Thoughts about Tennis Tradition...

[gzhpcu]

For fucking up my thread...jerk

OK, keep calm, I will ignore all your threads and posts from now on, OK?

[don_budge]

Thanks gzhpcu...

For fucking up my thread...jerk

[gzhpcu]

Come on don_budge, let's not hassle...

[don_budge]

The Choir...

I am entitled to my opinion, just as you are to yours.

If what you have is called an opinion...I prefer not to have one.

[gzhpcu]

I am entitled to my opinion, just as you are to yours.

[don_budge]

The Choir...

Actually don_budge, having another opinion is not "soiling a thread". It is conducive to formulating one's own ideas, by being challenged. If everyone just sings with the choir, there is no progress.

You are by nature a backup singer in that choir...just so you know. Just humming along...with the herd.

[gzhpcu]

Actually don_budge, having another opinion is not "soiling a thread". It is conducive to formulating one's own ideas, by being challenged. If everyone just sings with the choir, there is no progress.

P.S. Interesting: you deleted your post...

[gzhpcu]

IPads, IPods, Video Games. An electronic medium of sorts. Kids are only interested in a screen in front of their face. Is that what you are saying? Just a wild, crazy hypothetical idea. So what if we were able to create a video database of a hundred or so years of stroke archives? A complete history of stroke evolution There would be clearer detail on this but want to hear your thoughts and solutions to preserve this game and help educate future generations. I'm a solutions kind of guy. Let me know


Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Yes, this would certainly help. But since you can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink, it would be up to tennis teachers training young hopefuls to include some hours of theory in a classroom, showing videos of classic matches and pointing out what is relevant and what can be learned. Instill a sense of history for the game, instead of solely going out and whacking the felt off of the ball. Of course, the tennis teachers themselves must be instructed accordingly to teach "history classes", but unless there is a monetary payback somewhere, knowing the world as it is, ruled by the buck, idealistic endeavors will fail...

[GeoffWilliams]

The now boys only want winners now, not winners they can't relate to. Zerev, Dimitrov, Nishikori, Raonic. Tsonga outside edge. He will be the next slam winner outside the fearsome fantastic four. They don't respect their elders, they look down on them, including not practicing with me due to my 58 yrs., even though I can help/beat, out improve them. Not interested means no changing the dynamic. Data base would go unused other than by older guys. Most of them don't even know sampras. They don't watch the masters events. They only want now.

[tennis_chiro]

If...

IPads, IPods, Video Games. An electronic medium of sorts. Kids are only interested in a screen in front of their face. Is that what you are saying? Just a wild, crazy hypothetical idea. So what if we were able to create a video database of a hundred or so years of stroke archives? A complete history of stroke evolution There would be clearer detail on this but want to hear your thoughts and solutions to preserve this game and help educate future generations. I'm a solutions kind of guy. Let me know


Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

This is the kind of project that requires deep pockets like the USTA. Unfortunately, it requires a little foresight and wisdom as well. Can you imagine if the USTA took a little of the 100's of millions it is spending in Lake Nona and got together with the owners of the other Grand Slams to develop something incorporating the concept you are proposing. They own the necessary video from all the Grand Slam video archives.

Then maybe kids wouldn't look at me cross-eyed when I ask them if they have ever heard of Pancho Gonzales or Rod Laver, much less Don Budge. The grace of a Maria Bueno or the athleticism of Evonne Goolagong are almost completely forgotten.

If...

don

[klacr]

Friend, dream on. In this era of affluence, youngsters have iPods, play video games - an era of instant gratification. You think they are interested in tennis history?

More hits on YouTube on Laver than Nadal? What does that tell me? Considering the hundreds of millions using YouTube, a miniscule group is interested in tennis. And in this small, select group, lots are interested in historic videos. But put it into perspective: an average of 27 years of age is irrelevant here. It is a tiny amount of players and I bet most of those interested in the old times are the older generation.

IPads, IPods, Video Games. An electronic medium of sorts. Kids are only interested in a screen in front of their face. Is that what you are saying? Just a wild, crazy hypothetical idea. So what if we were able to create a video database of a hundred or so years of stroke archives? A complete history of stroke evolution There would be clearer detail on this but want to hear your thoughts and solutions to preserve this game and help educate future generations. I'm a solutions kind of guy. Let me know


Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

Phil this may be you talking and not the actual reality. Many of the old clips surpass more modern clips with the number of views they get on YouTube. Laver and Newcombe have way more views than the Berdych/Nadal Wimbledon final (sorry Klacr). Laver and Newcombe may be a grainy clip but many have taken the trouble to sit through it. Many more yet have sat though the Nastase/Ashe US Open clip.

In my neck of the woods most kids who play to any kind of level have heard of Laver, Sampras, Borg and McEnroe

The average YouTube viewer is 27 years old...so young...and ranges mostly from children to adults aged 34. People would seem curious to view tennis they haven't witnessed as opposed to what they have.

Friend, dream on. In this era of affluence, youngsters have iPods, play video games - an era of instant gratification. You think they are interested in tennis history?

More hits on YouTube on Laver than Nadal? What does that tell me? Considering the hundreds of millions using YouTube, a miniscule group is interested in tennis. And in this small, select group, lots are interested in historic videos. But put it into perspective: an average of 27 years of age is irrelevant here. It is a tiny amount of players and I bet most of those interested in the old times are the older generation.

