The official Wimbledon Thread....
Discussion
jbudgie said:
I will never watch Sharapova, she seems the worst by far.
But also the highest paid ??
She is the highest paid female athlete on the planet (probably in the history of sport too).But also the highest paid ??
It's only because she is pretty. To paraphrase John Inverdale if she looked like Marion Bartoli (nothing wrong with Bartoli imo) she would not have earned 10% of what she has over her career (talking about endorsements not prize money).
According to Forbes she earns $6.7m/year in winnings and $23m/year in sponsorship.
Although to be fair people like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic earn up to 5 times as much off the court as they do on it.
Good luck to them - you'd be nuts to turn down that kind of money.
http://www.forbes.com/athletes/
rohrl said:
If the powers-that-be started docking points for making ridiculous grunting and screeching noises I bet the players would very quickly discover that they can play without.
Watching a great match at the moment, 5 sets. no shrieks at all.. oh, it's the blokes.And they hit the ball harder.
yes, they should have a noise tester like Brands Hatch
Edited by Gandahar on Wednesday 8th July 19:59
BlackLabel said:
jbudgie said:
I will never watch Sharapova, she seems the worst by far.
But also the highest paid ??
She is the highest paid female athlete on the planet (probably in the history of sport too).But also the highest paid ??
It's only because she is pretty. To paraphrase John Inverdale if she looked like Marion Bartoli (nothing wrong with Bartoli imo) she would not have earned 10% of what she has over her career (talking about endorsements not prize money).
According to Forbes she earns $6.7m/year in winnings and $23m/year in sponsorship.
Although to be fair people like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic earn up to 5 times as much off the court as they do on it.
Good luck to them - you'd be nuts to turn down that kind of money.
http://www.forbes.com/athletes/
Ana Ivanovic is pretty, but has a $1.4/5M split. Looking good is nice, but the camera has to actually be on you in the first place for sponsors to care.
Tag Heuer feature Sharapova, Leonardo DiCaprio and McLaren Formula one on their adverts. She isn't the one who looks out of place. Neither is the very successful and handsome actor.
One little known highlight of Wimbledon for me this week was the following.
The other day I was flicking through the outside court options on BBC red button and they were showing random clips of spectators waiting for the players to arrive for an upcoming Doubles match. BBC does this to fill in between matches: no commentary, just a few seconds of a woman reading a magazine, or a boy playing on his DS etc.
Anyway, as I switched on they'd zoomed in on a couple of girls, seated on the back row. They looked like two foreign students, possibly sisters. They were whispering away to each other at close quarters and then one gave the other a friendly peck on the nose and promptly followed it up with a full-on snog! I think the BBC Director was as pleasantly surprised as I was, because he lingered on them that little bit longer, before switching cameras to an old bloke eating an ice-cream.
"Anyone for tonsil tennis?"
The other day I was flicking through the outside court options on BBC red button and they were showing random clips of spectators waiting for the players to arrive for an upcoming Doubles match. BBC does this to fill in between matches: no commentary, just a few seconds of a woman reading a magazine, or a boy playing on his DS etc.
Anyway, as I switched on they'd zoomed in on a couple of girls, seated on the back row. They looked like two foreign students, possibly sisters. They were whispering away to each other at close quarters and then one gave the other a friendly peck on the nose and promptly followed it up with a full-on snog! I think the BBC Director was as pleasantly surprised as I was, because he lingered on them that little bit longer, before switching cameras to an old bloke eating an ice-cream.
"Anyone for tonsil tennis?"
anonymous said:
[redacted]
^ This. There are a lot of great umpires out there. However it is worth noting that there a couple of umpires, Pascal Maria being one of them, that really seem to enjoy stepping into the match at a key point and making questionable decisions like this... time violations, over rules, etc. They seem to think as umpire they are part of the show and want to get in on the drama. I'm amazed they are allowed to get away with it TBH. Several players have issue with PM.
VolvoT5 said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
^ This. There are a lot of great umpires out there. However it is worth noting that there a couple of umpires, Pascal Maria being one of them, that really seem to enjoy stepping into the match at a key point and making questionable decisions like this... time violations, over rules, etc. They seem to think as umpire they are part of the show and want to get in on the drama. I'm amazed they are allowed to get away with it TBH. Several players have issue with PM.
