Top Spin Blog » French Open

Federer Makes History, But Laver Still the Greatest

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:08:33 +0000

Roger Federer’s game is without question at an historic level, but the talk of him claiming the greatest of all time based on his French Open win is premature. To be the one player better than all the others in tennis history, you have to hold a true Grand Slam – all four majors in one year, the pinnacle of tennis. Only Don Budge in 1938 and Rod Laver in 1962 as an amateur AND in 1969 as a professional in the Open era have won a Grand Slam. Until Federer, or maybe Nadal, does that, Laver is still the king. He did twice what only one other player in history has done, and until then stands alone.

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Are You Ready for a Grand Slam? Nadal Poised to Achieve “Hardest of All” Tennis Feat

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:40:12 +0000

Roger Federer, pictured here after the Australian Open final, is clearly not, but Rafael Nadal, talking with the last man to complete a Grand Slam, Rod Laver, is poised to win all four majors this year. Nadal has already won in Melbourne, is a heavy favorite to win the French, proved last year that he can win Wimbledon, and showed by winning the Australian Open and Indian Wells this year that he can win on hardcourts, the New York surface where the Grand Slam season ends in September.

Only one man other than Laver has won the true Grand Slam, meaning the four majors in order, and that was American Don Budge in 1938. (Three other players hold “career slams,” meaning they have won all four but not in order — Fred Perry, Roy Emerson, and Andre Agassi.) The term Grand Slam originated, according to Bud Collins’ indispensable and encyclopedic History of Tennis, in 1933 when Australian Jack Crawford won the first three legs and sought the U.S. championship. Collins wrote: “The prospect of his winning that one, too, intrigued a New York Times columnist, John Kieran. If he did, wrote Kieran, it would be something like a ’grand slam’ in bridge.” Crawford lost in a grueling five-setter in the final to Perry, including a second set by the pre-tiebreaker days score of 11-13, but the Grand Slam was born.

Laver in his 1973 memoir The Education of a Tennis Player (the prose of which bears the hyperbolic stamp of Collins, his collaborator) wrote: “I like to think the tennis Slam is the hardest of all because you have to get your game up to the top level four times over an eight-month stretch, and of course your’e playing other tournaments in between, too. Much travel and changing conditions are involved. In 1969, I started in the tropical summer heat of Brisbane and wound up in the autumn rain of New York.”

And those varying conditions are even more varied now. When Laver won his Grand Slams — as an amateur in 1962 and in the Open professional era of 1969 — only the French was not played on grass. Today, there are two on hard courts, the fast courts of Flushing Meadows and the slower blue hard courts of Melbourne, as well as the red clay of Paris and the grass of Wimbledon. The modern Grand Slam is as difficult as it has ever been.

Nadal has a long way to go, with the two most difficult for him coming last, but if he pulls it off, he’ll have to rank atop the list in the perpetual argument of who is tennis GOAT — the greatest of all time.

Sorry, Roger.

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Clement Loses, Misses Shot at Second Long-Match Record

Joe Samuel Starnes — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:40:08 +0000

Arnaud Clement, loser to Rainer Schuettler 8-6 in the fifth set of a quarterfinal match Thursday, missed by sixteen minutes adding his name to the history books for the longest match ever played at Wimbledon in the Open Era. The match lasted five hours, 12 minutes; according to Radio Wimbledon, the longest match is five hours, 28 minutes. Clement already is part of the record for the longest match in the history in 2004 when he lost to countryman Fabrice Santoro in the French Open in a match that lasted six hours and thirty-three minutes. Of course, as Greg Garber wrote on ESPN.com , “That’s the longest Grand Slam match ever, going back to 1968, before which only sketchy records exist.” Schuettler tomorrow plays Rafael Nadal, a match which stands a good chance to be the shortest match ever.

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American Men Climb ATP Rankings

Joe Samuel Starnes — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:42:13 +0000

Of the eight American men in the top 100 of the ATP rankings released Monday, four rose, including two significantly, three dropped only slightly, and one, Andy Roddick, held his ground.

Robby Ginepri and Wayne Odesnik were the big movers. Of the highest ranked Americans, Roddick, held onto his number six spot, while James Blake moved up one point, bypassing David Nalbandian to take the seventh spot on the list, right behind Roddick.

Ginepri, who reached the fourth round of the French Open, made the biggest leap, moving 29 points to the No. 59 ranking, putting him into contention for an Olympic bid. Odesnik, who reached the third round in Paris, jumped ten points and cracked the top 100, settling at 96^th.

Also rising in the top 100 was Mardy Fish who moved three spots to 36.

The most significant drop of any American man in the top 100 was Donald Young, who fell five points to 88 after his first round French Open loss to Ginepri (the exact ranking held by Ginepri before the French Open). Sam Querrey dropped one point to 41, and John Isner dropped two points to 84.

