My biggest hope for tennis

[El Dude]

Ha ha, Moxie - I'll take 3+ for Grigor and Milos.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

we are stuck in this "weak era" of old men dominating until the dead generation of younger guys burst into life.

I wouldn't call it a weak era at all - it is a great era, with three of the ten or fifteen greatest players of the Open Era playing. But what I'm concerned about is 2016 and beyond, when the current elite are turning 30 and slowing down and there are no great players taking their place. So we'll have a diminished Rafa-Novak-Andy and a mediocre generation in their prime. My hope is that by then we'll see some hint of who the next great players are, otherwise we'll be in a mini dark age ala the late 90s and early 00s.

I was half joking..but I don't agree with you. the tour is stale with same 4 players at the top more or less since mid 2007.

we just had 2 wheezing old men playing the French open final, and the sad thing..even though they were below par they still strolled to the final, as most folk expected (even if rafa looked poor earlier on in tourney).

 

[brokenshoelace]

^^ Nadal and Djokovic aren't old men, not even by tennis standards...yet.

 

[tented]

... and Janowicz, who's turning out to be a bad bet.

Why materials were ever gathered to build this particular band wagon is still both funny and sad.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

^^ Nadal and Djokovic aren't old men, not even by tennis standards...yet.

they looked like old men out there ..and rafa is 28..getting old. he said similar himself.

 

[Front242]

It was a pretty pedestrian pace alright compared to many of their matches. Compare that to the US Open 2011 final. Chalk and cheese.

 

[Kieran]

It was a pretty pedestrian pace alright compared to many of their matches. Compare that to the US Open 2011 final. Chalk and cheese.

One thing these matches have in common - alongside the five set matches in Oz and Paris - is that both men were physically wrecked after. They seem to drive each other further than any other of their rivals can drive them...

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

maybe the switch from cool cloudy conditions for the tourney up to the sf affected the final, we went from cloudy breezy 15-18c 59-64f to humid weather and temp of 28c 82f.

 

[lindseywagners]

I don't have any desire whatsoever that a new player comes along and creates a buzz about being the next great. I enjoyed the Federer-Nadal rivalry and now Novak and Andy becoming contenders, but to do this all over again isn't what I want: 1) it's too soon 2) it would honestly just be unnecessarily exhausting: the same pointless debates about how good he is, how he would have matched up with Roger on his prime, etc. etc. Unfortunately, the human condition is one of constant deprivation and so our entire existence is spent wanting more more more. We're insatiable creatures.