Tignor's list of legendary French Open matches

[Enceladus]

http://www.tennis.com/tags/10-most-memorable-matches-open-era-roland-garros/

#7 Gaudio d. Coria, F 2004
#8 Henin d. S. Williams, SF 2003
#9 Agassi d. Medvedev, F 1999
#10 Noah d. Wilander, F 1983

Which matches would you rank in the first six? I would name:
Soderling d. Nadal, R4 2009 - The biggest shock in the history of tennis.
Lendl d. McEnroe, F 1984 - Lendl broke the curse of the GS final and set Mac's worst career loss.
Chang d. Lendl, R4 1989 - Serving underneath, moonballs ... And a sensational losing favorite.
Evert d. Navratilova, F 1985 - After a series of lost GS finals with Navratilova valuable triumph Evert.
Graf d. Zvereva, F 1988 - Graf in its best form.
Nadal d. Djokovic, SF 2013 - The hardest match Rafa played on RG.

 

[Badabing888]

Federer v Del Potro - 2009 semi.
Federer v Djokovic- 2011 semi
Murray v Wawrinka - 2017 semi
Gonzalez v Soderling - 2009 semi


The semis have been better than many of the finals I can remember - only one I really loved was Agassi v Medvedev. The above semis stick out in my recent memory.

 

[Plamen1234]

I will add 2 more - Federer-Djokovic 2011 and Stan Wawrinka- Novak Djokovic 2015

 

[tenisdecente]

That Fed-Djokovic in 2011 was something else

 

[pat200]

graf seles 92 FO final

 

[Enceladus]

Updates:
#3 Evert d. Navratilova, F 1985
#4 Lendl d. McEnroe, F 1984
#5 Graf d. Sanchez Vicario, F 1996
#6 Nadal d. Djokovic, SF 2013

 

[Moonarse]

Kuerten vs Kafelnikov QF - 1997?

 

[NoleFam]

Edit since the OP updated. I'm going to say the top 2 will be Soderling/Nadal and Seles/Graf 1992.

 

[Fedforever]

Edit since the OP updated. I'm going to say the top 2 will be Soderling/Nadal and Seles/Graf 1992.

Seems likely, since it's hard to conceive of a Top 10 without those two.

Does this mean there'll be a similar list for Wimbledon? Struggling to pick the No 1 there (not!!).

 

[NoleFam]

Seems likely, since it's hard to conceive of a Top 10 without those two.

Does this mean there'll be a similar list for Wimbledon? Struggling to pick the No 1 there (not!!).

Yea that would be my top 2 but that Soderling match is pretty much a lock. It seems like they did a Wimbledon list a few years and Nadal/Federer 2008 as #1.

 

[Otacon]

The best match ever played in RG in terms of level of tennis gotta be Fed vs Djokovic.

 

[Enceladus]

Edit since the OP updated. I'm going to say the top 2 will be Soderling/Nadal and Seles/Graf 1992.

Updates:
#1 Seles d. Graf, F 1992
#2 Chang d. Lendl, R4 1989

So the match Soderling / Nadal Tignor missed. I would say that in TOP 10 it will be automatically.

 

[NoleFam]

Updates:
#1 Seles d. Graf, F 1992
#2 Chang d. Lendl, R4 1989

So the match Soderling / Nadal Tignor missed. I would say that in TOP 10 it will be automatically.

I'm really shocked that didn't make the top 10.

 

[Fedforever]

Ridiculous. The list is supposed to be "most memorable matches" - like many people I remember where I was when I saw the result of Soderling/Nadal - stood in a supermarket seeing it on the front page of the Times which I had just picked up! The greatest shock in the history of tennis and not in the Top 10????

 

[Phoenix1983]

http://www.tennis.com/tags/10-most-memorable-matches-open-era-roland-garros/

#7 Gaudio d. Coria, F 2004
#8 Henin d. S. Williams, SF 2003
#9 Agassi d. Medvedev, F 1999
#10 Noah d. Wilander, F 1983

Which matches would you rank in the first six? I would name:
Soderling d. Nadal, R4 2009 - The biggest shock in the history of tennis.
Lendl d. McEnroe, F 1984 - Lendl broke the curse of the GS final and set Mac's worst career loss.
Chang d. Lendl, R4 1989 - Serving underneath, moonballs ... And a sensational losing favorite.
Evert d. Navratilova, F 1985 - After a series of lost GS finals with Navratilova valuable triumph Evert.
Graf d. Zvereva, F 1988 - Graf in its best form.
Nadal d. Djokovic, SF 2013 - The hardest match Rafa played on RG.

Without reading the other posts in this thread, I'd say you're probably right on 5 of the 6.

I think however that the Seles-Graf final of 1992 (Seles won 10-8 in the 5th) would be there instead of Graf humiliating Zvereva.

 

[Phoenix1983]

So I just read the rest of the thread.

Absurd that Nadal/Soderling isn't in the top 10.

 

[BeatlesFan]

Most people on TTW aren't old enough to remember the Chang-Lendl match, which made enormous news at the time, but that was indeed legendary stuff and a hugely surprising result. The underhand serve from Chang while cramping in the fifth set was more drama than the Soderling-Rafa match. But the shock of the Soderling-Rafa match eclipses anything ever seen in tennis shocks, probably. For that reason, it should be #1. I'd put Chang-Lendl in second place (for men's matches).

