Players Lost to History: Help Needed

Can anybody provide You Tube matches of either of the players mentioned below, or any others you think should be included? I'm interested in either highlights or excerpts of matches. It doesn't matter so much whether they won or lost, so long as their greatest talents are on show. The picture quality is not important so long as the ball can be clearly seen.

I'm going to write a thread featuring a few players whose names -- and games -- have been somewhat buried beneath the layers of time.

Jana Novotna is one of them. How often is this paragon of athleticism, aggression, robustness, dynamism and dexterity mentioned on this board? She was one of the great all-time athletes, and I think I would like to raise her profile again.

Kimiko Date: what about that dainty little player? By far the greatest ever from the Far East, if you ask me. No disrespect to Sugiyama, but her name should not be mentioned even in the same breath as the Great Kimiko. She only retired in 1996, yet, shockingly, so few have heard of her.

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario: Words cannot express my devotion to this woman's memory. Superb, I'll admire her always.

* Kimiko Date vs Graf is already on Youtube, but the picture quality is quite poor.

there is a monica-arantxa match on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsounoIhkLw

Sugiyama is sooooo greater than Date

I'm keeping Jana's tennis memory alive in RLTA:bounce:

Date has a very good claim to being the best player never to reach a slam final. Sugiyama's reached a couple quarterfinals.

there is a monica-arantxa match on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsounoIhkLw

Yeah, but not really the best example of Aranxta.

I have never seen Novotna play.

I have never seen Novotna play.

you have never enjoyed tennis.

:hearts:

i saw jana play in may....nice doubles play esp. at the net

i saw jana play in may....nice doubles play esp. at the net

The woman was very fond of the net area and was very good up there. ;)

I have never seen Novotna play.

Oooh you poor person :)

Jana was simply breathtaking at times. People always remember her as a nervy player, but that wasn't entirely fair. She choked in one of the most important matches in her career -- that's what is remembered. And up until then she had been playing splendidly in that match, with Graf on the ropes and 4-1 down in the final set. But I saw Novotna fight her way out of many difficult situations with wonderfully physical tennis.

Most would agree that she would have beaten Hingis in the '97 final, having destroyed the 16 year-old in the first set, only to then injure a stomach muscle which forced her out for much of the remainder of the summer. She finally got the job done in the 1998 semi, defeating Hingis in straight sets. In my lifetime as a tennis fan (c1992 onwards) there has been no volleyer anywhere near Jana's standard.

Novotna should have won at least three Wimbledon titles, and that's allowing Graf all seven.

Talking of which, Graf and Novotna was a match often salivated over in anticipation; they were both the two greatest athletes in women's tennis for well over five years, with similar movement, heights, and athletic figures. Except, Novotna's movement was more cat-like, with long leaps, while Graf's more resembled a horse in the way that she seemed to gallop across the baseline. But their matches were wonderfully physical with sharp reflexes, digging slices, bent knees, ducked heads and taut calf muscles.

And Novotna's smash was incredible. She almost never missed.