2017 Wimbledon WTA

Who will win the 3rd slam of 2017?


  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .

tennis_pro

Bionic Poster
Amen. If she was such a headcase she would not have made it this far. The woman got through several tight matches on her way to semis, she is a lot stronger than people give her credit for.
I wanna see how many times she repeats this outside of Wimbledon.
 

ScentOfDefeat

G.O.A.T.
The game will live on but maybe not in the same way as before. It's already happening. There is no coverage of Wimbledon on standard telecast, only HD, here because the broadcaster perhaps guesses that the reach is not great and they might as well make more money off tennis fans by forcing them to subscribe to HD. We have to separate sport here as an athletic, competitive pursuit from sport as an entertainment business. It is the latter which pays tennis players to pursue the former, so the show biz is important. And for that, you need stars and rivalries. WTA did try with Bouchard but ah, she has been a crushing disappointment. As for records, the media themselves promoted this arms race to get more people interested. Glory hunting is what gets the largest number of fans interested, only a minority are actually interested in the nuances of the game. But with Big Four and Serena, maybe it's got to a point where the pursuit is too arduous for young players.

Well, for starters it would be nice to see someone talking about tennis in a new light, by considering historical contexts rather than just reinforcing the idea that the big 4 are gods of tennis. Instead of building shrines to them at every turn, perhaps the older players could also point out how bizarre it is that we've basically banked everything on a generation by filling tennis fans with "all-time-record" porn without even looking forward and ensuring a good future for the game. It's not a bed of roses.
 

Dolgopolov85

G.O.A.T.
Well, for starters it would be nice to see someone talking about tennis in a new light, by considering historical contexts rather than just reinforcing the idea that the big 4 are gods of tennis. Instead of building shrines to them at every turn, perhaps the older players could also point out how bizarre it is that we've basically banked everything on a generation by filling tennis fans with "all-time-record" porn without even looking forward and ensuring a good future for the game. It's not a bed of roses.
I think they have missed the bus. Maybe this deification could have been avoided by not pandering relentlessly to their needs. By not abolishing carpet, not slowing down Paris. Even Koenig once asked during Paris that where was the adaptability if the players wanted Paris to match the pace of London. No Nalbandians please, only Fedalovic. Well, then this is what you get. Now people complain if the big four don't all get to the semis. Weaning them off will be a nightmare.
 

MichaelNadal

Bionic Poster
Pulling for 37 year old Venus to win her 6 Wimbledon single title!

Jade better.......

tumblr_m3554blxUp1qgedm7o3_500.gif
.
 

chicagodude

Hall of Fame
It just occurred to me that IF Venus wins Wimbledon, she has a legitimate shot at #1 if she goes deep at the USO (depends on the 3 women above here of course at that point, especially Pliskova would have to lose somewhat early at USO) and performs well at the master tourneys. Pliskova and Kerber have lots of points to defend from USO, while Halep has a QF at USO and quite some points from the other tourneys in fall. Meanwhile Venus has relatively few points to defend from now on.

That would be absolutely insane if she could pull that off!
 

FakeEmpire

Professional
This deification isn't exclusive to tennis, though. It seems to be more of a general behavioural pattern towards sports and, really, anything in life. There's no more glory to the victor, honor to the vanquished. Like ABBA sang so wisely, the winner takes it all. Look at modern football. We're invariably hearing about Ronaldo, Messi, Messi, Ronaldo... All the marketing is directed at specific players. And we're talking about a team sport. All the new fans are likely to be drawn to Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and the likes, because these are the teams that can actually consistently win the big titles. As a result, a vicious cycle ensues, because football teams need money to be competitive in the upper echelons. So, it's not hard to see how much this new doctrine changed the way people see tennis, an individual sport.
Team sports do have a big advantage over tennis, that will allow them to retain their appeal for generations. They've a familiar component about them. Whole families belong to the same club. My football team is fairly small in the grand scheme of things, but each time I go to the stadium, I see little kids who've never seen our club win a championship showing the same amount of passion as I do. And they do it, because their parents or grandparents infused them with an adoration for a club, not for a certain player or a certain winning era. Consequently, we go through thick and thin for our team and that ends up giving you a certain love for the sport itself. That is impossible to do in tennis, where players come and go.
 

Steve0904

Talk Tennis Guru
This is a great looking final. Will be happy for either winner. I feel like for Venus to win she needs to use the net often. I don't believe she'll beat Mugu's power from the baseline, even as powerful as she is.
 

DRII

G.O.A.T.
Cause I ****ing watched the match you knucklehead. It was one hiccup in 2nd set, but muguruza dominated most of the rallies. Go watch the frickin highlights.

