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Day One - 'A' great champion
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 It’s not unusual for people to combine their passions. Wine connoisseurs who love to travel will span the globe looking for the perfect bottle in the perfect vineyard. Former athletes who enjoy getting drunk will join a recreational softball league.
 One of my passions as a child was watching Sesame Street. One of my passions as an adult is writing about tennis. Put them together, and you’ve got a list that should help you keep the debate fires going from now until things start heating up in advance of Roland Garros come late May.
So starting today, and going forward for the next 26, here’s the best tennis players of all time, A through Z – no Open Era, no men or women – the best player, period. Brought to you by the number 3 and the color blue.
And kids, don’t believe that PC crap they’ve put on PBS lately …
cookies are an all-the-time food.
A is for Agassi
 Andre Agassi’s career played out like a soap opera – the brash beginning, the troubled middle and then the happily ever after, featuring a return to glory, not to mention blissful marriage to a woman who might just be the greatest female player of all time.
In a 20-year professional career, he won 60 ATP titles, won almost 600 matches more than he lost, and is one of only two men to ever win a career Golden Slam – all four majors and an Olympic gold medal.
One of his more overlooked, but by no means less amazing statistics is the length of time between his first Grand Slam title – won at Wimbledon in 1992 – and his last, 11 years later at the Australian Open.
And while he was often times a braggart, a showoff, and yes, even an immature brat, Agassi was as fierce a competitor as has ever taken the court, a champion who embraced his fans, particularly late in his career, and vastly-more impressive, a philanthropist, who used his fame and popularity to make a difference.
In his playing career, Agassi piled up $31 million in prize money. Since 2001, when he founded the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, Agassi has helped raise more than $60 million for at-risk children in Southern Nevada.
That’s greatness.
Come back tomorrow for letter ‘B’ in our 26-day extravangaza!
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Nick on 4/5/2011 8:22:37 PM | with 0 comments
B is for Borg
 A winning percentage of 41 doesn’t sound too impressive until you realize that it isn’t for matches, but for Grand Slam tournaments. In the matches themselves, Bjorn Borg won just under 90 percent of his Slam singles – going a gaudy 141-16.
Borg entered 27 Grand Slam tournaments during his career, and won 11 of them, all 11 in the eight-year span between 1974 and 1981. The only two men to defeat him in a Grand Slam final were fellow No. 1s John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.
Perhaps the most amazing part of that figure is that all 11 of those titles came at just two tournaments. Bjorg seldom played the Australian Open just once and lost in the US Open final four times.
On the other two surfaces, Bjorg shined like few before him – winning Wimbledon five straight times from 1976-1980, and taking the French Open crown six times, including four straight from 1978-1981. He was ranked No. 1 for a total of 109 weeks
Bjorg had a great chance to finally capture the US Open crown in 1981, but he lost to McEnroe and proceeded to walk off the court before the closing ceremonies and without speaking to the media.
McEnroe, who had often been stymied by Borg, attempted to persuade him to keep playing, but the Swede would not be convinced.
The following year, Bjorg shocked the world by retiring at age 26. He attempted a comeback in 1991, now age 34, but found the touch had long since left him. Using his old choice of wooden rackets, while the rest of the tour had moved on, he lost 13 straight times between 1991-1993, and retired again.
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Nick on 4/6/2011 10:11:18 PM | with 0 comments
 Eight times, Jimmy Connors was the No. 1 player in the world, for a combined 238 weeks all time – 160 of those in a
row between 1974-1977.
A devastating lefty, Connors racked up a gaudy career record of 1,241-277, and won eight Grand Slams, failing only to win the French in his bid for a career Grand Slam.
His failure to win Roland Garros was less to do with skill and more to do with Connors’ association with World Team Tennis, which he played in instead of joining the ATP in 1972.
The WTT schedule conflicted with that of the French Open, and Roland Garros opposed the WTT, banning all WTT players from participating between 1974-1978.
He made up for it with his play particularly at the US Open, which he first won in 1974 and took the crown four more times – the only man to capture the American title on hard, clay and grass courts.
