Watching old tennis matches thread.

[nuraman00]

* Clijsters vs. Capriati, 2001 French Open Finals.

Someone once said this was the best claycourt match he's ever seen.

After watching it, I have to agree.

Great rallies.

* Federer vs. Djokovic, 2011 French Open SF.

This match was spoiled for me before I got home, the day it happened, so I didn't really watch it. I just fast forwarded through most of the match. Since there's 2 SFs, and I already unfortunately knew the result of this one, I spent more time on the other one.

How was I to know FED would struggle beating Djokovic so much at majors after this?

From watching this match now, my biggest takeaway was how good FED's backhand was. He was hitting a ton of winners with it. And it was cool to see him do well in a match with hardly any aces. He just used his smarts.

Djokovic hadn't lost a single match in 2011, coming into this one.

Also, this match was much closer than the scoreline indicated.

* Graf vs. Hingis, 1999 French Open Finals.

This was another good match, especially in terms of strategy and style.

Hingis started to get erratic with her serve in the 3rd set.

 

[bksballer89]

i was watching fed/djoker 2019 wimbledon finals

 

[nuraman00]

1987 Graf vs. Navratilova French Open Finals:

In the 1999 FO Finals, Graf seemed to be using her slice forehand a lot.

In this 1987 one, she seemed to be using her topspin a lot.

Her forehand also didn't appear as good as it would soon become.

1992 Edberg vs. Courier Australian Open Finals:

Edberg seemed to come into the net on balls he shouldn't have.

His serve also went erratic.

This might be the best major Finals Courier has played, he was good.

1992 Graf vs. Seles French Open Finals:

Two players probably at the top of their games.

The crowd was rooting for Graf, heavily.

1993 Edberg vs. Courier Australian Open Finals:

Sadly, this complete match isn't available online. Just fragments of sets. Edberg looked terrible from what I was able to watch.

1995 Graf vs. Arantxa Sanchez Vicario French Open Finals:

This was another good match. A lot of good rallies.

Vicario's serve became unstable near the end.

1984 McEnroe vs. Lendl French Open Finals:

McEnroe made serve and volleying look so easy on clay. Lendl came through at the end.

McEnroe's first serve percentage dropped to 39% at one point in the match. He shouted, at one point, "1 for 50!", because that's what he felt like his serving percentage was becoming.

If his serve hadn't dropped so bad in sets 2-5, the result would have been different.

Lendl didn't seem to have many winners in this match.

1989 Chang vs. Lendl French Open 4th Round:

Lendl looked to be the better player, hitting a lot of winners.

Chang persevered, and Lendl started to make some bad mistakes.

 

[nuraman00]

1989 Chang vs. Edberg French Open Finals:

It's rare to see two players play at a high level for almost the entire match. Sometimes one player is playing poorly in a set.

Chang was hitting more winners in this match, then I'd seen him before.

Both players showed a lot of positional variety on the court.

 

[nuraman00]

i was watching fed/djoker 2019 wimbledon finals

Where does this rank for you, among the best matches ever?

 

[nuraman00]

1999 Medvedev vs. Agassi French Open Finals:

When I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago, I said it was a terrible match, because one player was playing terrible in each set. It was more about someone making errors, then good points.

However, this was also at 240p quality, and a bad one too. I've seen other 240p matches recently and they are fine.

This one was terrible.

It was re-broadcast this week on NBC Sports Channel at 720p. I will re-watch it, just so I have an easier time seeing the ball.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

I've tried.

But haven't persevered.

 

[nuraman00]

I've tried.

But haven't persevered.

What have you been doing instead?

 

[nuraman00]

1999 Medvedev vs. Agassi French Open Finals:

When I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago, I said it was a terrible match, because one player was playing terrible in each set. It was more about someone making errors, then good points.

However, this was also at 240p quality, and a bad one too. I've seen other 240p matches recently and they are fine.

This one was terrible.

It was re-broadcast this week on NBC Sports Channel at 720p. I will re-watch it, just so I have an easier time seeing the ball.

