Don't get me going on that final.....it certainly changed Lendl's trajectory...Mac did rebound nicely however.
Greatest Myths in Tennis History
- Thread starter Dan Lobb
- Start date
I wonder if any of his rivals could have been so ******* that they rip his wig off his head in a big match (think about Lendl ripping off Cash’s shoes).
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Agassi thought Muster was trying to rip the wig off right at the end of their 1994 French Open match. In reality, Muster did that pat on the head after matches to a lot of opponents in the post-match handshake. This shows Agassi's fear and paranoia about the whole thing at the time. Cutting his hair short, and relaxing about the whole "image" thing, was long overdue.
Muster did confirm in one of his post-career interviews that the players all knew about Agassi's hair situation at the time. It explains much about why Agassi's personality was the way it was, the fear, the paranoia, the control freakery and insecurity.
King_olaf_the_hairy
Semi-Pro
Playing Devil's Advocate here, but since ths is a Greatest Myths discussion: how much did this really change Lendl's trajectory? After FO '84 he had two more final losses at the slams which would ultimately prove to be his most productive (Flushing Meadows '84 and Roland Garros '85). So he went from 0-4 to 1-4, and then to 1-6.
You could argue, based on the results that followed, that USO '85 was his real turning point. Following that he suddenly went 5-2 in slam title matches, and 5-0 off grass.
(For the record, I do think it did make a difference, but he couldn't build on it immediately; JMac's form that year was too overwhelming even with Ivan's improved self-belief.)
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I think your parenthetical at the bottom is right. Lendl's win at the 1984 French Open showed him that he could win a Major, and he went into the offseason on a mission, getting fitter and stronger. That work didn't pay off immediately at the French Open or Wimbledon in 1985, but his fitness and belief that he could beat McEnroe at a Major arguably allowed him to hang around in the first set of their 1985 U.S. Open final after McEnroe was blowing him away at the start of that match and the stifle any attempt at a comeback.
HBK4life
Hall of Fame
I remember during Wimbledon 92 Dick Enberg brought up the press asking about the hat and the rumors going around. He did mention “bald” but then Andre took the hat off in a press conference and Dick said he does have “lots of hair”. I have to think the press knew but just kept quiet since Andre was a cash cow.
King_olaf_the_hairy
Semi-Pro
Yes, I think perhaps the biggest difference it made was that his finals record was 1-6 instead of 0-7, which would have been a colossal mental burden to overcome.
This actually reminds me of another myth. I initially thought of the hostility the top guys had to each other (McEnroe/Connors, McEnroe/Lendl, Lendl/Connors, Agassi/Connors, Lendl/Cash, Lendl/Becker, Agassi/Becker, etc). I pictured Lendl following up his infamous "haircut and a forehand" put-down by saying something like "Now Andre's a hairpiece and a forehand".
Except that's not what Ivan said, or at least it's wildly out of context. Instead of it being a dismissive and disparaging remark, it was an admission that he didn't know much about the young American the first time they played. From a Christian Science Monitor article dated August 1987:
Pro tennis has come a long way from its staid and formal days of old, and the past decade has seen many players wear headbands, from Bjorn Borg to McEnroe to this year's Wimbledon king, Pat Cash of Australia. But nobody has a head of hair like Agassi: dark at the roots with bleached endings, short on the sides with a lion's mane at the back.
McEnroe, who beat Andre in the quarterfinals of the Volvo International at the Stratton Mountain resort here last year, said he should get a haircut. Ivan Lendl, who struggled before dismantling the teen sensation in a three-set semifinal at this year's $315,000 tournament, said he knew nothing about his young opponent except that he had a powerful forehand. Pause. "And long hair," Lendl quickly added.
I guess it's another example of the press picking its heroes and villains, regardless of whether their narrative fits reality.
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ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
The myth that Karsten Braasch's serve was NOT a thing of beauty.
HBK4life
Hall of Fame
Looks like he’s having some kind of fit.The myth that Karsten Braasch's serve was NOT a thing of beauty.
