He said in running.
He said in running.
Les wrote:
He said in running.
and not MMA!
This is one of the most idiotic things anyone could say. Serena is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She has dominated her peers and won more grand slams than all but one player, albeit, in a relatively weak field. John had minimal success for a short period of time. He is a poor man's Andy Murray. John wouldn't even hang with her.
Remember what happened to Riggs? Why would this be any different? If he wanted to tell me that in his day he could beat the Joker I'd be interested. Otherwise he just needs to go away
I don't think McEnroe could get around the court fast enough. Not sure, though. Wouldn't want to bet the rent money.
I'd love to see a challenge match kind of like the recent Tiger Woods vs Phil Mickelson winner take all match for $9 million.
Put the two of them in a $20 pay per view, with a multi-million dollar purse up for grabs.
I'd also make Carlos Ramos the umpire.
Best of three, with a tie-breaker in the 3rd set.
Hotelboulderado wrote:
John had minimal success for a short period of time. He is a poor man's Andy Murray. John wouldn't even hang with her.
Minimal success? Poor man's Andy Murray? McEnroe won 7 majors. Murray has won 3 (plus 2 Olympic Golds). McEnroe also won several majors in doubles. (Andy's brother has won majors in doubles.)
Few of us on this site besides the former coach have enough knowledge of tennis to judge whether this would be a close match or a blowout for one or the other. Even one of the posters above who claimed to have more experience with tennis used terminology incorrectly - but his overall point was accurate.
A stat to point out a basic misunderstanding, especially about McEnroe's weak shots. I'm not sure that matters as much as one might think. From the NY Times: "GIG provided data to The New York Times on players who had been in at least 10 matches on the seven show courts from 2012 to 2016 (at the Australian Open). The young American star Madison Keys’s average forehand speed ranked first among the women but also ahead of all men except Tomas Berdych. Keys’s average backhand speed was also higher than any of the men’s, ranking just behind the now-retired women’s star Li Na." No one thinks that Keys would have a chance against the top men. So, speed of shot only plays a part in success on the court.
I also don't know enough about tennis to judge the match-up but realize there are several factors at play.
Remember what happened to Riggs? Why would this be any different?
MacEnroe doesn't have any Mafia debts to pay off like Riggs did in BJK match.
So it'd be more like the 6-2 6-1 shellacking that he gave Margaret Court (women's #1 at the time) earlier in 1973.
Truth Tellerr wrote:
Les wrote:
He said in running.
and not MMA!
And I said running is not tennis, or weightlifting, or other upper-body focused sports where women are more disadvantaged anatomically.
WDC Runner wrote:
Hotelboulderado wrote:
John had minimal success for a short period of time. He is a poor man's Andy Murray. John wouldn't even hang with her.
Minimal success? Poor man's Andy Murray? McEnroe won 7 majors. Murray has won 3 (plus 2 Olympic Golds). McEnroe also won several majors in doubles. (Andy's brother has won majors in doubles.)
Compare the eras. McEnroe competed against Bjorg and Connors. Both great, but not as great as Murray's contemporaries. McEnroe was third fiddle to both of them. McEnroe is only remembered because he built tennis into a must see event with his antics. Without him being a jacka$$ he would be remembered as fondly as Murray will be one day. He won doubles which nobody will ever claim their tennis fame doing. He is nothing other than a pseudohasbeen washed up idiot
Riggs had terrible vision, was partially deaf, was frankly in early stages of dementia, and was certainly not in the condition that McEnroe is today.
I actually don't think comparisons between male and female athletes do anybody much good. People can get a little delusional about this stuff. There are actually Serena fans who think she could beat Novak, Rafa, and Roger.
Hotelboulderado wrote:
WDC Runner wrote:
Minimal success? Poor man's Andy Murray? McEnroe won 7 majors. Murray has won 3 (plus 2 Olympic Golds). McEnroe also won several majors in doubles. (Andy's brother has won majors in doubles.)
Compare the eras. McEnroe competed against Bjorg and Connors. Both great, but not as great as Murray's contemporaries. McEnroe was third fiddle to both of them. McEnroe is only remembered because he built tennis into a must see event with his antics. Without him being a jacka$$ he would be remembered as fondly as Murray will be one day. He won doubles which nobody will ever claim their tennis fame doing. He is nothing other than a pseudohasbeen washed up idiot
,
I've got to respond to hotel whatever, who knows nothing about tennis.
Borg and Connors are all-time greats. McEnroe was right there with them. Borg won 11 majors, including 6 French titles; Connors 8 and McEnroe 7. Connors and McEnroe never won the French; Borg never won the US Open or the Australian.
McEnroe also won 77 singles titles and 78 doubles titles. That total has not been exceeded in the open era.
His 77 singles titles place him 5th on the all-time list.
