Archive | Jim Courier RSS feed for this section

French Open Memories: Agassi vs. Courier 1989-1992

4 May

I will be sharing some of my favorite French Open memories between now and the start of the 2013 French Open. My first subject is Andre Agassi versus Jim Courier.  Once upon a time it was rare to see the same players match-up year after year at slams in men’s events.  Jim Courier and Andre Agassi went toe-to-toe in four consecutive French Opens.  The two had a great deal of history and at times disliked one another.  In 1989, 1990 and 1991 Courier felt he had played second fiddle to Agassi.  At their 1992 match in Paris, Agassi seemed unsure of himself as Courier was piling up big wins and holding the number one ranking.  Each man helped to usher in an era of taking the ball early and hitting hard.  Each man saw his success on tour increase as his game rounded out beyond just blasting away.  Courier upped the level of fitness on tour.  Agassi’s long career impacted several generations of junior players.  Agassi also brought a greater use of weight training into tennis despite initial skepticism about this move.  Courier vs. Agassi was a story at Roland Garros over four years.  By the end one man had established dominance in this French Open rivalry, but by 1999 the other would complete a career Grand Slam at Roland Garros.

1989 Bollettieri’s Boys 

Andre Agassi had a huge 1988.  He won six events, finished in the top 5 in the rankings and reached the semifinal round at both Roland Garros and the US Open.  Jim Courier was unknown to casual tennis fans.  Still, the two had grown up together playing at Nick Bollettieri’s tennis boot camp.  Agassi entered the 1989 French Open as a contender.  Courier stood in the way of Agassi reaching the round of 16.  Both players were from the US, were roughly the same age and tried to take the ball early and smack big forehands.  Bollettieri was faced with a choice and sat with Agassi’s camp during their showdown.  Courier proceeded to overpower Agassi over two-days.  The young Floridian announced his presence on tour by winning 7-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.   Michael Chang stole Courier’s thunder by winning the event even if Sports Illustrated gave Courier some love at the midpoint of the event.  Courier blew a lead in the round of 16 and left Bollettieri’s charge shortly after the event.  Courier -1 Agassi – 0

1990 Strength Pays Off

Andre Agassi entered the 1990 French Open as the favorite in the eyes of many because Ivan Lendl was not playing the event and Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg seemed less imposing on red clay than they did on grass.  Agassi had also embraced weight training and looked thicker than his 1988 and 1989 editions.  The draw pitting Courier and Agassi against one another in the round of 16 was intriguing.  It seemed that if anyone would stop Agassi in Paris in 1990 it would be Courier.  Becker and Edberg lost in the first round to some no-names named Goran Ivanisevic and Sergi Bruguera.  Michael Chang couldn’t beat Andre could he?  Maybe Thomas Muster could stop Agassi, but it appeared that Andre was on his way to his first Grand Slam title.  Courier was the only guy with the power to maybe stem Agassi’s momentum.  The match played out like two heavy hitters trading massive shots in the first set with Courier taking a tiebreak set.  Agassi then bullied Courier around the court for the next three sets.  Agassi was well inside the baseline and sent Courier running mercilessly from side to side.  Agassi won the match 6-7, 6-1, 6-4, 6-0.  Andre would beat Michael Chang in a four set quarterfinal and Jonas Svensson in a four set semifinal.  He lost to Andres Gomez in, you guessed it, four sets.  Agassi – 1 Courier -1

1991 Rain and Pain

If Agassi was favored at the 1990 French Open, he was a huge favorite at the 1991 event.  Andre had taken two Grand Slam championship losses in 1990.  Agassi was strong, he had experienced some bitter near misses, he had the ability to take the ball early and control rallies on clay.  In short, experts felt it was his event to lose.  Andre battered his way to his second consecutive final by roughing up Boris Becker 7-5, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the semifinal round.  Jim Courier reached the final by taking out top seed Stefan Edberg in the quarterfinal round 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.  He beat the never to beard of again Michael Stich 6-2, 6-7, 6-2, 6-4 to set up a third Roland Garros meeting with Agaasi.

This match was my favorite of their four French Open clashes.  Courier had beaten Agassi at Indian Wells in 1991.  He followed that momentum with an Indian Wells title and a title at Key Biscayne to enter the top 10 in the world.  Courier had also made a nice showing at the 1991 Australian Open by pushing Stefan Edberg to five tough sets.  Agassi was still the favorite as he had won four of their six professional meetings to that point and was seeded fourth to Courier’s ninth.  The dynamic of each man growing up together and not liking each other very much was still present.

