Angie is the number one!

micky wrote: well note Serena won damn near everything last year up until the Open... when she dropped off the radar for 4 months including the year end championship. Angie had a sh*tty year last year. Thus the huge point difference at the beginning and thpugh Serena had a great year by 'other' standards.. it was still quite a drop off from the year before. Serena has like no points to defend for the rest of the year...  Angie did play well in the fall of last year.  Serena still could retake the #1. Not that I hope she does.. Serena is head and shoulders the least likeable #1 I've seen... ever.. in tennis. Even Lendl was more likeabe than her The day she retires .. as a huge fan of women's tennis.. I'll rejoice.   If only the gods had combined Serena's talent and Venus's demeanor and likeability.

maybe, but there is something else that has to be taken into account. Serena has lost her nimbus of invincibility; it is no longer that the young players say "Oh God, I'm up against Serena; I'm as good as out of the tournament. she hits so hard", they now see her as a feather to add to their cap. a hard to pluck feather perhaps, but pluckable nevertheless.

such a nimbus often goes along with being number one. if Angie can prove she belongs there over the next few months then maybe the other players will go "Oh God, I am up against Angelique; I'm as good as out of the tournament. she brings back everything".

and Serena isn't getting any younger. she will be 35 in two weeks. you can fight off age for some time but not forever. you inevitably become slower, get out of breath sooner, your reactions are not what they used to be, and your body is more prone to injuries the older you get. there is just so much your abused muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and bones can take.

and Angelique Kerber is not the one to rest on her laurels, she is still looking for ways to improve her game. both she and her coach Torben Beltz have announced that the next thing they will work on is her serve, which is arguably the weakest part of her game. they want her serve to become one of the best on the tour. and Kerber is a hard worker; she will do anything to reach that goal.

an Angelique Kerber with a big serve will be extremely scary to play against for sure


Edited by BaldJean - September 13 2016 at 01:41

Kerber also played what I consider to be the shot of the tournament, an extremely risky  but wonderfully executed longline forehand at 3:3 30 all in the third set of her US Open final against Pliskova. you can see the rally in this video at 1:08



what a daring and beautiful shot! and look at Kerber's reaction: roaring and pumping up both fists is not enough to celebrate that shot, she pumps up a leg as well


Edited by BaldJean - September 13 2016 at 06:07

rogerthat wrote: BaldJean wrote: and Angelique Kerber is not the one to rest on her laurels, she is still looking for ways to improve her game. both she and her coach Torben Beltz have announced that the next thing they will work on is her serve, which is arguably the weakest part of her game. they want her serve to become one of the best on the tour. and Kerber is a hard worker; she will do anything to reach that goal. an Angelique Kerber with a big serve will be extremely scary to play against for sure Never say never but if a player of Kerber's age and mileage doesn't already have a big serve, she's not going to get one now.  But what the coach may help her with is developing more variety and making her feel more confident because at the moment her second serve is rather predictable and very much on the slower side. For all that, it's already a much better serve than say Muguruza, not least because of her tricky lefty angle.

well, if Torben Beltz thinks it is possible who am I to doubt him?

an interesting stat about Angelique Kerber: she won 48.26% of her career prize money this year


Edited by BaldJean - September 14 2016 at 05:31

he said quote "als Nächstes werden wir an ihrem Aufshlag arbeiten. ich möchte, dass sie einen der besten Aufschläge auf der Tour hat" unquote meaning "the next thing we will work on is her serve. I want her to have one of the best serves on the tour".

as to Graf not being one of the fastest servers: wrong; her fastest serve was about 180 km/h. serves have generally become a lot faster over the years. that's not because players hit harder today, it is because of the equipment of today. give Serena Williams a racket and a ball of the times Graf used to play, and she won't serve any faster than her.

actually an experiment like this was made already, just not involving Serena Williams. with the old equipment serves became considerably slower


Edited by BaldJean - September 14 2016 at 11:56

It looks as id there is some future for German's male tennis as well. Alexander Zverev just won his first ATP tournament in St. Petersburg, which at age 19 makes him the youngest player to win an ATP tournament since 2008. And he won it against no other than Stan Wawrinka, who just won the US Open and is currently ranked 3rd in the ATP ranking. He also had to beat world number 9 Tomas Berdych along the road to the final. This means that Zverev rose from number 45 to number 24 in the rankings.

It is too early to tell what will become of Zverev, but he is certainly on a good road right now, and if he becomes a bit more consistent who knows: Maybe he will become one of the greats and even a number 1 if he has the determination to work as hard as Angelique Kerber.

If that happens and if Angelique can keep hold of her number one spot for some time then German tennis will have another golden age with the peak being in 1991 when Germany had the top-ranked male and female player at the same time for 7 weeks (though not consecutively). These are of course two big IFs, but I would not rule out either at all.