McEnroe is considered the greatest doubles player who ever lived by many, too. He won 5 Wimbledon doubles and 4 US Open doubles.
Murray is a great player himself, with 3 majors. Injuries have kept him from adding to that total.
Today is the most loaded period in men's tennis history, with Federer, Djokovic and Nadal among the all-time greats. They are obviously in the top ten, along with Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, Borg, Connors, McEnroe and Agassi.
Who also makes the top 10? Lendl and Rosewall were both great, too.
Serena has played a set against a man before. I would have to google it but I think it was her hitting partner. He wasn't close to top 100. The set wasn't close. Women players are not use to the heavy spin men players can put on the ball. If I remember right the guy said he just hit heavy top spin shots and it was pretty much no contest.
I went and googled it he was ranked 203 at the time.
Braasch would smoke cigarettes and sip beer during the changeovers, and to be honest no longer looked the part of a fit professional athlete. It made no matter. Braasch led 5-0 over Serena before winning the set 6-1, and then posted a 6-2 set victory over Venus.
I disagree with TheOhioState about the massive Slam count of Serena, Federer, Nasal and Djokovic being evidence of a strong era in tennis. What has changed in the past 10-15 years is
* Racquet technology: lighter racquets with larger frames enable players to hit the ball with a faster swing and larger sweet spot
* String technology: poly strings that enable hitting with more power and spin
* Ball technology: balls are fuzzier and lighter, better for hitting topsin
* Court technology: courts have more friction, slowing down the ball after it bounces, making it easier for players to retrieve a ball and stay in the point
All of the above enables fit, strong baseline players to dominate.
caitlyn says wrote:
Until MacEnroe identifies as a woman, this ain't gonna happen.
Which he could still do. And keep his balls. He could speed up the process and have them removed.
He'd then have a place to put the spare when he's serving
In olden days, top players mainly turned pro by the time they were 23 or 24 and they were then unable to play Wimbledon and the U.S. Open (and the French), I assume. An all-time top ten for men might have to include Pancho Gonzales, who dominated a pro circuit for about a decade and was then a very good player when he was able to return to the Open and Wimbledon at an advanced age. Lew Hoad is another one in this category.
ketchup wrote:
You are wrong wrote:
But he might be able to. I like women’s tennis, and I like Serena. She would not beat the top men. McEnroe was without a doubt a better tennis player than she could ever hope to be. I’d love to see them play.
Of course she would not beat the top men or McEnroe when he was younger. She would lose to most D1 men and some top high schoolers as well.
But we are talking about a 60 year-old man. The men's WC for the 400m is 53.88 and 11.7 for the 100m. There are high school girls that could beat those times, let alone D1 women. How fast do you think McEnroe could cover the court. His quickness, agility and power are not even close to a high school athlete. And Serena Williams is not Billie Jean King.
There is a lot more to tennis than just running.
I don’t think he could beat her. He’s a 60 year old man, with 60 year old joints which work at the speed of 60 year old joints. He hasn’t played at elite level for a long long time while she is still at her peak. Plus the game has moved on and evolved, while he still evidently thinks the women’s game has stayed where it was in the 1970s when Margaret Court played and womens’ tennis was small scale.
Can I also point out to those who lack basic education that it’s not ‘equality’, it’s equality of opportunity that’s protected in law. That’s why no one pays to see third rate club level male athletes in the Non Elite Level Open Category at the Olympics. Even Senenya and their cohort are being controlled. Thankfully, because I am certainly not interested in seeing a man with hormone problems competing against women.
Obviously there’s no way of physically handicapping the greater testosterone, size, muscle strength, narrow hips, wide shoulders etc of males versus females, which is why we have men’s and women’s categories.
It’s tiresome to read on here about all these men who are still slower than elite level women, despite having all those physical advantages, and who think society has somehow wronged them by failing to recognise their ability to produce slowish male times which occasionally equal that of the physically very different women.
When Björn Borg retired he had won more GS titles than Federer had done at the same age.
Bad Wigins wrote:
Truth Tellerr wrote:
and not MMA!
Tennis is a whole lot different (than running) because it involves upper body strength.
......running is not tennis, or weightlifting, or other upper-body focused sports where women are more disadvantaged anatomically.
lol. So let me get this straight, when it comes to strength/power, women are less naturally disadvantaged with leg muscles compared to men than they are with upper body muscles?
Is that your position? Why is that? Do their boobs get in the way?
(can't wait for his explanation, this oughta be good)
(oh, and one for more thing: pssst, leg muscles are heavily involved in tennis, ya know, all the sprinting, stopping, jumping, and planting for shots)
Plus Borg never actually bothered with the Australian Open. He only took part once.
Not sure if was a common viewpoint at the time but it seems Borg never really treated it as a true major.