We must stop meeting like this...

Ok, so who met each other the most time this year?

Well the most high profile and important rivalry was obviously Djokovic v Nadal, where the Serb made a clean sweep of their 7 meetings. However top was Tsonga and Federer, with Fed winning 6 of their 8 meetings.

Anyone spot any other regular fixtures in 2011? And for the hardcore stattos, anyone know what the most meetings between any two players in any one year is?

Good question, know Lendl played Mac 7 times in 84, all in finals (Mac won 6-1). Might be Laver/Rosewall, they played each other 141 times!

Or could it be Evert vs Navratilova - played 12(!) times in 1975 (and 80 times overall - Evert once double bagelled Martina too!).

Laver-Rosewall (12 vs. 33) 1963 - 45 times (not all are finals).

1976 is the other year where Rosewall has a 2-0 h2h.

From 1964-73 Laver either had an upper hand or they split there matches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver–Rosewall_rivalry

Lydian... 142 h2h matches, absolutely fascinating.

PS: http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/ten-great-tennis-rivalries-1429447.html

One more - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/magazine/the-fierce-intimacy-of-tennis-rivalries.html?pagewanted=all

Good stats LF...wow, 45 times in one year??!!! Amazing.
When you look through their matches in 1963 they were playing almost every day against each other! They must have been good friends to play that often.

What's the answer for the Open Era then BB?

When I read the title I thought you were going to organise a Christmas lunch for us all BB (dressed up as father christmas, of course )

The great tennis player Roger Dee used to hit against the wall:

In 2006 the H2H stats were
2 vs 53 in favour of the wall.

Lendl-McEnroe is 36 matches (21-15) during their careers.

http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/tennis/gallery/08_25_06_greats?pg=5

lydian wrote:Good stats LF...wow, 45 times in one year??!!! Amazing.
When you look through their matches in 1963 they were playing almost every day against each other! They must have been good friends to play that often.

What's the answer for the Open Era then BB?

I dunno, I was just putting it out there.

45 times in a year is mad - that's right up there with me and my mate when we were 19. I owned the h2h, though it was all played on one surface

Yeah, I remember those days of playing against the same person over and over. In my teens we used to play on a tennis court in a local hospital grounds (back in the day when they could afford such things), it was a surreal experience of playing whilst ambulances were flitting past every second - talk about medical timeouts!

It just shows how different the game was pre-open era. Very tiny group, all playing against each other, therefore reaching new levels those outside the group could not.

Lydian made me look at Laver-Emerson rivalry. Thanks Lydian.

Open Era - 29-6 overall 49-18.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver-Emerson_rivalry

I think Tenez's comment is a little dismissive - yep, there was a smaller pool of players back then but there was still a very sizeable group of players - of which Laver was head and shoulders above the rest.

The slam draws in the 60s were still mainly 128 entrants, e.g. 1969 at SW19, USO, FO were 128, AO - 48: harder to get over to in those days!), representing countries from all over the world. Earlier years were similar.
I think its easy to dismiss the older days as being different and out of touch but tennis was pretty advanced back then too - Laver still had to fight his way through similar sized draws compared to today. Ok there were less surfaces, but it was the same for everyone - they were all experts on grass! (and clay)

And of course this was the guy who brought the fabled and often copied SHBH to the tour - so he was revolutionary in his approach as well as being mightily talented.