Views from the international media on the Golden age

I always thought I witnessed the “Golden Age” of men’s tennis growing up in the 1980s. I watched Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl rack up tournament wins and volley the number one ranking back-and-forth. These tennis legends won more tournaments than any other three men on the planet in the Open era. Connors led the way with 109 titles. But I was wrong. The Golden Age of tennis is right now.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/06/08/federer-nadal-and-djokovic-represent-golden-age-of-mens-tennis/

This article is some months old but it covers the themes I have been discussing online now for a great many years. It seems that your truely was one of the first and most vocal proponents of this concept and even this terminology which journalists from across the globe are using to describe our current crop of tennis champions. And interesting read and recap from Forbes. The media reviews are in and they are incredibly positive on the modern game this is another of many facts that cut against the narrative of a dying game waiting only for federer to leave before it collapses. I believe that we will witness more and more special matches and more great accomplishments from this generation to the point where it leaves any questioning of my long championed thesis to rest, except by those multitude who can never accept defeat. It is a shame that so many have talked themselves out of actually enjoying the wonderful tennis and champions that we have been gifted with.

So let me get this right.... you've found an old article to help you repost the same article you create every four or five days? Great.

Incidentally, media reviews don't come "in" when they're old and not about any particular event. That's an expression for hot-off-the-press stuff.

As for the same subject endlessly reiterated, well boring and repetitive are words that springs to mind. Good luck running it again...... and again. It's all been said, there's really nothing left to add.

Yes bogbrush it is old news I agree. However, some people can't or won't accept it. Even ex-tennis pros turned pundits often re-iterate how this is such a strong era compared to say early 2000's but we keep hearing stuff like 'Oh they are only saying that' or 'They don't know what they are talking about'.

From an almost identical date you can find articles to the contrary, e.g.
http://m.tennischannel.com/mobile/news/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=10916

And at least this comes from a tennis site not Forbes magazine.

And like I said a plethora of ex-tennis pros wo will tell you different again. I would say they are best-placed to judge and can't think of one right now that would call this era anything but strong.

Perhaps more difficult to find would be any old on-line articles/archives from any previous years that say "this is a bad era for tennis".

Has there ever been a time when pros have slated an era? Why is it so hard to have perspective?

Pointless discussion, it's actually nothing to do with a strong era, it's about promoting a couple of players by inflating their position through boosting of the current period. There's not an iota of evidence to prove the "Golden Era", just personal preference.

Edit; coincidental post Julius. Great minds think alike

Lets accept one thing media's job is to keep people interested and one of the tool is the hype of any sport era calling it a golden era.

Next thing this era became competitive coz some players level fell off and not every players level increased, so golden era doesn't garuntee anything special and winning in this era is absolutely same as winning in any era.

If in future say like 4-5 years, Tomic, Goffin, Raonic and Ferrer compete for GS title , the media will still call that era the golden era, its afterall their business.

invisiblecoolers wrote:... the media will still call that era the golden era, its afterall their business.

No-one is saying it is a strong era in the women's game, so I am not 100% certain of this forever strong era media sales theorem.

Exactly Nore Staat. And if I remember correctly nobody in the media was pumping the early 2000's as a golden or great era in the men's game. Why was that I wonder?

I think everyone went into superlative overdrive once Federer became established and once the media gets on that kick its just a question of topping the last.

At some point they'll do the about turn; it'll only take one or two to go and they'll run it down (we won't see that in Britain obviously, while Andys around there'll be a vested interest in keeping the tone up).

So again bogbrush explain why I cannot recall ex-pros or pundits talking up the early 2000's at that time if that is all they ever do just to 'bum' it up as per instructed. Besides does it take a blind man to say this era isn't strong? After all - Roger Federer (seen as the GOAT), Rafael Nadal (seen as greatest clay-courter of all-time), Novak Djokovic (a multiple slam winner himself) and Andy Murray (slam winner and Olympic champion). How does that line-up quantify into a shoddy era? Lets not forget that we also have another slam winner (Del Potro) unable to break this four.

I know we will never have agreement on this but is it really smart to try to paint this era as weak and if so then doesn't that just totally rubbish Fed's claim to GOAT?

Sorry, but who was it saying this is weak? I think you're making that up.

Fair enough so how would you rate it then? The media talk of golden era aside I mean as golden is just a paraphrase they bandy about.

