And for those who feel that Monica was a better player when she came back, I think you should watch some of her post-stabbing matches again. Her record is padded by not having Seles there from 1993 on. I can see watching her on tape why she retired in early 1984.įed and ATP I totally agree with your views on the Seles/Graf thing and that's the main reason I don't consider Graf the best ever. She doesnt even look like the same player anymore, even though she mantains a credible ranking.
Tenacious tape vs gorilla tape plus#
Plus watching her on tape she just looks a bit weaker to me that year then she had before, not quite as strong, not quite as sharp in her play.ġ982 is when she really shows a big decline in her level though. However it is pretty strange to lose two times in a row in straight sets, in consecutive slam quarters as turns out, to a player your own age you had beaten 9 times in a row. Now despite Austin beating Shriver 9 times in a row at that point, I would not just state with certainty losing to Shriver shows she was in decline or a slump, since I know Pam was a quality player of that era. She had been 9-0 vs Shriver before those back-to-back straight set losses. One sign of her decline is losing in the quarter of both Wimbledon and the Australian Open in straight sets to Pam Shriver. She then got very fortunate when Navratilova choked badly in the final. Evert and Navratilova were in the other half, Jaeger was upset, Mandlikova did not end up in her path, nor did Shriver. However in 1981 while she did win a slam-the U.S Open, she got pretty lucky as her draw ended up with none of her main rivals to face to reach the final.
Plus she chose not to play the French that year, at a time top players didnt all play that particular slam, while Evert did and won, which led to her ending that year #2 ranked. Austin also may have been over-confident going into both those matches. Austin was really picked to win both matches, and both events in fact, and both those great players really had to "play up" if anything to take her down.
However in 1980 I think she was regarded by most as the best player in the World, she just got unlucky to lose 3-setters to a truly inspired Goolagong in the 1980 Wimbledon semis, and a a truly inspired Evert in the 1980 U.S Open semis. It may sound odd I am saying I believe she was actually starting a decline in 1981 when she won a slam title in 1981 and not 1980. In my opinion, watching old tapes of her matches, and reading documentaries of her career, Austin started to show her first slight signs of decline in 1981, the first year she also started to deal with serious injuries. The real truth is probably something completely in between the two, less then the former, and more then the latter scenarios. In that case first a solid #3 behind Evert and Navratilova, as she was much more consistent them Mandlikova as good as Hana was, later #3 behind Graf and Navratilova, and maybe later #3 behind Graf and Seles, again only winning the occasional major, and never truly threatening for #1 again. Worst case scenario is she goes on to many years as a solid #3, who wins only the occasional major, falling short of her early career hype by a long ways, but still having a great career. 19 she was still a top 5 player but already a shadow of her old self, almost certainly due to the same injuries that would soon force her to retire.īest case scenario is she would have gone on to be the dominant player for the next decade some people predicted of her to go on to be, back when she began winning major titles and challenging for #1 as a teenager in 19. She was fully healthy through the end of 1980, then injuries began to hinder her in 1981, not to the extent she wasnt still a major threat for big titles and rival to Evert and Navratilova, but she did seem a bit down from 1979-1980 still, and it was the first year she began to experience serious health problems, so the two go hand in hand. Her career as a fully healthy force was over after 1981, even if she did not officialy retire until sometime in 1984.
0 kommentar(er)