He also took the Wimbledon and Australian Open titles that season, with the French ban possibly keeping him from joining Rod Laver as the only Open Era single-season Grand Slam winners.
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Nick on 4/7/2011 8:08:38 PM | with 0 comments
 Lindsay Davenport is the fourth of that group of women to finish ranked No.1 in the world to end four different seasons, having done so at the ends of the 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2005 campaigns.Davenport won “just” three Grand Slam singles titles in her career, but added an Olympic gold medal in singles, 55 career titles and was also reached No. 1 in the world in doubles, winning three Grand Slam titles there as well, and reaching the finals five others.
From 1996-2000, she won a Grand Slam title in either singles or doubles every year, including both the singles and doubles titles at Wimbledon in 1999.
She retired for the first time in 2006, when she became pregnant. She returned to the tour in July of 2007, then left the game again in early 2009, pregnant with her second child. She continued to play doubles and mixed doubles in spots.
Her $22.1 million in career earnings ranks her third all-time among female players.
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Nick on 4/12/2011 6:04:58 AM | with 0 comments
 The original American sweetheart, Evert won 18 Grand Slam single titles including a record seven at Roland Garros and a record six at Flushing Meadows - and finished No. 1 in the world seven times, including five straight years from 1974-1978.
A strong case can be made for Evert as the greatest female player ever, especially when you factor in her 157 singles titles, 29 doubles titles (three Slams), that she never lost in the first or second round of a Grand Slam singles event, and that her all-time winning percentage of .900 (1,309-146) is the best of any player - regardless of gender - of all time.
Evert's ascension is the stuff of legend - from her win over then-No. 1 Margaret Court at the age of 15 to her reaching of the US Open semifinals at age 16, losing to Billie Jean King.
 In 1973, she not only won Wimbledon and the French Open, but also strung together a 55-match winning streak and was briefly engaged to America's top men's player - Jimmy Connors - although that relationship would end soon after.
As remarkable as her game was overall, Evert was even more talented on clay courts. In August of 1973, she started a streak of 125 straight matches won on the surface, losing only seven total sets before losing in 1979. After that lost, she won 72 straight matches on the surface, meaning that in an eight-year span, she compiled a 197-1 record on clay.
In Grand Slam play, she was 72-6 at the French Open, 94-15 at Wimbledon, 101-13 at the US Open and 30-4 at the Australian Open.
Against the greatest players of her career, she had a losing record against just three of them: Martina Navratilova (37-43), Steffi Graf (6-8 - with Graf winning the final eight matches as she took over the dominant spot in the game) and Tracy Austin (8-9).
　
　
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Nick on 4/12/2011 6:26:22 AM | with 0 comments
You were expecting, maybe, Fabio Fognini?
Not only is Roger Federer a slam dunk choice for the letter of the day, he would be the choice if the list was best player whose name ends in R, best player with E as the second letter in his last name; and pretty much every other category you can think of.
Consider this statistic - for every week the Monday following Wimbledon in 2003 until the Monday after the Australian Open in 2011, Federer held at least one of the four Grand Slam titles.
There is no comparison for Federer in tennis anymore, you have to go outside the sport - to Michael Jordan in the NBA or Tiger Woods in golf - that kind of dominance is once in a lifetime.
 The importance of the Slams is perhaps the biggest weapon in Federer's arsenal. He made 10 straight appearances in the final of Grand Slam appearances, 18 appearances in 19 finals over 4-1/2 years and 22 overall.As good as Rafael Nadal has become in the last few seasons, and as young as he seems, he's still barely halfway to breaking Federer's career record of 16 Grand Slams won.
Even now that he's slipped a step, Federer, like Venus Williams, is still a threat to win his favorite tournaments - Wimbledon (2003-2007, 2009) and the US Open (2004-2008) at any time.
　
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Nick on 4/13/2011 6:31:56 AM | with 0 comments
From the greatest men's player in Volume F to arguably the greatest woman just one letter later.
Just as Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert took the torch from BIllie Jean King, Graf grabbed ahold of it and kept it blazing bright for a decade.
