This is a great clip. A joy to watch.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but the camera work, its placement (low on many of the points) and close behind the player, makes an enormous difference in the way you perceive the movement of the players. A rare pleasure for me when going to a pro tournament is to try to stand right behind the fence of practice courts, watching those guys move and hit right from behind them. I have often said here that the camera angles on most tournaments is a total disgrace, in many cases being placed so high that you lose all depth and it looks like a bi-dimensional video game, you can't even see the arc of the ball. And of course the movement of the players, their athleticism, is also lost to a great extent. I have no idea why they haven't figured out that tennis looks much better low and close than up and far.
See for example the same two at the 1978 USO final a few months earlier. Camera much higher. Not the same effect at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0dMd9q2o6w&feature=related
Still, it must be acknowledged that Borg's movement around the court is nothing short of amazing. He was also capable of generating a lot of topspin off both wings. Great as the movement is, you can still see the speed of the ball is considerably slower than today on most shots.
While I agree with you, imo, FAR more important than where you're standing are the court acoustics. My friends watched the pros up close on regular run of the mill chain-link fence practice courts in between matches, and even though some of these were well-known, big-name, explosive, big hitting players; my friends who are only casual players and fans were decidely unimpressed. You could literally see the dissapointment melt across their faces in the moist summer heat.
Their response? I think I (me) could hang with these guys, win a few games, seriously, they told me. I said no. You have to learn to differentiate the DRAMATIC difference and effect court acoustics play.
In many cases, advanced players on echoey court conditions will look and SOUND more impressive than pros on courts (like these) that had ZERO court acoustics to speak of.
I remember buying a tape of Pioline-Bruguera from the 93 Monte Carlo finals, and the person I bought it from said it's interesting to see how much the game has evolved since then and how much harder everyone hits. The problem when people make these assumptions based on perception, they're not realizing that that's what it really is, PERCEPTION. Why do I say this? Because oh just a few short weeks later, Bruguera won the French finals against Courier, and lo and behold both guys were suddenly playing "modern" tennis. Time warp? Black hole. Alternate universes? Something surreal, magical, and unexplained? Nope. The combination of better camera angle and better sound. The sound at this 93 Monte Carlo was beyond washed out.
I have a tape from the 93 French between Bruguera and Leconte, on this tape, however, the sound was again of the incredibly muffled variety. Result? You get this incredibly distant feeling, and you just can't seem to get into or "feel" the impact of any shots hit the entire match, not even ones that you know were technically great hits.
96 US Open Stich-Bruguera, again, WRETCHEDLY washed out sound on this tape. Like a lunar feed or something, NO LIFE to the sound at all. Result? Two guys, 6'2"-6'5"ish, manage to hit not ONE single shot that felt "hard" the ENTIRE match. You would think they were hitting nerf balls and that Fabrice Santoro hit harder than these guys.
Meanwhile, fast forward to the 97 Lipton finals, and Muster-Bruguera sound like they are absolutely pasting the ball, just crunching it back and forth with hellacious topspin. Meanwhile, fast forward to the 97 Wimbledon semis between Stich and Pioline, and lo and behold, even mere slice backhands from Stich sound like a gun shot going off.... Yes, pros have good days and bad days, but they do not literally grow quadruple in their ability to hit pace within a matter of a few weeks, a few months, a year, or even an entire career. You can make improvements yes, but since when does someone who doesn't have the serve of a Rusedski, Philipoussis, Krajicek, Stich, Becker, Goran, Sampras, Rosset, Roddick, Wayne Arthurs, etc. learn to serve that big if they didn't already before turning pro? The basic stroke motions and various limitations and caps are more or less cent in cement by the time guys reach the pro level. Improvements are made in inches, steps forward (during periods of intense motivation and peak confidence), and steps back (during the chicken pox years a la Juan Carlos Ferrero).
. I think Krosero recorded this straight off of a television with a tiny speaker; that and yes, Borg strung his racquet close to 80 lbs. tension.
