Do you miss the tennis in the 80's and 90's?

Question

It seems like only 2 guys right now. Not much competition from the rest. Anyone here old enough to remember these players?

Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Edberg, Becker, Wilander, Sampras, Courrier, Chang, Agassi, Muster, Kafelnikov, Rafter, Ivanisevic, etc. :)

I especially like the matches between Lendl & McEnroe, Edberg & Becker, Edberg & Lendl, and of course Sampras & Agassi. What is your favorite match up? Please share :)

Answer 1

Becker-Edberg...and for all the guys that are saying that federer makes those guys look silly, thats not fair. federer is playing on slow *** courts. wimbledon was much faster once upon a time. now, the us open has faster courts than wimbledon. tennis balls are different too.

trying to encourage longer points to acquire more fans, the speed of the courts became slooooow. now, this is the result. federer isn't boring....his domination and the now predictable nature of the slams is boring.

federer would have a hell of a time trying to beat becker, or edberg on the old fast courts at the all England club. he wouldn't hold a candlestick to sampras. the only guys that can serve like sampras these days (karlovic, isner) don't have anything to back up their serve.

you are right. i miss 80s-90s tennis...when many guys had a shot and there was more than one way to win. slow courts killed serve and volley tennis. doubles is dying too.

Answer 2

The 80's were my favourite. The music was great. I remember ra ra skirts, skin tight pencil skirts from a shop called "Chelsea Girl" roller boots from Zodiac shops. I used to play elastics when i was about 7 but that was in the late 70's. My first bike was silver and it was called Metro? and it actually folded in half? Or the traditional Chopper bike. Sindy dolls,Cheekaboo monkeys,pepe dolls. The computer that had to be plugged into your t.v and played tennis etc was it amstrad? I used to have a tape machine that could record your voice with a microphone,it was a long thing with just the standard buttons at the front. For some reason why does most people always remember that Sunday was bath night even though we had more baths than that in a week? and Worzal Gummage was always on sunday early evenings and muppet show. The most important thing was that you felt so much safer as a child playing out than you do now, but kids nowadays are not kids anymore, they are growing up too fast.

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Answer 3

I grew up watching Becker and Edberg. That was my favorite match up. But whenever I look at those old matches on dvd, you can see the difference between the game then and now. As you go further back, you see moonball after moonball, and that was boring.

The first answerer said Federer is boring because of his big serve. Doesn't he mean Sampras? After watching Federer play, especially against Nadal, it's hard to go back and enjoy the 80s. When you see what Nadal could do on clay, you forget that Lendl and even Borg ever existed. When you see the vast array of shots Federer has, it's hard to go back and think Boris Becker was all that great.

The only player I still like to see from the past is Edberg. He had a great serve and volley game. My favorite all time tournament was the US Open 1992.

Answer 4

soon will be 3 players, 4... as federer grew older and other talented players catchup, i see that in every era. but yes, i admit i do miss the 80' and 90' games, even back to mid-late 70'. i guess because what we grew up with, just like the music we listen to :)
i am sure this generation kids will ask "don't you miss the games in 2000?" in a not so distance future... :)
i've seen some of the most intriguing tennis such as Borg vs McEnroe, it is the most contrast match up that i can remember. not only the style of play; baseliner vs serve-n-volley, also the personality; "Good vs Evil" ha! i felt sad when i saw the Borg's era ended, seems like a gentleman's sports fell under the ultimate "Bad Boy" spell... i was convinced McEnroe was born just to end Borg's career.
And don't forget the beautiful outfit of Fila, Sergio Tacchini, ellesse, i wonder whatever happened to those brands other than Fila? to me, 80's is the prime time of tennis, no doubt.

Answer 5

Yes... Oh, yes!

I felt the same way after watching the men's final, when the score looked more exciting than the game itself... Somehow, I wanted more. I wished those old guys could climb out of the stands and their broadcasting booths and get back on court.

Players of that era had more character, and brought that to the game. Today's crop, by contrast, is bio-engineered to produce a sport more like table tennis.

I remember all those players and most of their first names, too (even the names were more interesting). Women's tennis, on the other hand, has developed since the original "bionic woman" Martina Navratilova was driving tennis balls over, around, and through everyone else for what felt like 20 years.

Back to the men, I miss Boris Becker flying through the air to save a single point, the same way Chicago Bear quarterback Jim McMahon threw his body at opposing football teams. Wasn't that around the same time the Mosh Pit, facial jewelry and other forms of self-mutilation became popular? Where's the blood sacrifice today? Only after match point!

My favorite match-ups? Anything with Connors, McEnroe, or Agassi. It was the passion of real human beings, battling their own limitations to expand the possibilities of the sport, that lit up the rounded tubes of our fake-wood TV sets back then.

Today, passion has been replaced by perfection. Who wants to watch robots trade 140 mph serves?

One good thing about today is more racial diversity. It seemed like eons between Ashe, Chang, and Noah. Today's motley crew reminds me more of the Olympics, with all its possibilities... and that gives me hope for an interesting future.

Answer 6

Federer's matches aren't boring, he was seriously pushed in sets by several opponents in the Open this year, but he won the close ones.

The problem for Americans is that a huge amount of the competition - for men and women - come from Eastern Europe and are hard to distinguish from one another.

Answer 7

I remember it well BUT I don't miss it cos I have the tennis of the new millenium with plenty of super stars who would knock the stars of those days off the court.

Don't live in the past think of the NEXT point and enjoy :)

Answer 8

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Answer 9

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Answer 10

Those stars were more fun to watch. Federer is an amazing talent, but his matches are boring. His massive serve usually produces a win, and that can get boring over and over. McEnroe was also more entertaining to watch.