The Tennis Thread

[Langers]

Personally, this is up there with the Rugby World Cup victory in 2003 and of course London 2012 as my favourite momentous sporting occasions aside from football.

In fact, as I probably like tennis more than rugby, it's possibly even better than that.

The only thing that could beat it is 'Super Saturday' last summer with the Ennis/Rutherford/Farah successes.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Been out most of the day so whilst I had heard the result had not seen any until I watched the highlights.

The 2 best players in the world slugging it out - really tight margins that could have gone either way.

An incredible match, particularly the last game - I salute you Andy.

 

[Sniffer]

Fantastic performance by both players. and Andy Murray deserves all of the praise that will fly his way over the coming months. He is wiining titles against some of the all time greats of the game and his name belongs in the same category.

We are blessed at the moment with the sporting success achieved by our nations sportsmen and women.

 

[Lord Knows]

Thoughts of Nick Bollettieri.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...my-time-it-has-never-been-better-8693912.html

 

[Jolemai]

Well done to Murray. Fully deserved today. The wait goes on for another English Champion though.

Laura Robson's steadily improving

Sadly, some people wont accept Robson winning as she was born in Australia. As far as I'm concerned both Robson and Murray are British and that's good enough for me.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Sadly, some people wont accept Robson winning as she was born in Australia.

Those people are crazy as she moved here when she was 6.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Plus she lived in Singapore before then and was only in Australia as a baby.

 

[Jolemai]

Oops

 

[Jolemai]

And now it starts :facepalm:

 

[Langers]

Murray mania predictably dominating procedings today - only to be expected.

But I disagree when people say that what happened yesterday will completely change his life - I think that moment has come and gone already, with Olympic gold and a first major already in the bag. His fellow professionals will have feared facing him for a while now, and the US Open showed he's got what it takes to be a champion.

What will be different is the media perception over here - a lot of people are obsessed with tennis for 2 weeks every year so to see a Brit triumph in a home grand slam is absolutely massive.

But to Andy Murray, I can't see it being as big a deal professionally as winning the US Open last year. That's not to say he didn't enjoy it as much and it wasn't his ultimate dream (I certainly enjoyed it more than his victory last year - it helped not being 3am when it finished...), but a lot of people tend to raise Wimbledon on too high a pedestal compared to the other majors.

 

[The Bear]

I agree. They play very little of the year on grass nowadays so although it's still probably the most prestigous Grand Slam I bet plenty of players don't put too much stall in the results they get there.

 

[nimrod]

Thoughts of Nick Bollettieri.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...my-time-it-has-never-been-better-8693912.html

these are pretty relevant points, not surprising coming from a top tennis coach.

Murray is a role model for people in competitive sports who want to make the best of themselves, and in his case, that's to win titles and presumably get to World no.1.

if he never won a major he'd have still been the best British player virtually ever and had the excuse of having to compete against the talents of 3 of the other greats in federer, nadal and djokovic. rather than be satisfied with top ten, top five he's seemed to have continually aimed to improve in the areas of the game he was weakest at. he used to lose to big serving federer, so got even better on returns until he was beating him. he didn't used to last rallies against nadal, so has improved his physique and stamina dramatically. he didn't win that many free points on serve, now his serve is a weapon and proved to be the stand out difference in the final. he didn't seem to have the winning mentality that those other 3 have had at times when on massive winning runs, so he hires the iceman Lendl who's transformed him imo. I think he's been made as good as he is by the need to beat those 3 guys, but the need to beat them comes from his own desire to be the best, probably the same desire that makes Alex Ferguson the no. 1 manager.

he's had a load of advantages - having the Alien queen of tennis as his mother will have certainly helped, as well as the financial support from time to time of an LTA desperate for a british win, but he's certainly made the most of it. whilst success in tennis is not necessarily comparable to a lot of other sports, it's that single desire to improve and maximise his skillset that has stood out for me over the last few years and enables me to periodically ignore his surly face.

 

[Toon Wolf]

I watched the documentary 'The Man Behind the Racquet' last night and it showed what a very decent, pleasant and sometimes funny and sensitive bloke Andy Murray is. He just has that steely determination to be the very best. I've always liked him, but even more so after watching that. And it also proved that those people who don't like him (for his anti-English' comment?) are just petty, small-minded ignoramouses.

 

[Langers]

I watched the documentary 'The Man Behind the Racquet' last night and it showed what a very decent, pleasant and sometimes funny and sensitive bloke Andy Murray is. He just has that steely determination to be the very best. I've always liked him, but even more so after watching that. And it also proved that those people who don't like him (for his anti-English' comment?) are just petty, small-minded ignoramouses.

I saw it before Wimbledon and again last night as they added a bit more after Sunday. Most enjoyable - and fitting that its an even happier ending now.

 

[YoungWolf]

I watched the documentary 'The Man Behind the Racquet' last night and it showed what a very decent, pleasant and sometimes funny and sensitive bloke Andy Murray is. He just has that steely determination to be the very best. I've always liked him, but even more so after watching that. And it also proved that those people who don't like him (for his anti-English' comment?) are just petty, small-minded ignoramouses.

This.

 

[Sniffer]

It was an excellent documentary and his work ethic is something else. I read yesterday that after 1 1/2 hours sleep, his huge amount of television / radio interviews and his trip to 10 Downing Street he still had to play a tennis session against 100 competition winners.

 

[Donegal Wolf]

It was an excellent documentary and his work ethic is something else. I read yesterday that after 1 1/2 hours sleep, his huge amount of television / radio interviews and his trip to 10 Downing Street he still had to play a tennis session against 100 competition winners.

Was excellent, gave a good insight into him and the sacrifices he made over the years to get to the top.

Christ after hardly any sleep and all the other bits he has to do he then is summoned to meet smarmy Dave at Downing Street, must have had an overwhelming urge to say fuck that.

 

[Langers]

I just read back some of the earlier pages of this thread. Really quite amusing!

This thread is also really interesting because when it started, Murray really wasn't on a par with Federer/Nadal/Djokovic, but his game has come on so much in the last 2 years that he's now up with the very best of them by right.

 

[Lord Knows]

Whats clear is Murray was always as talented with the ball, now he can match or beat them when without it.

 

[Langers]

Whats clear is Murray was always as talented with the ball, now he can match or beat them when without it.

And I think losing last year's Wimbledon final was the turning point - what he's done since then is really quite remarkable and shows a tremendous strength of character.