck as much as Trio Suck. But could they be deemed as predecessors? They were the future of tennis, except they weren't. Remove Dokic from the group and Lucic and Stevenson don't have much to talk about in terms of accomplishments aside from Wimbledon 1999.
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Post by Wagasi on May 17, 2011 20:48:06 GMT -5
Dokic and Hantuchova's 2003 shocking collapses from being just below the elite to being totally inconsistent and losing to random nobodies seem to have presaged Generation Suck. They were steadily improving and we were waiting to see if they could make the next jump up, and then boom...all to shit. Now Ivanovic, Jankovic, Stosur, Schiavone etc. etc. etc. follow the script.
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Post by Grarliner on May 17, 2011 22:20:45 GMT -5
Schiavone absolutely does not deserve to be included in that list. What she achieved last year was far more than anybody thought she could do. She's an overachiever.
I think there's some argument Stosur is too.
A player like Vaidisova is much more like Hantuchova or Dokic. But at least for Daniela it didn't entirely fall to pieces. She has maintained herself as a solid straight-in-to-every-draw Tour player.
It's just odd how many flameouts there are on the women's Tour. Could it have something to do with the way women and sports relate? I've heard it said that it's hard for the girls to get a boyfriend that will follow her around Tour city to city. The men seem to have no problem getting a girl to do that. That's cultural, though. But that can't be everything.
Is it the weird stalking shit that happens?
This might be a stupid question but do female athletes get hurt more easily than male athletes?
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Post by lexpretend on May 18, 2011 2:03:46 GMT -5
Yeah, Schiavone's not playing that far beneath her usual level right now. Stosur's career trajectory is pretty unique, and she hasn't proven herself as a consistent top player at all, and if she is then it's only because of the dearth of them. I guess Tauziat in her latter years is a good comparison...top 30 journeywoman suddenly upgraded to top 10 status.
I agree that Dokic/Lucic/Stevenson/Hantuchova presaged the collapses of Vaidisova/Golovin/Karatantcheva/Paszek - though the latters' careers fell apart for completely separate reasons (hated tennis/injuries/drugs/who knows), whereas with the former group it was pretty much daddy/daddy/mummy/anorexia. I do wonder whether had circumstances not been what they were with Nicole/Tati/Sesil/Tamira, whether those four - probably the last real WTA supernovae - would now be at the top of the game, masking the effects of Generation Suck and the Williams/Belgian generation's flakiness.
But the problem with the group that came up instead of them is that they don't even seem to get to the Dokic/Lucic/Vaidisova/Golovin stage of making a big splash before falling apart. They get to around the top 70, maybe, and then die. Or they stall before even making the top 100.
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Post by lexpretend on May 18, 2011 2:05:21 GMT -5
Sjengster, do you mean emotionally hurt or injured? The latter, they certainly seem to.
All of those cultural factors would surely have been at play in previous generations, too. The only theory I've seen put forward for why this is happening to this particular generation is Corswandt's team sports theory.
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Post by Maeby Fünke on May 18, 2011 4:01:38 GMT -5
I always suspect most of them didn't really want to be tennis players, they were just pushed towards it. You have to start at such a young age that nobody could ever really decide for themselves to be a tennis player. And then rather than going Vaidisova they just keep going because its a living.
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Post by Grarliner on May 18, 2011 22:33:44 GMT -5
Sjengster, do you mean emotionally hurt or injured? The latter, they certainly seem to. All of those cultural factors would surely have been at play in previous generations, too. The only theory I've seen put forward for why this is happening to this particular generation is Corswandt's team sports theory. I meant physically. It seems injuries crop up more frequently among the female players. In prior generations there were many stories of players suddenly flaming out, though. I wasn't around to watch so I can't name them all but Tracy Austin, Andrea Yaeger, Temesvari, Carling Bassett ... Helen Kelesi had a brain tumor for God's sake! I'm not convinced that it's worse now, actually. I think it happened a lot ten years ago and a lot ten years before that too. Willow is also certainly right, but maybe only to a point. Yes, none of the pro players made an INITIAL decision to be pros when they took up the game. But I think a lot of them made some sort of personal decision to continue and pursue a pro career at some point in their teens. So it's not all foisted upon all of them, I'm sure. But yes, I'm sure it's just a job for some, maybe most, of them. We have a passion for tennis because we like it and are entertained by it but surely that loses luster for people who have hit 4,000,000 tennis balls by the age of 18. However, I think it must be a good living if you can get it.
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Post by Grarliner on May 18, 2011 22:38:17 GMT -5
As for Stosur, keep in mind Lyme's Disease really slowed down her development.
She also seems to me to be a classic example of a player who had one shot that was really good (her serve) but needed time to round out the rest of her game. Sometimes it happens that way.
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Post by Old Hag on May 19, 2011 11:45:28 GMT -5
Physically, the game is much more demanding and has lost its "fun factor". Absorbing the pace that the girls hit with today will eventually break you down, along with 80% of the season being on hardcourts now.
There were always mental breakdowns, because the life of the tour has always been fucked up for young girls. Even if you love tennis like I do, you don't want to be out there banging tennis balls all day and traveling around the world with no/minimal friends. All girls want to babble with each other, talk about boys, etc... that's improved lately somewhat with rules limiting how much kids can play, and cell phones, Internet and such, but it still strongly goes against our human needs.
Also, money does play a huge factor. More kids/vicarious parents are playing just to get rich.
Also with that, the pool is diluted. Tennis schools don't just accept anyone anymore. They want bigger, taller girls that can bash the ball. Therefore, more kids that don't really care about the game, they'll get their money and get out. Every sport that has turned into a business are facing the same problem, and IMO, will eventually be the death of popular professional sport.
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