For me eras are periods that contain great players who will still be talked about in years to come. This current era contains players like that as did the late 70's to early 80's (Borg, McEnroe and Connors) and the early to late 90's (Sampras, Agassi, Courier). Early 2000's - sorry but that era doesn't come into that category for me.

I don't see this as any different from bygone eras with big names and long standing rivalries. The so-called higher standard is only a function of equipment, give this stuff and time to peak Lendl and he'd be right there.

The only one who'd not succeed would be McEnroe, because the game's been turned against him. Then again, put at least three of the top four on 1980 grass and wooden racquets and he'd not drop a set.

Does the pendulum swing between 'golden' and 'weak' eras?

All 'eras' are strong. There is no definition of an era any of these pundits will agree on.

Enjoying the tennis in front of you is what is important, not this marketing hype.

Nore Staat wrote:No-one is saying it is a strong era in the women's game, so I am not 100% certain of this forever strong era media sales theorem.

At one point, you had Venus, Serena, Justine, Clijsters or before that Davenport, Williamses, Sharapova. Now you have Azarenka, Kvitova, Serena, Sharapova. Serena is in both. It becomes very subjective.

Mauresmo, Pierce some wonderful players who seem to be ignored.

Here is a link which might be worth reading - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1081522/2/index.htm

It seems to me that a 'golden' era is evoked when there are a few players who dominate the rest for a few years or more. This is typical journalism.

The article in OP seems to be bound by the age of the journalist, which is why I would take Bud Collins, because of his longevity and experience.

I hadn't read the article in the OP, or Cronins. Now I have there's no contest; the first is written by a guy mainly on about money and domination. The other appears to know something about the history of tennis.

Bravo Craig! excellent post. Does anyone remember the pre-fed era being talked up as a golden era? BB and his fellow travellers just made that up that every era is talked up as Golden and that the media always give great reviews to everything. It is just completely unsupported assumption that they bandy about when in actuality there is nothing behind it. The facts are as you indicated Craig, greatest clay courter ever, and greatest player ever. Yet, they refuse to acknowledge anything that doesn't fit in their agenda and world view. And here it is when Roger was winning on slow surfaces it was ok to have slow surfaces, now that he is older and no longer one of two or three best movers on tour we need to drastically change everything in the game to favor Roger over his nearest rivals because the game is dying it is falling apart and the proponents of this ideology need no facts whatsoever to back up their claims. The ratings are doing well, the attendance is doing well, the media reviews are positive, the fans are jumping up and giving standing Os. Yet we are expected to accept their complete non-supported assumptions and dramatically change the racquets, strings, balls, and courts all in a manner that favors federer's style of play now that he no longer is the best mover. It is also used by the same group of people to stick asteriks by player's accomplishments and denigrate them. How many times have you had certain types of fed fans spout off that Novak or Nadal would never win if not for these abnormally slow conditions? I wish I had a nickel for every time BB or Tenez before him repeated this line.

So this slow conditions talk really suits a double purpose 1. push for more fed favorable conditions in the near term 2. and denigrate Nadal and Djoko. This is what is really behind all this talk about the dying game and the need for radical changed based on nothing but the assurances of the tea leave readers that they know better than the rest of us.

invisiblecoolers wrote:Lets accept one thing media's job is to keep people interested and one of the tool is the hype of any sport era calling it a golden era.

Next thing this era became competitive coz some players level fell off and not every players level increased, so golden era doesn't garuntee anything special and winning in this era is absolutely same as winning in any era.

If in future say like 4-5 years, Tomic, Goffin, Raonic and Ferrer compete for GS title , the media will still call that era the golden era, its afterall their business.

Yeah that is pretty funny I don't remember anyone calling the hewitt and pre fed times a golden era. Was the media on vacation back then all i remember was people complaining about how we had no dominate new champs and how the big servers were ruining the game. Don't remember anyone calling the period of 1999-2005 a golden anything.

The media's job is to pump up a sport certainly, but they don't give positive reviews to everything, is every resturant review positive, every movie review. So only when they cover tennis do they lie. Some media people are bought schills, others are credible, but when you see literally hundreds of respected columnists making the statement maybe, just maybe they actually believe it. I just don't buy this argument. The media talks up everything really, why don't I remember them ever talking up the pre-roger era as a golden age, not to the level we see here. This really is a non-argument, nothing is presented in favor of your position except that you think you can tell when people are lying and you believe that this guy doesn't believe what he is writing. Ok, fine what proof do you have for your unsupported allegation that this man is lying to us and doesn't believe what he is writting. The erroneous belief that everyone in the media is a paid schill for what they are covering, yes many are, and many aren't would you like me to produce a dozen more such opinions are they all lying to us? When media people agree with your position are they then being honest about their beliefs because they agree with you? What kind of non-logic is that?

