From what I've seen of her, she combined the abilities of these two players, albeit to a lesser extent. is that true?
Hanna was better than Martina at the baseline and better than Chris at the net.She could beat Chris from the backcourt, as she did at the 1981 FO, on Evert´s favourite sruface and tournament, and she could beat playing S&V Martina, as she did at the 1981 Wimbledon event (Navratilova´s best surface) or the 1985 USO final ( one of the best matches I ever saw, and I have seen a lot of big time tennis).
But, she never had the ambition of Martina and the mental toughness of Evert.last time I watched a player of that caliber, it was Hingis, who lacked some of Hana´s penetrating FH but surpassed her in the mental toughness department ( as well as overall strategy).
There was never a match I rooted against Mandlikova, she was a very special breed even if she behaved like a jerk sometimes.
I agree with all that, and that is why I said I found her closest comparision to Hingis. Both similarily were also swept aside and had their careers prematurely ended by the upgrade in the power game at one point, Hana in 87 onwards when the new graphite racquets began to produce either the huge power or heavy topspin games of Graf, Seles, Sabatini, Sanchez Vicario, and Hingis by the Williams led ball busting squad.
I agree with all that, and that is why I said I found her closest comparision to Hingis. Both similarily were also swept aside and had their careers prematurely ended by the upgrade in the power game at one point, Hana in 87 onwards when the new graphite racquets began to produce either the huge power or heavy topspin games of Graf, Seles, Sabatini, Sanchez Vicario, and Hingis by the Williams led ball busting squad.
From what I've seen of her, she combined the abilities of these two players, albeit to a lesser extent. is that true?
I don´t think you are old enough to catch up any action from Hingis at ther peak, much less Mandlikova.
Hanna was better than Martina at the baseline and better than Chris at the net.She could beat Chris from the backcourt, as she did at the 1981 FO, on Evert´s favourite sruface and tournament, and she could beat playing S&V Martina, as she did at the 1981 Wimbledon event (Navratilova´s best surface) or the 1985 USO final ( one of the best matches I ever saw, and I have seen a lot of big time tennis).
But, she never had the ambition of Martina and the mental toughness of Evert.last time I watched a player of that caliber, it was Hingis, who lacked some of Hana´s penetrating FH but surpassed her in the mental toughness department ( as well as overall strategy).
There was never a match I rooted against Mandlikova, she was a very special breed even if she behaved like a jerk sometimes.
And this is the same pile of manure Williams fans spew since the day Hingis has retired from tennis the first time.
Explain how Hingis got "swept aside" by "power tennis" even though she has winning or competitive records against these "power players".
More like a Goolagong, great flair but flaky. Pam Shriver said she was the only pro player she ever heard of who changed her mind on a servewhen the toss was in the air.
good guess. based on his last post, he´s probably in high school
Records are over a whole career. The reason Hingis has respectable records vs the Williams sisters is she built up huge leads in 1997-1998, began losing the majority of matches from 2000 onwards hence why they had already evened out by the time she left, and then quit without facing them in their best years when the head to head would have swung heavily in their favor. She has a losing record vs Serena even though she didnt play any matches vs Serena once Serena became "Serena" (everyone of their matches were from 97-early 2002 when Hingis reached all 9 of her career slam finals and Serena won 1 of her eventual 15 slams). Their last 3 matches were a 6-3, 6-2 destruction at the U.S Open, a 3 set win for Serena in wicked windy conditions with Serena compiling 66 unforced errors, and a 6-4, 6-0 beatdown in Miami. At that point she was no longer competitive with Serena, and Serena was only getting started. Tell me how do you think she would have fared vs the Serena Slam version of Serena, seeing how their 3 matches just preceding that went, LOL! She has a more clear losing record vs Davenport, and she lost 70% (9 of 13) of their matches from 98-2000, the period both were in their primes together, including a 5 match losing streak at one point. After the 2000 Australian Open where Hingis was crushed again by Davenport she began crying at the trophy presentation and blurted out staring at Lindsay "I dont know to play you." The respectable H2H (trailing 11-14) is again based on her dominance in 97 when Lindsay was not a grand slam caliber player. The Williams hit as hard and serve harder than Lindsay and are twice as mobile, and Henin and Clijsters hit almost as hard as Lindsay are also twice as mobile, so that is what a Hingis who had already plateaued and stoped improving would have faced had she continued on, and we see how much trouble she had with prime Lindsay. Not an idication of the future, but still worth noting, she has a 2-7 record vs Graf, and peak Hingis lost 2 of 3 matches to 30 year old nearly retired Graf who was a shadow of her old self in late 98-99. She lost 4 matches in a row to Capriati who isnt even one of the best power players. The only great power player she has a winning record against is Venus, but with almost every win coming before 2000, when Venus began winning slams, and Seles but Seles was an early bloomer who was already a has been who would never win another slam again by the time she and Hingis began playing.
