More mad sports trivia
Roar Pro
By Sherry, 10 Jun 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro
Roger Federer’s win in Paris has a rugby connection. The president of the French Rugby Federation – or should that be Federeration? – is Jean Gachassin, the diminutive halfback who played for Les Bleus 32 times.
Known as Peter Pan, in his playing days he was an inch shorter and 35 pounds lighter than George Gregan. He recently told somebody “thank heavens I never had to tackle Jonah.”
Regarding Federer equalling Pete Sampras’ record – Sampras never won more than two slam titles in the same year (he did it once in ’93, and again in ’94). While Federer has won three titles – so far – three times in the one year: ’04, ’06 and ’07.
RACING
Calvin Borel, the jockey who won the Kentucky Derby on Mine That Bird, switched to Rachel Alexandra to win the Preakness, then switched back to Mine That Bird for last Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, the third in the annual Triple Crown series, told everybody in America that the race was as good as over. Swore that he and Mine That Bird had it in the bag.
He rode a bad race, went too soon (as was pointed out twice on the broadcast) and another bird, Summer Bird, won it and Calvin had to settle for third.
Moral? Be careful what you brag about because it may not come true.
By the way, had you put two bucks on 4,2,7,6 in the supertrifecta in that race, you would have won a neat, even $852.
SQUASH
Still hoping for a berth in the Olympics, the proposal is for two kinds of courts to be built – singles and doubles, or for the singles courts to have sliding walls to make them wider to accommodate four players.
The doubles game goes back to 1907 but never really caught on outside of the States. Currently, there are doubles courts in Edinburgh, Singapore, KL and Bangkok, but precious few in Australia.
However, there are well over 100 doubles courts in the US, which should give American players an edge if the sport is admitted into the Games along with the doubles variety.
WHO INVENTED WHAT, WHEN?
It’s generally conceded that the first form of tennis was invented by French monks in medieval times.
However, they hit the ball with their hands. The racquet came later.
Who introduced it? The Dutch.
The Dutch also gave their word “Letten” to a ball that hits the net, or the rope that was used, on a service. But the French names survive in tennis for most everything else except if they’re Arabic, as some authorities claim. The name itself, tennis, derives from the cloth balls that were originally used, or the French verb Tenez, To Hold (the ball). Or, from the town of Tinnis on the Nile where the Egyptians played a form of hand ball in Cleopatra’s time.
Bottom line, nobody knows for sure who invented the game (except the French). But then the French also claim to have invented cricket.
But watch out, here come the Dutch again.
Language experts point to the first printed mention of the game, at the turn of the 16th century, when it was referred to by the Dutch name Creckett. Or was it the Middle Dutch word Krickstoel, a low milking stool that resembled the two-stump wicket used in early games of cricket?
At any rate, the Dutch krickstoel team beat England at the ICC World Twenty20, so maybe they did invent the game.
Unless the Assyrians did.
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Greg Russell said | June 11th 2009 @ 8:44am | Report comment
“Sampras never won more than two slam titles in the same year (he did it once in ’93, and again in ’94)”
He also won two in 1995 and 1997.
I can see that this might be a reason to put Sampras below Federer, but one might also take the opposite angle. Sampras’s 14 titles were spread across 13 calendar years (1990-2002 inclusive), and the only years in this period he did not win one were 1991, 1992 and 2001 (i.e., the very beginning and the very end of his career).
Let’s see if, like Sampras, Fed can go 8 years in a row winning a GS title (currently he’s on 7), and let’s see if he can win a GS title in 2015, 12 years after his first.
Having said this, no arguments from me that Federer is the greater player, even if he never wins another match from now.
Sherry said | June 11th 2009 @ 9:55am | Report comment
I seemed to have erred, Greg. But then, Pete won so many slams he could spare a couple.
On the subject of greatest ever, if Roger wins Wimbledon next month, even the doubters will give him the title. Argument rages in the meantime.
Incidentally, breaking it down into sets, the tennis conoscenti say that the greatest player ever for one set was Lew Hoad. He had so many shots he often didn’t know which to use.
When Laver came off the amateur tour he played Lew who hadn’t been on a court in months.
Hoad thrashed him in straights and, asked about Laver later, said, “He’s got a lot of potential.”
Another incidental, if you’re still there: the first person, outside the States, to say that Sampras was going to be a champion was Teddy Tingling of all people.
Greg Russell said | June 11th 2009 @ 10:43am | Report comment
Sherry, I am aware that of the glittering crop of US male juniors at the end of the 1980s, Sampras was outshone (as a junior) by Agassi, Courier and Chang.
However, those of us who didn’t know any of this and who only got our first look at Sampras at the 1990 US Open had no doubt that a new superstar had arrived.
I find people across all sports regularly make the mistake of assuming that talent as a junior will translate into proportional performance in the senior ranks. Yes, there is a correlation, but it is far from absolute, because senior sport is quite different. It seems to me that this is particularly the case in tennis (for reasons that are reasonably obvious), as any quick perusal of lists of junior grand slam winners will reveal (e.g. David Nalbandian outshone Roger Federer as a junior). This is why I am very hesitant in making any extrapolations about Bernard Tomic.
Sherry said | June 11th 2009 @ 2:55pm | Report comment
Greg, you’re dead right about early promise being no guarantee of glory. A quick look – and remember, I’m a sloppy researcher – reveals that in the four Slam tourneys from ’68 to ’95,
only nine male players who won at least one of the junior titles went on to take a senior title:
Borg, McEnroe, Orantes, Lendl, Cash, Edberg, Wilander, Roddick and Federer.
It’s not easy staying talented.