I watched it for the 2nd time now, this time on 720p.

This was much more enjoyable. I could see the facial expressions on Agassi, and see his frustration.

Also, the 3rd and 5th sets had more competitive points than I had remembered a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago when I had watched, it felt like most points in those sets were 2-3 shot rallies followed by an error.

When I re-watched it, this time in good quality, I could see that wasn't the case.

Also, Medvedev was 6 points from winning the match, in the 4th set.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

What have you been doing instead?

Books, yardwork. It's been sunny here so a head start on the yard is a good thing. Did the brakes on my Audi.

I watched a few historical F1 races. A couple of old Can-Rus hockey games (1972, 1976).

 

[nuraman00]

Books, yardwork. It's been sunny here so a head start on the yard is a good thing. Did the brakes on my Audi.

I watched a few historical F1 races. A couple of old Can-Rus hockey games (1972, 1976).

What did you do with your brakes? Replace them?

 

[nuraman00]

1988 Evert vs. Graf Australian Open Finals:

This was a good display of Graf's defense, and ability to get balls back.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

What did you do with your brakes? Replace them?

Yup. Zimmerman rotors and Ake Bono ceramic pads on all 4 corners.

The rear has those silly electric park brakes, never had that before but found a youtube video on how to retract them with a 12 volt battery.

All worked perfectly until I ruptured the piston dust boot on the right rear....

It's always something. New caliper $900, repair kit $40.

The repair kit was a no brainer. Couldn't believe the caliper would be that much.

 

[nuraman00]

And you were able to do that yourself too? Impressive.

 

[nuraman00]

1988 Graf vs. Sabatini Gold Medal Game:

Sabatini could never get in front or take a lead.

Still a decent match.

1988 Graf vs. Sabatini US Open Finals:

Cool to watch two players with one handed backhands.

Graf's defense and ability to pull Sabatini wide is what won her the match.

1996 Courier vs. Sampras French Open QF:

Courier had a 2 sets to 0 lead, and lost.

During the last game, he said "Fucking doing it all over again. The guy [looks like he's] in his grave, and fucking serving bullets. 190 mph bullets".

Courier was frustrated at how Sampras had that tired, exhausted hangdog look, but was still able to serve.

Courier actually had more aces than Sampras. Not sure I've seen a match before where someone had more aces than Sampras, and Courier wasn't that kind of a server.

Earlier, during another sequence, Courier took off his hat, and used his racquet to launch it into the crowd.

1992 Agassi vs. Courier US Open QF:

Again, Courier surprisingly had a better serving performance than I expected.

"Why does it seem like Agassi has been facing break points this entire match"?

At one point, Courier was something like 2/21 in break points.

 

[Hs0022]

Used to tape and save every Sampras match on vhs. Had a box full of those. Don’t know what happened to them after I moved a few times and had no storage for the boxes.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

And you were able to do that yourself too? Impressive.

I can do things like that but I never take apart engines....

I have to start viewing some of these. TSN I think has quite a few.

I just find I don't have time. Working from home as I am seems to lead to working more than if I was in the office.

 

[nuraman00]

I can do things like that but I never take apart engines....

I have to start viewing some of these. TSN I think has quite a few.

I just find I don't have time. Working from home as I am seems to lead to working more than if I was in the office.

Lol.

I've watched most of these matches either through YouTube or Daily Motion.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

My cable box supports Youtube, Netflix and Amazon.

But for sports I prefer regular cable as the scan/jump feature is piss poor when I'm using Youtube.

 

[nuraman00]

My cable box supports Youtube, Netflix and Amazon.

But for sports I prefer regular cable as the scan/jump feature is piss poor when I'm using Youtube.

Agree. I don't like using apps. There's not as much control when navigating in time.

Also, when I hit the pause button on an app, there's still a part of the time navigation bar which covers the screen. That usually gets in the way.

Whereas when I'm using cable and my DVR, and I hit the pause button, I can clear everything off the screen, so I can see what I'm looking for. If watching tennis, I'd pause it to see where the ball is, especially on lower quality resolution matches.