Familiar Faces By some luck for tennis junkies, Pete Sampras was born on August 12, 1971 and Roger Federer was born on August 8, 1981. The two men are almost exactly 10 years apart in age. Tennis fans waited from Borg’s retirement to Sampras’ ascendency to see a player win over 10 slams in his…
Category: Tennis History
10 Olympic Takeaways
Serena Williams adds to her sublime legacy with decisive gold medals in singles and doubles. Serena has career Golden Slams in singles and doubles now. Fodder for a GOAT debate? Speed Kills – Andy Murray took a huge step by winning 5 straight sets over Djokovic and Federer en route to a gold medal in…
Olympic Tennis Review 2008: The Best to This Point
In my review of Olympic tennis events, one trend emerged from 1988-2004: The Women’s Event Was Better than the Men’s. In 2000, a streaking Venus Williams went 3 tight sets in a semifinal tilt with the veteran Monica Seles. In 1988, Steffi Graf beat Gabriela Sabatini . The 1992, 1996 and 2004 games all delivered…
Olympic Tennis Review: 2004 Chile Came to Play
2004 saw the the Olympic games once again fall between Wimbledon and the US Open. Much like the Atlanta games these games were held on a similar hard court surface to that of the US Open. This was more desirable than the red clay of the 1992 games, but the games being in Athens meant…
Olympic Tennis Review: 2000 Venus and YK Reign in Y2K
Like the Seoul Olympics of 1988, Sydney fell after the US Open. The easier schedule along with a somewhat solid 1996 for tennis led to another successful games. Venus’ 2000 Dominance Venus Williams won Wimbledon and the US Open in 2000. She posted a 35 match winning streak that spanned Wimbledon through the US Open…
Olympic Tennis Review: 1996 Better than It had a Right to Be
1992 Fallout Tennis in 1996 suffered despite being a logical tune-up for the US Open as the tennis events were held on hard courts in Atlanta, Georgia. Still, 7 of the top 10 men did not play the event. Andre Agassi was the #1 seed, but he was fresh off of a Wimbledon loss to…
Olympic Tennis Review: 1992 The Women Delivered & The Men Did Not
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…
Olympic Tennis Review: 1988 Graf was Golden
Preview Olympic Tennis has had a lot of ups and downs. During some Olympic years, the tennis events have seemed at best like a 500 point tour level tournament while other years have produced high drama for the sport. With Davis Cup, Federation Cup, Hopman Cup, World Team Cup, and tennis’ four majors being held…
Newport Semifinal Predictions
Predicted Winner in BOLD John Isner 1 vs. Ryan Harrison 6 John Isner has stopped some of his recent bleeding by winning some matches in Rhode Island, but I sense that the big man is just not playing very well. He has accomplished one goal in terms of getting more match play on grass courts…
Review of Signature Series: Rod Laver by the Tennis Channel
The Tennis Channel’s Signature Series: Rod Laver was an excellent episode for tennis fans. A few things stood out to me. Tennis as a Blue Collar Sport in Australia The documentary explained that tennis was a blue collar sport in Australia. Laver and his family built their own court, and Rod looked at tennis as a…
Tennis Abides: Dan Martin on Tennis and Life 