Graf's 22 Grand Slam singles titles are the most of the Open Era and the second-most of all-time for any player, regardless of gender.
For her career, she won exactly 900 matches while losing just 115 times, taking 107 titles and winning the single-season Golden Slam in the remarakble 1988 season, adding the Wimbledon's double title and following it up with three more in 1989.
 Graf's resume of statistical dominance is almost overwhelming, even in the era of Roger Federer. Consider she reached 13 consecutive Grand Slam singles finals between the 1987 and 1990 French Opens.
She played in 36 Grand Slams all told between 1987 and 1999, reaching 29 finals. At age 13, she was already ranked No. 124 in the world, and was No. 6 by 1985.
In the Golden Slam year, she won the French Open title 6-0, 6-0, needing just 32 minutes. At Wimbledon, she snapped Navratilova's six-year win streak.
Even post-retirement she found a top-level opponent, marrying men's all-time great Andre Agassi in 2001. The pair have two children.
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Nick on 4/14/2011 9:00:57 PM | with 0 comments
Martina Hingis, one of the greatest teenage phenoms the game has ever seen, was a rarity among modern players - just as accomplished in doubles as she was in singles.
 For her career, Hingis racked up 14 Grand Slam titles - five as a singles player and nine in doubles - including a single-season Grand Slam in 1998.
She won three of the four singles Slams - taking the Australian Open title three straight times from 1997-1999 and spent 209 weeks at No. 1 in the world before a series of ligament injuries forced her out of the game in 2002 at the tender age of 22.
She returned in 2006, won three titles and reached No. 6 in the world before testing positive for cocaine in 2007, a charge she repeatedly denied, but ultimately did not challenge.
She ended her career with 43 singles and 37 doubles titles, and a slew of famous boyfriends behind her - including fellow tennis player Radek Stepanek, golfer Sergio Garcia and British football player Sol Campbell.
She ultimately married a equestrian rider in 2010.
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Nick on 4/17/2011 8:03:23 AM | with 0 comments
 We suppose (and hope) that American John Isner might one day take this title, but for now, ‘I’ belongs to Goran Ivanisevic, the Croatian who holds a record that can only be equaled, never broken.
The native of the former Yugoslavia turned pro at age 17 and got famous when he KO’ed Boris Becker in the first round of the French Open in 1990.
He made his first Grand Slam final in 1992, falling to Andre Agassi in a five-set classic after defeating Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg and Pete Sampras in a row.
He reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and French Open three times each, and reached a career-best ranking of No. 2 in July of 1994 after losing the Wimbledon final to Sampras.
His best overall year was 1996, when he won five individual titles. In 1998, he reached the Wimbledon final again, falling to Sampras in five sets.
A shoulder injury crept up on Ivanisevic in 1999 and plagued his productivity throughout the next three years. By the summer of 2001, he was down to 125th in the world and did not qualify for the main draw at Wimbledon.
As a three-time runner-up, he was granted a wild card to the tournament, as he was at the time, one of the more popular players at the legendary event.
In one of the most remarkable achievements in tennis history, Ivanisevic defeated three players who were former or future #1s – Andy Roddick, Carlos Moya and Marat Safin to reach the semifinals and a match with England’s Tim Henman.
Rain delayed the match on and off, but Ivanisevic endured and took a five-set victory to reach the final against Patrick Rafter.
In another five-set marathon, he emerged victorious with his only Grand Slam win, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 – the lowest-ranked man to ever win Wimbledon.
This was my dream all my life,” he said after the win. “I came here and nobody thought about me, but here I am holding the trophy."
A week later, he arrived in his hometown of Split, where a crowd of more than 150,000 (Spilt’s current population in 221,000) waited to cheer him on. In a day that featured Croatian dignitaries, fireworks and a parade of boats, Ivanisevic topped it all by stripping his clothes off and jumping into the sea in celebration.
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Nick on 4/18/2011 4:49:53 PM | with 1 comments
 Most men wouldn’t respond well to being nicknamed “Little Bill”, but when you weigh in at 120 pounds, what’s a sports fanbase to do?
