Some list of champions there. 5 winners in 20 tournaments. Between 1983 and 2002 there were 10, including a wildcard entrant in 2001!
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I am glad to see the back of Wimbledon
The players are incredible athletes but I find it boring
The fans are odd as well
Is it compulsory for defeated finalists in Grand Slam events to cry these days?? I’m afraid I’m with Sludge on this, used to love Wimbledon, now I find it boring - I doubt it if I watched twenty minutes of this year’s tournament.
Same as you, used to follow it avidly and yesterday was the first match I’ve watched of this year’s tournament, boy am I glad I did. It was fantastic, forget tennis, this was sport at its finest, it had everything from the respective ages of the players to the ebb and flow of the match. Relieved in a way that I switched it on, put my feet up and followed it right through, I’d have been kicking myself if I’d have had to just read the reports and catch highlights after the event, watching it unfold live was brilliant.
Usually I watch Wimbledon each evening when I get home from work, but like others I wasn't that bothered this year. Maybe it's the absence of Nadal and Federer and Murray's early exit, or maybe I feel a bit overdosed in sport through watching the Ashes and tour de France.
Glad I watched most of the final though - brilliant stuff.
Alcaraz winning all the time will quickly become a bore but we'd better get used to it. Stay injury free and he could easily get to 20 slams himself before 30. He's miles better than anyone else bar Djokovic
Football first for me but rugby and cricket are watchable as they are team sports
I find the adulation of individual sportsmen in individual sports a bit strange
They have a tendency to be a bit spoilt too
It's argued that's down to the winning mentality
I think you’d be hard pushed to find a more taxing game than top class singles tennis. I know boxers have to keep fit between bouts but these elite tennis players are on court, under pressure, on their own for hours on end day in, day out. One tournament ends and they’re off to another one. The amount of hours on court in competition, not counting practise and fitness training, when continually reaching semi finals & finals is mind boggling. The concentration levels must be off the scale. For fitness and constantly competing edges it over boxers for me. A top boxer may have to face comparable opposition for just over half an hour perhaps once or twice a year, a lot less if they’re finishing their bouts early, five hours they were on court yesterday after a fortnight’s battling to get there. Obviously no fun getting hit but and I don’t want to demean any boxer but it’s tennis players over them for me.
Wimbledon or any tennis tournament reminds of snooker.....bear with me on this one. If you invest the time watching these sports, there is a good chance you will become engrossed because the level of skill can be mesmerising. But nowadays I just don't have the inclination to tune into either snooker or tennis (I did see the last 5 mins of the tennis final) but that says more about me than the sports themselves, which at times can be compulsive viewing.
I would have said darts would have been an even better analogy. Breaks of serve are crucial to determining a game of tennis, breaks of throw the same in darts. In tennis you can have a rally where one player dominates then suddenly puts a smash into the net to lose that point. A dart player can be miles ahead and miss lots of doubles and lose a leg.
That’s a fair enough point.
Their sacrifices, fitness, talent, drive and consistency is something to behold.
It’s obviously very grueling as well and to come back when you are losing takes incredible fortitude.
Boxing to me though is for want of a better word… romantic.
With the exception of scheduling (for those lucky enough to be considered as established fighters), boxing has all of the above with the added gladiatorial aspect.
“One tournament ends, and they’re off to another” That sentence alone proves to me that boxing is more challenging. If a boxer loses a world title fight, he may never get another chance. Tennis players can suffer lots of defeats, and still come back time after time to challenge for other titles.
A boxers training camp leading up to an important fight, can be 3months of testing, gruelling , exercising, running, bag work and sparring. To fight for a possible 36 minutes, with a 1 min break between every 3 mins, you have to be one of the fittest athletes in sport.
I do admire top class tennis players, but a boxer wins it for me any day of the week.
I don't think there is a right answer. I would make a case for cyclists though. This year's Tour de France is a case in point. At its head two fantastically well matched athletes way above anyone in the field trying (with team-mates) to grind each other down to attrition. The psychology and the physical attrition is like watching marathon runners playing chess.