Agassi took the first set in what looked like a continuation of their 1990 match.  Courier was good, but Agassi’s ability to see the ball so well and take the ball so early looked to be too much for Courier. Agassi jumped to an early break lead in the second set.  Rain delays and coaching made a big difference in this match.  Andre Agassi claimed in his autobiography Open that Bollettieri said nothing during the rain delays.  Courier’s coach Jose Higueres, who worked with Michael Chang in 1989, advised his charge to stand further back during serve returns to make sure he placed a deep return of serve and pushed Andre Agassi deeper into the court.  Higueres had also worked with Courier on mixing placements and spins and not simply trying hit the ball as hard as possible on every point.  Courier managed to win the match 3-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.  Popular perception saw Courier’s fitness regiment, his growing sense of tennis strategy and his professionalism as superior to Agassi’s emphasis on weight training, eating who knows what and Bollettieri inspired blast away mentality.  This trope proved to not be completely accurate, but it was how the rivalry was cast over the next two years.    Courier -2 Agassi-1

1992 Courier in Command

Both men worked their way to the semifinal round of the 1992 French Open to see the other in his path.  Courier followed up his 1991 French Open title with a US Open runner-up finish and 1992 Australian Open title.  Courier achieved the #1 ranking and held two Grand Slam titles entering this match.  Agassi had yet to win a major and whispers were growing that he might never win a major.  Courier struggled a bit with the pressures of being number one in the early portions of 1992, but he was firmly number one after winning three consecutive events entering the 1992 French Open.  Courier’s 1992 run to the title included wins over an impressive array of opponents.  He beat Andrei Medvedev, Aleberto Mancini, Thomas Muster, Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi and Petr Korda in succession to take the title. Agassi entered this match with a lot of talent, but not a lot of confidence.  Courier hammered Agassi 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in a match that failed to live up to the hype.  Anyone watching saw a player with a bigger serve, greater fitness, a better grasp of strategy, and a higher level of mental fortitude methodically take apart his opponent.  Agassi would of course take his first Grand Slam title one month later at Wimbledon.  Courier then beat Agassi in a testy four set US Open quarterfinal in 1992 in a match featuring the two Grand Slam champions to that point in 1992.  Courier – 3 Agassi 1

Final Thought

Courier and Agassi are now friends who play exhibitions on a frequent basis.  The notions that Courier would be another Jimmy Connors playing deep into his thirties never materialized.  Agassi’s superior hand-eye coordination along with his growing sense of tennis strategy and tactics led to him having the longer career of the two. Nick Bollettieri also shed the image that he knew nothing about tennis and could not coach by guiding a myriad of players to success.

I rooted for Courier in all four of these clashes.  I was thrilled to see Courier breakthrough in 1989 (I had heard of him prior to this match), to see him rally in 1991 and to see him dominate Agassi in 1992.  I also watched in horor as Agassi laid a beating on Courier in 1990.  The great thing about a rivalry that produces a lot of matches is that a fan can pick a side and enjoy.  I also played junior tennis during the height of this rivalry so I got to see how average players embraced aspects of Agassi and Courier’s games and habits.  I have never seen as many baseball caps on a tennis court as I did at the 1991 Joe Creason USTA Southern qualifying event in Louisville, Kentucky that took place at the same time as the 1991 French Open.

Tags: , , , ,

Do You Prefer McEnroe or Courier’s Commentary? POLL

3 Sep

Tags: , , ,

Olympic Tennis Review: 1992 The Women Delivered & The Men Did Not

21 Jul

The 1988 Olympic Games brought tennis back as a medal sport.  Steffi Graf completed a “Golden Slam” in 1988, and the overall success of the tennis events brought about a great deal of excitement for the 1992 games.  These games were held in Barcelona, Spain so Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario looked to be a major factor.  The 1992 Olympics were held between Wimbledon and the US Open so players were looking at transitioning from clay to grass to clay to hard courts from June – early September.  Surface speeds were not as uniform then as they are today so this was not n easy proposition.

The Women’s Event: Great Results

Steffi Graf had been runner-up at the 1992 French Open and had won the 1992 Wimbledon championships in a decisive fashion over Monica Seles.  Graf was an Olympic veteran who won gold in singles and bronze in doubles in 1988 and who won the singles demonstration event at the 1984 games.  Seles could not play due to citizenship issues.  Sanchez-Vicario won the French Open in 1989 upsetting Graf in the final.  She also beat Graf in the 1991 French Open semifinal round and lost a tight 3 set affair at the 1992 French Open to Graf.  On clay and in Arantxa’s backyard, it looked to be an event with two clear favorites.