Bill Johnston didn’t mind much what they called him, as long as they kept handing out the trophies.
And accumulate them he did, the US national singles title (the US Open predecessor) in 1915 and 1916, the US national doubles title in 1915-1916 and 1920, the mixed doubles crown in 1921 and the Wimbledon singles title in 1923.
For an encore, he led the US Davis Cup squad to an unprecedented seven straight titles from 1920 to 1927.
If that wasn’t enough, he also spent every year but one between 1913 and 1926 ranked in the Top 10, starting that streak at age 19.
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Nick on 4/19/2011 6:15:48 AM | with 0 comments
While that exposure was tremendous for the women’s game, what King did before and after it is all the more impressive – namely 39 Grand Slam titles – 12 in singles, 16 in doubles and 11 in mixed doubles.
King’s tournament of choice was Wimbledon , which she won five times as a singles player, 10 times in women’s doubles and four times in mixed doubles – most notably 1967 when she won all three events.
For her career, she won the Grand Slam in both singles (Australian 1968, French 1972, US Open four times) and mixed doubles (Australian 1968, French Open twice, US Open four times), and just missed it in women’s doubles, winning all but the Australian Open, where she reached the finals twice.
Her first Slam – in women’s doubles – came in 1960 when she was all of 17. Her last, also in women’s doubles, came 20 years later at the US Open in 1980.
In between, she was as remarkably dominant as any female player, perhaps any player period, before or since, winning 32 of her career 39 Slams, including all 12 singles titles, between 1966-1975.
In 25 career Grand Slam appearances, King reached 16 finals and went 12-4 in those. In the nine tournaments she failed to reach the finals in, she lost twice in the semifinals and five times in the quarterfinals.
In that same time frame between 1966-1975, she was No. 1 in the world six times at year’s end, No. 2 three times and No.3 once.
As well known as she was to tennis fans by the mid 1970s, King became internationally famous in 1973, when she took on Riggs, the self-described “male chauvinist” and tennis hustler at the Houston Astrodome in front of a crowd of 30,492 in person, and a television audience estimated at a staggering 50 million across 37 countries.
 Riggs was 55 years old at the time of the match, but had already dispatched of top players Evonne Goolagong and Margaret Court in other exhibitions. Rather than play her typical game, as Goolagong and Court had, King exploited Riggs’ weaknesses – notably his age and lack of mobility – and defeated him 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.
The attendance record set at the “ Battle of the Sexes” endured for 37 years, until it was broken in the summer of 2010 by Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams in Belgium just after the conclusion of Wimbledon .
As of the writing of this blog, that exhibition was Williams’ last appearance on court as a myriad of injuries, surgeries and odd circumstances have kept her sidelined for the past 9-1/2 months.
King finally began slowing down in 1978, but continued to win at doubles and mixed doubles, and made the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1982 at age 38. She retired from competitive singles play at the end of 1983.
Court, her biggest rival, said that King was “the greatest competitor I have ever known.” Elton John wrote his 1975 smash hit “Philadelphia Freedom,” in honor of King, who at the time was playing in the WTT for the Philadelphia Freedom.
King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987 and named by Life Magazine as one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century”
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Nick on 4/20/2011 6:00:12 AM | with 3 comments
There were virtually no flaws in the game of Rod Laver.
 Really the only two things you could say kept him from being the de facto greatest male player of all time were completely out of his control - that he was born just a bit too early, and on the lesser-known side of the world.
Born in the late 1930s in Australia, the prime of Laver's career happened before the Open Era began in 1968.
In 1962, the amateur Laver joined Don Budge as only the second male player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year. Budge had done it in 1938, the year Laver was born.
Laver's success wasn't just limited to the majors, as he won 17 other tournaments. He turned pro after the dream 1962 season, which meant that he couldn't play in any of the majors.
Instead, he settled for being the No. 1 professional in the world, competing most directly with Pancho Gonzales and Ken Rosewall. In 1965 he won 17 titles, followed by 16 in 1966 and 19 in 1967.