Are you that guy that doesn't understand what neutralizing means? I guess you won't understand anyway.
have you raised enough money for your therapy sessions yet?
 

every7

Hall of Fame
Pulling for 37 year old Venus to win her 6 Wimbledon single title!

17 years after her first Wimbledon final win! For sure, this woman is incredible! I am appreciating her while she is continuing to play and fight with diseases and beating players who weren't even born when she first entered WTA Tour! :eek:

I just wish she didn't beat with Ostapenko (also my favourite players)! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 

every7

Hall of Fame
Some media are describing the Halep-Konta match as the "most watched women's match ever at Wimbledon" according to BBC viewing numbers.

Is that in terms of British domestic viewers? It can't be worldwide but would make sense within the bubble of England or Great Britain. Konta fever has been palpable.......
 

fundrazer

G.O.A.T.
have you raised enough money for your therapy sessions yet?
That guy was trying to argue that Muller's forehand was neutralizing the match with Nadal when his serve was the most important shot in the match. BUt apparently the fact that Muller's serve is the only reason he was in the match doesn't make sense. No patience for that.


Go back to eating your paste.
t0T96eE.gif
 

every7

Hall of Fame
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Perseverance personified.

The braids are one of the most iconic tennis looks ever.

I must admit I used to hate when they fell out and stopped points, but how can you stay mad when it is that iconic......

Talk about revenge and getback............. all the crap that was spoken here and elsewhere about Venus the last few weeks. Sneaky media elements revealing their hatred and trying to assassinate her character.....She was completely absolved of all guilt in the sad car accident events that were being investigated. On top of all that here she is possibly winning Wimbledon again after carrying all that stress and never buckling or showing weakness with what she was dealing with. I haven't heard her complain even once or even address the garbage discussed about her. She just kept powering through.

This is an object lesson from one of the greats showing the social media generation with their hot-takes and hurt feelings how 90's / 2000s legends put in work.
 

THUNDERVOLLEY

G.O.A.T.
We'll see but I'm not very optimistic. Great players usually show signs of greatness early in their careers, that's the reason I have hopes for Ostapenko

She played well at the FO, but saying she shows signs of greatness is rather ridiculous. Early Graf, early Serena, early Billie Jean King (to name just three) were glowing with the sign of things to come. That is in no way Ostapenko, and no one is saying that with a serious face, if not at all.

If you look further you see Kerber who is almost 30 and hasn't won anything outside of one season

Yeah, those two majors mean nothing, right?

By the way, Isner and Simon are 32 and accomplished nothing at the majors. Nishikori and Pospisil are in your "almost 30" group and have won how many majors? Yeah. There's not even a "one season" for any of this unimpressive crew.

Show me the really good promising players at the age of 17-20 (other than Ostapenko) who have the potential to win multiple Slams in the future. I'll tell you more:
There is only 1 player aged 22 or younger who is in the top 20 at the moment - you guessed it, it's Ostapenko. Then there's Konjuh ranked 22nd and the rest is outside the top 30. I'm also NOT being harsh with the "age limit" because women STILL mature younger than men. A 20-year old girl is on average as mature as a 22-23 year old male player.

...and yet the majority of the hyped "next generation" of males over the past several years is at 100% failure rate. A waste of a generation. Thiem, Isner, Nishikori, Kyrgios, Pospisil, Dimitrov, Simon, Tomic, Raonic and others have not lived up to any of the hype and predictions. Nothing. No majors, which means the ATP is living on the fumes of old players--a couple near average retirement age. That is the state and fate of the ATP, and there's no sign any of the players mentioned--or any younger generations are going to rise to the challenge and win majors. If any tour is in trouble, its most certainly the ATP, since victories like that of Federer & Nadal is great for them as older players--its all for their legacy, but it casts a negative light as bright as the sun as to how much of a colossal failure all the other active ATP generations are.

At least in the past decade, several women of varying ages broke through to win majors. For example:
  • Sharapova - FO 2012
  • Azarenka - AO 2012 & 2013
  • Bartoli - Wimbledon 2013
  • Kvitova - Wimbledon 2014
  • Li Na - AO 2014
  • Sharapova - FO 2014
  • Pennetta - USO 2015
  • Kerber - AO 2016 & USO 2016
  • Muguruza - FO 2016
  • Ostapenko - FO 2017
Ten players, twelve majors, all different ages , but two certainly checked the younger box (Note: Vika was 22 when winning her first major--the same as Muguruza). Some were bigger names at the time of their victories, others not. Above all else, several won other than the WTA hater's fallback claim of "It's always Serena. Depth is not a WTA problem, as we see a wide variety of player have won majors in recent years. How diverse is the ATP in this regard (the majors) in the same period of time?
 
