I loathe the Williams sisters. In my eyes, they have spoiled Women's Tennis - taken it from its suave, violinesque charisma of the Graf era to the brusque, inharmonious, heavy-metalesque current state of affairs.
The earlier game was so much more fun to watch. It was about elegance, ball placement and skill. One could almost sense why tennis was called the game of the nobility seeing Women's matches.
Then came along these two grunters! (whose grunts were almost as bullyish as their ground strokes). Suddenly we started seeing 120 MPH serves and a bombardment of aces in the female game. The game morphed into yelling and whacking as many balls back with as much brute possible :(. The eye-candy index obliteration also did not help ;).
Serena, against all bets, won the first Slam for the Williams at the U.S. Open '99. Then began the Williams run! Between them, the sisters won 9 of the 16 Grand Slams from 2000 to 2003 - a whopping 56% success rate. Their domination was complete - they blew away opponents like strands of straw. No opponent could put up any notable or consistent resistance to the Williams juggernaut. With no nemesis in sight, Richard Williams' plan of ruling women's tennis and destroying the game stood on the verge of completion.
But thank God for Belgium and Russia. And for more than mere sporting reasons ;).
The arrival of Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and the Russian babe-army derailed the Williams' orgy and began tennis' seismic shift to Europe. Slowly, but surely, the Williams holocaust began to clear and the game breathed in a new life :).
Come 2007, the Williams brawn-house looks nowhere near its former potency. The aura of invincibility has almost been stripped away to naught. The stats stack up perfectly in parallel - only 3 out of 14 Slams from 2003 to the 2007 French Open - a measly 21% success rate from the pompous 56% of yore.
I, for one, am elated that the much feared Williams hoodoo hasn't really materialize and has afflicted only the loss of Martina Hingis to tennis. Now, even she has made a comeback to the circuit :).
But the sisters have left what seems an indelible mark on the game - power is now deeply embedded in the women's game. I ain't complaining though - the lasses are getting fitter, the legs longer, the skirts shorter ;). A steady in pour of Russians and Europeans to the women's tennis bandwagon has ensured that the racquets n balls remain in good hands on great bods ;).
However, thankfully, grace and skill have also simultaneously made a comeback thru Henin's rise to the throne. It's a delight to watch women's tennis again ;). Looking forward to tonight's French Open Final between Henin-Hardenne and Ana Ivanova!
The earlier game was so much more fun to watch. It was about elegance, ball placement and skill. One could almost sense why tennis was called the game of the nobility seeing Women's matches.
Then came along these two grunters! (whose grunts were almost as bullyish as their ground strokes). Suddenly we started seeing 120 MPH serves and a bombardment of aces in the female game. The game morphed into yelling and whacking as many balls back with as much brute possible :(. The eye-candy index obliteration also did not help ;).
Serena, against all bets, won the first Slam for the Williams at the U.S. Open '99. Then began the Williams run! Between them, the sisters won 9 of the 16 Grand Slams from 2000 to 2003 - a whopping 56% success rate. Their domination was complete - they blew away opponents like strands of straw. No opponent could put up any notable or consistent resistance to the Williams juggernaut. With no nemesis in sight, Richard Williams' plan of ruling women's tennis and destroying the game stood on the verge of completion.
But thank God for Belgium and Russia. And for more than mere sporting reasons ;).
The arrival of Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and the Russian babe-army derailed the Williams' orgy and began tennis' seismic shift to Europe. Slowly, but surely, the Williams holocaust began to clear and the game breathed in a new life :).
Come 2007, the Williams brawn-house looks nowhere near its former potency. The aura of invincibility has almost been stripped away to naught. The stats stack up perfectly in parallel - only 3 out of 14 Slams from 2003 to the 2007 French Open - a measly 21% success rate from the pompous 56% of yore.
I, for one, am elated that the much feared Williams hoodoo hasn't really materialize and has afflicted only the loss of Martina Hingis to tennis. Now, even she has made a comeback to the circuit :).
But the sisters have left what seems an indelible mark on the game - power is now deeply embedded in the women's game. I ain't complaining though - the lasses are getting fitter, the legs longer, the skirts shorter ;). A steady in pour of Russians and Europeans to the women's tennis bandwagon has ensured that the racquets n balls remain in good hands on great bods ;).
However, thankfully, grace and skill have also simultaneously made a comeback thru Henin's rise to the throne. It's a delight to watch women's tennis again ;). Looking forward to tonight's French Open Final between Henin-Hardenne and Ana Ivanova!
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