Today's post is going to be a mix of subjects about tennis. I've never done that before but now I have to as I have a few things I want to share and a combined post looks like a good idea.
While surfing the internet I came across some interesting articles, among which there was one about tennis records that are almost impossible to beat. Reading the title makes you think of serious things. Half of the things are serious but the other half is hilarious.
Among the serious ones there's the fastest serve recorded that is 163.4 miles per hour. Samuel Groth is the Australian to hold the record that won’t be broken any time soon, according to the article. This happened during a match in South Korea. He landed in the record book though he lost the match.
The next one is about the longest consecutive run as men’s world No. 1. This is a really important as you have to have a lot of good results to do it. Roger Federer holds the record, which is 1,659 days. Why am I not surprised? :) I'm happy for him though. He deserved it.
We have another legend here, right at the next one, which is most wins at a single Grand Slam. Can you guess who it is? Rafael Nadal! Who else? He won 12 Grand Slams, all at the same event.
Next is Martina Navratilova, the other legend who has 167 WTA singles titles and she also holds the Longest match-winning streak which is 74.
Now comes the longest tennis match. How long is it, can you guess? 11 hours, 5 minutes long! It's insane. Imagine yourself just sitting and watching the match live. Could you do that? How about playing for 11 hours, 5 minutes? You must be really strong mentally to do that.
In 2010, Wimbledon served as the venue for the longest match in tennis history. John Isner beat Nicolas Mahut in an epic five-set battle that took 11 hours, five minutes to complete. The first-round match actually had to be played over the course of three days. Unsurprisingly, Isner lost in the next round, likely due to exhaustion from the marathon match before. source
The next one is funny :) Rackets smashed in a season! Yeah, some players do that and there are years in which there are plenty rackets smashed. And here the story becomes interesting. When I saw the record, I thought rackets smashed in total by all tennis players. Well, I was wrong.
Marat Safin, a two-time Grand Slam champion, is credited as smashing the most rackets in a season. In 1999, he broke 48 rackets during match play, a record that still stands 20 years later. source
This is insane. We have some players right now that can't control their temper and are always throwing tantrums, sometimes smashing rackets but what this guy did is unheard. 1055 broken rackets over his career. He's the king of broken rackets. The video says that's 1.5 broken rackets per match. Imagine him arriving with a bag or two full of rackets as he had no idea how many he needs to break :)
The next one is not funny at all, it's outrageous. Poor Serena Williams, she can't have a minute of rest. She was insulted by a Romanian TV host.I'm not going to name him, I'm not doing free publicity for him. I know the man, I've seen it in TV (not that I'm watching his shows, it was just for a couple of minutes). He said ‘Serena Williams looks like those monkeys at the zoo’.
The international press says the TV host got away with it as he was fines with €1,700, the Romanian media says he got a huge fine as in Romanian Lei that's 8000. This wasn't the biggest fine I know of but I hope he learns from it as this is outrageous. It's the 21st Century, you can't speak like that about anyone! He's often fined by the National Audiovisual Council.