So far in this match Sharapova is demonstrating why she is one of the most over rated players of all time. If anything she is an over achiever on the court... no plan b to her game at all. Lost every time to Serena in these last 11 years and yet she still can't come up with anything different to even try to mix things up... she is totally reliant on Serena having a bad day or mid match melt down.
VolvoT5 said:
So far in this match Sharapova is demonstrating why she is one of the most over rated players of all time. If anything she is an over achiever on the court... no plan b to her game at all. Lost every time to Serena in these last 11 years and yet she still can't come up with anything different to even try to mix things up... she is totally reliant on Serena having a bad day or mid match melt down.
Sounds like she had a lucky draw which got her to the semi finals. All her previous rounds had been with players not inside the top 30!!bexVN said:
VolvoT5 said:
So far in this match Sharapova is demonstrating why she is one of the most over rated players of all time. If anything she is an over achiever on the court... no plan b to her game at all. Lost every time to Serena in these last 11 years and yet she still can't come up with anything different to even try to mix things up... she is totally reliant on Serena having a bad day or mid match melt down.
Sounds like she had a lucky draw which got her to the semi finals. All her previous rounds had been with players not inside the top 30!!http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/mariashara...
Sharapova basically got lucky in 2004 when a poorly prepared Serena played two terrible matches against an unknown Sharapova. Since then there is no 'rivalry' between the two; Serena spanks her stupid at every opportunity. The fact that the only positive thing people can write about Sharapova is that she earns more off court really sums it up... that is the only thing she 'beats' Serena at, and even then it is purely down to being gifted with conventional good looks which can be marketed.
Edited by VolvoT5 on Thursday 9th July 18:15
eps said:
One Murray in to a final, can we get two this year?
I hope so but I have a feeling Federer will do it this year (hope I'm wrong). He is serving incredibly well, winning 85% of points on first serve and 67% on second... those are the kind of stats the 'big' servers would be proud of but the difference is Federer has a complete game to back up the serve too. Murray has a great return but he likes to float it back deep and Federer will do a bit of serve-volley to exploit that. I also feel Andy isn't serving well enough to fend off Federer over 5 sets.
Hope I'm wrong.
VolvoT5 said:
eps said:
One Murray in to a final, can we get two this year?
I hope so but I have a feeling Federer will do it this year (hope I'm wrong). He is serving incredibly well, winning 85% of points on first serve and 67% on second... those are the kind of stats the 'big' servers would be proud of but the difference is Federer has a complete game to back up the serve too. Murray has a great return but he likes to float it back deep and Federer will do a bit of serve-volley to exploit that. I also feel Andy isn't serving well enough to fend off Federer over 5 sets.
Hope I'm wrong.
I'm sure the crowd will help Andy along
in a decent, but partisan way!!Murray has been playing _really_ well over the past couple of months.
VolvoT5 said:
I hope so but I have a feeling Federer will do it this year (hope I'm wrong). He is serving incredibly well, winning 85% of points on first serve and 67% on second... those are the kind of stats the 'big' servers would be proud of but the difference is Federer has a complete game to back up the serve too.
Murray has a great return but he likes to float it back deep and Federer will do a bit of serve-volley to exploit that. I also feel Andy isn't serving well enough to fend off Federer over 5 sets.
Hope I'm wrong.
Lucky enough to be there tomorrow! Hoping Federer/Murray will be a good match and to be honest not too bothered which way it goes; from a British point of view it would be great to see Murray make it to the final again but I've always loved to watch Federer play and hence won't be too disappointed if he wins tomorrow! Can't see the other semi-final being anything other than a one-sided affair though; I'll be delighted if Gasquet makes a match of it but I don't think he's got the firepower to trouble Djokovic and if he (Gasquet) manages to win a set I'll be surprised.... Murray has a great return but he likes to float it back deep and Federer will do a bit of serve-volley to exploit that. I also feel Andy isn't serving well enough to fend off Federer over 5 sets.
Hope I'm wrong.
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