Quote:
Originally Posted by abmk
thoughts of a delusional......
Come back when you can find a decent description/watched some matches involving tomic/dolgo ( or even the likes of tsonga ) before whining about lack of variety in this era ....
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A generation takes 15 years.Why not divide tennis history by generations?.After some thought, here goes my particular opinion
1900-1914: From Doherty to Wilding.tennis first steps, a commonwealth dominion (Doherty,Brookes,Wilding) with some great americans confined in US borders (Mc laughlin,Richards,Sears).WWI breaks the progress
Match of the generation: Wilding vs Brookes
1915-1929: from Wilding to Tilden.tennis goes international after WWI, but it is a US vs France contest.The first GOAT candidate shows up: Big Bil Tilden, whose knowledge will make him the first intelectual and whose personality, along Lenglenīs will give the sport a first bang.Tilden and Wills vs the Mousketeers and Lenglen.
Match of the generation: Tilden vs Lacoste
1930-1944:From Tilden to Budge.Tennis is already an international sport and prot ennis starts seriously, although having a bad reputation that lasts till 1950īs.Europe has Perry,Von Cramm,Nusslein , Australia has Crawford but US is the powerhorse with Budge,Vines and Riggs.WWII stops progress
Match of the Generation:Budge vs Perry
1945-1959:from Kramer to Gonzales, with Hoad,Rosewall,Trabert,Sedgman in the middle.6 all time greats ( 3 US and 3 Oz ) in a tennis world dominated by the 2 superpowers.US dominates womenīs tennis with Marble,Betz,Connolly,Hart,Gisbon and Fry.Pro tennis starts having its own life with those great stars and becomes the " real tennis".Possibly, the highest quality ever at the top 6.
And latins have Olmedo and Segura, plus other aussies like Anderson and Cooper, Europe has Pietrangeli and Drobny...
Match of the Generation:Hoad vs Pancho Gonzales
1960-1974: from Laver to Borg.dawn of Open era.jets era increases tennis business while pros and amateurs still divided.1968 will change tennis ( as it changes the rest of human activities).Laver and Rosewall, with some unconsistent but brilliant showings from Gonzales and Hoad dominate the pro tennis.Emerson and then Newcombe,Ashe and Roche dominate the amateurs.Kodes and Nastase get in the middle of a condominium US-Australia.1974 marks the satrt of the Golden Era with great technichal and environtmental changes (TV,WTT,WCT): the era of true professionalism and the golden era spoilt by mass media.
1974 also marks the end of Asutralian supremacy and the start of US dominance
This generation has 3 queens: Court,Bueno and King that start the womenīs lib movement that will benefit the new generation
Match of the Generation: Laver vs Rosewall / Court vs Bueno/King
1974-1989: From Borg/Connors to Sampras.Golden Era.Borg and Connors ( with Evert ) are the first 2 HBH, Vilas anc Connors are lefties, Vilas and Borg, start the dominance of top spin.Those 3 are followed by mc Enroe and Lendl and those 2 by Wilander,Becker and Edberg.great variety of styles, wood ceases its dominance and starts the graphite era.
The ladies have also a memorable foursome, they are already ultraprofessionalized:Evert and Cawley first, Navratilova and Graff, next
Match of the Generation: Borg vs Connors and Lendl vs Mc Enroe/ Evert vs Cawley and Navratilova vs Graf.Borg vs Mc Enroe and Evert vs Navi are probably the greatest rivalries in modern tennis and give the sport an unprecedented lift, that will never be matched.tennis reaches its historic peak
This era ends up witht he arrival of the first true big hitting, graphite and poly generation represented by Agassi and Sampras.After European domination, Us takes again the leadership
1990-2004 From Sampras to Federer.As said, tennis has already peaked and will, slowly, go down in interest and variety, although the end of the cold war internationalizes the sport because of new nations ( plus the emergents).But classical powerhorses will slump.
The big serving and big baseline bashing is the trademark.Sampras,Agassi,Courier represent the US dominance in men, while the 2 Williams and Davenport the US edge in womenīs, after a first half dominated by europeans Graf,Seles,Hingis.US leads but Australia has Rafter and Hewitt, Spain begins to show great potential with Burguera,Moya,Costa and Ferrerro, and the eastern bloc, leaded by Russia is apowerhorse.So is Switzerland with 2 all time greats:Hingis and Federer.The era ends up with Sampras retired and Federer dominating...
Match of the Generation:Sampras vs Agassi.Seles vs Graf
2005-2019.We are now in the middle of the boring generation with same surfaces, styles, rackets and strings.Russians and Belgians dominate ladies tennis with the 2 Williams on the edge of retirement.Federer dominates for a while but Nadal first and Djokovic later break his strenghold.This era starts with the beginning of the intesne Fed-Nadal rivalry.
match of the Generation:Nadal vs Fed
This post is dedicated to those great lovers of tennis hsitory,specially its past ( fedrulz,abmk,apmerk,TMF,Novaktowin,Monfed...)
This is my Easter present to you.I hope youīll be a bit less clueless after that.No need to say I didnīt for once check anything at wiki...I just knew it before coming to TT
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