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  • Queen Maria, obviously.

    Votes: 185 68.0%
  • Vika

    Votes: 87 32.0%

PEAK Maria vs PEAK Vika

24K views 321 replies 108 participants last post by  Qalahari 
#1 ·
Discuss.

:drool:
 
#44 ·
Again, we don't even know what peak Vika actually is... Sharapova's peak is obviously behind her (as her own stans admit) while Vika's hasn't even been there.

So Sharapova being still competitive with her now means nothing. Especially as the term competitive could be argued, she has received some hefty beatdowns by Vika this year.
Who? Quite a lot of us think Maria's peak could potentially be in the next 1 or 2 years :wavey:

If you look at Maria's upwards trajectory since the surgery, it's probably been even more dramatic than Vika's (Maria's game had bigger improvements in 2012 compared to 2011 than Vika's did, I would say). So there's really no evidence atall that Vika is going to constantly improve from hereon while Maria is going to slide. Don't forget Azarenka is only 2 years younger than Maria, although admittedly it's easy to forget that seeing as Maria started playing spectacularly at a far earlier age than Vika did.
 
#39 ·
I don´t think Maria has much potential left to improve her game, but Vika does.

"A No.1 Who Wants to Stay on Top": http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/sports/tennis/22iht-srwtazarenka22.html?pagewanted=all

“She’s a great athlete, and she truly believes she should be No. 1,” Davenport added. “And as much as the other ones tried to give that attitude off, it just wasn’t very natural.”
Azarenka is defined by her ferocious low-to-the-court groundstrokes, her fast-twitch returns and, of course, her shrieks, which might be old news but still have fans of all ages imitating her in the stands and in front of the screen during matches.
At 23, Azarenka still has the time and ambition to make other improvements: in transition in the forecourt and, above all, with her serve. At 6 feet, or about 182 centimeters, tall and with her elastic ability to generate intimidating pace with other strokes, it would appear she could do more with it.
For Sumyk, the good news is that Azarenka has much room to improve and she is already No. 1 and a Grand Slam singles champion.
“I always like to let my racket talk and not really talk myself and to show who’s the best player or who deserves to be the best player in our game,” Azarenka said. “It’s not by discussing it in the interviews. I think it’s important to show it on the court, and that’s what I will try to do.”
 
#40 ·
I don´t think Maria has much potential left to improve her game, but Vika does.
player whose main weapon is movement + consistency can't improve significantly... She is already making just a few UE and is moving better than her main rivals , but it doesn't work when she is just outhitted, overpowered and forced to pushing...
 
#43 ·
We have had a thread on this, with much the same mixture of some thoughtful some inflammatory comments.

Anyhow. Vika is 23, 2012 has been her peak season thus far but in terms of pure level isn't as good as 06/early 08 Martha. However she has improved each season, and until she goes backwards then we're still to presume her peak could be in the next couple of years and we haven't seen the best of her.

A lot of me feels sorry for Maria, because there are so many things that are better about her game now than 4 or 5 years ago, movement, point construction etc that if only she hadn't got the shoulder issue and a shadow of her former serve then her peak could have been around now, she's still only 25 after all, at least another 2 or 3 years of "young" tennis left in her. As it is, i think she'll never get back to that 08 level because she just doesn't trust her all round game the same as she used to.

As it stands current Vika has a small edge over current Maria, and they'll split victories about 70/30 in Vikas favour presuming they play mostly on hard.

Peak vs Peak is Maria quite comfortably at this stage, and in my opinion i don't think we'll ever see a better Vika than this year, but it's still unknown.
 
#45 ·
Maria, quite clearly.
There's a chance Vika could show something even better in the future though, something I personally doubt but it's more likely it's her peak that we haven't seen yet rather than Maria's. :shrug:
 
#49 ·
Grow up :lol:

First of all you can't even predict the future, how do you know who has hit their peak and who hasn't? Maria showed that she can beat Extremely Injured on a hard court as she proved in their last match of the year. Shouldn't it be worrying that someone who hasn't hit their peak yet is getting routined by someone who is passed it? :lol: Second of all, there is a lot of things Maria can improve on; just because you hate her doesn't mean she can't play tennis ;)
 
#52 ·
I'm going to go another route on this. I'm willing to say Peak Pova/Vika based on their best shots at their peaks. So it's Pova's serve versus Vika's return. Then it's a lot closer than many would think, but I'd still give the edge to Peak Pova.

That said, I'm personally excited that tennis has a rivalry again. Vika and Maria compliment each other well and Maria is well on her way to becoming the Grand Dame of the women's game.
 
#66 ·
Peak Maria doesn't exist in this age and time. You will never see Peak Martha vs Peak Vika ever.

Peak Martha at 2006 US Open would wipe the floor of any of the Peak Vikas we've seen so far though. Hard to do "peak vs peak" when both players aren't even anywhere near close to retiring.
 