Not a golden era, but I remember Hewitt and Roddick, for example, being talked about as the next generation surpassing the likes of Sampras and Agassi and having such great talent that they could dominate tennis for years to come.
I remember pundits saying how much stronger it (early 2000s) was than the 1980s because of the strength of depth on the men's game and how it was so much more difficult to win a slam in the ealry 2000s than it was a decade before.. So, not a golden era, perhaps, but at the time, the early 2000s were spoken of as a strong era, possible the strongest ever, by some people.
I remember thinking at the time, that it was just tennis moving forward, as it always does, and that the idea of strong/weak eras was a bit silly and simply failed to take into account the way the game naturally moved forward and the different aspects of the game.

Well Julius I can't remember that talk. I must have missed that single article in The Times that day. Like I said we are never going to have agreement on this subject - some think it is a strong era and some think it is no stronger than other eras. I will leave it at that.

Swiss Maestro Roger Federer has acknowledged that his closest rivals were ahead of him at the start of his career. Now one of the best players in the history of the sport Federer thinks that Lleyton Hewitt, Marat Safin, Andy Roddick and Tommy Haas performed better than him back at that time.

Talking to the media people in an interview, the 30-year-old said, "We had an extremely strong generation of players when I was coming along with Hewitt and Safin and Roddick and Ferrero and Tommy Haas."

http://www.tennisworldusa.org/Federer-says-he-was-far-behind-his-rivals-at-the-start-of-his-career-articolo4864.html

The credibility of the author of this piece can always be attacked.

But, what do we do with this...

"We had an extremely strong generation of players when I was coming along with Hewitt and Safin and Roddick and Ferrero and Tommy Haas," Federer said. "You name it, there were so many good players that it think pushed me to just hang with them first of all, not even be the best of that group because I was clearly not.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/tennis/federer/story-fnbe6xeb-1226424450636

Should I find 10 more links with the same statement repeated in 10 different places?

http://www.theroar.com.au/2012/07/13/i-never-thought-id-be-that-good-federer/

Yes and with the exception of hewitt all the players he mentioned underachieved and were basically completely displaced by their early to mid 20s by the younger generation of Murray, Novak, and Nadal. Nothing fed says here in this quote is particularly dispositive.

In general julius tennis does move forward but that isn't what we are talking about, the level goes up and up in all sports. I mean Andy Murray in today's game might beat laver does it mean he is greater than him? Of course not, greatness is the measure of the accomplishment of champions that is what I am really talking about. When compared with their immediate successors and immediate predecessors the early 2000s and late 90s guys were less accomplished and less consistent, therefore not as great.

PS I am sure some people were very impressed with that generation of players, but this talk of a golden generation is much more pronounced and well founded now. In anytime you are going to find some critics for and against. However, this period has a particularly large number of people pointing to the objective facts that craig highlighted, as being very strong. Certainly, on a far different scale then the discussions about the Hewitt or Safin golden age. I hardly remember anyone frankly in the late 90s and early 2000s who was happy with the big serve tennis and also with the lack of quality stars coming into to replace the ageing Agassi and Sampras, and the already retired Becker, Edberg, Courier, and lendl.

CaledonianCraig wrote:Well Julius I can't remember that talk. I must have missed that single article in The Times that day. Like I said we are never going to have agreement on this subject - some think it is a strong era and some think it is no stronger than other eras. I will leave it at that.

You never saw any articles, for example, saying how great Hewitt was, and how he could rule tennis for years? Presumably, they were all about 'no-shot' Hewitt, the leader of a poor generation of players leading tennis back to the dark ages?

The early 00s clearly looked like it was going to be a terrific era. However, the fact is that all apart from Federer and Roddick encountered problems which prevented them from fulfilling their potential. Hewitt was burnt out after 2002; Safin was rarely focused; Ferrero got injured then ill in 2004 and was never the same player again and Haas missed the whole of 2003 and again was never the same player when he returned.