At the time she retired in late 2002 she was no longer ranked in the top 10, had not won a slam in almost 4 years, had lost her last 3 matches to Serena, her last 4 matches to Capriati, 4 of her last 5 matches with Venus. In her last year on tour she got spanked in one sided defeats to B level power players Hantuchova, Dokic, Myskina, Petrova, and Dementieva, in addition to her slew of losses to the really big hitters. Was she going to win another slam ever again in the future, when she hadnt in years already, and when the WTA was soon to get alot tougher with Serena becoming a real champion, and Henin, Clijsters, and Sharapova all emerging? The answer is a pretty obvious one and why she retired. Why exactly do you think she retired, since she was still at the top of the womens game?
That isnt to diss Hingis who I consider a great talent but the boom in power tennis ended her career. What do you propose did it if not. Cocaine?
Whereas you are a beacon of maturity. :?
Not really. She is compared mostly to Goolagong but I dont even find them that similar. The closest comparision I could find is she is a Martina Hingis with more firepower but without the mental toughness or consistency.
The only women who ever moved as beautifully and effortlessly as Mandlikova were Goolagong and Bueno. Martina Hingis was a compact and smooth hitter but she was like a robot compared to Hana and as an athlete she simply wasn't in the same stratosphere as Mandlikova. I mean, that's like comparing a race horse to a cart horse.
When Hana was on she could hit winners off everything and beat anyone in the world from any part of the court. When she was off she could lose to anyone. Her game was very delicate and didn't have the same margin for error as Martina or Chris. She was a better shot-maker than either of them but didn't have their determination or drive.
At her best, she could beat anyone, on any surface. She was the female version of Johnny Mac....immensely talented and a lot of fun to watch.
But, if she was off just a bit, she could not hold up against Chris or Martina
I remember Goolagong from when we used to spend summers on a farm as kids. She was so beautiful that she gleamed.
The only women who ever moved as beautifully and effortlessly as Mandlikova were Goolagong and Bueno. Martina Hingis was a compact and smooth hitter but she was like a robot compared to Hana and as an athlete she simply wasn't in the same stratosphere as Mandlikova. I mean, that's like comparing a race horse to a cart horse.
When Hana was on she could hit winners off everything and beat anyone in the world from any part of the court. When she was off she could lose to anyone. Her game was very delicate and didn't have the same margin for error as Martina or Chris. She was a better shot-maker than either of them but didn't have their determination or drive.
She was the true princess of courts.Charm and Evonne go in the same sentence.
From what I've seen of her, she combined the abilities of these two players, albeit to a lesser extent. is that true?
Mandlikova was nothing like Evert in either her stroke production or her approach to the game. She was more like Navratilova, except she was a better shotmaker from everywhere on the court, but, not as great an athlete.
I meant her craft. It's almost like she could hang with her from the baseline.
We used to sit around for hours, swinging in our hammocks, drinking Scotch and smoking Cubans.
I don't know what you mean by "her craft." Mandlikova didn't have the technique, or the shot tolerance, to "hang" with Evert from the baseline. To beat Evert, she had to attack. And then, she could prevail only when playing her absolute best and when Evert was something less than her best.
she was her own player, ultra-talented shotmaker who maybe didn´t have that champions gene to the extent of Evert and Navratilova.
Absolutely true. Honestly, I can't think of two champions more polar opposite in virtually every respect. The only sense in which Hana could 'hang with Evert from the backcourt in a normal match, is in her movement about the court. It was very difficult for anyone to keep Hana out of position long enough to open up a court. Some of Evert's usual patterns , would be less effective against the super mobile players like Zina, Hana, or Martina than players like Sukova, Shriver and Kodhe Kilch. When I tried to figure out who got the occasional upset over Evert in her major winning years, it wasn't about playing style, or temperament. It was footspeed. Not sure exactly why, but less quick baseliners and S/Vers did not get one or two wins others might - until she got social security.
of course the other necessity to win any percentage vs Chris is weapons. Hana had those on both wings.
Sanchez Vicario has a combined 6 wins over Evert, Graf, and Seles in slams which is pretty good too. 4 of them came vs Graf, she was Seles's little lapdog but didnt get to play Seles during her peak period of 94-early 96. Evert she barely got to play but a #4 seeded Evert got spanked by unseeded 15 year old Sanchez at the 88 French which was an impressive performance.
Comparing Sanchez to Mandlikova is funny since Hana is about 5 times more talented, but about 5 times weaker in work ethic, consistency, mental strength. So hard to say who is better. I would probably say Hana since Sanchez's game was only effective against Graf. She was useless against Seles, Hingis, and even a fairly old (before she became really old) Navratilova. Hana only seemed fairly useless against Graf but dangerous for anyone else she played (I dont count Seles who she played twice in her final year and got walloped by).
