Well said, and thanks. It’s actually kind of weird that they don’t have anything in the rulebook about whether a game penalty is assessed on the offending player’s serve or on their opponents’. I feel pretty sure that at the beginning of the set at least, most players (especially in the men’s game) would prefer to forfeit three games on their opponent’s serve to one game on their own.
Fun fact.
No active men’s singles Grand Slam champions are in their 20’s.
:eek:
Man, in the 1990’s winning a GS in the Thirties was considered a notable thing. Agassi for instance.
Becker was 28 when he won his last Slam, and he was thought of as old. Sampras was 31when he won his last Slam. And that was after 2.5 year break.
Edberg retired at 30 and last won a slam at 27.
Must be in large part down to better conditioning these days. Hopefully that does not include doping.
Whoa.
It should be noted though, that all of those players did in fact win when they were in their 20’s, yes Wawrinka and Murray did so in their later twenties, but still before the age of 30. We are not talking about suddenly some unknown 30 year old is wining, but some very consistent players have continued to play well and adapt to new conditions. The improvement in the knowledge of how to take care of your body has kept them from losing too many steps, but really they are still around because they are that good, and none of the younger players has reached their level, at least not consistently.
//i\
Right, but the real news there is “no active Slam winners are in their twenties”. That’s wild.
Part of the reason may be that they are getting too rich too easily and too quickly
ATP men’s 30’th ranked Steve Johnson 2016 earnings: $1,072,609. In fact, his last 5 years have been near or in 7 figures, and his ranking has been between 30 and 40.
I have a hard time seeing this as a problem. How much does the 30th best NFL player make? You know what, instead of throwing that out rhetorically, here’s some research.
According to Pro Football Focus, that player is Packers offensive lineman David Bakhtiari:
His current contract is for four years and $48 million, including a $15 million signing bonus.
The talent behind the big four has not lived up to their level of play. I hope some guys come along, but it does seem like a decline in overall quality may be coming.
Interesting. The combined ages of the slam winners is 130 (counting Djokovic twice). In 1980, the only other year I looked at, it was 70.
Borg and McEnroe won their last slams at age 25.
I also find it interesting that the tennis slam winners this year were older than the golf winners (118 combined age, counting Koepka twice), where only Molinari is in his 30s.
Gotta pity Andy Murray. Born about seven years too early or seven years too late. How many more grand slams does he win if he didn’t have to play Federer or Djokovic in like every single GS final he made except 2016?
Has there ever been anyone to make it to that many grand slam finals (11, I think) and face like the world number #1 or 2 every single time?
Not exactly the same, but Andy Roddick comes to mind. After his lone win at the US Open he was in four more Grand Slam Finals and lost to Federer in each one (which is similar to Murray who has lost the three finals where he faced Federer). While definitely not having the same skill level as Andy Murray, he was good enough to remain in the top 10 for years as well as get far enough in slams to have a good chance at winning.
//i\
Yes, and Roddick came ever so close to beating Federer in an epic Wimbledon final.
I get 95 for 1980 (assuming we mean at the end of the year; it might be slightly lower if we’re counting their ages at the time of the win). 26 for Teacher, 24 for Borg (twice), 21 for McEnroe.
I screwed up. I forgot to add Borg twice. But I did use age at the time of winning.
So still, average age of 23 vs. 33.
Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert?
14 times. Navratilova won 10.
I don’t think that particular example is comparable, because in the case of those two, they usually were 1 and 2 in the world when they met in the final. For Andy Murray, that wasn’t usually the case, he was ranked lower, though not much lower, than the opponent that stopped him.
//i\
Saw today that for the last 13 years(2005), the same 4 men have shared the ranks of 1 and 2.
Amazing.