Federer would have dominated anyway but that era could have been so much more. That is why the early Federer years are regarded as slightly weaker than now.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

CaledonianCraig wrote:Well Julius I can't remember that talk. I must have missed that single article in The Times that day. Like I said we are never going to have agreement on this subject - some think it is a strong era and some think it is no stronger than other eras. I will leave it at that.

You never saw any articles, for example, saying how great Hewitt was, and how he could rule tennis for years? Presumably, they were all about 'no-shot' Hewitt, the leader of a poor generation of players leading tennis back to the dark ages?

Articles or not - eras survive in the memory. Eras that stand out for me are the Borg, McEnroe, Connors and Lendl era, the Lendl, Becker, Edberg era, the Sampras, Courier and Agassi era and the Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray era. The early 2000's do not fit into that category for me - sorry folks.

Fair enough CC - it's all down to personal preference, and the views of the international media are, in that case, not particularly relevant.

At the weekend my Mum was telling me how my brother had taken my nephew (forgive the family tree) to Wimby and the Olympic tennis.
She then said (without me asking) "I wouldn't go to Wimbeldon these days - all they do is hit the ball back to each other for ages. I feel like saying 'Come on, do something'"

Any chance we can move on from this gold turd polishing subject?

legendkillarV2 wrote:Any chance we can move on from this gold turd polishing subject?

I agree. However, it will keep resurfacing if people on both sides of the argument insist on creating articles dissing this era or championing this era one feels.

Fascinating; socal and Craig have called on people to provide evidence of the strength of that period..... and people have!

Now they move to undermining that evidence. Obviously Federer is lying or something. Craig, with all respect mate your memory really isn't the basis of your argument now is it?

bogbrush wrote:I hadn't read the article in the OP, or Cronins. Now I have there's no contest; the first is written by a guy mainly on about money and domination. The other appears to know something about the history of tennis.

What's your thoughts on this paragragh from Cronin's article :

So there are two ways to look at the dominance of this Big 3 heading into Wimbledon: either they are a generation apart, or the rest of the field since mid 2003 has been pretty average.

Remembering that Nadal and Djokovic were only starting their careers in the 2003 -2007 period when Federer was dominating all but the FO.

I personally think we are lucky to have had these three players along with Murray just behind up until now over the past 4 or 5 years. It's set up some great rivalries and talking points with their different approaches to the game.
Note I'm not saying the words 'golden era'. Things move on a rolling basis and certain periods have greater strength in depth at the very top of the game than others. We are in one of these periods now.

Calder106 wrote:

bogbrush wrote:I hadn't read the article in the OP, or Cronins. Now I have there's no contest; the first is written by a guy mainly on about money and domination. The other appears to know something about the history of tennis.

What's your thoughts on this paragragh from Cronin's article :

So there are two ways to look at the dominance of this Big 3 heading into Wimbledon: either they are a generation apart, or the rest of the field since mid 2003 has been pretty average.

Remembering that Nadal and Djokovic were only starting their careers in the 2003 -2007 period when Federer was dominating all but the FO.

I personally think we are lucky to have had these three players along with Murray just behind up until now over the past 4 or 5 years. It's set up some great rivalries and talking points with their different approaches to the game.
Note I'm not saying the words 'golden era'. Things move on a rolling basis and certain periods have greater strength in depth at the very top of the game than others. We are in one of these periods now.

I agree with that statement by Cronin, and I've said something similar many times. Rating periods by reference to the dominance of the top few is illogical because it can't be possible to definitively say whether it's excellence or lack of depth. All you can really look to is whether you enjoyed it (it was personally "Golden" to you) or whether somebody is dominant across an extended period (a proven great player who did well across a ra). That's why I never call anything a weak period, and why I'm so opposed to the Golden era myth (as I see it).

Of course we all call on memories BBQ. Memorable events stand out in ones mind whatever they are in life and tennis is no different. I have listed what my mind recalls as strong eras for tennis and the boy so strong ones. We all so the same and all have differing opinions so let's just leave it at that as it is all becoming tedious.you fuel the flames with your frequent threads on the topic and socal reciprocates but at the end of the day we come back to the same conclusion - in that it is all about personal opinion.

You lot need f*cking shooting for the prolonging of such an annoying subject which you have sh*gged to death and now desecrating the memory by shatting on it's grave!

I am done with it now and won't be returning to it as there will never be agreement on it. Have fun going around in circles folks.

legendkillarV2 wrote:You lot need f*cking shooting for the prolonging of such an annoying subject which you have sh*gged to death and now desecrating the memory by shatting on it's grave!

