Is Stan the new Todd Martin?

[Bobby Jr]

If anything Mardy Fish is the new Todd Martin.

Big serve, tries to play all-court tennis but can't quite make it stick, slightly lumbering in his movement... and destined to always be almost a top player.

[abmk]

Originally Posted by mattennis

Todd Martin was more dangerous in his era than Wawrinka is in the current era.

Todd Martin had a great serve ( he was 1.98 m or 6 ft 6 in ), had very powerful flat groundstrokes, he knew how to volley.

He played great in the Australian Open of 1994, defeating Edberg in the SF ( 3-6 7-6 7-6 7-6 ), but lost to Sampras ( 6-7 4-6 4-6 ).

In 1994 he also got to the SF of Wimbledon (lost to Sampras 4-6 4-6 6-3 3-6) and the SF of the US OPEN (lost to Agassi in four sets).

He was runner-up in the 1999 US OPEN losing to Agassi in five sets (he was leading two sets to one), and lost to Safin in four sets the following year in the SF.

He had a bit of bad luck because almost everytime he was playing great and was getting to SF or Final of a GS, he faced Sampras or Agassi there (bad luck because in the 90s there were several GS tournaments were neither Sampras nor Agassi were in the SF stage) and lost to them.

Clearly his best shot at a GS tournament was in 1996 Wimbledon, where he got to the SF stage and had to face Malivai Washington AND the other SF was Krajicek-Stoltenberg (Krajicek defeated Sampras in the QF and Stoltenberg defeated Ivanisevic in the QF, so imagine how Todd would feel, suddenly Sampras AND Ivanisevic were out!!!).

He was the clear favourite against Washington and, had he won, he would have been favourite against Stoltenberg (had Stoltenberg won his SF) in the final (and 50-50 against Krajicek in a hypothetical final).

Todd Martin was leading 5-1 in the fifth set against Malivai Washington but incredibly he ended up losing the match.

I think Martin-Krajicek would have been a great 1996 Wimbledon final, much more competitive than Krajicek-Washington, but it wasn't meant to be.

50-50 vs krajicek in a hypothetical final ? you cannot be serious ! krajicek blew sampras and stich off court at that wimby ....... it would've been closer than the actual final , but krajicek would've taken it , no doubt ...and that is not even considering martin's mental fragility ... add that and unless krajicek injured himself, he wouldn't lose .....

[abmk]

Originally Posted by Sid_Vicious

Soderling is more like the Todd Martin of this era:

'maybe', but soderling playing well is clearly more of a threat .....

[abmk]

@ topic, martin's career clearly eclipses that of stan ....

[vive le beau jeu !]

Originally Posted by abmk

50-50 vs krajicek in a hypothetical final ? you cannot be serious ! krajicek blew sampras and stich off court at that wimby ....... it would've been closer than the actual final , but krajicek would've taken it , no doubt ...and that is not even considering martin's mental fragility ... add that and unless krajicek injured himself, he wouldn't lose .....

krajicek might have been the favorite, but i think you're a bit underrating todd martin ! who knows what would have happened...

by the way, game wise, wawrinka makes me rather think on pioline...
(but his slam results are not at the same level, at least for the moment)

[Wilander Fan]

Interesting. I think it was easier being Tod Martin then than now. It was much more common to see upsets back then, particularly on grass or clay, when top players ran into specialists. There was also a pretty good balance of slow and lightning fast indoor courts so ranking could be very deceiving. I think Agassi was really the first all surface threat. Everyone else had a weak surface where they could get bounced early. Alot of the top 20 seemed to just surfaces altogether since there were enough of their events to keep their rankings up.