Laurie's Tennis articles

The 2011 WTA season turned out to be a very interesting one with four different nationalities winning the major titles. Serena Williams did not win a major title for the first time since 2006 whilst Petra Kvitova announced herself as the most exciting young talent to emerge for many years, perhaps since Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters 10 years previously. An exciting transition at the top is certainly taking place. With the season about to commence in Australasia, it’s a good time to assess the contenders for the major prizes in 2012. Caroline Wozniacki Currently the world number 1 for the past 18 months, Caroline Wozniacki has come in for quite a bit of criticism. There are a number of reasons for this, Wozniacki didn’t win any major titles or make any major finals. Traditionally, tennis fans or media do not like to see a number 1 player with no major titles. Wozniacki’s style of play is a contributing factor to her lack of major success; a counterpuncher by nature, winnin...

The last 20 years have been a very interesting period for men’s tennis with two of the most prolific champions of the 1990s and 2000s overlapping each other. Both players had significant rivals and set many records along the way. With Roger Federer breaking yet another record at the year end ATP World Tour finals a couple of weeks ago, it will be interesting to assess how both players have helped to define their eras. Pete Sampras’ major achievements Sampras won 64 titles including 14 major championships. Sampras finished year end number for 6 years from 1993 through 1998 which is a record. Sampras currently holds the record for most weeks at number 1 (286 weeks). Sampras won Wimbledon on 7 occasions which is an open era record; he’s also tied with Jimmy Connors and Roger Federer for 5 US Open titles. Sampras is the youngest ever US Open winner at 19 years and 28 days. Sampras won the Davis Cup in 1992 and 1995 and was a losing finalist in 1994 and 1997. Sampras won the ...

We’ve had a tremendous finish to the 2011 WTA season, probably the best finish for a number of years. Petra Kvitova won the BNP Paribas WTA Championships for the first time, and in emphatic style winning all of her matches. The championships took place in Istanbul for the first of a 3 year contract and the atmosphere was great with record breaking attendences, which really inspired the players to put on a good show for the crowds. A week later we had the Federation cup shootout between Russia and the Czech Republic in Moscow. The Czechs edged out the Russians 3:2 to win the cup for the first time as an independent nation. One of the matches of the year took place in the 3rd rubber between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Petra Kvitova. The match kept everyone on the edge of their seats with 3 sets of high quality intense tennis with both players hitting an incredible number of winners under pressure. It was a great advert for womens Tennis. With Ana Ivanovic winning the tour of champ...

Petra Kvitova has made a real impression on the WTA tour in 2011. Kvitova is very much a throwback to bygone eras in pro tennis. Her game and attitude is very much modelled on what can be described as the big game, and what makes Kvitova so interesting is that she plays the big game in the purest sense. We hear that players hit the ball harder than ever and yet most of the top players on the tour are grinders. Kvitova is the opposite, matches are determined on how she’s playing and feeling, it’s on her racquet. The way Kvitova won Wimbledon is reflective of this, she only dropped two sets whilst hitting over 200 winners in 7 matches, on average 30 winners per match, that’s a lot of winners! Kvitova has won 5 tournaments so far this year including Brisbane, Paris Indoor, Madrid and Linz, she’s won tournaments on all surfaces. Kvitova has a very bright future, so its a good opportunity to take an in depth look at her game and potential. Petra’s Serve Kvitova has one of...

The pace of courts in professional tennis has become the big topic over the last few years on various internet forums printed media. Players have made comments from time to time, especially concerning Wimbledon, but for the first time the issue has come up at the US Open. Roger Federer’s comments after his first round match forced the United States Tennis Association to put out a written statement. Poor weather conditions since the annual resurfacing of the courts meant the courts had been used and power washed less often The USTA said "Both of these factors have resulted in the courts playing a little slower than usual. We expect the court surface to speed up as the courts get more play throughout the tournament as they traditionally have." The fact that the USTA felt compelled to make a statement proves there is one thing that is universally agreed on in tennis, the courts have slowed down considerably over the last 10 years. The reasons why have been well documen...

Last week we took a look at the best male players. Now let’s take a look at the best female players since Hard Courts became an important feature of Professional Tennis. All of the players here are current or former world number 1 champions. Showing once again that to be the very best, you have to excel on hard courts because it’s played so often throughout the Tennis season, both indoor and outdoor. Kim Clijsters Whenever I think of Kim Clijsters I think of Andre Agassi. Kim hasn’t achieved anything near as much as Agassi, but she certainly shares one thing in common which is her love of hard courts. Clijsters has won 41 titles and 29 have come on hard court. So like Agassi, three quarters of Clijsters’ titles have come on hard courts. Putting aside the statistics, what reminds me of Agassi is the way Kim approaches hard court matches. Clijsters seems to have faith in the bounce where she knows there will not be any bad or strange bounces that you would get on c...

As we are presently in the heart of the North American hard court season, it's time to take a look at some of the greatest hard court players of the Open Era. I will take a look at the greatest male champions first, analyzing their achievements, games, and what made them great on the surface. In the next article I will focus on the great women hard court players of the Open Era. There have been some dominant players on the surface in the Open Era, especially since the late 1970s to mid 1980s, when most grass tournaments were pulled up and replaced with low-maintenance hard courts. The rise of hard court tennis coincided with the introduction of graphite rackets and the transition to the modern power game. The Australian Open is the most high-profile example of this. They switched from grass to rubber hard courts called rebound ace in 1987 and then switched to a medium-paced plexicushion hard court in 2007. Ivan Lendl Ivan Lendl is a player that has consistently been pre...