When the Open Era dawned in 1968, Laver won the first Wimbledon title. In 1969, in between the ages of 30 and 31, Laver won the yearly Grand Slam, notching 18 titles overall and putting together an eye-popping 106-16 record.
His pro status also cost Laver time in the Davis Cup, which he led Australia to victories to from 1959-1962. Pro players were allowed to play in the tournament again in 1973, and at age 35, Laver led the Aussies to another title, winning both his singles and a doubles rubber in a crushing 5-0 win over the United States.
 For his career, Laver won an even 200 titles, a mere 40 of those listed byt he ATP. He totalled 11 singles Grand Slams, winning the Australian Open in both the first and last years (1960, 1969) of the same decade. He was a slam dunk selection for the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1981.
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Nick on 4/21/2011 5:51:37 AM | with 0 comments
 Any long-time readers of this blog won't be surprised by the choice for the letter 'M'. As I've written before, give me one man in his prime to win one match against any opponent in history, and I choose John McEnroe.
Perhaps it's the era I grew up in (a child of the late 70s and throughout the 80s) or perhaps it's that McEnroe's indomitable will to win at everything he did makes him still seem like a formidable opponent at age 52.
Whatever the glamor, McEnroe won on tennis' biggest stages early and often - taking three titles at Wimbledon, four at the US Open and three end-of-year ATP championships.
The start of McEnroe's career was like something out of a story book. He won the 1977 mixed doubles title at Wimbledon at age 18, then went through the qualifiying rounds and into the main draw in the singles competition, making it all the way to the semifinals before losing to Jimmy Connors - the best performance by a qualifier at Wimbledon in the Open Era ever.
The next year as a collegian for Stanford, he won two NCAA titles, then won the US Open for the first time as a 20-year-old in 1979 - the youngest man to do so in 31 years.
His battles with Connors, Bjorn Borg and later Ivan Lendl would become a big part of who McEnroe was - a fiery competitor who didn't mind voicing his opinion about everything under the sun, but mostly the poor performances (according to him) of the match officials.
In 1984, McEnroe recorded the single-best winning percentage of any male player in the Open Era - going 82-3 (.965) and winning two Slams. But as is so typical of the competitor, he mostly remembers that season for the French Open, where he squandered a 2-0 set lead and lost to Lendl in five, missing his best shot at the elusive clay-court crown.
In addition to his success as a singles player, McEnroe won 71 men's doubles titles, including nine Slams - taking the Wimbledon title 13 years apart, both in 1979 and 1992.
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Nick on 4/22/2011 6:16:35 AM | with 0 comments
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All work and no clay makes Rafa a dull boy
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Clay court tennis isn’t for everyone. The ball plays different, the bounces aren’t as consistent and those new white shoes you bought for the match? Forget about it.
But these six players – three men and three women – made a habit of not just excelling on clay, but dominating on it – cementing their legacies as some of the best the game has ever seen in the process.
 #6 – Justine Henin – It was sad to see this competitor bow out for good (earlier this year, but retiring twice in a 12-year span doesn’t wane her star any among all-time clay court greats on the WTA. Henin won the French Open four times, and reached the semifinals in another season, racking up an overall record of 38-5 at Roland Garros. Overall, she won 12 clay-court titles including her first as a professional, an ITF event where she beat long-time rival Kim Clijsters in the final.
 #5 – Ivan Lendl – Most players favour one surface or another, but Lendl was just as unbeatable on clay as he was on hard surfaces. During his magnificent career, he compiled an .826 winning percentage with 30 titles on hard courts, and an .814 winning percentage with 29 titles on clay. He won Monte-Carlo twice, Barcelona twice and Roland Garros three times – including his five-set breakthrough against John McEnroe in 1984, followed by two more titles in 1985 and 1986.
 #4 – Steffi Graf – It feels almost blasphemous to put Graf fourth on any superlative list, particularly given the fact she won six French Open titles – with a 13-year gap between the first and the last – and took 32 clay-court crowns overall. At the French Open, she tallied a staggering record of 87-10 (.897), winning back-to-back titles twice and going out in style with a title in 1999 just short of her 30th birthday, ranked sixth in the world, then defeating No. 2 Lindsay Davenport in the quarterfinals, No. 3 Monica Seles in the semifinals and No. 1 Martina Hingis in the final.