[don_budge]

klacr...You were Robbed!

To the fine young gentleman from Boca Raton...you were robbed! We all were.

I said the same thing to a very young and very great John McEnroe at the qualifying rounds for the U. S. Open in 1976 or so...as he walked by me and my buddies kicking gravel in the parking lot after his heartbreaking loss to Zan Guerry in the final qualifying round. Being the great champion that he was he bounced back as he did innumerable times in his long and illustrious career. As it turns out though, he was indeed robbed. He was robbed of his rightful place in tennis history when the powers that be betrayed the game and sold it part and parcel down the river for thirty pieces of silver. But of course we were robbed as well. Another crime of the century that gets obfuscated in the history books. It sort of makes you wonder about the "reality" of things doesn't it?

You were robbed of the game that you never knew. The real and true game of tennis. You will of course all of your life try and rationalize that somehow what is being played today is tennis but as I have pointed out...the sense of balance is disproportionately skewed to the side of speed and power.

The serve and volley that you so passionately write about and that the Great John McEnroe performed like it had never perhaps been performed before can never exist in the present state of the game. The clash of styles that used to be present in the game of tennis will never again exist as the game is played today because of the over emphasis of speed.

I realize now what I realized then...back around 1981...the game was hijacked. I screamed bloody murder...Aaron Krickstein will testify to that. Nobody listened...well he did. Poor kid...he was robbed too. We all were robbed just as we are being robbed on a bigger scale today...it was the money changers. The politicians. Money was changing hands...a lot of it. No wonder the game remained amateur for so long and it is amazing how short a time it took for the pimps and whores to change it. 1968 to 1981 we can say. About the same time it takes to reduce a thriving metropolis to a ghetto.

I know why the Great John McEnroe would shred the officials and morons and idiots to tatters...leaving them with their mouths gaping. Trust me...most of them had it coming to them. Useful idiots. The herd. Like lemmings over the cliff. Sheeple.

[don_budge]

With Every Invention Comes a Curse...

Nice quote on wooden rackets and baseball bats. Much more intelligent than any ritual (and very tired) John McEnroe bashing.

From the thread entitled..."John McEnroe versus Bjorn Borg...1980 U. S. Open Finals

Every point in this epic was a masterpiece. That is not to say there weren't mistakes and mishits. But taken as a whole the match must nearly be described point by point. I had to watch the match several times to come up with the words to describe the action. The points were like single brushstrokes that make up a great masterpiece. It reminded me of the moment only a couple of months ago when I stood at the very top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris looking down at that classic and old traditional city in Europe. Each building from that height looked like a single brush stroke and put them all together you had the wonderful visual whole that makes up the city of Paris. Like a beautiful painting every single brush stroke adds up to make up the whole.

The individual buildings on the ground were masterpieces of architecture as well. You walk along the streets admiring the craftsmanship and beauty from the ground level in the micro view as opposed to the macro view from the top of the Eiffel tower.

The same as this match. Such an intricate tapestry of tennis and all of its nuances. The variety of strokes...the variety of tactics. The infinite number of possibilities...permutations and combinations. Then there is the complexity of the players and their emotions and their tactical acumen and their individual interpretation of THE GAME. THE GAME OF TENNIS as it was meant to be played.

In tennis, in art and in life there is a balance. Even the universe is somehow balanced although theoretically. Equal parts positive and negative. Perhaps the human race has an equal balance as well...the summation of all of our actions and intents equal parts good and evil. But one thing is very clear to me and there is absolutely no way around it because in this very case for once and for all I am right...the game of tennis has been compromised by the actions of the very human hands that invented it. That precious balance that the game had and endured for so many years was compromised by an overabundance of speed in the game. It's simple. What was lost was tennis that was played like on this September afternoon between the last of the great rivalries in tennis...John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg.

ART...has left the stadium. Only the Great John McEnroe would have the balls to suggest something so outlandish as to do the right thing. The right thing to do by THE GAME.

From John McEnroe's most excellent autobiography..."Serious"...his top ten recommendations for improving tennis in the 21st Century:

"A return to wooden racquets would be a huge improvement for professional tennis. The biggest change in the game in the last twenty five years...the replacement of wood by graphite...has been a bad one. I happen to think that wooden racquets are beautiful aesthetically and purer for the game.

Look at baseball. Kids start with aluminum bats in little league, then move on to Kevlar or whatever in college and then...and only then...if they make it to the majors do they get to use those beautiful wooden bats that require greater expertise for success.

Why not do the same thing in tennis? I think that it looks great to have a little wand in your hand, instead of some ultra thick club big enough to kill somebody with. Wood...to me...has glamour. You need strategy and technique. Tennis, these days, is sadly lacking in all these things.

It's all (as David Bowie says) wham, bam, thank you ma'am." ...the great John McEnroe.

Seconded by the not so great...don_budge.

[gzhpcu]

Be careful in your haste to consign the old fogey club as a bunch of illusionists that you don't fall into an illusionary trap of your own.

That may be so Stotty, but in all the Swiss clubs I have played, in Zurich and Lugano, I have never come across young players aware of the past. If the situation is different where you live, then I am glad that someone is teaching them about tradition.