I generally agree with you, but the '84 FO win got a pretty big monkey off his back.
Olli Jokinen
Hall of Fame
I remember him keeping his cap on while changing his shirt, it looked so awkward.
HBK4life
Hall of Fame
Hmmm I never thought of that. I guess I always thought he didn’t want to pull that hair through the cap each change. But I think your onto something here.
Olli Jokinen
Hall of Fame
I had a suspicion he was balding at that time because he was so protective of the cap. For at time he also had kind of a combover. Don't know if it was a hair system or just a last, desperate effort.
MissileBackHand99
Semi-Pro
It made a HUGE difference in his career trajectory. Just b/c he didn't go on to win the next 3 Slams in a row, doesn't mean it didn't change his trajectory. Ivan finally got the monkey off his back and won a Slam (against peak Mac) after several years of coming close and getting denied (and that incredible non-Slam season of '82). Definitely gave him the confidence that he could be #1 and win on the biggest stages
Any list of ‘greatest chokes’ that includes the excellent Lendl-Mac 1984 RG final, especially near the top of that list, is basically useless.
It seems like Mac tried to play down or even at times ignore his rivalry vs. Lendl for quite a while, until Lendl returned to tennis and started playing exhos again (especially against him) in 2010. It was easier for him to talk fondly about his rivalries vs. Borg and Connors, as he both liked and respected Borg, respected Connors and generally had the upper hand in his ‘big’ matches against them both. He neither liked or respected Lendl, who also generally had the upper hand in their big matches against each other.
Since 2010 he has acknowledged the rivalry a lot more, though Lendl was still able to wind him up by talking bringing up that 1984 RG final which was funny. If Mac retaliated by bringing up Lendl’s failure to win Wimbledon, it wouldn’t work as Lendl immediately moved on that got over that after he retired, while Mac wasn’t able to do that and still found the 1984 RG final painful (banning people from mentioning it in his presence) for a while after he retired.
It seems like Mac tried to play down or even at times ignore his rivalry vs. Lendl for quite a while, until Lendl returned to tennis and started playing exhos again (especially against him) in 2010. It was easier for him to talk fondly about his rivalries vs. Borg and Connors, as he both liked and respected Borg, respected Connors and generally had the upper hand in his ‘big’ matches against them both. He neither liked or respected Lendl, who also generally had the upper hand in their big matches against each other.
Since 2010 he has acknowledged the rivalry a lot more, though Lendl was still able to wind him up by talking bringing up that 1984 RG final which was funny. If Mac retaliated by bringing up Lendl’s failure to win Wimbledon, it wouldn’t work as Lendl immediately moved on that got over that after he retired, while Mac wasn’t able to do that and still found the 1984 RG final painful (banning people from mentioning it in his presence) for a while after he retired.
They weren’t all official majors either , before the mid-1920s. Only Wimbledon was (out of the present majors) officially.
Official Major status
French open 1925-now
Australian open 1924-now
Us Open 1924-now
Having said that the us open was a de facto major before then
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That Big Bill Tilden only played in long white flannels. After the War he sometimes played in the shortest of shorts.
www.gettyimages.de/fotos/bill-tilden
www.gettyimages.de/fotos/bill-tilden
Here is an example of how hero-worshipping can cause exaggerated claims for a hero, in this case for Gonzales.
"So great was his ability to raise his game to the highest possible level, particularly in the fifth set of long matches, Allen Fox has said that he never once saw Gonzales lose service when serving for the set or the match."
"So great was his ability to raise his game to the highest possible level, particularly in the fifth set of long matches, Allen Fox has said that he never once saw Gonzales lose service when serving for the set or the match."
That's a good point...his last ATP match I think was in '96? And he was playing that Seniors Tour from roughly '93 to 2001. He played a full round of ATP events in '92 with mixed results after his USO comeback.