I would say that few actually worked harder than Hana did. But ASV might be in that group. She got so much out of her game and had a great heart and fighting spirit.
ASV also had fewer first week losses than Hana did at the slams. But Hana never lost to anyone other than Martina or Chris in a slam SF or F. That makes me think that Hana would've done quite well against ASV, but thats purely speculation.
I wish that Hana's health and serve had held up for another couple of years because I think she would've gotten a few more wins vs. Graf. More than half of their meetings came at a time when Hana was serving Kournikova-like numbers of double faults. No one made an opponent pay for poor serving more than Graf did. It was hard to break Steffi and if you can't hold your own serve you have no shot. From the baseline, Hana's way of trying to beat Steffi was to hit hard and deep to her forehand to draw an error or come in and angle the ball away. This worked well in Paris in 1986. More players should've tried that.
With Seles, I find their 1990 US Hardcourts match very interesting. Hana led 4-0 in each set but lost 6-4 6-4. She also helped Novotna to understand how to beat Seles by serving her wide in both courts to make her switch to one hand or at least pull her off the court. I really believe Hana could've gotten a couple of wins off of Seles. Of course I say that knowing that if Hana played less than 80% of her best Seles would've obliterated her ala 1989 Brighton.
NadalAgassi, its fun to think of hypotheticals and I am admittedly being hopeful towards Hana. A series of matches with Seles would've included more Brighton-like results too often for my tastes. Just like with Steffi she would've struggled to hold serve perhaps even more so with Seles mostly because at least with Steffi she could spin the ball in to the backhand.
I wonder what BTurner would think about this but I always felt that it was not a coincidence that Chris and Hana left the game at the same time. They both hit such a nice clean and uncomplicated ball. Players like Gaby were coming onto the scene hitting these snarling heavy strokes that took more to counteract. When players began to adapt to that facing a classical stroker like Chris or Hana probably became a relief. Thats just a theory though because Mary Joe hit a similarly flat ball.
I got to be a ball boy for two of Mandlikova's matches, singles and doubles with Wendy Turnbull, during a Virginia Slims stop in SF, 1987, she was amazing! very long and loopy strokes, her movement was impressive, best of any player in that era. Serve was a hard slice most of the time. I went to buy a Wilson Ultra 2 right after that tournament, I wanted to hit like Hana!!!
I was really there to check out Gabriela Sabatini! She was hot ...got to ball boy one of her doubles matches. She was traveling with another Argentine player, Gabriela Mosca, very talented but didn't pan out for her...
Well said. Hana was supremely gifted and later in her career became better at following a gameplan than she was ever given credit for. But her talent was both her strength and her weakness because she didn't know how to harness it. She lacked the focus and tunnel vision that Martina, Steffi, and Chris possessed. The pressure that comes with being such a wanted figure was something she did not handle well.
Maybe most of all, Hana sometimes found losing acceptable. To be an upper level great you have to hate losing with every fiber of your being. This was also what prevented Evonne from doing better but maybe for a different reason.
She didn't enjoy the weekly grind of the tour and it showed in her record at non-slam events. She lived for the slams and thats where 8 of her 15 wins vs. Martina, Chris, and Steffi came. I don't know of another player with that many wins vs. the best of the best without being a fellow member of that group.
But its the 1983 French match that I hope will one day be widely available. It was a real testament to Chris that she won that day because Hana killed Chris repeatedly in baseline duels, lobs, and drop shots.
its available here, you've made me curious to check it out
http://www.ricklovestennis.com/index.php/player_match_list/mandlikova/
Austin was a superb baseliner, a pre Seles kind of player with less power but a sort of.However, being so good on the ground, she never won too much on clay and her record on grass,carpet and hard is far better.I think she just didn´t feel comfortable .Hanna was raised on clay, she was more of an attacking lass but she knew how to manouvre, how to slide, was very effective changing the rythim, the effects and used a good drop shot.If Mc Enroe had been able to play the kind of cc tennis hanna did in the 1981 FO, he would have probably one Rg title under his belt.
Frankly, Austin's lack of success at RG specifically, says more about her high school final's schedule and her short shelf life, than her attributes, but otherwise your point is well taken on Hana. Austin would have done well there and maybe won one or two, had she actually played it before 1982. she was able to slide well enough in Italy in 1979, I don't think she lost the skill. Not saying she would have won any particular match or year, but it matters how hard you work to prepare that clay game, if you know you won't be showing up at the premier clay event no matter what. She got almost straight A's though, so she prepared for something. If you'll excuse the pun, she didn't practice sliding through high school