Heard from Mom this morning that the "Wimbledon hotshot" she had in mind was indeed Navratilova, along with Evert. So Martina and Chrissie are bigger stars in her tennis universe than any of the Big 3 (men). Looks like Uniqlo ain't getting the most out of their annual $30M check to Fed!
Back to the replies:
My guess is that Mecir would've been that much more popular with greater success. I'm personally not as enamored with his game as his die-hard fans here (I'm partial to the big game and prefer to see crushing serves and FHs to mere finesse), but I don't remember even a single casual fan speaking of Mecir in such Drago-ish terms as were reserved for Lendl and don't think that divergence of reactions would've changed a whole lot regardless of the Big Cat's resume.
And I actually don't think it's Novak's antics that rub people the wrong way, but rather the desperation of his carefully choreographed attempts to be liked. Which brings me to....
I've already talked about
his flap with Roddick and can't say he didn't deserve it in the slightest. (When you accuse the crowd of being against him from the start you can't expect them to behave any other way.) Anyway those impressions Novak used to do were never that good. Of course the public still ate them up when he was a talented upstart who might finally break the Fedal stranglehold on men's tennis, but as he started winning the manicured predictability of his antics became more and more obvious. It's probably no coincidence that he mostly stopped doing his impressions when he began to be known less as a legit contender than as something of a class clown.
And Novak was never going to win the highlight reel battle with Fed or even Rafa. Could that be why he's behind both in worldwide popularity? Perhaps, but while I can see why Fed would always get the better of Novak I don't see how any objective observer could conclude that my boy is almost 50% less exiciting (per the # of Twitter followers) than Rafa. Which in turn leads us to....
Not suggesting, I'm pretty sure he is. Just as many actors excel in their art precisely because they're introverts Novak's putting on these shows may well indicate a certain degree of overcompensation on his part. In fact their widely perceived awkwardness is a dead giveaway that the guy is an introvert trying to play an extrovert. I'd say that more than anything else is why he has yet to command (and probably never will) the same level of popular adulation as either Fedal. By way of their prevalence alone extroverts dictate the ways of the world while introverts struggle to be heard (including by fellow introverts), and Novak is at least vaguely cognizant of that reality and tries to accommodate, with limited success.
Of course Graf was/is considered attractive. I honestly couldn't count the number of times I've seen straight dudes drool over her (or straight women scrutinizing her famous gams with envy), or call Agassi lucky for marrying her.
Now did the thirst level for Graf ever reach Borg's in his heyday? Probably not, but Dolgo was simply drawing an analogy, not equating the two.
