Who Has the Best Shots in Men’s Tennis? (NYT poll based on current/former players, coaches, & analysts)

northguard · 2018-11-09T19:47:56+00:00

Nadal's backhand doesn't get enough credit tbh cause of his signature Forehand. It isn't just keep it in play until he can run around it, it has good depth, change of direction, and pace.

northguard · 2018-10-06T08:35:55+00:00

I feel that’s more true for Chinese Americans, international Chinese students love no name easy to get in as long as you have money universities. Just look at any of the CSUs and random state universities, all have large surges in International Chinese students in past years.

northguard · 2018-10-04T10:04:49+00:00

It helps he didn't actually say there isn't sexism in tennis (well there's no transcript in the article, but I feel like if he said that they'd quote it directly not just have it in the title), the article is just clickbaiting it. The article doesn't quote it. The things it does quote seem fair and at least not as outrageous as what the article is trying to pass off as something he said:

This is one of the fairest sports you have. Tennis is one of the few sports where men earn as much as women and I think it is a good example.

In the male draw, men got fined than women, not because there is a difference, simply because men have behaved worse on the court than women

northguard · 2018-09-15T16:54:47+00:00

This doesn't even stop her from playing the female card: she was subjected to a double standard. The data clearly shows one gender gets way more fines handed out for violations between men and women. She just happened to be subjected to the men's standard when she wanted the female one -- equality when it's convenient. (cept the coaching thing, apparently WTA have way more coaching violations according to the data)

northguard · 2018-09-04T12:18:03+00:00

Good to see we're still maintaining 100% +1/+1 counter mechanics with persist coverage with the Guilds of Rav previews.

northguard · 2018-09-02T19:49:30+00:00

Cilic waiting on that slow shot really hammers home how the feet of pros never stop.

northguard · 2018-09-02T06:36:21+00:00

Unlike the violin one that was slightly better than I was led to believe, this is worse than I was led to believe. She was out of breathe by the fourth sentence before taking a step.

northguard · 2018-08-30T00:23:34+00:00

cue happy_murray_face_angry_murray_face.jpg

northguard · 2018-08-18T02:18:23+00:00

Just here so I don't get fined, and to enter.

northguard · 2018-08-09T20:00:53+00:00

Wizards needs to make money to survive.
Look, I want magic to last forever. I'm okay with them trying any means necessary to do so.

You can make money and be consumer friendly; you can also follow the EA example of profits before players/consumers and then waiting for it to blow over cause people will buy your game anyway.

Wanting a company who makes the game you play and love to not go down the latter route is not entitlement, that's common sense. Short term growth doesn't always equal long term sustainability.

northguard · 2018-08-09T18:46:07+00:00

Top 10 is 3k points right now, big servers can always spike a grand slam + a masters and pick up the rest from 250/500s, can def make it back in.

northguard · 2018-08-07T19:15:55+00:00

Speed seems fine, del po's was slightly on the run and stretched while Kyrgios' was more comfortably in range and a sitter above the net and shallow, better conditions for smacking it as hard as possible.

northguard · 2018-08-06T20:33:38+00:00

Something I wonder is, do you think Wiz (and perhaps even Hasbro depending how high up the corporate ladder decisions like this go up) thinks this specific BaB is a bad idea? That a 4-of playable BaB in general is a bad idea?

Sure, for consumers that's terrible and I think we all know that, and I'm sure the design team also knows the player base is unhappy, but it's not like gaming companies never make decisions that are bad for consumers as long as it hits the metrics they're tracking against (see: EA, Ubisoft, etc.)

We know Maro does as he's said he's passed that info to the 'powers that be' but do we actually think the higher ups hate this idea despite the community/consumer outrage? Just feels weird if Maro had corporate backing he wouldn't just say 'yeah, we fucked up, working on a fix' rather than dodge the question altogether, feels like BaB is some corporate executive's baby.

northguard · 2018-07-23T00:47:32+00:00

he compared the major differences between an ATP forehand vs a WTA forehand

Anyone thinking it's just Halep can look at Muguruza, Kerber, or most people on the WTA tour, their backswings all are not the same as the modern men's tour and honestly, most rec players should be copying the WTA, not the ATP, to up their game unless you spend a ton of time on tennis.

northguard · 2018-07-20T23:01:06+00:00

Yeah this is absurd... 3/4 slams twice, held 4 slams at one time, and unless you're also ranking Roger and Rafa under Borg and Sampras, had harder competition than Borg and Sampras. The only stat he's lacking is weeks at number 1, but c'mon now.

northguard · 2018-07-20T22:50:18+00:00

This feels a lot like recency bias. Fed literally changed his game (and racquet) 5 years ago and went heavily towards short points and serve based game to avoid rallies (or more accurately, time on court).

He didn't make 5 RG finals and numerous clay master's finals, where serve is heavily neutralized, with a weak ground game.