Farther down the rankings, 25-year-old Amer Delic, a native Bosnian who now lives in Jacksonville, Fla., moved 20 points from 149 to 129 in the ATP Rankings. He did not play Roland Garros but won the Carson, Calif.,-challenger in late May. A huge move was made by 27-year-old Michael Yani who won the Yuba City Challenger last week by beating fellow American and world No. 134-ranked Sam Warburg. Yani jumped 105 points to take the 253^rd rung on the world ladder. It is the highest ranking ever for Yani, a native of Singapore who lives in Durham, N.C. He played college tennis for Duke.

The biggest drop in the top 200 by an American was suffered by Kevin Kim who fell 25 points to 188. For the complete rankings, visit the rankings section of the ATP website, undoubtedly the best web site in all of men’s tennis.

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Can the King of Clay Conquer Wimbledon?

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:05:14 +0000

Rafael Nadal’s run in Paris without losing a set was the first time a French Open champion has won the tournament without losing a set since the great Bjorn Borg. With four titles at Roland Garros under his belt, can he win on the lawns of London? He has reached the finals of Wimbledon the last two years, and pushed Federer to five sets last year. We know he is the best clay court player, perhaps ever, and certainly since the dashing Swede with the Donnay rackets retired in the early eighties. To raise his place in the game up a notch, (and perhaps capture the No. 1 ranking) the 22-year-old Spaniard needs to win either at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open or both. I wonder, however, if his taped-up knees will hold up after the grass court season ends the tour takes to the hard courts of the U.S.

Rod Laver, in the meantime, is safe as the greatest of all time.

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Turn Out the Lights, The Soiree’s Over

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:41:48 +0000

Federer put up a more respectable fight in the second set, but now that he’s down two-sets-to-none, his chances of winning in Paris again are almost nil. UPDATE–In fact, Federer didn’t win another game, losing 6-1, 6-3, 6-0.

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Turn Out the Lights, The Soiree’s Over

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:41:48 +0000

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Ion Tiriac Is In The House

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:51:00 +0000

Ion Tiriac, the former player, coach and agent who later became the richest Romanian and his country’s first billionaire, has a prime front-row seat at today’s match. You can’t miss his famous burly mustache. Tiriac wants to add a fifth grand slam to the tour to be played in Madrid, it was reported last fall.

Bjorn Borg, looking dapper and distinguished, is also in the house. His prediction that Federer has a good chance is looking dubious, as Nadal just closed out the first set in a shockingly easy 6-1.

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Greatest of All Time on the Line in French Open Final

Joe Samuel Starnes — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:55:26 +0000

When Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal step onto the red clay of Court Phillippe Chatrier on Sunday, Federer’s claim to be the greatest of all time—the GOAT, as Peter Bodo calls it—hangs in the balance. Because while this debate is one that will never have a definitive answer, I believe a player can only claim to be the greatest of all time unless he has won all four Grand Slams. If Federer wins, he will join Andre Agassi, Rod Laver, Don Budge, Fred Perry and Roy Emerson as the fraternity that can claim each of the premiere titles.

Even if Federer wins five more Wimbledons in a row, his status as the GOAT is dubious without the French, just as Bjorn Borg’s failure to win the U.S. Open excludes him from the conversation, just as Pete Sampras’ failure to win the French hinders his argument. And what about Bill Tilden, winner of six U.S. National Championships (then the U.S. Open) in a row from 1920-26? Or Richard Sears, who in the 1880s won the U.S. title seven times in a row?

Laver, winner of two calendar-year Grand Slams, both as an amateur in 1962 and in the open, professional era in 1969, is still undoubtedly the GOAT to beat. Laver turned pro in 1963 and missed five years of Grand Slams. You can argue that Pancho Gonzalez and Jack Kramer who missed even more years might have surpassed Laver, Emerson and others in Grand Slam titles. We’ll never know, and that’s why the debate sometimes goes in circles and provides John McEnroe endless fodder to talk about instead of the match at hand. Laver’s record, however, is tangible and speaks for itself. He is, for now, the greatest of all time.

If Federer can beat Nadal at Roland Garros, he’ll have legitimate chops in the conversation. As Borg said in a press conference Saturday, “He definitely will be the greatest player ever to play the game.” But even with a win, Federer will have a career losing record against Nadal. He’s 6-10 going into Saturday’s play, including 2-3 in Grand Slam finals. I ask you this: Can you be the greatest of all time and still have a losing record to a peer in your era?

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NBC Friday French Open Coverage Disgraceful

Joe Samuel Starnes — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:59:37 +0000

NBC carried two hours and 45 minutes of the Nadal’s win over Djokovic via tape delay on Friday–the problem is, the match lasted two hours and 49 minutes, but NBC cut out a large portion of the second set to pack in more advertisements. In some markets, fans didn’t even get to see Nadal at all. In Nashville, for example, WSMV-TV pre-empted the tennis and showed Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, as well as paid programming and an extra hour of the Today show instead of the tennis, The Tennessean newspaper reported. Even in a tennis hotbed like San Diego, the matches were tape delayed. The Federer-Monfils match also was pushed back to 4 p.m., and carried on the Tennis Channel via tape delay. If NBC doesn’t want to show these matches live or in full, why did they buy the rights? Doesn’t this seem to be a gross disservice to tennis fans? What’s your opinion?

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