Sampras was also not taking PED
sure fed beat him but if they played 10 times and Wimbledon Pete is getting 3
He’d likely have to beat at least two of the big three. They’re much faster around the court and I don’t see him coping with them.
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Sampras played a PS 85 strung with natural gut at 70-75 lbs. By comparison, Nadal uses an Aero 100 strung with RPM Blast (co-poly) at 55 lbs. If you haven’t hit with both of these then it may not be clear how different they are. The PS feels like stiff fly swatter that generates zero spin compared to an oversize poly. There is no realistic set of tennis conditions where both are viable so this is really just an exercise in people talking past each other.
Afaik, Gustavo Kuerten was the first guy to win a Slam with an elastic polymer string (Luxilon @ 1997 French). I think he and Carlos Moya may have been the ones to kickstart the craze. Federer used very similar setup to Pete’s until switching to the PS 90 with hybrid gut/poly in 2002. Easy to argue that he reaped the biggest benefits of the transition period.
In Agassi’s biography, he talks about trying Luxilon for the first time in 2002 during the Italian Open which is a red clay event that he hated. He says that after changing strings he didn’t miss another ball the entire tournament (which he won). Before that he had always used some kevlar hybrid called ProBlend that wasn’t spinny at all. So he was really confident with this new string and took it to Wimbledon:
Weeks later we go to the 2002 Wimbledon, and my great new attitude abandons me, because my new string undoes me. On grass my newly augmented topspin makes the ball sit up like a helium balloon. In the second round I play Paradorn Srichaphan, from Thailand. He’s good, but not this good. He’s crushing everything I hit.
I try everything to get back on track. Nothing works. My ball is a cream puff,
and Srichaphan devours it. I’ve never seen an opponent’s eyes grow quite so
large as Srichaphan’s when he tees up my forehand.
This is worth watching for the lulz. There is just nothing on his ball which seems to be arcing and landing short. Sri is taking these inside the baselines and crushing them like hanging breaking balls lol.
Darren [Cahill] and I spend the next two days experimenting with different
combinations of strings. I tell him I can’t continue with his new polyester, and
yet he’s ruined me for the old string. If I have to go back to ProBlend, I say, I
won’t play tennis anymore.
Find something, I tell him, that lets me swing from my heels and get
rewarded. Like Srichaphan. Make me like Srichaphan.
He works night and day and comes up with a combination he likes. We go to
Los Angeles, and it’s perfection. I win the Mercedes-Benz Cup.
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Agassi bio is a good read. Fuck Jeff Tarango
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Since we don’t have a Jazz thread, or a Smoking thread or an Underwear thread I figured this would be the appropriate place to share this picture of Dizzy Gillespie:
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You hate to see it…Novax getting kicked out of Straya
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Good job AUS#1
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Crikey!
I don’t know if anything new in here. Seems like the federal government is a no. So far.
Too funny if he can’t get in.
“He made his own decisions, and everybody is free to take their own decisions, but then there are some consequences,” Nadal, who won his first singles match since August on Thursday, told reporters in Melbourne.
“Of course, I don’t like the situation that is happening. In some way, I feel sorry for him. But at the same time, he knew the conditions since a lot of months ago, so he makes his own decision.”
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Fucking told you Nadal is the people’s champ
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Novak had a moment where he tried to be likable. Hired a PR firm and everything but it just didn’t stick. Too much of an asshole to work with them on not being an asshole.
I like Novax but I’d like him a lot more if he embraced his inner villain like Medvedev and Kyrgios did. But he really wants to be loved by the public like Federer and it’s never going to happen.
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My gut is pushing me more and more to think he has performance assistance. His character is too close to Lance’s.
I thought it was commonly accepted that the whole pro tennis world is juiced.
