|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 378 OF 378 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
May-03-21
 | | technical draw: The late 1970's saw a changing of the guard from the great old timers to the young turks. Gone were Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, and Roy Emerson. Enter Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, and bad boy John McEnroe. Also Boris Becker, and nasty Ilie Nastase. The ladies had Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Evonne Goolagong. Replaced were Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, and Maria Bueno. Sports nostalgia really show your age: Jimmy Connors who? |
|
May-04-21
 | | diceman: <technical draw:
and I lost interest.>
td lost interest as fast as Andre Agassi lost his hair! |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: <td lost interest as fast as Andre Agassi lost his hair!> Haha! That's true. It's amazing how quickly Agassi became bald. It was like one day he had a full head of flowing hair wrapped by a headband and the next day he was Mr. Clean. No male pattern baldness there. |
|
May-04-21
 | | thegoodanarchist: Agassi had fake hair for a while. That's why it seemed so sudden - he was hiding it, then he decided to stop hiding it and remove all the hair, not just the fake stuff. |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: Speaking of Andre Agassi he had an interesting personal life. He had an affair with Barbra Streisand who was 28 years his senior. Then he married America's darling Brooke Shields. After divorcing Shields he married fellow tennis great Steffi Graf to which he is still married. His net worth is estimated to be $175 million. Not bad for just hitting a ball. |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: I had mentioned earlier Pancho Gonzalez. Did you know that among Pancho's 5 wives was the sister of Andre Agassi? Pancho was quite the ladies man and had a lot of affairs during his 6 marriages (he married Madeline Darrow twice). Andre Agassi's father was linked to a hitman contract on Gonzalez. Pancho Gonzalez died in poverty in Las Vegas at age 67. One thing for sure, Pancho Gonzalez made tennis interesting to the non tennis playing public. |
|
May-04-21
 | | saffuna: All true. Except I don't know if he died in poverty. He certainly earned enough from endorsements and working in Las Vegas. A great, great player. |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: <saffuna> This I picked up from Wiki: "Gonzales died on July 3, 1995 in Las Vegas at the age of 67, in poverty and almost friendless, estranged from his ex-wives and children except for Rita and their son, Skylar. Andre Agassi paid for his funeral." |
|
May-04-21
| | saffuna: Wow. I wonder how that happened. He certainly earned a lot of money (though nothing compared to what he would have earned thirty years later). Maybe he drank a lot. He certainly estranged most of the people close to him. He and Mike Agassi would have made quite a pair. I saw him play at age 44 in the LA Open in 1972, and he hit the ball as well as any player in the world. He'd just lost his speed. |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: Continuing with Pancho Gonzalez here's something interesting: <In 1969, Charlie Pasarell played Pancho Gonzales in what was, until 2010, the longest match in Wimbledon history in terms of the number of games played. The 41-year-old Gonzales finally defeated the 25-year-old 22–24, 1–6, 16–14, 6–3, 11–9 after a battle that lasted 5 hours and 12 minutes.> Incredible, Pancho was 41 years old. If I had been the ball boy I probably would have fainted! |
|
May-04-21
| | saffuna: Oh yes. That's a famous match, contributed to the introduction of the tiebreaker. Pasarell had any number of match points, 40-love to win, and couldn't win one. The match was played over two days. Gonzalez then reached the round of 16, where he lost to Arthur Ashe is four sets. |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: Playing tennis before the tie-breaker rules was akin to playing chess before there were chess clocks. An opponent had all the time in the world to make his move and some took advantage of this by playing slow in a losing game in the hope that his opponent would resign. This may have given rise to the term "sitzkrieg" which was used to describe the period in WW2 after the German invasion of Poland. This period was also known as the "phony war". |
|
May-04-21