Independent of the Golden Era Debate

a) Did Rafael Nadael beat Roger Federer when Roger Federer was in his prime?
b) Did Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal when Rafael Nadal was in his prime?
c) Did Andy Murray beat Novak Djokovic when Novak Djokovic was in his prime?

Bonus questions for ten
d) In what way was Hewitt a better player than David Ferrer?
e) In what way is David Ferrer a better player than Hewitt?

legendkillarV2 wrote:You lot need f*cking shooting for the prolonging of such an annoying subject which you have sh*gged to death and now desecrating the memory by shatting on it's grave!

Well said, LK. Golden era, GOATs, my-player-bigger-than-the-best-ever.

The inability to enjoy what is right in front of our noses and prove it better than what is a monotonic sequence of improvements, rather tragic to ignore it.

laverfan wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:You lot need f*cking shooting for the prolonging of such an annoying subject which you have sh*gged to death and now desecrating the memory by shatting on it's grave!

Well said, LK. Golden era, GOATs, my-player-bigger-than-the-best-ever.

The inability to enjoy what is right in front of our noses and prove it better than what is a monotonic sequence of improvements, rather tragic to ignore it.

Agreed. Can we therefore have some discipline on the forum so that articles like this don't get posted OR there has to be a concerted effort by ALL members to boycott them.

It's all very well everyone agreeing with this sentioment but ineffective if it just carries on.

laverfan wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:You lot need f*cking shooting for the prolonging of such an annoying subject which you have sh*gged to death and now desecrating the memory by shatting on it's grave!

Well said, LK. Golden era, GOATs, my-player-bigger-than-the-best-ever.

The inability to enjoy what is right in front of our noses and prove it better than what is a monotonic sequence of improvements, rather tragic to ignore it.

Thanks LF

If people really dislike the current the game, don't watch it. If people have gripes about eras gone by, then fine say a piece. But for crying out loud must it really be dragged out on thread after thread?

I have sat and watched some top matches in my time and seen my fair share of poor ones too. Seen some great players and seen some bad. No 2 matches are ever the same and nor are 2 players no matter how many comparisons you can draw.

It is discussions like this that will drive posters away or even deter new ones. Emancipator left for that very reason and I would hate to see others follow suit.

To the OP. socal with all due respect do we need these repetative articles? I mean when you first joined you done a stunning piece on how Djokovic could beat Nadal. It was great reading. Then post Fognini we have had draw rigging and golden era's. Can we not move on from this and talk about something else? It is starting to sound like a nagging housewife!

I would just like to add it isn't just one poster I am singling out. There is another who for me is much worse and mis-quotes and cherry picks articles to enhance their vendetta against a particular player.

Least with socal it isn't daily negative stuff around one player, though the draw rigging and era's chat is annoying the crap out of me!

At the end of the day you can ignore these articles like my questions have been ignored.

Articles can only be judged by titles in that sense and the whole never judge a book by it's cover thing.

Talking about era's LK..

https://www.606v2.com/t34514-andy-murray-the-right-era

Author: legendkillarv2

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Talking about era's LK..

https://www.606v2.com/t34514-andy-murray-the-right-era

Author: legendkillarv2

That was more to kill the whole in any other era crap from pundits and ex-players alike.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:Talking about era's LK..

https://www.606v2.com/t34514-andy-murray-the-right-era

Author: legendkillarv2

That was more to kill the whole in any other era crap from pundits and ex-players alike.

Every time an Era thread is made I envision a bird pooing on a giant pile of horse dung

Everytime I see an era thread I think of Rick Astley on YouTube.

Josiah= King Predictor

https://www.606v2.com/t27227-10-reasons-why-murray-will-win-a-slam-this-year

bogbrush wrote:Fascinating; socal and Craig have called on people to provide evidence of the strength of that period..... and people have!

Now they move to undermining that evidence. Obviously Federer is lying or something. Craig, with all respect mate your memory really isn't the basis of your argument now is it?

No but your completely unsupported prediction that the game will collapse in popularity and is in big trouble based on nothing but your opinion counts as an argument? Or your memory that reporters call every era a golden generation even though Craig and I clearly dispute it with the same memory that we possess. What evidence besides your own boldly asserted conclusions have you ever provided for anything. Frankly BB after reading your garbled, damaging, and dangerous views on politics or the economy only a madman would listen to your unsupported biases as if they are actually logical arguments.