The tournament did not work out quite as planned, but there was drama to end the event.  Jennifer Capriati beat Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the semifinal round to set up a gold medal match with Steffi Graf.  Capriati pulled yet another upset with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Graf who would add a silver to the gold and bronze medals she won in 1988.  Mary Joe Fernandez and Sanchez-Vicario each received bronze medals.  The Spanish fans had to be happy that Arantxa won a second medal in doubles by claiming silver with Conchita Martinez while Mary Joe Fernandez and Gigi Fernandez claimed the gold medal in doubles.

The Men’s Event: Marc Rosset? Jordi Arrese?

Jim Courier won the 1991 and 1992 French Open and looked forward to the 1992 Olympic games being played on clay.  Courier and Pete Sampras won the Italian Open as a doubles tandem early in their careers and the US fielded a team of the #1 and #3 singles players in the world for the doubles event.  Jim Courier bragged that he would stay in the Olympic Village.  The US men’s team that boasted Courier, Sampras and 1989 French Open champion Michael Chang was even compared to the 1992 USA Basketball Dream Team(!).  World #2 Stefan Edberg was in the singles and doubles events as well.  Germany fielded Boris Becker and Michael Stich for singles and doubles.  This was billed by many as the tennis event of the year.  Someone needed to clue the top seeds in to this idea.

Boris Becker, who expressed similar sentiments to those of Jim Courier prior to the 1988 games, ominously said in 1992 something along the lines that he was just looking forward to getting coffee with non-tennis athletes.  Courier decided he did not like the Olympic dorms after all (see below for more).  Stich complained that the courts were rigged to favor Spanish players.  Courier was beaten by Marc Rosset in the round of 16.  Edberg, Sampras, Stich, Chang and Becker all also lost prior to the medal rounds.  Goran Ivanisevic did win bronze medals in singles and doubles with Goran Prpic.  Boris Becker took a short enough coffee break to win the gold in doubles with Michael Stich.  Still, Marc Rosset vs. Jordi Arrese for the gold medal did not exactly project that the best of the best was standing on the medal stand to end the event.

Final Verdict – Men’s Olympic Tennis Took a Step Back

The 1992 games having all matches be 3 out of 5 set affairs on slow clay coming on the heels of Wimbledon and interfering with preparation for the US Open set up an incredibly weak men’s field for the 1996 games.  Jim Courier mentioned that he was fatigued following his four set 1992 US Open quarterfinal victory over Andre Agassi.  He explained that the fatigue was a result of not properly being prepared for the US Open because of the Olympic games.  Women’s tennis continued to place elite players on the medal stands, but by 1996 the prevailing belief on the ATP tour was that the Olympic games hindered Grand Slam prospects.

Post Script – Pete Sampras Remembers the 1992 Olympics

From The Tennis Space (tennisspace.com)

What are your own Olympic memories from the Barcelona Games in 1992? “My memory of 1992, I walked into the Olympic village, I had a cot, and it was 95 degrees. I saw Jim Courier, who was literally two feet away from me in another cot and I said, ‘You know, I might go to the hotel’. So that started off things. It is obviously a very big event, a lot of people, I enjoyed my time there. I didn’t have a chance to see any other events. I lost in one of the early rounds in a tough match. It was a good experience. Tennis, to me, in the Olympics, in my time growing up, it was an exhibition

Tags: , , ,

Rare Species: 90′s Style Tennis

6 May

Endangered Species

While I do not feel as rare as the East African Bongo (pictured above), I was watching some top junior players in my region hitting.  They all hit with extreme grips, generated a lot of topspin and hit two-handed backhands that were slightly different from the form I observed as a kid (I have hit a one-handed backhand for all but two weeks of my tennis life).  It was great to see young players who love tennis hitting the ball as hard as they were.

It was also a bit jarring.  Certainly in the 1990s, a lot of players had patterned their games after Andre Agassi, Jim Courier or Michael Chang.  Still, Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Patrick Rafter, Michael Stich and others gave templates for one-handed players who built their game around their serves.  I fell into this category.  My first year of regularly playing matches with neighborhood friends was an exercise on how to lose.  However, once I learned to serve with some acumen in the seventh grade, I routinely beat my friends, did well in leagues and began to play tournaments.  I hit big serves, moved forward, volleyed well and generally played a clean style of tennis.  As I moved into high school and larger pools of opponents, I did not always meet with success, but my game was fairly straight forward.  Win or lose, I was going to serve pretty big and get to the net during my matches.

