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GuerrillaMonsoon

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I went to Flushing Meadows today for the first time. If you ever have the chance to go, totally do it. So great live.

I saw the two women's matches in their eternity. Seeing this level tennis live is completely different than TV. Arthur Ashe is a giant stadium, and I had the absolute cheapest seat in the house, but it felt like I was right on the court, pretty much. The amount of distance players have to cover to make even the simplest looking of shots is nuts.

Simona Halep is my favorite new player. She's just a magician on the court. I have no idea how someone can paint the lines or hit the sharpest of angles with the consistency she does. She's never out of any point. She reminds me of a female Michael Chang in that aspect.

 

The Warwinka/Anderson men's match was the third match of the day. A rain delay moved that to Louis Armstrong, which is about half the size of Arthur Ashe and really intimate. These dudes just clobbered the hell out of the ball. Women's tennis was so much more interesting to watch, since there was a lot of shotmaking as opposed to blistering serves and groundstrokes and just about that.

I really want to go to the opening round(s) next year. That's when all of the courts are in action. Would love to check out Court 17, for instance.

I can't recommend this enough as a live event if you're in New York and vaguely interested.

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20+ years and I still haven't done it, despite living a 10-15 minute subway ride away.  One year.  

 

Anyway, someone asked Serena "why she wasn't smiling" during her press conference after she beat Venus.

 

Incredibly sexist overtones aside, here was her response.

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That was a great match, to say the least. I never heard of Vinci (like most people, and I'm a tennis fan) until her run this year. I didn't know she was an awesome doubles player -- she's won a bunch of doubles Grand Slams. You can really see that in her game. Great hands at the net and excellent passing shots. And she was returning a ton of overheads, too.

 

Serena is still the best. Her year has been insane. Three Slams and a semi-final is a really insane feat.

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That was a great match, to say the least. I never heard of Vinci (like most people, and I'm a tennis fan) until her run this year. I didn't know she was an awesome doubles player -- she's won a bunch of doubles Grand Slams. You can really see that in her game. Great hands at the net and excellent passing shots. And she was returning a ton of overheads, too.

 

Serena is still the best. Her year has been insane. Three Slams and a semi-final is a really insane feat.

Still not a grand slam and Olympic Gold Medal. :)

#teamSteffi

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That was a great match, to say the least. I never heard of Vinci (like most people, and I'm a tennis fan) until her run this year. I didn't know she was an awesome doubles player -- she's won a bunch of doubles Grand Slams. You can really see that in her game. Great hands at the net and excellent passing shots. And she was returning a ton of overheads, too.

 

Serena is still the best. Her year has been insane. Three Slams and a semi-final is a really insane feat.

Still not a grand slam and Olympic Gold Medal. :)

#teamSteffi

 

Steffi was undeniably great, but I think Serena destroys her if they play head to head at their absolute best.  It's speculative, but Serena I honestly don't think we've seen anyone close to Serena when she's playing at her peak.  There have been times that she's looked utterly invincible. 

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I think the problem with cross-generational hypotehtical match-ups in all sports is its an unlevel playing field.i think the argument is almost always in favor of the more modern athlete.

In this case:

Are they playing in 1996 or 2015? What kind of rackets are they using? What kind of shoes? Which surface?

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I didn't keep up with Seles' serve speed at the time, but she's a good barometer for Steffi vs Serena.  Steffi was having a time handling Seles pre-stabbing, outside of Wimbledon.  So imagine someone stronger with better court speed in that place.

 

Serena gets her 8 times out of 10, at least in my mind.

 

The best way to figure it out is to take each at her peak, input her statstics/vitals into a Sports Science computer, and have the computerized versions duke it out.  Let them use modern equipment (I have every reason to believe that Steffi would easily adjust to the changes and she always stayed in shape). Or pick equipment from the time between their respective careers so neither has an advantage.

 

While disappointing, I don't *think* this will haunt Serena. Winning a triple-Slam happens more than we realize (Steffi, for example, did it four times in her illustratious career). Serena tends to internalize losses to where she destroys you the next time you cross her path.  Of course, time ain't on her side.  But barring illness/injury, I could see her flirting with it again, as long as she gets past the French Open.

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Steffi was able to play to her peak a lot more than Serena ever has. You ask me to pick who wins a best-of-7 series, I pick Steffi. One match, with both of them at their peak? I'd probably take Serena.

 

Graf's serve is also being underrated here. She served up to 110 mph, and that's with inferior technology. With today's raquets, we can probably add 5-10 mph to that, putting her in the ballpark for serve speeds with Serena as well.

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Leander Paes & Martina Hingis just won the mixed doubles final in a pretty good match. They are the first team since 1969 to win three of the grand slams in the same year.

 

They're also the mixed doubles team on the Washington Kastles, who win World TeamTennis pretty much every year.

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Steffi was able to play to her peak a lot more than Serena ever has. You ask me to pick who wins a best-of-7 series, I pick Steffi. One match, with both of them at their peak? I'd probably take Serena.

 

Graf's serve is also being underrated here. She served up to 110 mph, and that's with inferior technology. With today's raquets, we can probably add 5-10 mph to that, putting her in the ballpark for serve speeds with Serena as well.

 

I also pick Steffi in 6 out of 10 matches because Steffi was not her own worst enemy.

 

Serena puts waaaaaaaaayyyyy too much pressure on herself and she makes really dumb mistakes when she is frustrated with her performance.

 

If Serena keeps her head in the game, she beats Graff 8 matches out of 10.  Dat first serve, yo.

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