Serena Williams should challenge men

[sammy_scuffles]

I like Sam, she's from the Gold coast and I've actually met her just very briefly on the beach a couple of years ago. She was lovely. I think her problems are all in her head and she'd benefit greatly from having a proper sports psychologist to talk to. A lot. All the tools are there and she could win a bunch of tournaments if she could get the head-game right.

Also, she looks amaaaaaaaazing in a bikini. Her muscles have muscles.

[sheehan333]

It was a impressive feat for Sharapova to beat the boys in a set (I think the article says they did not finish the match as sets went long) would have liked to know what happened if they played the full match. But I think probably she and williams will be able to take on players outside 500 (changing my view). My opinion was based on a feature done in 1999 when Serena asked for a wild card to play in a ATP tournament. In that article all female players (except Serena & Venus offcourse) said that they wont be able to defeat top 1000 players and some even opined that they will have to go down to collegiate level to enter competition with male players. Many top players like Lindsay Davenport has mentioned that she struggled to take a game off her retired husband (not a great player himself). But I guess women's tennis has come a long way now and fitter and stronger players has taken the level of athleticism a up a notch.

But still there are some points to be noted (& I am not demeaning Sharapova) No is that they were not really playing a match. The difference between practice and real match situation is huge. I myself was a sportsman and believe me in nets (term for practice in my game) you generally do not go full steam. What you do is you try out different combos, iron out your technical flaws, experiment, try to increase your stamina. Now let me tell you I have never played tennis but I would believe that is true for any sports. I myself have bowled at nets when I was junior for the Sr. State team players and you do a lot of things that you wont do in a match situation. If i give you an Analogy from my sports, cricket I would say that while bowling in the nets I generally would bowl from 8-10 paces rather then a full run up of 14-16 paces simply for the reason that in a match I would bowl never bowl more than 4 overs at a stretch but in the nets would bowl 12-14 overs without a break. (not sure If fully U understand what I am saying, crickets not very popular outside the commonwealth nation, but hopefully you are getting the comparison I am trying to make) In practice people would ask you to bowl at one side of the wicket or pitch at a particular spot which you wont do in a match.
Now We do not know what actually happened in that match. Were the guys providing practice to Sharapova which developed into a match or they intended to play a proper match and she won the set we dont know. But the very close result seem to suggest that she will be able to give good competition to players outside top 500 and may even be able to cause an upset.

Also there is nothing to be embarrassed for the guys, Sharapova will be remembered as one of the hall of famer's in tennis and She is really good. I have seen Thanasi Kokkinakis play in an exhibition mixed doubles against Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic and he is good. But what surprises me is that I tried to see how much experience they have but their ATP profiles show 0 Matches, not sure why?

[sammy_scuffles]

Kokkinakis has zero matches because he hasn't played in any tournaments on the adult tour. He has some good results in juniors tennis though.