| | saffuna: Most tennis was played on grass back then, which meant quicker points. As more tournaments were played on clay and cement, with much longer points, something had to be done about long sets. As you undoubtedly know, Wimbledon stuck to no-tiebreaks in the final set through 2018, when the Isner-Anderson semifinal went to 26-24 and totally messed up the schedule, forcing the last two sets of Djokovic vs. Nadal to be played the next day. So the 2019 final went to a tiebreaker at 12-12 with Djokovic defeating Federer. |
|
May-04-21
 | | WannaBe: Pretty sure the Western Front after 9/1/39 was called the Phony Benoni War. But what do I know. 🤷♂️🤦♂️ |
|
May-04-21
| | technical draw: <WannaBe> You know you may be onto something. When General Patton invaded Italy from North Africa the Germans used the Sicilian Defense. They knew the French Defense had not worked for the French so they had to try something else. Of course we know that the Sicilian Defense did not work either but the Germans didn't know it then. |
|
May-05-21
| | WannaBe: The Allies utilized the Maroczy Bind on both the Russian Front and the Italian Front, while Germans utilized the Berlin Defence, and Italians utilized the Sicilian Rosollimo. |
|
May-05-21
| | thegoodanarchist: <technical draw: <WannaBe> You know you may be onto something. When General Patton invaded Italy from North Africa the Germans used the Sicilian Defense. They knew the French Defense had not worked for the French so they had to try something else. Of course we know that the Sicilian Defense did not work either but the Germans didn't know it then.>
<WannaBe: The Allies utilized the Maroczy Bind on both the Russian Front and the Italian Front, while Germans utilized the Berlin Defence, and Italians utilized the Sicilian Rosollimo.> Norway misplayed the Scandinavian Defense, while Sweden did much better with that system than their neighbors to the West. |
|
May-05-21
 | | Diademas: <Norway misplayed the Scandinavian Defense, while Sweden did much better with that system than their neighbors to the West.> We went for the Norwegian Rat. Its dubious reputation is well deserved. |
|
May-05-21
 | | jessicafischerqueen:
<TOUCHDOWN!>
As a citizen of Suomi, I hope you do not take offence to Diademas post. As you likely know, as a citizen of the mythical city of <Ragnarok Sheep Station>, the good Diademas is well placed to know all aboot Scandinavians. As a Finn, I am only a wannabe Scandinavian, so you can't really go too much by me. All I've come up with so far is that people call us BOX HEADS because our heads are shaped exactly like a box. Anyways back to the point. Please do not play "Rattus Rattus" which is the sciencingly name of the "Rat Defence." The Rat Defence is the hardiest and best traveled rodent in chess history. There is no such thing as a tournament anywhere in the world that did not feature a hardy Norwegian rat. But heed Diademas> well when he says "dubious reputation"!! Yes, unfortunately the Norwegian rat is most responsible for spreading the plague throughout much of the world, including Herfedtshire, of all places. So please be careful. I hope that I have not offended any of my fellow boxheads with this post. No letters please. |
|
May-05-21
 | | Messiah: Hyvää päivää! |
|
May-05-21
| | jessicafischerqueen:
<Messiah!> You can speak Finnish brah. Respeck. Sadly, my mom is the last person in our line who can still speak her native language... |
|
May-06-21
| | technical draw: Hello <Messiah> Päivää is a nice word. I don't think I have ever seen a a six letter word with three a's and seven dots! Finnish is a strange language. It's not an Indo-European language and it's a very hard language to learn for an English speaker. It is rated 3 out of 4 for difficulty. Thank you for visiting. <jfq> Your mom need not be the last person in your line to speak Finnish. All you have to do is start learning. Write to me in 20 years. |
|
May-06-21
| | thegoodanarchist: <jessicafischerqueen:
No letters please.>
Works for me. I'm more of a numbers guy anyway.
<As a Finn, I am only a wannabe Scandinavian> You are a Finn? I knew there was a reason you always swim against the current. Speaking of currant events, I am reminded of Grandma's home-made jelly. |
|
May-06-21
| | thegoodanarchist: <technical draw: Hello <Messiah> Päivää is a nice word. I don't think I have ever seen a a six letter word with three a's and seven dots!> You've highlighted the main problem with American English - not enough dots. Europe has all the cool dots and umlauts. If there were any justice in this whirled we would have more dots. |
|
May-06-21
| | technical draw: <tga> Spanish has some words that have an umlaut (or correctly a diaeresis). Words like "pingüino" and famously the ship (and city) "Mayagüez". They are for the most part omitted in informal use. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 378 OF 378 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
gmail.com
