posted Jul 12, 2009

Lendl was a Great. Federer himself speaks of him along with the top 3. Lendl was younger than Borg but at 20 he took Borg to a 5 setter at the FO. Lendl "only" got 8 slams but that is essentially due to the bad timing of his birth. Young he had to face the best of Borg, McEnroe and Connors, while in his later years Edberg Becker and then Sampras. So grabbing 8 slams in this "era" was pretty good.

I would certainly put him in the top 5 without a doubt. Certainly above connors in my view who won 5 of his8 slams on his home surface.

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posted Jul 12, 2009

Good Post. Lendl did not receive the credit he deserved. He was one of the first players to focus on hard work, physical training & power play in tennis.
He was consistent and was just overshadowed by McEnroe, Connors and later Becker and Edberg. Had he won a Wimbledon title either against Cash or Becker in the two finals he played which would have given him a career slam he would have been rated pretty high with the greats.

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posted Jul 12, 2009

bogbrush

I meant Becker, apologies

I'm sorry, but when we are working out 'the greats' we have to take into account what they won and who they were up against

If we have a situation where someone wins a load of Slams with The top 10 consisting Soderlings in compariosn to 9 Nadal's (bad comparison, given what happened at the French!!) do we just say 'a Slam is a Slam'

Lendl was good, but an unimaginative player who relied on a dogmatic relentless style of play, in comparison to the outlandish racquet skills of Mac, Borg, Connors, Sampras, Agassi or Federer

Hence, as soon as the next 'greats' came along, (Sampras and Agassi) he was shown up in terms of skills

As a watcher of Tennis for more than 30 years, there was a lull in the mid-80's - but who's saying that's a 'weak era'? Isn't it fair to say that Borg, Connors and Mac at their peaks was of greater quality than Becker, Edberg and Lendl at their's

Incidentally, i actually think that skills wise Edberg was better and the best of the late 80's bunch

People saying comparisons are pointless, simply have little imagination. For instance we can compare the Federer era, because Roddick has been an excellent 'quality standard' to compare against as he has remained more or less the same since 2003

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posted Jul 12, 2009

Banbrotam, sorry but you are wrong on many points here.

Lendl was a genius in his own way. The guy developed percentage tennis with a small frame wooden racket! DO I ned to say more?

It means he was able to pull winner with his FH from the BL at will. Why would he need to be imaginative? With his FH he was able to paint the lines and dominate like no other did during his time....despite facing many great players. Even if you look at his H2H v Agassi and Sampras, it is very good despite being himself well in his 30s for most of his encounters with them.

McEnroe his main rival had an immense talent, a genius himself, and certainly looked smoother on the court but Lendl's genius was in the flick of his wrist. Comparing those 2 is like comparing 2 animals...you can;t say one animal is more talented than the other. They have their respective talent. Let's say a sheetah moves beautifully, but an elephant has a great memory and can smell water miles away. If you do not see the talent in lendl, the problem is with you more than with Lendl who actually won more slams than Mc, despite not having a slam played in his own country ( I am pretty sure that at least 2 of coonnors slams would have ended up with Lendl had they been played in Cezs).

Also, Lendl was successful before he developed a physical tennis. The main reson he build himself a "body" was to fortify what I think what Lendl's main weakness: his mind.

And why would yo ucriticise Lendl's physical game if you are a Nadal fan?

Finally, winning a slam in the 90s is different than winning it in 2010 cause the competition is fiercer. The fiercer the competition, the less "big names" you have in fact. Davydenko for instance was considered a journey player for long and never won a slam but ask any player today and they's tell you that they'd rather face Kafelnikov than the "no name" Davydenko.

The problem is that when you have a genius like Fed that grabs 15 slams and Nadal, a physical phenomenon, who grabs everything else on clay, "big names and no names" don't mean anything. It's only about Fed and Nadal....and that doesn't tell us how good is the rest of the field.

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posted Jul 12, 2009

Tenez

It's a matter of taste, i suppose and there's no 'right or wrong'

I admire Nadal but am not a 'fan'. He's my least favourite of the 'Top 4', but I'll watch him any time rather than Del Potro or Soderling

Perhaps you get my drift!!

I prefer the more 'delicate' games of the Mac's, Federer's, Mecir's and Murray's of this world than the ball bashers

But each to their own

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posted Jul 12, 2009

Why I rate Lendl more than McEnroe,they played 10GS matches and Lendl won 7 McEnroe just 3

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posted Jul 12, 2009

"Comparing those 2 is like comparing 2 animals...you can;t say one animal is more talented than the other. They have their respective talent. Let's say a sheetah moves beautifully, but an elephant has a great memory and can smell water miles away."
--------------------------------------------
Hahaha. What on earth are you babbling on about?

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posted Jul 13, 2009

"I would certainly put him in the top 5 without a doubt. Certainly above connors in my view who won 5 of his8 slams on his home surface"

Actually what you call "his home surface" was three different surfaces, as he won the US Open on grass in 1974, clay in 1976, and hard in 1978, 82 and 83.

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posted Jul 13, 2009

yes, 3 different surfaces but the same crowd. It would be hard to deny the effect of the crowd has had in their 2 USO finals. Connors went down to free insults just to unsteady him. When you have 20k people cheering around, it;s bound to have an impact.

Besides, you know the famous saying from Guerilutis "no one can beat me 17 times in a row" (aluding to Borg), well Connors can;t even say that as Lendl did!!!! LOL

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posted Jul 13, 2009

Banbrotam

Sorry I thought you were a big fan of nadal and therefore did not understand your comment about the physical side of Lendl's game.

Nonetheless, Lendl is certainly not a ball basher. Hitting a ball flat and make enough winners to win matches and slams on regular basis is actually the very definition of talent. If players coudl do just that, they would! But only the more talented can actually win points without sweat by the flick of a FH or BH. It's the others who have to works hard. Murray for instance developed big legs so he could keep on playing is defensive game, like Hewitt and push those talented guys in going for too much helped by todays slow conditions. (I am aware of Murray talent but instead of using it to attack he uses it to retrieve and only pulls winners when he has too).

Soderling is actually a great talent...with a frail mind though.

A ball basher is someone who hits the ball very hard but makes sure he clears the net by 3 feet and the ball lands well inside the baseline if not the T line...and I have someone in mind who just does that, but it's not Lendl.

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