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Post by Brinyi on Mar 12, 2012 12:02:08 GMT -5
I nerdily say unto you, I don't think he was bad at all. He had a good bug serve, a world-class one-hander, and he was a better mover than you would think he'd be to look at him. Granted there was a huge dropoff after Federer-Nadal, but Ljub certainly in the next tier at that time (with Roddick, King Kolya, Blake, Fat Dave and Robredo -- not a lot to choose among that group).
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Post by DBBN on Mar 12, 2012 13:11:04 GMT -5
Boy, Roddick's one Slam was fraught with controversy, wasn't it? Of course a week later was the Nalbandian SF.
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 12, 2012 15:54:07 GMT -5
Thanks for the history lesson, Brin Yi.
I guess I should clarify that I don't think he was a *bad* player. His stats are just a little soft for somebody who was ranked in the top 3 at one point. Some of that is being behind Rafa and Roger, sure. But they weren't beating him in the third round of Slams.
I do remember thinking that Ljub was waaaaaay too good for a ranking around #30 when he played Andre in Miami one year. 2002 or so. I knew he'd rise and he did. It was a great career - it's just damaged by the lack of Slam performance.
As for the last post, if the Challenge system was enabled in 2003, Andy might not be a Grand Slam champion. God, he's like what Mauresmo would be like if Wimbledon 2006 hadn't happened.
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Post by lexpretend on Mar 12, 2012 16:13:14 GMT -5
If Ljubicic's career high ranking was one place lower, we wouldn't be having any discussion of him as the worst ______!
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Post by Lady on Mar 13, 2012 7:36:42 GMT -5
Oh, the flashbacks of Verkerk in the final. That was the 1st Roland Garros I've ever watched, I didn't realize how random that run was back then.
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 13, 2012 15:06:13 GMT -5
It's funny that RG used to be the WTF Slam back in the early years of this century. Costa won it? Verkerk and Puerta in the final? Gaudio's never-before-seen Slam triumph?
Now 11 of the last 14 finalists have been named Rafa or Roger.
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Post by DBBN on Mar 13, 2012 16:03:41 GMT -5
I mean, it usually always was, right? It just feels weird now because there is no WTF Slam on the men's side, and they all are on the SEWTA.
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 13, 2012 20:05:56 GMT -5
I mean, it usually always was, right? It just feels weird now because there is no WTF Slam on the men's side, and they all are on the SEWTA. Well, I qualified it because Guga had a pretty good run there late-90s, early 00s. If you take him out of the equation, yeah, French Open routinely produced crazy winners from about the time of Borg's retirement. There were times when it settled down and the usual suspects won (like when Lendl and Wilander and Courier won it) but the number of shock winners was still really high. Wilander '82 when he was 17; Noah '83; Chang '89; Gomez '90; I guess Berawhatevertegui wasn't a surprise in '94?; Kafelnikov '96; Guga '97; Agassi '99. So here's my question. Is this generation of top players simply more well-rounded and just plain better than the last or have the differences between the surfaces become less sharp at the same time as the new racquet technology and strings have made it almost obsolete to play any style except baseline bashing?
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Post by DBBN on Mar 13, 2012 21:42:37 GMT -5
Probably both. It will be interesting to see what happens when The Triumverate retire.
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 13, 2012 22:30:16 GMT -5
I think it makes some sense that since everyone more or less plays the same way nowadays it has standardized the results across surfaces somewhat. Does that make sense? I can't remember anyone saying it in this context. Also, rare spelling error from you.
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Post by DBBN on Mar 13, 2012 23:06:14 GMT -5
Oh, I'm much dumber than I once was.
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 13, 2012 23:47:33 GMT -5
Do you blame social media?
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Post by lexpretend on Mar 14, 2012 3:08:05 GMT -5
I mean, it usually always was, right? It just feels weird now because there is no WTF Slam on the men's side, and they all are on the SEWTA. Well, I qualified it because Guga had a pretty good run there late-90s, early 00s. If you take him out of the equation, yeah, French Open routinely produced crazy winners from about the time of Borg's retirement. There were times when it settled down and the usual suspects won (like when Lendl and Wilander and Courier won it) but the number of shock winners was still really high. Wilander '82 when he was 17; Noah '83; Chang '89; Gomez '90; I guess Berawhatevertegui wasn't a surprise in '94?; Kafelnikov '96; Guga '97; Agassi '99. So here's my question. Is this generation of top players simply more well-rounded and just plain better than the last or have the differences between the surfaces become less sharp at the same time as the new racquet technology and strings have made it almost obsolete to play any style except baseline bashing? I think it's a bit of both, but mostly the former. Everyone's basically a baseliner but there's still a lot of variation among them - Tsonga constantly net-rushes, for instance. It's just that none of the top players play an extreme surface-specific game - heavy topspin baselining with huge backswings that doesn't work off clay, or serve-and-volley without a real groundstroke game. This is good: it was embarrassing to watch players whose game disintegrated so easily off their favoured surface. The current game rewards players like Rafa who work hard to retool their game in order to succeed on other surfaces - I never really got the impression that past clay-courters like Kuerten and Bruguera were interested in this, and that's a knock on them. Also, you can see on SEWTA how the rise of less well-rounded players to the top still results in surface-skewed results.