#70 ·
Will they? Garcia Vidagany is better than Clijsters according to your logic. Preach! :worship:
 
#75 · (Edited)
I didn´t say that weeks at No.1 should be used as the only criteria when we compare players to each other. On the other hand those top 5 players who lead those statistics are: Steffi Graff (377 wks), Martina Navratilova (332 wks), Chris Evert (260 wks), Martina Hingis (209 wks) and Monica Seles (178 wks). Surely it tells something about their careers if head-to-head statistics are not enough? For some players their peak might be same as their highest WTA ranking like No. 20 or winning a big tournament once.
 
#74 ·
I agree, the comparison with weeks at number one really isn't particularly helpful when it comes to peak vs peak and neither is the H2H imo. That said, I don't see how the H2H between Vidagany and Clijsters can prove a point here since the H2H between Vika and Masha is based on many more matches and therefore much more significant in general (still not necessarily in a peak vs peak discussion, so please don't get me wrong here).

I just don't see the point of discussing the peak of a player who is only 23 years old and still has room for improvement in her game. As I have read in this thread, also Maria fans think it's possible that her peak is still ahead of her, so again, what's the point of this thread (or any similar thread with other players, for that matter)? Unless of course you think it's interesting to discuss and compare the highest standard of play we have seen from either player thus far but in that case I think "peak" is a very misleading term.
 
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#76 ·
Garcia and Clijsters have only had one match but "1" is also a number no matter how you'd like to see that. Temperenka clearly said that "Numbers will speak for themselves" hence there's no difference whether players had 30 matches or just the one. Garcia won that match and is therefore a better player than Clijsters according to Temperenka's logic. Maths and statistics are very simple to embrace and there isn't any room for speculations and other "buts" and "ifs".

and btw, Sharapova's peak was 2005-06. She's not winning another major (let alone any title) on fast surfaces and with it, you can't say the peak is still ahead of her by any means. We've never seen Peak Sharapova vs Peak Azarenka and never will despite the age proximity.
 
#79 ·
Sharapova is steadily coming back to her pre-surgery form, and DRASTICALLY improving her movement and athleticism along the way. She just needs to put all the pieces together.

Regarding the thread, Sharapova is one of the biggest hitters in history, and only Peak Henin, Peak Serena and Peak Venus would be able to beat her. Azarenka will definitely improve in the upcoming seasons but she just doesn't have the devastating power Maria does. So Sharapova takes it in 2 sets. 75 64 or something; let's not forget, Azarenka matches-up very well with Maria and knows exactly how to play her. Wouldn't be a walk in the park.
 
#81 ·
the only reason why Vuvurenka leads the H2H against Maria is because for some reason Maria always chooses to play like crap against her (apart from those rare instances this year in Stuttgart and Istanbul). AO final was especially a head scratching performance from her - making brainless errors and inexplicably going flat after taking an early lead in the first set. Tat was truly an embarrassing display of sheer stupidity:facepalm: Either way, peak Maria is just not making silly errors and doublefaulting on key points like she's been doing since that surgery in 08, so Vika's chances become very slim in this matchup on any surface. I'd love to see 08 AO version of Pova vs this years Vuvurenka and see how many games Maria concedes though...:devil:
 
#83 ·
Azarenka was very impressive in her 1st slam final after a nervy start but Maria should've won that title. She was still retooling her game. It was exciting to see the vast improvements in that tournament compared to the final stretch of 2011 (Cincinatti included, god knows how she won that). But she completely froze on the occasion. She'd be holding two slams now had she brought the level she showed against Makarova, Kerber or Kvitova in the 1st set.
 
#85 ·
And in one she got totally humiliated and in the other she never really made it competitive.
 
#99 ·
Nobody claims that she was injured, she was just at the end of her season and visibly low on energy. She didn't move well, nearly lost to Kerber, played pretty bad against Na as well..it simply wasn't her week.
you do understand the same excuses can be said about Maria's losses too, right?:lol: Actually Maria's game is much more prone to breaking down due to how risky it is, yet you don't see any of her fans making excuses when she gifts win to your current fave:wavey:
 
#108 ·
I wasn't the one who brought up greed. Fact is, Sharapova is by far the greediest of all current players, aside from porn she's pretty much doing absolutely everything she can to make a dime. I wasn't the one who brought this up but this is the one area where Sharapova stans really have to sit down...there's no bigger money-whore on tour.

Truth time: Do you guys really like this stuff and support it or do you secretly cringe as well? If it's the first then you have to be the most gullible sheeple ever :D
 
#109 ·
I wasn't the one who brought up greed. Fact is, Sharapova is by far the greediest of all current players, aside from porn she's pretty much doing absolutely everything she can to make a dime. I wasn't the one who brought this up but this is the one area where Sharapova stans really have to sit down...there's no bigger money-whore on tour.

Truth time: Do you guys really like this stuff and support it or do you secretly cringe as well? If it's the first then you have to be the most gullible sheeple ever :D
:spit:
 
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