 

[Phoenix1983]

Most people on TTW aren't old enough to remember the Chang-Lendl match, which made enormous news at the time, but that was indeed legendary stuff and a hugely surprising result. The underhand serve from Chang while cramping in the fifth set was more drama than the Soderling-Rafa match. But the shock of the Soderling-Rafa match eclipses anything ever seen in tennis shocks, probably. For that reason, it should be #1. I'd put Chang-Lendl in second place (for men's matches).

Not sure of what my exact ordering would be, but Nadal-Soderling, Chang-Lendl and Lendl-McEnroe would be IMHO the top three most memorable men's RG matches.

There's really no excuse for Nadal-Soderling not being in the top 10 combined list. Particularly since the article was called "most memorable matches", rather than "greatest matches" (I can see the case for Nadal-Soderling not making the latter list).

 

[Fedforever]

Particularly since the article was called "most memorable matches", rather than "greatest matches" (I can see the case for Nadal-Soderling not making the latter list).

Exactly.

 

[thrust]

http://www.tennis.com/tags/10-most-memorable-matches-open-era-roland-garros/

#7 Gaudio d. Coria, F 2004
#8 Henin d. S. Williams, SF 2003
#9 Agassi d. Medvedev, F 1999
#10 Noah d. Wilander, F 1983

Which matches would you rank in the first six? I would name:
Soderling d. Nadal, R4 2009 - The biggest shock in the history of tennis.
Lendl d. McEnroe, F 1984 - Lendl broke the curse of the GS final and set Mac's worst career loss.
Chang d. Lendl, R4 1989 - Serving underneath, moonballs ... And a sensational losing favorite.
Evert d. Navratilova, F 1985 - After a series of lost GS finals with Navratilova valuable triumph Evert.
Graf d. Zvereva, F 1988 - Graf in its best form.
Nadal d. Djokovic, SF 2013 - The hardest match Rafa played on RG.

Good list, except I would substitute Henin-Williams for the Graf- Zvereva fiasco.

 

[Deleted member 742196]

Kohli v Djokovic 2009

My favourite Kohli match ever.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

If McEnroe didn't get pissed off at the photographers, he could have won all 4 GS championships that year. He was cruising along and then got irritated and lost concentration.

 

[papertank]

I'm prone to boycotting this guy's lists after the disaster of a top 25 open era players list he made.

 

[tennis_pro]

Ridiculous. The list is supposed to be "most memorable matches" - like many people I remember where I was when I saw the result of Soderling/Nadal - stood in a supermarket seeing it on the front page of the Times which I had just picked up! The greatest shock in the history of tennis and not in the Top 10????

The greatest upset of all time and it's not even in the top 10 here, ridiculous.

 

[metsman]

Tomic-Kyrgios will put them all to shame

 

[thrust]

If McEnroe didn't get pissed off at the photographers, he could have won all 4 GS championships that year. He was cruising along and then got irritated and lost concentration.

If true, it shows what a jerk John could be on court, despite his usual brilliance.

 

[Devilito]

Agassi vs Courier 1991 Final

 

[MeatTornado]

If McEnroe didn't get pissed off at the photographers, he could have won all 4 GS championships that year. He was cruising along and then got irritated and lost concentration.

Pretty sure he'd already skipped the Australian that season.

 

[Im(moral) Winner]

Pretty sure he'd already skipped the Australian that season.

The AO was the last slam that season.

 

[Im(moral) Winner]

 

[Shaolin]

Soderling Nadal was the greatest.

 

[metsman]

The AO was the last slam that season.

and the Masters was the real 4th slam anyways.

 

[Tennisanity]

What about Djokovic - Nadal 2015?

 

[MichaelNadal]

What about Djokovic - Nadal 2015?

Snoozefest

 

[thrust]

Soderling Nadal was the greatest.

It certainly had to be one of the very greatest, from what I saw of it.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

If true, it shows what a jerk John could be on court, despite his usual brilliance.

I watched the match live and it looked like McEnroe was going to win in 3 easy sets.

 

[West Coast Ace]

There's really no excuse for Nadal-Soderling not being in the top 10 combined list. Particularly since the article was called "most memorable matches", rather than "greatest matches" (I can see the case for Nadal-Soderling not making the latter list).

(Didn't go any further in the thread - apologies if someone else brought this up)

Tignor is one of the most shameful Nadal fanboys on planet earth. I'm sure he still can't speak about that match without tearing up.

Evert - Navratilova F? Really? Evert was 31 years old - she was going thru the motions. That match invalidates his list.

Coria - Gaudio - yeah, if you're the type that watches car crash videos. It was shocking - but only 'memorable' if you like watching humans suffer.

 

[Deleted member 743561]

.

 

[West Coast Ace]

Sense I get from his articles is that his Nadal "fandom" is in reality salt-based; this is to say that he's got a bee in a bonnet about Federer, and latched onto Nadal as a sort of salve for his grievous wound. In that sense, he's truly a "drone of a feather"!

Am I far from the mark here?

That's very possible. But not what I think. I'd get banned if I articulated it in detail.