A clean sweep

Top four of the ATP viz Djoko, Nadal, Fed and Murray has made a clean sweep of slams and masters with majority of going to Nole
Murray managed to win 2 masters, Nadal 1 slam and 1 master and Fed with 1 master and tour finals.

A seson dominated by Djoko and closely matched by rest three.

The things are definitely going to be different next year. A fit Murray should make a charge towards higher rank and winning a slam. Djoko will not have another 2011 in his career (maybe), Fed might sneak another slam and by looking at his year end charge no. 1 rank might be a possibility. IMO Nadal is going to srtruggle in 2012. But we shall wait and see.

Aus open starts 3rd week of Jan. Let the tour begin!

Fed dominated 2009, Nadal dominated 2010, Djokovic dominated 2011, so going by that pattern it has to be Murray's year in 2012 , so gear up Murray fans.

But unfortunately i guess it gonna be Fed's magical year 2012, he will win 2/3 GS and Olympics . All greats of the respective sport do have complete cv, what ever incomplete they make it at the very end.

Fed is a legend or like Sampras says an Icon, and he will not have an incomplete cv and hence i would say 2012 would be his destiny to achieve all the remaining glories.

I won't include davis cup, coz its still a team sport compared to ATP circuit, I am not sure Fed ever gonna win that thou.

invisiblecoolers wrote:Fed dominated 2009, Nadal dominated 2010, Djokovic dominated 2011, so going by that pattern it has to be Murray's year in 2012 , so gear up Murray fans.

I woudl not be surprised. The main question mark is his physique. If he just could get enough confidence to flatten those BHs and FHs to save him lots of running, he'd have a better chance. But can he get that confidence when it gets tense? especially v the other top 5?

It would be great to see Murray come through and dominate, but I think most of we Brits would just be v pleased to see him finish the year with a major, and I am sure he would too!

If he starts enjoying his sport (a la Tsonga) then there is no saying what he might achieve, but he has looked as out of love with tennis as it is possible to look for the majority of this year - and that ain't going to get the job done (nor is it fun to watch)

Hopefully Muzza wins a slam next year.

Tenez wrote:

invisiblecoolers wrote:Fed dominated 2009, Nadal dominated 2010, Djokovic dominated 2011, so going by that pattern it has to be Murray's year in 2012 , so gear up Murray fans.

I woudl not be surprised. The main question mark is his physique. If he just could get enough confidence to flatten those BHs and FHs to save him lots of running, he'd have a better chance. But can he get that confidence when it gets tense? especially v the other top 5?

I guess the top5 outside fed is struggling, so he might still do it.

The top four has been unchanged - save for positions - in the last four years. Not sure if this has happened before (maybe in the 80s with Lendl, Connors, Wilander and Mac) but I'm sure someone will correct me.
So who could break this up ? I thought del Potty might in 2011 but he did not do as well in the Slams - where the draw often did him no favours - as I reckoned.
Tsonga, to me, is a number 5-10 player - devastating on his day but just not quite consistent enough to be a top four man. With Ferrer, it's the other way round - consistent enough but lacking that extra flair to break up the big boys' monopoly.
Can't see anyone else coming through, at least not yet. Nishikori in the future, praps? So twould be no surprise to see the same four dominating again in 2012. As for their year-end order? Too difficult to call, 'cept I can't see Murray being number one.

An incredibly ipressive season for the top 4, obviously dominated by Djokovic.

A few weeks ago I heard a comment that for the entire year all tournaments that had at least one of the top 4 competing were won by one of them - not sure whether this quite held to the end of the year, although I assume it did because Fed and Murray won their events while Nadal and Djoko were missing from several tournaments.

I guess you're right, this is quite unique, although Söderling did break into the top 4 for a short while (and he managed to reach two Slam finals) and Del Potro held the #4 rank briefly before he got injured.

Del Potro is mature enough to push someone out from the top 4 - hopefully he will stay injury-free.

Tsonga can be a bit of a loose cannon, but on the other hand he has been performing very well already since summer (F at Queens; S at SW19 and S in Canada both times beating Fed; Q at USO and F in Paris both times losing to Fed; S in Beijing and W in Metz + Vienna and now runner-up in WTF!). A whopping 83% of his points he collected since June!

D-half. Yes, a quite remarkable monopoly. Even if the top four in the mid-80s were stronger, I'm not sure that they had, COLLECTIVELY, a year like the top guys have had in 2011. Possibly, if you add up their tourney wins from the 80s they may have exceeded the 22 won by this year's quartet. But the 80s' wins might well have been in lesser tournaments.

