Is John Isner the Wycombe of tennis?
- Thread starter mooro
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The press keep talking about Murray, because he used to be great before his body packed in, and Raducanu, because she was suddenly great for two weeks last September......
......but actually by far Britain's best player in the past two years has been Cam Norrie. He's won four tournaments, including one Masters series, and is ranked #12 in the world (was as high as #10 earlier in the year).
British people don't really know him though because he's never done much at Wimbledon.....or indeed any of the Grand Slams.
He's got a P**s easy draw this year, though.......he won't face anyone good until the semi-finals, so if he's got the bottle, it's there for him to make a name for himself.
And Isner is different from Wycombe in that he's boring but he's quite a nice guy. As opposed to being boring and an utter t**t like Ainsworth!
Yellowmania
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Impressive that, they’ve got a North East Division….assume they have just the one member though.
unification
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Cameron Norrie has that curious feature often found with British tennis players in that he’s not quite British enough. South African born, New Zealand bred, US educated - I mean his parents are both from the UK and he’s chosen to play for Great Britain but you can’t help feel that he suffers the same suspicion that Rusedski and Konta experienced.
He’s good but he falls into that category of not being quite good enough for a Slam. Maybe fourth round or QFs at a push and he’ll certainly hoover up some 250 and 500 events. I just can’t see him being quite box office enough to lift a major. Still, being top 10 and navigating enough rounds at the Slams, I’d certainly be happy with his bank balance.
As for Raducanu, I’m wondering whether that USO win could well be a curse. What she did was akin to Leicester City winning the league. A once in a generation, ‘where the hell did that come from?’ moment. With Leicester, we all knew they’d be unable to repeat that performance - an ordinary team achieved something extraordinary - so expectations were diminished. With Raducanu, they’re through the roof and it’s not particularly fair on her. She needs the space to develop. That would help without sacking coach after coach though. The circus will move on after Wimbledon so hopefully she can go off to the US and avoid the British media and the pressures here for a while.
I guess we should be keeping an eye on Jack Draper too. He looked lively against Novax last year and is making headway at Wimbledon this year too. Only 20 and looks to have a game that would do the business on those US hard courts. One to watch.
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Can't argue with any of that. Always felt sorry for Rusedski.....he became British because he knew we were absolutely starved of tennis success for at least two decades - and then lo and behold, who should turn up immediately but Tim Henman who was slightly better than him, slightly more clean cut and definitely much more English!
The only thing in Norrie's favour is that we might just be moving into a new, more open era of Men's tennis, without the superstars. Federer and Murray are done, Nadal is held together by a thread at this point, and whilst Djokovic is still going to be good for 2-3 more years, he might not be able to enter the US or Australia for the foreseeable future because he's such a stubborn bastard.
Norrie is certainly not as good as the likes of Medvedev, Zverev & Tsitsipas, but at the same time those guys are not the consistent machines that the previous generation has been. They have off-days and are beatable.
I reckon we could start to see the same thing in the Men's game that's been happening in the Women's game ever since Serena got old, which is a lot of random punters winning Grand Slam tournaments. And if Norrie keeps working, and has a good couple of weeks, you never know.......not this week, because he ain't beating Novak at Wimbledon, but I'm not going to say it can't happen at some point in the next few years......
chuckbert
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A bit like Kyrgios. You think from his antics he’s the Millwall or Crazy Gang, but when he talks he’s usually quite well-spoken, eloquent and reasonable.
Just gonna quote my own post from a week ago, and bask in those tennis prognostication skills.........
(I'll get away with it too, as long as noone reposts my cricket chat from earlier in the summer, which was mostly about dropping Jonny Bairstow already......)
