Winning Three Slams in a Year Has Become the New Normal. What Will 2012 Be Like?

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: October 18, 2011

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Winning three slams in one year used to be something out of the ordinary.

After all, only six men have done it in the Open Era, namely Rod Laver winning all four in 1969, Jimmy Connors in 1974, Mats Wilander in 1988, Roger Federer in 2004, 2006 and 2007, Rafael Nadal in 2010 and Novak Djokovic in 2011. 

What is noteworthy in this list is the absence of names like Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Winning three slams in one year proved too big a challenge for these all time greats, giving evidence to just how hard it is. 

What is perhaps even more noteworthy is that winning three slams in a single calendar year has become the new norm.

While women's tennis had four different slam winners in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2011, men's tennis haven't had four different slam winners in a year since 2003.

In fact, men's tennis have seen one player win three slams for five! of the last eight years.

When we remind ourselves that that feat only happened three times in the period from 1969 to 2004, we can see how rare and odd it is to see the kind of single player dominance we have been witnessing on the slam level season after season for the better part of the last eight years.

In fact, the period preceding the Federer dominance from 2004-2007 was the exact opposite as four different players dividing the slams between them was the norm then. To be exact, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 all saw four different men raise tennis' most coveted trophies.



What does that tell us about the respective periods in men's tennis? I don't know, but I am sure other writers could make the case for this and that period being a weak era by virtue of these numbers. That is not my aim here.

I am more interested in to what extent these statistics tell us anything about how 2012 will play out.

The answer...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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