My one-handed backhand at that age was a liability because I could really only slice the ball unless an ideal situation arose for driving though the ball.  By the time I was in college, I was strong enough to have really good versatility on my backhand wing.  In the early part of the 2000′s I was living in a remote location, but a man from Spain lived near me and we played tennis four or five days per week for a solid year (even in very cold weather). His topspin based game helped me round out my game and become a more all court player.  Still, I generally beat him.  I did so because I was willing to serve and volley and willing to chip and charge.  He said as much when I eventually moved ending our one year run of singles competition.  He told me he had to learn to come forward as well.

Edberg vs. Muster 1994

I love this clip because it captures two very different approaches for constructing and winning points. 

Where You Are the Endangered Species

That was the tagline for the very mediocre film adaptation of the novel Congo.  Watching these juniors, I thought my grips, my court positioning, my backhand and my general approach to tennis is anathema to how they play.  I do not begrudge the pros for turning away from more net centric styles of tennis.  The percentages just are not there.  However, I am not convinced that the average junior player or club player has the hand eye coordination or racquet head speed to really push an opponent off of the net.  Regardless of the racquets and strings available to an average player, he or she is average just like me.

That makes me think forward moving styles of tennis are still quite viable.  I have had a chance to hit for a few minutes here and there with junior players this year.  The one shot that they struggle with the most is my one-handed slice backhand.  I hit the shot reasonably well, but it is also a shot they never see.  Therefore, the advantage of unorthodoxy or the element of surprise alone should keep players like me who honed their games in the 1990s or prior happy to maintain our style of play.  Throw in that an attacking player knows what to expect from almost every younger player and that younger players are not used to hitting passing shots or lobs, and the future just gets brighter for a style that is seemingly obsolete.  I just got my preferred racquets restrung, and I was cracking serves like it was 1993.  I simply say that if tennis that focuses on getting to the net is a dinosaur, it is the job of practitioners of attacking tennis to be Jurassic Park.

The Law of Eternal Recurrence?

Tags: ,

Youtube Tennis for March 20 – March 24

20 Mar

1. Steffi Graf’s 1988 Golden Slam

2.  Jim Courier vs. Andre Agassi at the 1991 French Open

3.  Guga Kuerten vs. Pete Sampras at Miami 2000

4.  Guga vs. Agassi – 2000 Year End Championships

Tags: , , , , ,

The Psychology of Defending Points

19 Mar

Historical Difficulty with Repeating

Rafael Nadal won nearly everything of importance from the onset of the clay court season of 2010 through the conclusion of the US Open 2010.  Nadal’s 2011 did not feature the same level of success.  The same could be said for Nadal’s 2008 French Open, Wimbledon, and Olympic Gold trifecta was followed by an Australian Open title in 2009 and not much else from Nadal.  Jim Courier first launched himself into the top tier of tennis by winning both Indian Wells and Miami in 1991.  After winning the 1992 Australian Open, Courier claimed the number one ranking right as he had many points to defend.  Courier stumbled at both hard court events and lost the number one ranking.  Courier of course rebounded winning two indoor events in a now defunct Asian indoor swing that followed Miami, winning the Italian Open and winning the French Open to reclaim the number one ranking.  Still, Courier admitted that the computer had impacted his play in Miami and California.  For the remainder of 1992 and 1993, Courier would simply say a player cannot beat the computer and therefore should simply ignore it.

Different Approaches

John Feinstein’s 1991 book Hard Courts explored how at that time U.S. born players such as Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe viewed the number one ranking as something to claim and defend.  He noted that European players such as Boris Becker and Mats Wilander looked at the number one ranking like an honor to attain, but did not view it as something akin to a boxing heavy weight title that requires defense.  Ivan Lendl and Stefan Edberg were already exceptions to Feinstein’s observation.  The presence of these exceptions throws some doubt onto the notion in the first place.  Undoubtedly, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic all take pride in holding the number one ranking as well.

Still, if one considers that Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg had pretty similar levels of success with the lone exception of their time at number one.  Becker never finished a single season ranked number one and held the ranking for a total of twelve weeks.  Edberg finished 1990 and 1991 ranked number one and spent seventy-two total weeks atop of the rankings.  A sixty week difference implies to me that Becker did not care a great deal about holding the number one ranking.  This counter-intuitive approach would save a player from any stresses associated with fears of losing the top spot.  If a player does not care where he is ranked, he may be free to play better tennis in any given situation.