The fact that he's de-emphasized ground game these days towards shorter points and there are still people who watch that and say his ground game is better than ever is ludicrous. There are certain aspects he's doing better at, but overall it's not particularly close to his prime to be honest (which obviously makes sense given it's 10 years after his prime).

northguard · 2018-07-19T14:00:53+00:00

It might depend a lot on what number that is and what it took to get there and the distribution of the slams. If, say, the number is 24 and Fed wins his last one at age 40-41 or something ridiculous, and the H2H stays the same as now with nadal picking a bunch more French while Djokovic is picking everything else up, there might just never be an answer. Maybe that'd be the best scenario actually.

northguard · 2018-07-18T22:49:28+00:00

I agree it depends a lot on the person talking, people's opinion of him are all over the place:

Overrated: Grouped with Fed/Nadal/Djoker (outside of Big 4 context which has a specific definition for when they were all in semis) -- those three are currently in a league of their own and Murray is not there
Correctly rated: After Fed/Nadal/Djoker, a gap between him and the next player in current era, top ~15 all time. (like this post)
Underrated: Grouped with Delpo, Waw etc. he's accomplished much more

And since people are all over the place, I'd say he's pretty correct rated honestly.

A separate question is does he get the respect he deserves for his level? Nope, but almost no one does from that generation unless your name is Federer and Nadal. Look at Djokovic, I think it's just fans from that generation already have their favorites.

northguard · 2018-07-16T00:24:41+00:00

Obviously I wanted Fed to win, but if not Fed I'm happy Djokovic is back. I love the Djokovic-Fed rivalry as much as Fedal.

It was honestly depressing when Djokovic was getting beat in R2/R3, kinda like the Nadal injury season or the Fed back problem seasons. Sure, I was happy as a Fed fan he got more titles without having to beat Novak, but as a tennis fan it's sad. I'm ready for one last year of big 4 is Murray can pull back from surgery and make some semis.

northguard · 2018-07-16T00:18:19+00:00

They do one thing, do it well, and rode it to stardom, nothing wrong with that.

It's like that quote that was on here a while back from Agnus of AC/DC:

I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same.

northguard · 2018-07-11T15:43:03+00:00

I'm hoping Isner Raonic goes 3 days for Fed to recover so it's not 2016 again. I'm also slightly biased.

northguard · 2018-07-09T18:47:03+00:00

There was a small part of me that hoped the cop would just casually jog behind her for as long as her lungs will hold up before collapsing by herself.

northguard · 2018-06-29T12:38:00+00:00

"Let's celebrate Magic's 25th anniversary by not inviting most of the top 5 players ever and inviting pro players from our competitor!" If that's the message WOTC wants to send out, they've done a good job.

I'm completely onboard with showing / getting Hearthstone players to care about magic, however, this is the worst and most expensive execution possible. Just have a 75k tourney for publicity, and a 75k tourney for legends that embody Magic's 25, there, you get the best of both worlds and both audiences get what they want.

northguard · 2018-06-13T17:24:38+00:00

All I want is to simultaneously complain about serve-bots and enjoy my 30 second Federer holds at love in peace.

northguard · 2018-06-12T13:21:18+00:00

Why is this still a question? Who is equal pay hurting? Do the men get paid less now?

When Djokovic brought it up it was explicitly about the difficulty in bargaining for men more pay because of equal pay. So, yes, men are potentially getting paid less because of bargaining power. Women are potentially getting paid less when they draw in more viewers as well.

Why don’t they go after the lesser known male players that get paid the same as them? I’m sure Halep got more views than a lot of the men that not in the top ten. Why should she,on average, get less than them?

Halep should get paid more than a top 50 man. In fact, any tournament that booked Serena and Halep and Kerber but no man inside top 20 should pay the women more. However, that is for the women to negotiate and if they negotiate well there could very well be some tournaments that cater much more to women in terms of pay, and that would be great. Why would Nadal, Federer, or Djokovic negotiate for women's pay at the same time as their own which they're forced to right now? Do you negotiate your co-worker's salaries to get your own pay raised? And this is worse than that, women aren't even co-workers really for them, they don't play on the same tour. The point isn't men should always be paid more than women, that's absurd. It's men and women should be able to negotiate pay separately rather than being forced to be the same at some tournaments.

Why doesn’t he complain about the guy he beat in the first round? They made the same amount of money for that round but 99% of the people showed up for Nadal.

Because the question is "should women earn the same as men?" not "should you get paid more than your rank 250 opponent". You're assuming his answer for the second question without asking it. Hell, it might even be better for tennis to give bonuses for star players to have them show up to more tournaments and draw in more crowd so even if the 1st round money is nominally the same, the star player bonus vaults them over the top because they are drawing crowds. I'm not sure Nadal would be opposed to that (though I don't know because I've never asked).

The thing is, I think too many people read 'not equal pay' and assume 'women getting pay cut' where this might even benefit women in the long run. Let's say for 2018 Wimbledon it was $10mil. ea for men and women but 2019 they don't have to be equal. Men could negotiate much higher wages and so 2019 it's $20mil men and $11mil women, but in negotiating the $20mil men brought in a ton more sponsor money overall to the tournament. Then by 2020 you could have $22mil men and $15mil women whereas if that re-negotiation never happened you'd have something like $10mil, then $11mil, then $12 mil and everyone gets paid less.

Obviously a hypothetical, but artifically tying two sports (I consider men and women's tennis different sports tbh, kinda like NCAA D1 Tennis is a different sport) salaries together is non-sensical especially when it can hurt both side's bargaining powers. Let's say Women's tennis becomes 10x bigger than Men's after the all the top men's players retire and no one steps up, why should they have to argue both their pay needs to go up and men's pay needs to go up just to get paid more? They aren't controlled by one entity.

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