 #3 – Bjorn Borg – Not only did he win Roland Garros six times, he left the tournament behind on a 28-match win streak there after winning four straight titles between 1978-1981. He won 30 total titles on clay with a .863 winning percentage, winning 245 of 284 matches on the dirt.
#2 Rafael Nadal – Yes only #2, at least for now, despite his five French Open titles and 81-match win streak on clay that lasted from 2005-2007, not to mention his current streak of 32 extended on Friday morning at Barcelona. Nadal’s legend on clay is almost as terrifying as his actual game at this point – he’s lost just 16 times total on the stuff as a professional. Let’s  face it, when you’ve got almost twice as many titles (30) as losses on a surface, you are about as good as it gets on the stuff. His record at Roland Garros is the scariest part of it. Nadal is 38-1 there all-time, and outside of his shocking loss to Robin Soderling in the fourth round in 2009, he’s lost just seven sets, including zero outside of the loss since the 2007 final against Roger Federer.
 #1 Chris Evert – Nadal’s 81-match win streak is impressive, but it’s only two-thirds of the way to Evert’s 125-match streak that lasted from 1973-1979. After she finally lost, she started a second streak of 72 matches, meaning over an eight-year span, she was 197-1 on the dirt. Evert won Roland Garros a record seven times, and took the US Open title on clay from 1975-1977. In addition to her seven wins at the French Open, she made the finals in 1973 as an 18-year-old and never lost before the semifinals until 1988, her last year to play the event, when she was 33. Clay was also her best surface against uber-rival Martina Navratilova. Although she was 37-43 all-time against her top contemporary, Evert went 10-3 when they battled on clay courts.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 4/22/2011 1:04:23 PM | with 3 comments
It's odd writing in a blog on consecutive days that Rafael Nadal is only second-best at something, but when it comes to the letter N, even Rafa-holics have to admit that nine Grand Slams is tremendous, but 59 is other worldly.
And that's the total for the legendary Martina Navratilova, who won Slams in singles, 31 in doubles and 10 in mixed doubles between 1975 and 2006, yes that's 2006, talling a staggering 167 singles titles and 177 doubles - both figures the most by any man or woman ever.
Navratilova's all-time winning percentage of 86.8 is as good as some of the best single seasons by several top players. She had locked up a career Grand Slam by 1984, and won seven more titles after that. She also took the single-season doubles Grand Slam in 1984, and her "worst" of the four majors were the French Open and Wimbledon, which she won seven times apiece, compared to eight doubles titles at Australia and nine at the US Open.
 As a singles player, she won Wimbledon nine times, reaching the final in 12 straight seasons. She won her first mixed doubles title at age 18 in 1974. Her last came 32 years later in 2006, with a man (American Bob Bryan) who was born the same year she won her first Wimbledon title (1978).
In short, no one dominated longer or more thoroughly than Navratilova. And while Steffi Graf (22) and Margaret Court (24) won more singles Slams, neither can match Martina for longevity nor total titles.
Among her lesser-known records: 19 consecutive Grand Slam women's singles tournament semifinals reached; won Wimbledon in three different decades (tied with Serena Williams); won six Grand Slams in straight sets.
Navratilova is not merely the greatest player with a surname starting with 'N' of all time, she is, in the words of legendary tennis journalist Bud Collins, "arguably, the greatest player of all time."
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Nick on 4/23/2011 9:16:47 AM | with 2 comments
Alex Olmedo won at every level he played at, and just about every country as well.
Born in Peru in the 1930s, he was the No. 1 player in the world in 1959 at age 23.
 Despite his South American background, he attended college at the University of Southern California and won the NCAA singles and doubles titles in both 1956 and 1958, missing the trifecta in each because USC was ineligible in 1957 (darn you, Reggie Bush!)