Looking at Connors’ 1992 season in isolation, he did very well to win more matches than he lost (17 compared to 15), lead the world no. 5 and reigning Wimbledon champion Stich by 2 sets to 1 at RG (having also beaten him earlier in the year at Memphis), beat Ferreira, Krickstein, Shelton, win a set off Lendl at the US Open (having destroyed a player ranked just outside the top 50 in the 1st round) etc.
He may have played ATP after 92, but it wasn't much. 5 matches a year? He made the semis in a tournament in San Francisco in 93, the same week that Arthur Ashe died. The Seniors tour was different. That was his baby and he played a lot. But any sort of even semi regular ATP play ended in 92.
I remember watching the Stich match. That was something else. He might've beaten him in straights actually...he let that 1st set get away from him. But, after he won the 3rd he hit the wall and was totally, utterly out of gas. Once he started the Seniors Tour, he certainly wasn't going to play the ATP full time any longer and he gave up the GS events. He just dabbled here and there. The guy could still play at 40yrs+,but day in and day out, to play the level he'd expect from himself, it was beyond him. I had a lot of fun watching him play Borg and later on, Mac in those events. Part of me wonders if you could get Fed, Nadal and Djoko to start a seniors tour in a few years. Folks would pay to see that.
Vincent-C
Hall of Fame
Thanks for those clips. Rafter and Flipper could *really* volley- notice how Rafter especially
gets down for the FH volley, with the racket head high = great control over it. Fed shoulda
learned that shot from Rafter or Eddy.. he was way too sloppy on that side.
Perhaps the most persistent myth in tennis history is the dominance of recency bias in evaluation of the greatest players.
Never was that more true than at the present time, when merely counting GS victories against a weak era field of players gives inflated numbers of major wins to the resumes of several well-known names.
In previous eras, getting a world number one ranking in several years was sufficient to establish greatness, but now the only criterion which matters is grand slam wins. That criterion ignores the unusual factors which restricted GS victories for previous generations of players.
Never was that more true than at the present time, when merely counting GS victories against a weak era field of players gives inflated numbers of major wins to the resumes of several well-known names.
In previous eras, getting a world number one ranking in several years was sufficient to establish greatness, but now the only criterion which matters is grand slam wins. That criterion ignores the unusual factors which restricted GS victories for previous generations of players.
This is true. Plus never having seen some of these guys play factors into it....You Tube videos help, but are a little misleading. Pre-Open era is very tough. I can't fully appreciate the Laver/Rosewall era, since I've seen only a little bit of their play....same for Gonzalez. I wasn't even born when these guys were in their prime. Whereas, once we hit the open era and tennis caught fire in the 70's, there became a lot more viewing opportunities for everyone. Personally, I think a great player is a great player. Sure, guys and gals are bigger and stronger now, as are the rackets, but that's not the only thing that matters.
I just don't buy the 'weak era' line without a global event large enough to disrupt the tour, or deny a significant percentage of players access to the sport and/or the resources to develop such as World War II or the Great Depression or the dual competing tours among the men in the 1950's and 1960's . The players tend to improve one another, and the generations tend to build on the shoulder of the prior generation. Now I am not saying that different eras won't have different strengths and weaknesses as they respond to changes in the sport, but the broad notion that the general quality of tennis throughout the tour dips and rises for a significant period for no apparent reason just does not make sense to me.
When I see one of us disparaging an era as weaker, I normally think that just means someone has an agenda or someone can't appreciate that the attributes or measuring stick on which we base what we see in the play have been changing.
Posters defend the notion of a weak or strong era, with the usual list of perceived great players and the alternative list of perceived not so great players. Then there is a series of 'counter arguments' that disparage those greats as over the hill, or injured or immature or in a rut, and the others are gifted talented and underapreciated geniuses.
The whole thing smells like a myth to me.
When I see one of us disparaging an era as weaker, I normally think that just means someone has an agenda or someone can't appreciate that the attributes or measuring stick on which we base what we see in the play have been changing.