I think the stability of the top 4 is due to the 'stability' of the surfaces we now have on tour...they're all homogenised (slower overall) meaning a core group of players can play their same game across all surfaces. Previously it was harder for guys to consistently do well across all of them so you got fluctuations in ranking as particular types of players did well at certain points of the season. And with stability, slowing and longer ralleys comes a group of stronger players - mentally and physically who are very hard to supplant at the top unless they are beaten at their own game and so far none of the others can break the literal allround strength of the top 4.

prostaff85 wrote:I guess you're right, this is quite unique, although Söderling did break into the top 4 for a short while (and he managed to reach two Slam finals) and Del Potro held the #4 rank briefly before he got injured.

Del Potro is mature enough to push someone out from the top 4 - hopefully he will stay injury-free.

Tsonga can be a bit of a loose cannon, but on the other hand he has been performing very well already since summer (F at Queens; S at SW19 and S in Canada both times beating Fed; Q at USO and F in Paris both times losing to Fed; S in Beijing and W in Metz + Vienna and now runner-up in WTF!). A whopping 83% of his points he collected since June!

All points to a good ranking by the end of the French.

If he can do well on the slower courts BB up to and inc. FO....remember he got completely rolled over by Nadal on clay at DC in Sept this year.

One additional point:

So Tsonga is knocking on the door, and it's actually very dangerous to drop out from the top 4 now! Murray has the highest risk because he must defend his final spot in Melbourne. If he falls to #5, it means he has a 75% chance to be in the same quarter as Djoko/Nadal/Fed in all the big tournaments.

Sure he could gain a lot of points in Indian Wells and Miami, but if he's unlucky with the draw he might not be able to... Quarters don't bring many points!

BTW, like the name Prostaff85...you're not from St. Vincent are you perchance?

Thanks lydian! After 20 years the frame of my ProStaff Classic recently broke. I noticed Wilson is producing the ProStaff Original again and, after reading some reviews, I took a gamble and just bought it on the web.

It's heavier and smaller than most other rackets, but it's an amazing I must say! Especially my backhand (SH) is so much better with this racket, I can hit it with much more confidence due to the racket's weight and overall feel.
And it's reasonably priced too.

For players with a classic style, I can highly recommend this racket!

prostaff85 wrote:Thanks lydian! After 20 years the frame of my ProStaff Classic recently broke. I noticed Wilson is producing the ProStaff Original again and, after reading some reviews, I took a gamble and just bought it on the web.

It's heavier and smaller than most other rackets, but it's an amazing I must say! Especially my backhand (SH) is so much better with this racket, I can hit it with much more confidence due to the racket's weight and overall feel.
And it's reasonably priced too.

For players with a classic style, I can highly recommend this racket!

Are they re-doing the prostaff 85 or the 90? I'd be surprised anyone woudl want to use the 85 nowadays.....maybe as a decorative piece of graphite on the wall?

No it's really the 85 sq. inch model! For flat hitters with SHBH who like to play volleys it's great. If Sampras could still win the US Open in 2002 with this, surely it is still an option even today.

Might get a few more framed shots (even Fed does with his 90 sq. inch racket), but with good timing this works very well.

prostaff85 wrote:No it's really the 85 sq. inch model! For flat hitters with SHBH who like to play volleys it's great. If Sampras could still win the US Open in 2002 with this, surely it is still an option even today.

Might get a few more framed shots (even Fed does with his 90 sq. inch racket), but with good timing this works very well.

Fed used to play with the 85 too up to 2002. Sure you can play with it but it makes things much harder nowadays. The ball you are likely to receive on tour as well as at club level nowdays is spinier and more lievely. So, it's not so much what you can do with it but also what the others can do with new technology. Timing the ball nowadays is harder than in 2002 but if you do manage to, then sure you get more precision on your shots. It's a kind of all or nothing.

I don't think it's adapted to the modern game though.

I think we're focused on the pro game too much with this racquet discussion...for your average club player, even a very good club player, they can get along fine with a Prostaff85 (as PS85 says it didnt do Pete too badly!), especially as most matches played in leagues are doubles matches and the PS85 has fantastic feel around the net. The 90 will be a little more forgiving but that will come at the expense of feel - there's always a trade-off in going bigger.

The St. Vincent racquets fetch a fortune on Ebay as there's not many of them left and probably mostly in Sampras's garage! Sampras used to add alot of lead to them also and had modified handles. I think his racquets were over 400g and had 85 lbs tension! Amazing he got the power he did really.

I played with Wilson racquets for a few years and loved them but eventually switched to Fischer and Volkl racquets which were lighter to reduce tennis elbow I used to get. I also play with a SHBH so appreciate the fast swing index of these racquets and with narrower beam (18mm) for feel. Enjoy your Prostaff85, Prostaff85!!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Wilson-Pro-Staff-6-0-MidPlus-85-Pete-Sampras-Prostaff-BLX-/180745454487?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1544c397
But there are others on there for around £100...still highly popular racquets, and have probably won the most slams in history (Edberg, Courier, Evert, Sampras to name but a few...)