Although not a US citizen at that time, Olmedo nonetheless competed for the US Davis Cup squad in 1958-1959, thanks to the fact that he lived in the country and had for five years. He led the team to the title in both years, winning in both singles and doubles both years.
In addition to the Davis Cup prestige in 1959, he also took the titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, defeating the legendary Rod Laver in the latter.
He narrowly missed making it three majors in the same season, losing in the finals at the US Open in four sets.
Olmedo also won the US men’s doubles title at the US Open in 1958, teaming with fellow American Ham Richardson.
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Nick on 4/25/2011 5:31:33 PM | with 0 comments
A three-time Wimbledon champion and five-time world No. 1, Fred Perry was also a renown table tennis player and golfer.
 He is most famously known for becoming the first person, male or female, to record a career Grand Slam, and also because he is the last British man to win Wimbledon, having done so just a few ticks of the clock ago … in 1936.
It was the third of three straight Wimbledon crowns for Perry, who also took three titles at the US Open (1933-34, 1936), one at Australia (1934) and one in France (1935). His career record was 106-12 (.898) in singles and 18-4 in doubles. He also won two men’s doubles Grand Slams and four mixed doubles Grand Slams.
In 1979, Jack Kramer called Perry one of the six greatest players of all time.
In addition to loving tennis, Perry enjoyed the company of the fairer sex – getting engaged four times and marrying thrice, the last of which, to Barbara Riese, lasted 40 years, until his death in 1992.
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Nick on 4/26/2011 6:10:27 AM | with 0 comments
 When it comes to the letter Q, there’s not a lot of competition. So Sam Querrey, if you want to be considered in 10 years, win a couple of Grand Slams.
Australia’s Adrian Quist won more than just a couple of Slams – tallying three in singles and 14 in doubles – 10 of the latter in his native Australia between 1936-1950.
Along with playing partner John Bromwich, Quist won eight straight Australian Open doubles titles and also reached the finals in 1934 and 1951.
His three singles Slams also came in Australia – the first when he was 23, the last when he was 35. He captured a men’s doubles career Grand Slam in 1939 when he won at the US Open, having previously captured the French and Wimbledon in 1935.
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Nick on 4/27/2011 6:16:37 AM | with 0 comments
 Before the Open Era, Ken Rosewall was the barometer of men’s tennis, winning 23 majors – eight Grand Slam singles titles and 15 Pro Slam titles, including the Pro Grand Slam in 1963.
He added nine doubles slams to his ledger, and was ranked among the top 20 players, either as an amateur or a professional, every year from 1952-1977.
Despite the fact that he was 37 years old when the Open Era began, Rosewall still won seven titles in 1973, including the Australian Open – becoming the oldest man to ever win a Slam (age 37 years, two months).
He reached the semifinals of the US Open in 1973 at age 38, and was still in the Top 20 at age 43 in 1977
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Nick on 4/28/2011 9:15:35 PM | with 0 comments
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Where were you on Nov. 26, 2010?
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Novak Djokovic extended his record to 25-0 in 2011 and his overall winning streak to 27 matches on Thursday with his victory over whoever that guy was in the second round of the Serbia Open.
Djokovic's last lost came in the semifinals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals on Nov. 26, 2010, exactly five months ago on Thursday.
Just how long has it been since Djokovic was beaten?
Well, the obvious is easy to quantify - it's been 152 days or 3,648 hours or 13,132,800 seconds (and counting) since Djokovic was beaten by Roger Federer in that semifinal.
But there's more to a winning streak than the passage of time. Here's a look at a few of other items have note that have gone on since the Djoker's marvelous streak began.
* Roger Federer has lost five times. Not a big deal, says you? He lost only four times in 85 matches in 2005, says me.
* Ivo Karlovic has moved 275 spots in the rankings. He was No. 73 on Nov. 29,  , dropped to No. 239 on March 7, 2011 due to injury, and has since moved back up to No. 130 with a strong streak of performances.
* Milos Raonic has moved up 129 spots in the rankings. Hard to believe that a kid with this much talent was hanging around No. 156 last November, but since the new year broke, he's been a vision - starting with his impressive run at the Australian Open.
