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Tennis Volume 8: Is a FedEx delivery coming?


Jeor

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What a doubles match. I was thinking the people who bought Centre Court tickets had been robbed with only 55 minutes of a ladies final to watch, but that doubles final more than made up for it. Heartbreaking for Mahut/Roger-Vasselin to lose but the quality throughout the five hours was amazing.

With Murray in the mixed and this men's doubles final, hopefully the doubles game gets a bit of a boost. I find those matches really interesting to watch, even if there aren't any of the usual "stars" because most of them are doubles specialists.

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I am perplexed by the following that Murray has in the media. Is it just because he is from the UK?

Talk of “the great 4”, or discussions that try to place Murray among the greats of all time just boggle my mind.

It is reminiscent of the Tim Henman hype of days gone by. Sure, Murray is much better than Henman, but he is not one of the greats by a long shot. Why does he get exponentially more airtime than say a Wawrinka, who has also beaten the Big 3 from time to time in big games and has the same number of Grand Slam wins as Murray in the same era.

The Murray hype is just totally overblown.

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2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I am perplexed by the following that Murray has in the media. Is it just because he is from the UK?

Talk of “the great 4”, or discussions that try to place Murray among the greats of all time just boggle my mind.

It is reminiscent of the Tim Henman hype of days gone by. Sure, Murray is much better than Henman, but he is not one of the greats by a long shot. Why does he get exponentially more airtime than say a Wawrinka, who has also beaten the Big 3 from time to time in big games and has the same number of Grand Slam wins as Murray in the same era.

The Murray hype is just totally overblown.

Because he won 2 Olympic games and singlehandedly won the Davis cup. He has made 21 semi finals at grand slam, compared to about 8 for Wawrinka. And won so many other tournaments as well as being workd number 1 when Wawrinka never made it past 3.  Though I accept he should have won more grand slams. 

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He gets more air time than Stan because he was a better player than Stan with more career achievements.

There was never a big 4 though (though it was reasonable to think there would be when itnstarted being talked about, it just never materialised). There was the big 3, then Murray, then the rest. As the big 3 are the 3 best the game has ever seen (allowances made for Laver), it's reasonable to speculate where the next best of their era would fit into any other era; and reasonable to assu!e he'd be pretty high, but not at the top.

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20 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

He gets more air time than Stan because he was a better player than Stan with more career achievements.

There was never a big 4 though (though it was reasonable to think there would be when itnstarted being talked about, it just never materialised). There was the big 3, then Murray, then the rest. As the big 3 are the 3 best the game has ever seen (allowances made for Laver), it's reasonable to speculate where the next best of their era would fit into any other era; and reasonable to assu!e he'd be pretty high, but not at the top.

Well, Murray lies somewhere below Edberg and Becker, who each have about double the number of Grand Slam titles that he has. The commonly available Grand Slam count per player only goes down to the 5 titles mark, so Murray doesn’t even feature on it. So whoever sits at around 3 titles, that’s the level Murray should be discussed at.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, Murray lies somewhere below Edberg and Becker, who each have about double the number of Grand Slam titles that he has. The commonly available Grand Slam count per player only goes down to the 5 titles mark, so Murray doesn’t even feature on it. So whoever sits at around 3 titles, that’s the level Murray should be discussed at.

Becker and Edberg didn't play in the Federer, Djokovic, Nadal era. And grand slams are not the only measure of a tennis player no matter how much you keep repeating it. 

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I would put Murray around the same level or slightly above Becker and Edberg. I don't have the figures here (posting from my phone) but I'm guessing Murray has more Grand Slam semifinal appearances than both and he would have more weeks at No. 1 than Becker (maybe not Edberg).

It's always hard comparing eras, but Becker and Edberg's grand slams more or less dried up once Sampras came onto the scene. They got the majority of their Slam wins in during a fairly volatile era where Lendl was on his way out and the Americans (Courier first, then Agassi and Sampras) had yet to come into power per se.

That being said, for a few years (late 80s, early 90s) Becker and Edberg were the name of the game. I think Roger even says that it was their rivalry that got him interested in tennis. Becker and Edberg were great players, both 6 Slam wins and former No 1, but I'd put Murray at or slightly above them.

I think it's simplistic to rank players just based on total number of Slam wins. Does that mean you would put Laver below Roy Emerson? Of course not (plus Laver's wins were affected by 5 years as a pro...chances are Laver might have been the first to 20 singles titles otherwise).