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Vanhool

Hall of Fame
What's so bad about having 8-6 sets instead of 6-4? The more tennis, the better.
I tend to be conservative when it comes to the internal structure of games (the "ad", etc), but changing the length of a set doesn't bother me at all.
It would be a good compromise, since scheduling becomes impossible if the men and the women start playing best of 5. The other solution would be best of 3 for both tours until the semis, and then best of 5. I'd be happy with that.
I'm surprised you reacted so negatively.
And what does Cornet have to do with this?
Haha. Yes I am jetlagged and now overworked and had just woke up grumpy that I missed the matches. What Cornet has to do with it is every set she plays goes an hour. I can't bear 1:20 sets! I think BO5 wouldn't take much longer than BO3 w/8 games because you would get strategic tanks (which is why I hate BO5) and/or more finishing the points early. My actual preference would be men and women BO3 until the QF then BO5. After the R16 scheduling becomes way more manageable. Or just leave it like it is. I don't mind a short match once in a while. I'd rather have short than 5 hours.
 

Dolgopolov85

G.O.A.T.
This deification isn't exclusive to tennis, though. It seems to be more of a general behavioural pattern towards sports and, really, anything in life. There's no more glory to the victor, honor to the vanquished. Like ABBA sang so wisely, the winner takes it all. Look at modern football. We're invariably hearing about Ronaldo, Messi, Messi, Ronaldo... All the marketing is directed at specific players. And we're talking about a team sport. All the new fans are likely to be drawn to Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and the likes, because these are the teams that can actually consistently win the big titles. As a result, a vicious cycle ensues, because football teams need money to be competitive in the upper echelons. So, it's not hard to see how much this new doctrine changed the way people see tennis, an individual sport.
Team sports do have a big advantage over tennis, that will allow them to retain their appeal for generations. They've a familiar component about them. Whole families belong to the same club. My football team is fairly small in the grand scheme of things, but each time I go to the stadium, I see little kids who've never seen our club win a championship showing the same amount of passion as I do. And they do it, because their parents or grandparents infused them with an adoration for a club, not for a certain player or a certain winning era. Consequently, we go through thick and thin for our team and that ends up giving you a certain love for the sport itself. That is impossible to do in tennis, where players come and go.

Sure, deification is unavoidable in any sport once it gets very popular. And as you say, tennis being an individual sport is much more liable to this. Which is why pandering so much to the stars was a bad idea. It made them larger than the sport, which they aren't, really, and also helped them build up a near-mythical track record of consistency across the board. Not just slams, but masters and basically any tournament they cared to participate in. This is unprecedented and I would not want to take credit away from their desire and dedication to keep it up for so long. But the fact that they have complained and got their way whenever they didn't like the conditions (usually because they were too fast) suggests that this run wouldn't have been possible without the tournaments and ATP bending over. I don't know if THAT has happened in football. Seems difficult, beyond cheating on fouls/red cars to help CR7 or Messi at the expense of others. So the conditions presumably allow the emergence of new stars which does not seem to be the case anymore in tennis. It's so bad that if you sped up the courts NOW, somebody like Fed is more likely to win rather than an up and coming player. Why? Because they are being trained to play with even more extreme grips and even more spin and may not be equipped to tackle him on fast courts. On slow courts, the rest of the Big Four will wake up. The decline of Murray and Djokovic is finally opening up the tour but as of now, it is erstwhile journeymen like Querrey or second tier veterans like Berdych or Cilic who are exploiting this and not the young ones.
 

Mr.Lob

G.O.A.T.
She played well at the FO, but saying she shows signs of greatness is rather ridiculous. Early Graf, early Serena, early Billie Jean King (to name just three) were glowing with the sign of things to come. That is in no way Ostapenko, and no one is saying that with a serious face, if not at all.

Yawn. You said the same thing about Djokovic when he won his first slam. :rolleyes:
 

Nostradamus

Bionic Poster
I will back Venus to win this final.. After all that she has gone thru with Shogren's syndrome,, girl should get a reward for persevering. What about Cute Mugu ?? Well, I really hope she wins Wimbledon next year......Hopefully Serena suck next year.............
 

THUNDERVOLLEY

G.O.A.T.
Yawn. You said the same thing about Djokovic when he won his first slam. :rolleyes:

Yawn--you have no evidence to suggest she will win anything on the level some are claiming. Ah, but no one is too surprised about certain TT members attempting to create a bandwagon based on nothing.
 
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Big_Dangerous

Talk Tennis Guru
I was thinking the same thing. Sumyk came across as an a-hole earlier this year with his little tantrum related to her anger. He made it about him and it should always be about her.