The approach of holding the number one ranking and defending it resonates more with my gut than the idea of keeping the ranking at arms length.  Jimmy Connors held the number one ranking for many weeks when most tennis pundits considered Bjorn Borg to be the top player in the world.  John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl locked horns over the number one ranking and a changing of the guard occurred in 1985 from which McEnroe never really recovered.

Today’s players seem to be somewhere in-between Feinstein’s two approaches to the number one ranking.  Roger Federer clearly wanted to hold the top spot in 2008, but when he lost the number one ranking it did not stop him from winning the 2008 US Open or having a successful 2009.  Rafael Nadal philosophically says that he seeks to be the best he can be and if that is behind someone else being number two is not bad.  He however says he will always seek to improve making a return to number one plausible.  Even Pete Sampras gracefully gave up defending number one in 1999 only to win Wimbledon in 1999 and 2000 while also winning the US Open in 2002.

Hunter versus Hunted

To get to my point, I think Novak Djokovic will need to come to some sort of solution that works for him.  From January 2011 through September 2011, Djokovic won nearly every big tournament.  He piled up enough computer points that the need to defend points from March through June 2012 should be minimal.  To paraphrase a comment on this week’s power rankings, Novak does not need to win everything in 2012, but he does need to win more than anyone else does.  His Australian Open title is a great start to carving out a 2012 that will keep him atop of the rankings.  Djokovic is a smart guy and seems to be taking all of this in stride.

Roger Federer, despite being thirty and having finished each season starting in 2001 among the top eight players in the world, seems to be relishing a chance to build his rankings up toward a tangible goal rather than defending territory earned in the previous seasons.  To this point, Federer’s three consecutive titles place him in a clear second slot for 2012.  At both Indian Wells and Dubai, Federer has gained on Djokovic relative to last year’s results.  2012 is shaping up to be a season in which the old man may get one last run at the top while Novak methodically puts together a year that leaves him number one when the season finishes.  Given the wrinkles added by the Olympic games, some positive signs in Andy Murray’s game, and Rafa’s iron will, 2012 may be a most interesting year in terms of tennis psychology.

Tags: ,

Youtube Tennis for the Week of 3-12-2012 through 3-18-2012

12 Mar

With Indian Wells Underway this Week will be all Vintage Highlights

  1. – The video quality is not great, but two legends in a stakes match is worth a view.  
  2. – 1994 Australian Open quarterfinal – Edberg puts on a paralyzing display of serve and volley tennis
  3.  - 1995 Australian Open quarterfinal
  4. – Safin and Agassi in a baseline brawl.   Agassi once said, “If a player can’t take his backhand up the line he can’t beat me.”  Safin answers the call.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Men Who Stare at Tennis GOATS Part 2 – The Usual Suspects: Bjorn Borg

20 Feb

Setting Difficulties Aside

In part 1, I asserted that the GOAT question is hard to answer, but that two separate but related questions contribute to the process of naming a GOAT.  Who played tennis at the highest level and who accomplished the most in his or her career are rarely the same thing. No one would doubt that Mats Wilander’s 1988 was a better year than any single calendar year posted by Andre Agassi or even Pete Sampras.  However, across their career accomplishments Wilander had a respectable career, but not one that rivals Agassi or Sampras’ in total.  Novak Djokovic is still a moving target but as of now the same could be said for Nole’s 2011 and overall body of work.

Beyond the two questions listed in part 1, there are difficulties in comparing accomplishments.  Is Roscoe Tanner’s 1977 Australian Open title worth as much as Rafael Nadal’s 2009 Australian Open title?  Tanner won the Australian Open in a year that the event was held twice (!?!) (Vitas Gerulaitas winning the other 1977 title Down Under).  I also hate to keep bringing up Johan Kriek, but his two Australian Open titles don’t seem to be as prestigious as Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl, or Jim Courier’s two titles down under.  The Australian Open took on added importance when it moved to a hard court to start the tennis season in 1988.  Also consider:

