As mentioned previously, Bobby Riggs beat Margaret Court 6-2, 6-1 on Mother’s Day 1973. Margaret Court won the Australian, French, and US Opens in singles and doubles in 1973. Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in 1973. Margaret Court had a career 2-1 head-to-head advantage over Billie Jean King. Confused? Winning Really…
Category: Tennis History
The Battle of the Sexes: Part 1 – The International Tennis Hall of Fame
In 1999 I visited the International Tennis Hall of Fame twice due to living in Providence, Rhose Island. Getting to Newport was fairly easy despite not having a car as Rhode Island has a good public transportation system that serves the whole state (being small has its advantages). I visited again in 2008 after a…
US Open 1992: The 25th Anniversary of an Epic Men’s Event (Part 2)
Part 1 Investigated the 1st through 4th rounds The Final 8: Edberg’s Marathon Run to the Title The Quarterfinal Round: 2 of the 4 Matches Went 5 sets The Highlight Match did not go 5 sets, but the 1992 Australian and French Open champion Jim Courier took on the 1992 Wimbledon champion and boyhood rival…
2017 Has Been a Throwback Year: Is that a good thing?
We’ve heard of Throwback Thursdays, but tennis in 2017 has been a throwback year. The Australian Open featured a Williams Sisters and a Federer-Nadal final. Even Mirjana Lucic-Baroni reached her first major semifinal since 1999. Newly minted number ones Andy Murray and Angelique Kerber saw dropoffs from their 2016 results at the earliest stages of…
Spain vs. Switzerland in Men’s Tennis since 1992
Does the Federer-Nadal rivarly go deeper than just two men? Probably not, but because Stan Wawrinka said he was tired of answering questions about Roger Federer I got to thinking about their two home countries in the past 25 years of men’s tennis. Let’s Look Deeper Grand Slam Singles Titles: Switzerland 22 – Spain 20…
ATP: Star Studded Start to 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NcgM3LRaSc There are established stars on the ATP Tour and of course there are younger players seeking to become established. Thus far in 2017, many of the established players have faced off on multiple occasions. If I limit this exploration to players who hold major singles titles, we have seen these match-ups in chronological…
No Ordinary Time? Part 1 – Raising Questions
No Ordinary Time? Part 1 of 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1hx2VN8AAs The General Narrative is that since 2004 ATP Tennis has entered a golden age of unprecedented quality and consistency. It seems reasonable to ask how different tennis of the past 10-15 years has been from what came before it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WDXZnvDvQ4 A Few Obvious (?) Differences The STRINGS…
Throwback Thursday – A Look at the Last Points Played by World Number Ones
This is an interesting look at the final points of former number one players in tennis. For a person to go from being so dialed in to tennis to no longer playing on the main professional tour could be a jarring reality. Pete Sampras is one of the few players to ever win his or…
Tennis Abides: Dan Martin on Tennis and Life 