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38 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Becker and Edberg didn't play in the Federer, Djokovic, Nadal era. And grand slams are not the only measure of a tennis player no matter how much you keep repeating it. 

Similarly, Murray didn’t play in the Edberg/Becker era, and might have won even less than he did if they played in the current era.

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11 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Similarly, Murray didn’t play in the Edberg/Becker era, and might have won even less than he did if they played in the current era.

I mean, nobody who knows tennis thinks that. But sure, go with that if it makes you happy. 

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30 minutes ago, Jeor said:

I would put Murray around the same level or slightly above Becker and Edberg. I don't have the figures here (posting from my phone) but I'm guessing Murray has more Grand Slam semifinal appearances than both and he would have more weeks at No. 1 than Becker (maybe not Edberg).

 

Murray has 21 semi finals, 9th all time, only 2 behind Sampras. That's why it was the big 4, because you knew one of them was going to win and most of the time they would all make the semis, only being beaten by each other. It's just unfortunate that he played in the greatest era ever. 

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31 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Sure, if by “nobody who knows tennis” you include Tennis Magazine, which in 2018 ranked Becker as 13th, Edberg as 14th and Murray as 18th greatest of the Open era.

That's a big old leap from what we were discussing. 

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3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, Murray lies somewhere below Edberg and Becker, who each have about double the number of Grand Slam titles that he has. The commonly available Grand Slam count per player only goes down to the 5 titles mark, so Murray doesn’t even feature on it. So whoever sits at around 3 titles, that’s the level Murray should be discussed at.

In terms of grand slam wins - yes.

In terms of talent... - that's speculation.

But way to go with the ignoring what is said when replying to a post. When speculating "where would Murray rank if he hadn't played aginast 3 of the top 3 in history" then "but he didn't" really doesn't help your point at all.

As for where I personally would rank him - Behind the greatest 3 (to which I'd add the likes of Laver and Perry - but I never got to see those guys, so can't really comment); I'd then place him behind Sampra, Connors and Borg; putting him in the conversation alongside the likes of McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, Agassi, Lendl etc.

But it' pure speculation; (and you're go-to argument of "but he didn't" stil isn't applicable when speculating on what would happen if he did).

 

Take out the big 3; and Murray dominated the rest (with cameos from the likes of Wawrinka, Del Potro etc) much the same way that Sampras dominated his era (with cameos from...). I don't think he's as good as Sampras though.

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2 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

In terms of grand slam wins - yes.

In terms of talent... - that's speculation.

But way to go with the ignoring what is said when replying to a post. When speculating "where would Murray rank if he hadn't played aginast 3 of the top 3 in history" then "but he didn't" really doesn't help your point at all.

As for where I personally would rank him - Behind the greatest 3 (to which I'd add the likes of Laver and Perry - but I never got to see those guys, so can't really comment); I'd then place him behind Sampra, Connors and Borg; putting him in the conversation alongside the likes of McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, Agassi, Lendl etc.

But it' pure speculation; (and you're go-to argument of "but he didn't" stil isn't applicable when speculating on what would happen if he did).

 

Take out the big 3; and Murray dominated the rest (with cameos from the likes of Wawrinka, Del Potro etc) much the same way that Sampras dominated his era (with cameos from...). I don't think he's as good as Sampras though.

What’s this argument about taking out the top 3 players of an era to inflate the ability of the number 4 player? Take away Becker and then Edberg could have won many more majors. Same for Becker if you remove Edberg.

Take away Becker, Edberg and Lendl and whoever was number 4 in that era would have been number 1. Why does Murray get special consideration?

 

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Because you asked the question.

So far. you've asked a question, decided you didn't like the answer, and are now moving the goal posts until you can spin it as a win.

 

Not a discussion I'm interested in TBH; though just to humour you on this - Becker, Edberg, Lendl - aren't the top 3 players ever to have picked up a racquet - so the consideration of where the next best of their generation would fit into any other generation never came up.

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1st set Novak. With 2 set points, that's going to hurt Roger, who needed the first more.

 

Too many times Roger had the point on his racket, and put the ball too far / too wide.

14 unforced errors is just too high (though, of course, there's not really any such thing as an 'unforced' error  when you're playing one of the big 3)

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I don't think Roger enjoyed losing that first set!

 

Surely Novak hasn't just stopped thinking. yes the first set was more important for Roger, but it's not like it's preordained now.

How long will this patch last and can Roger make enough hay to see off the fightback?

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