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 14, 2012 17:12:22 GMT -5
I'll give you the Bruguera example but I think Guga deserves a more sympathetic treatment. Without having the numbers in front of me, didn't he win Miami in 2000 (d. Agassi in the SF) and Cincy 2001 (crushing Rafter in the final)? Had he not suffered the hip injury that summer his chances of winning a hardcourt Slam in the next few years were real, I think.
Oh yeah, and didn't he win TMC 2000?
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Post by lexpretend on Mar 15, 2012 5:06:09 GMT -5
He never got to a non-RG Slam SF though, and lost to some real scrubs over the years.
But he wasn't alone in this, back then there really were NO players of the all-round calibre of our current top 5.
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Post by Brinyi on Mar 22, 2012 8:55:35 GMT -5
Not only did Guga win 2000 TMC, he did it indoors and by beating Kafel + Gagassi + Sampras in succession. My all-time fave tournament run.
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Post by Brinyi on Mar 22, 2012 8:56:46 GMT -5
āIām nostalgic for all the things I will miss from tennis, so I am savoring every minute. Without a doubt, the last tournament I will enjoy more than any other. But I am ready for a new stage of my life, ready to spend more time with the people I love.ā -- F.Gonzalez
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Post by Grarliner on Mar 22, 2012 14:43:25 GMT -5
Not only did Guga win 2000 TMC, he did it indoors and by beating Kafel + Gagassi + Sampras in succession. My all-time fave tournament run. I can remember hating it because Andre did his usual thing of beating the champ in the RR stage only to lose to him in the final.
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Post by janie on Aug 30, 2012 17:35:41 GMT -5
Roddick's retiring after this US Open.
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Post by The Chloe on Aug 30, 2012 17:52:31 GMT -5
Which puts us less than a year away from the point at which he becomes totally irrelevant and finally leaks that sex tape Burley has been waiting all these years for.
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Post by GoDom on Aug 30, 2012 17:56:10 GMT -5
Bye.
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Post by Pamela Shriver on Aug 30, 2012 19:28:37 GMT -5
Andy I really think he deserved more than one slam, at least one Wimbledon title.
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Post by Old Hag on Aug 30, 2012 19:48:53 GMT -5
Good riddance to the Dick.
He was good for trolling non-USians, though.
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Post by lexpretend on Aug 31, 2012 3:55:06 GMT -5
I'm quite glad Rod Dick and Ste. Kim have managed to overshadow each other with this timing. Imagine the intolerable blanket coverage each would have got otherwise.
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Post by Brinyi on Aug 31, 2012 9:15:50 GMT -5
I hope someday we'll learn why his forehand seemed to lose 50 miles an hour on it by the time he was 26. Not that I'm complaining.
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Post by Grarliner on Aug 31, 2012 15:01:27 GMT -5
I hope someday we'll learn why his forehand seemed to lose 50 miles an hour on it by the time he was 26. Not that I'm complaining. He stopped roiding! I find the tributes to Andy's "professionalism" a bit hard to take. He is ... not that professional.
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Post by Old Hag on Sept 3, 2012 12:04:57 GMT -5
I find the tributes to Andy's "professionalism" a bit hard to take. He is ... not that professional. The biggest mystery in tennis is how Rod Dick's constantly dickish behavior towards everyone was ignored. Well, that or how Ste. Kim became popular in USA.
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Post by Grarliner on Sept 3, 2012 12:32:42 GMT -5
Yeah, nobody said anything about how grumpy Andy was after every single loss ... Bud Collins wants him in the HOF with only one Slam ...
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Post by Old Hag on Sept 3, 2012 15:17:26 GMT -5
He's definitely getting in the HOF with 1 slam, #1, a few finals and angloness.
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Post by Grarliner on Sept 3, 2012 17:17:33 GMT -5
I guess. If I liked him better I would have no problem with HOF status because one Slam in the era of Roger is more impressive than it was before ...
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