Kent Carlsson: The Ultimate Supernova?

Originally Posted by nickynu

I lifted this from Wiki below - Yes this guy WAS THE ULTIMATE SUPERNOVA

Roberto Carretero (born August 30, 1975 in Madrid) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. He won one singles title, the 1996 Hamburg AMS.

Carretero, a former junior French Open Champion shocked the tennis world by winning the title in Hamburg as a virtually unknown player ranked outside the top 300. En route to the title he defeated two top 100 players, two top 20 players (Washington and Boetsch), and most notably, Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the semi-finals, and Àlex Corretja in the final. After winning the title, Carretero lost in the first round of Roland Garros and did not have any significant results other than winning a Challenger tournament held in Sopot, Poland in 1999.

He retired from professional tennis after the 2001 season.


[edit] External links

Thanks for the update.
There are a few guys who were expected to do much better on clay in those years. You can call them supernovas : Mancini, Sundstrom, Perez-Roldan. They are enigmas, especially the first two. I assume that Mancini lacked the ethic of a professional athlete, Perez-Roldan would have needed a few more inches to succeed with that style of play. Mancini and Sundstrom especially had great potential and they lasted for not much more than one season.

[Gaucho Behrend]

Sundstrom had injury problems, Perez Roldan was a less strategic version of Manicni.

[Carlo Giovanni Colussi]

Originally Posted by oneleggedcardinal

Can any French speakers let me in on what happened with Noah at around 3:40 in part 2 of the above videos? Thanks in advance.

I don't clearly understand what Noah said (bad sound), something like "à chaque fois que c'est près des lignes ...Il faut que ça s'arrête" ("whenever it's close to the lines ... it has to stop"). I don't know what he was referring to. But the commentator, Hervé Duthu on TF1, clearly said that Noah complained about the gallery too noisy. I have no time to watch the entire video but apparently whenever Carlsson's balls went close to the lines I guess the public made noise and perhaps tried to influence the umpire's decisions to favour Noah.

[Gaucho Behrend]

Thanks for that Carlo.

[Gaucho Behrend]

Originally Posted by Borgforever

I was extremely impressed with Kent Carlsson.

Perhaps the most one-dimensional tennis player I ever had the pleasure to watch many, many times often up close. He had an even more autistic game-style than Karlovic, if that's possible, but beyond Ivo's nuclear serve, he could still volley and smack around the baseline in a mildly mediocre fashion -- which is, funnily enough, enormous praise for versatility for him in this particular comparison to Kent, who just point-blank refused to do anything than spin in his serve and swat insane-topspin groundies until doomsday...

Kent had some quality lobs and seeing him hit a volley winner was a rare pleasure to be enjoyed.

1988 was a great year for him, but Jonas Svensson was able to get him in 5 sets, which was hard fought.

The two matches with Muster that year funny, especially in the final of Barcelona. He said playing Kent "was like watching a boring movie, next time I play him, I will come to the net from the start". He was a bit more offensive in Palermo, but lost that. He got a set off Wilander in the final that was tough and Kent, a bit similar to Jocke Nyström found it difficult to play against Mats and it wasn't just the match up.

The knowledge of this possibility and the recurring injuries cementing this prediction made a severe crack in his clutch-ability and his results reflected this. He tried to play only on clay for a while and a lot of other things but in the end it was as exercise in futility. Sad. He didn't reveal any of this until a long while after the damage was discovered...

One of the coolest and eccentric tennis-players ever IMO...

Did you see the documentary Tennisprinsarna? They had him on there very briefly and he was happy that he made the top 10.

Since I did the translations and updated the wikipedia page. I found it interesting that he wasn't a from a well off background, travelling around the tournaments in a caravan. It was done a few years ago the interview.

Glöden, viljan och kampen för att nå världstoppen föddes och infriades ändå eller just därför.
- Man behöver inte ha nya bollar, bo på de finaste ställena och flyga runt. I dag är många spelare alldeles för bortskämda.
- Vi bodde till exempel på skabbiga hotell i Frankrike. Vi var fyra-fem i varje kalt rum. Jag tror det är viktigt att få gå den hårda vägen.

"De spelar utan hjärna"
Vad det gäller dagens svenska tennis är Carlsson kritisk. - Det lilla jag sett är svensk tennis en stor katastrof och jag vill anklaga tränarna för det. Redan 1990 när jag la av ville de komma ifrån det vi varit bäst på i alla tider. Det verkade som om tränarna ville se tysk tennis, att slå hårdare och spela utan hjärna.