Posters defend the notion of a weak or strong era, with the usual list of perceived great players and the alternative list of perceived not so great players. Then there is a series of 'counter arguments' that disparage those greats as over the hill, or injured or immature or in a rut, and the others are gifted talented and underapreciated geniuses.
The whole thing smells like a myth to me.
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Mustard
Bionic Poster
The myth of Sampras' decline in 1999. I was recently watching the 1999 Queen's Club final between Sampras and Henman. Pat Cash was on commentary, and it was amusing when he said that Sampras (who hadn't won a tournament in 1999 at the time) had to ask serious questions to himself about why he was still out there as nobody dominates for so long. Sampras' length of dominance was pretty short compared to all of the big 3 in the future. Even John Barrett was talking about Sampras' decline and speculating about when Henman would rise to perhaps topple Sampras. Sampras only went on a 24-match winning streak at that point by playing some of the best tennis that he had ever played in his life. LOL.
The absence of a succeeding generation of tennis players to the Big Three, which continues to the present day, is one clear indication of the weakening of the current era. This has never happened in the past history of tennis.
No its not an indication of anything, other than the capacity of careers to be extended longer than in prior generations. You have decided longer equals weaker.
There is no reason to think that human bodies survive longer in tennis than previously. Previous generations of players continued into their fifties.
There is no reason to think that the same modern medicine that extends lives, and provides more accurate diagnosis, and better prognosis of injuries are not also doing a better job of ensuring that those older players are in far better shape for longer than decades before. Especially of those players are extraordinarily wealthy because they became champions. Champions have huge advantages in wealth and access that those coming up do not. We have got tiers of privelege in our sport that we never had before. That can buy a lot to extend your time at the very top and improve your performance for longer than before. None of this proves a 'weak era' beneath
I am skeptical of claims that if you have enough money you can buy some magic medicine to prolong youthfulness. It doesn't work that way.
Are you thinking of Andy Murray? There are limits to what medicine can do.
Its is series of smaller but consistent advantages all along the way once you get into the top ten and the top five. You get the best coaches, the best trainers, the best nutritionists, the best physical therapists, and if there is an injury, you get the best doctors ordering the right tests, and the most accurate of diagnosis and the right treatment early, when other players just aren't. You are making a lot of people some real money, and its in their collective interest to make sure you continue to. Its going to make a real difference not only in how long you play, but how well you play.
Let me ask you why all the sudden in the beginning of the 21st century would the calibre of players in Europe, in the States , and across the rest of the globe drop off except for one Swiss man, one Spaniard, and one Serbian? Other than the inevitable lack of big match play when a few rise to the top, what happened to everyone else in the same twenty year period to make them 'weaker' than the generation prior? What stopped them from developing like players in the top ten have developed for the preceeding generations? Did they somehow all lose the great 'tennis gene' for this generation, or were they all lazier for no apparent reason? See that's where I am sceptical of your 'weak era' story.
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Well then what happened to Murray? Did the doctors just goof on him? I find it hard to believe that there is some secret super-medicine which only works for three players.
here was the question you forgot. Its important. Why all the sudden sometime in the beginning of the 21st century would the calibre of players in Europe, in the States , and across the rest of the globe drop off except for one Swiss man, one Spaniard, and one Serbian? Other than the inevitable lack of big match play when a few rise to the top, what happened to everyone else in the same twenty year period to make them 'weaker' than the generation prior? What stopped them from developing like players in the top ten have developed for the preceeding generations? Did they somehow all lose the great 'tennis gene' for this generation, or were they all lazier for no apparent reason? See that's where I am sceptical of your 'weak era' story.
Trust me, I have other questions but they do not depend on specific anecdotes, careers or players like 'andy murray', because we aren't going to get the big picture from anecdotal stories.
1. I want to talk about how you differenciate between eras, when you know when one ended and another started.
2. I want to know how you measure the relative strength of eras? What exactly are your criteria? Is any of it objective?
3. If you don't know how to measure the average strength of an era, how do you know if an era is subpar, at par or above par?
