Clijsters is a very special case, I think.
She wanted to get married and have children. Isn’t that why she retired so early? If so, I admire her deeply for that. She gave up fame and money to be a Mommy.
The whole clay court thing just makes it a whole differnet game IMHO. The whole slipping and sliding thing just doesn’t seem like pure tennis. It would be like playing the Norway Open on a frozen pond. Sure it’s tennis but you’d probably end up with the winner being some guy who knows how to keep his balance slipping around on ice, not necessarily the best tennis player.
That definitely distinguishes him from Sampras. I don’t want to look up whether Sampras ever made a French final, but I’m almost positive he didn’t, and I remember several years where he was out the first few rounds.
Decent match yesterday. Nadal is the master on Clay, but you can really appreciate what a great athlete Federer is being able to play almost as well in a style that doesn’t match his game.
But the clay makes the French Open very special. It takes a damn fine tennis player, using a set of skills different from those for hard courts to win it. Look how our guys go down in flames at the French. If we had a host of clay tourneys stateside, we’d do better in Paris. But we don’t so we won’t. It’s humbling, but American players don’t seem to care too much.
I’d love to see Rafa win 4 in a row.
Sampras never made the finals at the French. He reached the semis once, but usually was out at the first weekend. Federer is a good clay court player, he’s won the Hamburg Masters three times. He’s just not the best clay courter. Sampras won a few clay tournaments, I’m sure, because he was the best player of the era - but his game was poorly suited for clay and he couldn’t adjust. If Federer didn’t keep running into Nadal, who already has to be considered one of the top clay players ever, he’d have won at least one French by now.
I’d say he has another year or two of being in his prime before you can say he’s past it.
As far as who challenges Nadal in a few years? The guy he beat in the semis, Novak Djokovic, is one. There’s Andy Murray, if the weight of being Britain’s hope to win Wimbledon doesn’t crush his spirit. Ditto Richard Gasquet and the French. (So far that’s shaping up as a mental block for him, he lost way too early this year.) I don’t know if Marcos Baghdatis has the mental toughness to be a consistent top-level player, but he has a lot of personality and he’s fun to watch.
It’s a testament to how good a player Borg was. He won 5 French Opens and what, 5 Wibledons? So many wins on such different surfaces is amazing. Of course, he never won the US Open. Connors won on all surfaces as well which is quite impressive.
Connors never won the French, although you can still say he won on all surfaces since he’s got the career wins and titles records.
That’s true though in the early 70’s he won Wibledon, the Australian and the US Open in the same year but was prohibited from playing in the French. Might have done the grand slam that year.
Why was he barred? Misconduct?
He joined World Team Tennis.
Oh.
Thanks for the info.
Seems pretty stupid now, doesn’t it? I don’t know all the details, but at the time, you couldn’t play both circuits, and Connors was barred from entering the French because he’d signed to play with a WTT team.
He was on fire that year. Who knows if he would have won it but I wouldn’t have bet against him.
Love McEnroe’s comment on Sunday that Federer was playing for the “imaginary tite of best ever player”. Bitter much John?
McEnroe has called Federer ‘best ever’ before. I didn’t hear that comment, but I don’t think he meant it the way you’re taking it.
FWIW, I can’t realy see Nadal beating Federer on another surface. If you’ve played clay before (and Har-Tru doesn’t count!), you can see that Nadal has fine-tuned his game specifically for that surface. To be honest, I’d be (mildly) surprised to see Nadal in a hard-court semi (or grass).
The trick (see: All Spaniards) to red clay is to get to a ridiculously high level of fitness, perfect the slide, and learn to hit spin. If you notice, your best clay-courters tend to try and hi the same spot over and over again in a point. Why? The clay becomes deformed, and adds to the already-ridiculous bounces (add in the very slick, plastic-y tape for the lines…fuggedaboutit!). When you add a high rate of spin, it makes it stupid-awkward to hit. The problem with Federer is his lack of slide, his desire to close a point out (which is laudable on any other surface), and his all-around game. Will he win it? I would guess yes, but not until later in his career, when he’s willing to sacrifice a few matches elsewhere in the year.
I hate clay. I happen to love grass and hardcourts. Carpet sucks greatly, and let’s not even discuss the plastic tile-crap some places use. I don’t like Har-Tru either.
-Cem
And another thing… (hijack alert!)
I am a firm believer in the statement that you can NOT crown a “best-ever” across eras (baseball, football, tennis, etc.).
The level of talent in the men’s game is LOW right now. If you look beyond the one-surface Nadal, who is Federer playing right now? Don’t talk to me about Roddick, Blake or other Americans…they’re horrible. The Spaniards have apparently stopped playing tennis, and I can’t think of a solid Aussie (Hewitt’s past his born-on date). No Swedes (did I just type that?), no Germans, and certainly no Brits. The French don’t play, and the Russians are sporadic.
I believe that, if Federer were to play in the heyday of Sampras/Aggassi/Courier/Rafter/etc., he would have fewer Slams. He would have a few, but nothing like his record now. If he played in the Borg/McEnroe/Connors/Lendl timeframe…he’d have fewer Slams.
There’s simply no talent out there right now. Period.
-Cem
May well be true that I heard it in the wrong context.
Cemetary Savioir makes some good points.
Remember when Lendel was just a machine. Won everything but Wimbledon and he was in how many Wimbledon finals?
It’s a chicken-and-egg situation, to me: is there no talent, or are the dominant players just choking everybody else off? Yes, Federer would have fewer Slams if he had to play Sampras and Agassi, but they would have had fewer if they had to play against Federer (or Borg/McEnroe/Connors) in their primes. Agassi cleaned up at Slams late in his career, when Sampras was on the down slope and the top player at that point was Hewitt, who only managed two Slams. The best players stood out more in years past, but the flip side of that it that there is a lot of depth - before Federer took over the world, eight consecutive slams were won by eight different men.
Well, we do have Maria Sharapova, scrumptious eye candy but so tough on the ears.
Back on track…
The next time I see a tourney on dirt, I hope to remember Cemetery Savior’s observation that clay courters hit to the same spot How come no one, not even Mary Curillo ever mentioned that (as far as I know, anyway)?
HEY!!!
I still have The Rafa/Roger match on DVR. Does either or both of them do it?
If I remember the match correctly, Nadal does it more obviously (hit-to-spot). Federer, being such a beautiful all-courter, probably does NOT do it, on purpose. Also, look (if the camera lets you) at their feet as they change courts. If you look closely, you’ll see them scuff their feet rather heavily in certain places as the shuffle to the seating. Why would they do that?? 
As to why Carillo doesn’t mention it…tehy probably want to play up the nobility of the sport! 
Marley23…I’m with you on the chicken/egg issue, but I sincerely believe there’s no talent nowadays. Even during the two eras I mentioned, you’d have someone pop up to throw in a monkey-wrench (Ivanesivic, Muster, Chang, Moya, Wilander).
I also agree with your statement that Sampras et al would have fewer Slams with a prime-level Federer.
It’s always easy to look at the current situation and call someone “best ever”. I don’t think Federer’s it, though.
-Cem (who’s played some clay court in his time…scuffing happily!)