For those who don't understand the international language of Swedish.

He basically says you don't need new balls, staying at the finest hotels and always flying (well hard to go overland to USA or Australia). Too many of todays players are too spoilt.

For example, we stayed in a shabby hotel 4-5 to a cold room. I think it's important to go through the hard way.

They play without brains

Carlsson is critical in concern to Swedish tennis. The little of Swedish tennis I have seen is a big catastrophe and he blames the training. When I finished in 1990, we were the best in all aspects. Now the training seems to be like German tennis, hit the ball harder and without any brains.

[Moose Malloy]

some of the Noah-Carlsson '87 RG match is on youtube in great quality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THlbw...3cFAAAAAAAAAAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLZ_4...3cFAAAAAAAAAAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObiY...eature=related

[bluetrain4]

Originally Posted by Gaucho Behrend

I can't embed clips here, so here are some highlights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDiAAebgD2c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yVWUb03DOc

Leconte v. Carlsson, Hamburg. Thanks for the clips. Really great watching these two. I adore Leconte.

Absolutely love this era of tennis from mid 80s to 90s. Yes, I'm biased, as that is when i was growing up watching tennis. But, I just think it's the perfect balance and variety of styles, court speeds, and it was a good point in racquet technology, graphite racquets allowing the game to progress from wood, but not yet to the poly, lighter frame days.

Great clips from Moose as well. Thanks.

Carlsson seemed to try to hug the baseline as much as he could and didn't drift as far back behind it as Nadal and some other heavy topspin baseliners. Love the OS Prince Boron he's using.

[kiki]

Most boring player to watch I can recall¡¡¡ tremendously nervous, on a given day on clay, could bore down any player...he was a Borg x 10...a real exageration¡¡

[kiki]

Originally Posted by Micce

By the way, does somebody remember Henrik Sundstrom? Did he have a same kind of playing style than Carlsson (high bouncing top spin strokes)? I haven't ever seen him play, and would like to hear your comments about him. Sundstrom also had some good results on clay and retired quite early (in 1989 when he was 25 years old).

Sundstrom was a far better player than KC.Better serve, ocassionally came to the net, not so looping top spin shots and great conditioning.For 2-3 years he was just as feared on clay as Wilander or Lendl, I can see why.

[Wilander Fan]

Originally Posted by AndrewD

There was were also Stefan and Hans Simonsson (excuse the spelling). They were slightly older than Wilander. Hans won the French doubles in 83 (with Jarryd) and was r/u in 85 (with Glickstein). Stefan wasn't quite as successful but still made top 50 in singles with a rank of 49 (Hans' best was 45).

Not sure why exactly but both retired very young (like Sundstrom, although he did have injury problems). Stefan was only 27 and Hans was 24.

Lets not forget Michael Pernfors.

[Rock Strongo]

That is some sexy hair he's got.

[bluetrain4]

Originally Posted by Rock Strongo

That is some sexy hair he's got.

LOL, so true. He could have been in an 80s hair metal band. "And now introducing Whitesnake, with new member Kent Carlsson!!!"

[Gaucho Behrend]

Originally Posted by Moose Malloy

some of the Noah-Carlsson '87 RG match is on youtube in great quality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THlbw...3cFAAAAAAAAAAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLZ_4...3cFAAAAAAAAAAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObiY...eature=related

Yes, the ones I uploaded. The original ones were taken down, but got them saved and Carlsson imagine him with the strings today.

[kiki]

Pernfors, another great tennis player from Sweden.great hands.

[Gaucho Behrend]

Along with Magnus Norman and Enqvist. Kent was inducted into the Swedish Tennis Hall of Fame.

[Mike Bulgakov]

Originally Posted by Gaucho Behrend

Along with Magnus Norman and Enqvist. Kent was inducted into the Swedish Tennis Hall of Fame.

This is good to see. These guys all deserve recognition for their achievements.

[MAXXply]

Just wondering, Swedish ex-pros like Jan Gunnarsson, Magnus Gustaffson, Niklas Kroon and Niklas Kulti - have they been inducted into the Swedish Tennis Hall of Fame as well or are their achievements not considered good enough ?

[Gaucho Behrend]

Gustafsson and Sundström have.

[Mikael]

Does anyone else think Enqvist might still be the best tennis player in Sweden despite being 38? Soderling is still sick and Enqvist is in great shape, dominating the seniors tour a couple years ago.

Swedish tennis has sunk so low that it might be better for Enqvist to play singles in Davis Cup instead of being team captain!