* Venus and Serena Williams have combined to play three matches. And all three of them are courtesy of Venus - albeit the third was a 1-0, RET loss to Andrea Petkovic at the Australian Open. Will the Slam sisters ever be active on court at the same time again?
* The price for a gallon of regular gasoline in Houston, TX has gone from $2.66 to $3.89 per gallon (a 46% rise), including 2 cents/gallon while you were reading this sentence.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 4/28/2011 9:58:21 PM | with 1 comments
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Love is in the air, everywhere you look around
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In honor of today's wedding ceremonies in jolly old England - and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you clearly do not know any women - Tennis 'n' Stuff presents the 5 greatest romances in tennis' modern era - proof positive that experiencing love in tennis doesn't always mean you're getting your ass kicked on the court.
 5) Tomas Berdych and Lucie Safarova - He upset Federer in last year's Wimbledon quarterfinals, but his relationship with the lovely Ms. Safarova dates all the way back to 2005. The pair grew up toger in Prosterjov and were fast friends who took it to the next level when they were old enough. You can't have a cuter nickname than the "Czech Mates."
4) Ana Ivanovic and Fernando  Verdasco - They only dated a few months - starting up at the US Open in 2008 and breaking up in the middle of January 2009, and let's face it, to date Verdasco has been one heck of an under-achiever on the court, but there's no doubting that these two model-quality athletes would have had some beautiful offspring.
 3) Andy Roddick and Brooklyn Decker - As the big wins stop coming and the hairline recedes, all I can say is, wow, this guy married out of his league the likes of which the world has seldom see. Bravo, A-Rod, bravo!
 2) Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf - It's a lesson for the young people. If you like a girl, and you can eventually stop hitting on her when you or she is involved with someone else - one of two things will happen - she'll either marry you or call the police and label you a stalker. Happily, Steffi did the more socially-acceptable of the two.
 1) John McEnroe and his ego - They were made for each other, they both think John McEnroe is the greatest thing that's ever happened to either of them.
Despite of her recent divorce from her husband Samuel Groth that has caused some twitter controversy, Jarmila Gajdosova seems to have found a new and loving partner. Check out this cheeky snip-it she did with Wilson ironically before the split-up:
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 4/29/2011 6:17:29 AM | with 4 comments
It breaks my heart not to give this spot to Monica Seles, because if it hadn’t been for Captain Psychopath that fateful day in Hamburg, she very well might have gone on to join Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert for a spot on the WTA “Mount Rushmore” of greatest Open Era players.
 But history intervened, and Pete Sampras is certainly no slouch, having won 14 Grand Slam titles in his career, made Americans proud with his professionalism and class and made a rivalry with Andre Agassi that the game has sorely lacked since the two men hung up their racquets for the last time.
Perhaps the best thing you can say about Sampras is that he played at his peak until he no longer could, and then he left the game, without so much as a “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” or a ridiculous comeback four years past his prime.
He ended six straight years as the No. 1 player in the world (1993-1998), won Wimbledon seven times and the US Open five times, defeated Agassi 20 of 34 times, including in the US Open final of 2002, Sampras’ last hurrah, and racked up 64 ATP titles and more than $43 million in prize money.
Three-and-a-half years after his retirement, Sampras played a few exhibitions, including one against Roger Federer at Madison Square Garden in 2008 – scaring the crap against the greatest of all time in a 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-6(6) loss. Sampras was 37 years old at the time, Federer was in the midst of a season where he won one Grand Slam and reached the finals of two others.
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 4/29/2011 11:44:42 AM | with 1 comments
Stripped of his mother at age 15 and his father and older brother at age 19, Tilden lives at an aunt’s house until his late 40s, rarely drank, smoked heavily and was not known to have had any relationships with the opposite sex.
On the court, however, his only interest was winning – and win he did – 14 majors (10 Grand Slams, four Pro Slams), and won 138 of the 192 tournaments he entered between 1912 and 1930, with a staggering overall of 907-62 (.936).
Posted to Tennis and stuff. by
Nick on 4/30/2011 10:11:54 AM | with 0 comments
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