Laver vs. Roche

Rod Laver vs. Tony Roche 1969 Australian Open SF. Laver (in white hat) begins his journey to the Grand Slam.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Laver
• vs.
• Roche
• 1969
• Australian
• Open
• SF

[mrbobevans]

Your full of *&^(. Using wooden racquets, Laver would destroy a 5.0 player, and would trounce a 5.5 player. His shot variety would freak them out. And it is iffy if Fed could beat Laver using a wood racquet. Laver's foreare was huge, which allowed to do almost anyting with the Dunlop Maxpli. Your comment is about as absurd as anything I have come accross on Youtube.

[spacecowboy95]

@mrbobevans Kind of stupid trying to imagine who would win between players from two different eras, very often people assert these opinions because it makes them feel knowledgeable.

Each player was good in their time, and if you got them all together playing with the same rackets and the same balls it would no doubt be some great tennis, and there would be wins and losses all around.

But I always laugh at people that make specific comments on these fantasies like they are some sort of guru.

[Bdubbs09]

arguably the best player of all time.

[hifromhenry]

somehow this steep camera angle is fun to watch.

[jakemcclain30]

@biliev1 Federer would be a great match, but as I said to the other guy, Laver's shot variety alone would scare the hell out of DelPo and Cilic.

[jakemcclain30]

@BorahSpanish These guys would destroy 90% of today's players. There is a lot more than just power, you know. Shot variety, which very few players have anymore, would freak them out.

[cain2335]

@PArbuckle18 i think these clips are in sequential order. the points with errors are just ommited

[cain2335]

@PArbuckle18 It mostly had to do with racket technology. the sweet spot on wooden rackets is extremely tiny. any miss-hit would go out or into the net. the courts also had something to do with the unforced errors. 3 out of the 4 grand slams were played on grass. the grass at the australian and the us open were apparently pretty bad in terms of bad bounces and movement

[PArbuckle18]

@cain2335 I guess also this looks like a clip of the best points of this match, rather than a match played in sequential order.

[PArbuckle18]

@cain2335 Interesting. Do you think it was racket technology, or perhaps an aggressive, net charging strategy?

[cain2335]

@PArbuckle18 not in this match i guess. these guys, however, did hit way more unforced errors than todays players do