  • Super 9/Masters Series/Masters 1000 events have morphed from events that generally required three out of five set finals and six matches in one week to events where top seeds receive byes and the championship match is only two out of three sets.
  • Super 9 Events only Emerged in 1990 whereas key events such as the WCT Finals in Dallas have faded away.
  • The Year End Championship shifted the championship match from a three out of five set format to a two out of three sets format.
  •  The US and Australian Opens have both changed surfaces since the Open Era began whereas the French Open and Wimbledon have substantially modified the speed of their surfaces. (i.e. The French Open used to use pressure free tennis balls that were quite heavy and used to water the courts between sets)
  • Tennis Became a Medal Sport at the 1988 Olympics
  • Two Grand Slam events now have the potential for matches to be played indoors
  • Racquet, string, and shoe technology is always shifting
  • Sports medicine has rendered formerly career threatening injuries less daunting
  • Travel has become both easier and harder as private jets may offset some wear and tear, but the tour has become far more global since 1988
  • Slower courts have made it harder for young players to simply ride a hot streak to a major title due to increased physical demands

Having said all of that four candidates for the GOAT in a post-Rod Laver world emerge without too much quibbling. I will look at each in chronological order

Bjorn Borg

  • Why Bjorn Borg might be the GOAT – Bjorn Borg accumulated six French Open titles while also winning five consecutive Wimbledon titles.  At this time, Wimbledon and the French Open played quite differently so his three “channel doubles” are more impressive in my mind than Nadal’s two or Federer’s one.  Borg had a mystique.  He innovated the sport by using a great deal of topspin to control his error total while also being freakishly fit and quick.  Borg retired at the age of 26 when he probably had another two French Open titles left in him.  Despite retiring early, Borg tallied eleven major titles in an era when the Australian Open was not really a major.  Borg had a heavy top spin forehand, a strong serve for his time and a two handed backhand.  Borg was the first top player to completely ignore doubles.  He was a trend setter and negotiated the transition from slow clay to fast grass better than anyone in history.
  • Why Bjorn Borg is not the GOAT – Total majors aside, had Bjorn Borg won the US Open his GOAT candidacy would be much stronger.  Bjorn Borg was a four time US Open runner-up.  His best chances at victory came in 1976 and 1980.  Borg lost to Jimmy Connors in four sets in the 1976 US Open final.  This match was held on green clay and could have been a signature win for Borg.  Instead, Connors bounced back from an injury influenced Wimbledon defeat at the hands of Borg.  Borg lost to Connors in straight sets in 1978 on the inaugural hard court final of the US Open.  Borg lost to John McEnroe in the 1980 US Open final.  Borg lost in five sets after beating McEnroe in an epic five set Wimbledon final.  In 1981, Borg lost to McEnroe in the US Open final again, but this time it was a four set loss.  Skipping the Australian Open does not impact my view of Borg’s success.  Borg winning the 1974 French Open when then runaway world number one Jimmy Connors was barred from the tournament does not impact Borg’s success either.  However, not winning the US Open does hurt Borg.  He, like Lendl at Wimbledon, deserves credit for coming close in an environment that never quite suited his personality.  Still, a win over McEnroe or Connors in the U.S. would have been a career capping achievement.
  • You Decide – Winning five straight Wimbledon titles and six French Open titles places Borg above just about everyone.  Borg initiated a great number of changes in the sport that are still in full effect today.  Still, the US Open stands out as a missing piece.  Bjorn Borg is in the top pantheon of tennis players, but did he do enough to be the top player?

The Remaining Usual Suspects Will Be Examined Tomorrow

Tomorrow – Part 3 – Pete Sampras

Future Men Who Stare at Tennis Goats entries - The Top 25 Players of the Open Era, Who Would You Bet Your Retirement On?, and What to do about Rod Laver?

Tags: , , , , ,

Jim Courier Gets a Signature Win

13 Feb

Courier’s Moment

It is hard to say if Jim Courier will ever win a Davis Cup title as a captain.  I also don’t think Davis Cup is nearly as important as it could be if reconfigured.  Still, Courier coaching the US to an unlikely 5-0 victory at Switzerland including Roger Federer losing in singles and doubles marks Courier taking full command of the US Davis Cup Team.  With a decent crop of young talent and with Spain not yet placing players younger than Rafael Nadal into the top tier of tennis, Courier and the U.S. could have a nice run in the next 5-7 years.

Tags: ,

Best Two Time Australian Open Champion (Poll)

17 Jan

Tennis has produced a lot of two time Australian Open champions.  All of the solo winners plus Andre Agassi (4), Roger Federer (4) and Mats Wilander (3) are not eligible, but who was the best player to win the crown twice?

Tags:

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 895 other followers