Man that guy really makes the rounds as far as coaching goes. He married a former WTA play whom he coached, then coached Zvonareva, Azarenka for a while, a short stint with Genie Bouchard, and then Muguruza.
 

fundrazer

G.O.A.T.
Oleg S.‏ @AnnaK_4ever Jul 13
Muguruza's 13 months:

- wins Roland Garros

- retires at five tournaments

- loses 61 60 to Strycova at Eastbourne

- reaches Wimbledon final

The main thing was she did not reach finals of any event. Had some decent results though, QF in Melbourne losing to on fire Coco. SF of Indian Wells or Miami losing to Karolina (she struggles against her quite a bit).

The loss to Strycova meant nothing. I actually expected more of the girls to tank Eastbourne with how condensed the playing schedule was getting due to the rain delays. I said so here in the thread we had for that tournament. Didn't make that much sense to potentially hinder Wimby prep by playing multiple matches in a day. And waddaya know, I was right, she's in finals of Wimby now.
 

FakeEmpire

Professional
Sure, deification is unavoidable in any sport once it gets very popular. And as you say, tennis being an individual sport is much more liable to this. Which is why pandering so much to the stars was a bad idea. It made them larger than the sport, which they aren't, really, and also helped them build up a near-mythical track record of consistency across the board. Not just slams, but masters and basically any tournament they cared to participate in. This is unprecedented and I would not want to take credit away from their desire and dedication to keep it up for so long. But the fact that they have complained and got their way whenever they didn't like the conditions (usually because they were too fast) suggests that this run wouldn't have been possible without the tournaments and ATP bending over. I don't know if THAT has happened in football. Seems difficult, beyond cheating on fouls/red cars to help CR7 or Messi at the expense of others. So the conditions presumably allow the emergence of new stars which does not seem to be the case anymore in tennis. It's so bad that if you sped up the courts NOW, somebody like Fed is more likely to win rather than an up and coming player. Why? Because they are being trained to play with even more extreme grips and even more spin and may not be equipped to tackle him on fast courts. On slow courts, the rest of the Big Four will wake up. The decline of Murray and Djokovic is finally opening up the tour but as of now, it is erstwhile journeymen like Querrey or second tier veterans like Berdych or Cilic who are exploiting this and not the young ones.

I'm not disputing that part about pandering to the stars. I concur with you on that point. I was merely stating that if we're seeing this deification in team sports, the effect of that new approach will be greatly magnified in an individual sport and, as such, will produce ominous consequences, which are harder to revert.
In football, that pandering is notorious in the attribution of individual prizes (just check out the Ballon D'Or winners in the last decade - it is a crime to completely ignore a player like Iniesta) and in the more favourable conditions bigger teams and championships usually receive. Starting in 2018, the top four teams of the top four european championships will automatically participate in the Champions League. The gap between the "rich" and the "poor" will only increase even more. The beauty of that competition does not only reside in the fact the biggest teams are there, there's also in the fact smaller teams have the (sometimes unique) chance of playing against the very best, even if they'll end up getting slaughtered more often than not. But one day, that won't happen and that is the greatest sight to behold in any sport. If we keep widening the gap and eliminating opportunities, we are gonna lose the very thing that make sports exciting: its unpredictability.
 

FakeEmpire

Professional
Hmmm, I don't think Federer's achievements will shut up anyone about the competitiveness of the women's game (and I get some of the criticism directed at it). Look no further than the 11 finals thread in this subforum. Crystallized ideas are hard to change after all... Furthermore, they'll always have the argument "but there's only one man who achieved it, unlike what happened with women", making it more about Federer's prowess (which can't be denied, though).

Either way, I long for the day where I incite the same fervent emotional responses on someone as Federer does. Sometimes, it's better than being plainly ignored or invisible. :) Seriously, the man has an uncanny capacity for making adult people go bananas.
 

ScentOfDefeat

G.O.A.T.
http://www.espn.com/watch/player?bucketId=22&id=3099004

Wow,, some Insane exciting Mixed doubles at Wimby. 3 of the 4 finalist could be a Brit. Including Murray....

There are so many finals that it's almost impossible for one of them not to include a Brit.
At this point the British media are just clutching at straws.
It reminds me of small country syndrome, where you collect the number of times a bigger country happened to mention your country and wear it as a badge of honour, except in this case it's a big country displaying this parochial behaviour.
 

-NN-

G.O.A.T.
Now that Federer is set to overtake Navratilova's and Chris Evert's tally of 18 Slams, I hope the "well, it's easier to get 18+ Slams in the women's game because it's less competitive" crowd will finally shut up.

Not a chance. It will work the other way with me (if it happens, of course).
 

Aussie Darcy

Bionic Poster
Man sometimes you forget how amazing the Williams sisters truly are. Inspiring. Channel 7 giving the opening for the final and just all Venus has done and gone through, amazing.
 
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