All I know is that you identify this era as a 'weak one' Maybe you can make a list of the weak eras and another list of the strong eras and then we can figure out a pattern to see if its subjective for you, or there is something, anything that suggests something concrete.
I think its largely a TENNIS MYTH that is perpetuated on forum's like this to obfuscate and blur otherwise fact based debates about which players of which eras are 'better' or 'worse'. Its that place you head to, when you are losing an argument on objective grounds
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Your own story is anecdotal, the fact remains that the fields in recent years were unable to advance against the Big Three, which indicates a relatively weak field, however you want to try and explain it.
Whatever advances in medicine were made also applied to the new younger players, but it did not help them.
I did not bring 'those three people up first, you did. Please be specific about what criteria you are using to measure this era what criteria make this weak and which criteria are you throwing out as irrelevent. the Tell me what defines 'an era', when it starts and ends and whether your definition is going to be consistent across tennis history Please describe what an 'average era' is supposed to look like instead this weak one, and provide an example, and what a stronger than average era looks like instead and provide an example
I bet I would not have to be Kreskin to figure out the PLAYERS you will assert to have dominated in a 'strong era ' but we will see. You can talk dates and time frames rather than names so it will look objective.
You are free to construct your own eras and periods according to your own insights, such as they are. This is not an exact science, but a choice by individuals.
LOL, so you have no working definition of what an era is. Its whatever you claim it is, what ever works best for your preferred conclusion. So what criteria are you using and measuring to decide what is a strong or average or weak 'era'? Hopefully at least that is consistent and objective.
The term "era" is not a precise period of years...where did you learn the language, friend?
What if Lendl LOST that final to Mac in 3 straight sets? Coming off a loss at W to Connors, I think that would have been pretty demoralizing. Then another loss to Mac at USO. Then in '85, loses to Wilander in RG and out early at W. Would he have been as confident/strong at the USO in '85? I'm not so sure. Granted the USO is not RG, but the monkey was off his back, so to speak. I think
What the hell do you think determines what an era 'is', and when one era ends and the next one starts. If you don't know that, you can't tell tell which matches were played, which players played or what events or organised during any given era You can't possibly know whether one is weak or strong if you can't even figure out what happened during one.
Soo if its not a precise period of years, then tell me what delineates one era from another?
You tell me, big mouth.
Lol, I am not the one pushing this myth of the 'weak era' . If you can't even tell me when one starts, and another stops, how do you know what happened during one? If you can't tell me what criteria you use to measure the strength or weakness of an era, how do you know one is stronger than another?
From what I can tell around here , all we can agree on, is that one poster's favorite champion inevitably dominated in a strong era, and the other guy's preferred player played during a weaker one and the only evidence provided, is a comparative list of names of the contemporaries who's acheivements are glorified or sneered at depending on which side of the agenda being pushed.
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You like generalizations, which are a waste of space. Get to specifics if you think that you have anything to blather about.
No I like specifics. I am not getting any from you. Please be specific about your definition of an 'era'. Please tell me specifically how you know when one era ends and another has begun. Please be specific about your criteria for measuring the relative strength or weakness of an era. Exactly what standard are you applying to these different eras.
I don't think you want specifics. I don't think you want structure. I think you want names of champions to focus on . You want a Laver era, or Budge era , or Connors era or Sampras era as though they defined their era ( so you don't have to). If we focus on players names we never have to discuss any objective measurement or any logical process to any of this . We don't have a process. We don't have a working definition. We don't have criteria. we have a series of opinions about who we like and who we admire and who we don't like or admire as much, and our 'weak era' arguments exists to undermine the accomphishments of those we don't like as much.
You are not unique here. This weak era/strong era is the normal 'go-to' around here when objective criteria aren't working out very well to buttress subjective opinions.
I think its mostly about us, not the tennis played.
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Again, you are not giving anything specific in this, about what you think the term "era" means. Until you specify what you mean by "era" there is no possibility of having any discussion with you. A pity.
I am not the one making claims about eras so I don't have anything I need to define.
