[Asherahpova]

There already is a much more comprehensive thread from this year on this topic.

Anyways, Maria in 2.

[Mr.Sharapova]

Originally Posted by young_gunner913

We'll never see Peak vs Peak but we have Current vs Current and right now, Current Vika kicks the fucking shit out of Martha whenever she pleases.

But peak vs peak is being discussed here so .

Peak Maria would destroy peak Vika. .

[SilverSlam]

Originally Posted by Brad[le]y.

Call me when Azarenka outplays Serena in a slam final and bagels Henin on a 30+ match win streak.

YAS this comment gave me so much life

[ahoura]

Who is Vika ?
obviously Maria Is Better

[Sam L]

Maria, Queen of the Rus. Yes, that's right before the Mongol Invasions, meaning of all Rus.

[Christinawww]

if 2012 Vika is peak Vika, and peak Maria is 2008 Maria (or whatever period she was best in) I'll go with Maria. But who knows, Vika might be serving bombs next year (unlikely, but it's the future, so no one knows) and be super aggressive and hit winners everywhere. Or Maria finds a way to be better. Let's wait till they are a bit older than 23 and 25 to ask this question

[Joelina]

Originally Posted by Volcana

Sharapova. Because she is clearly NOT as good as she six years ago, and she's still competitive with Azarenka now.

this

even 17 year old Maria would have beaten Vika easily

[Jimmie48]

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.

[Serenita]

Originally Posted by young_gunner913

We'll never see Peak vs Peak but we have Current vs Current and right now, Current Vika kicks the fucking shit out of Martha whenever she pleases.

This
Vika would drag her ass thru the mud.

[Exordes]

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/sp...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.”

[NashaMasha]

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...

[Jimmie48]

Originally Posted by NashaMasha

player whose main weapon is movement + consistency can't improve significantly...

Coach of the year disagrees

[doomsday]

Originally Posted by Jimmie48

Coach of the year disagrees

So what ? We'll just have to wait and see. Vika's movement will deteriorate with time just like it happened with many players like her she will have to win matches quickly, add big weapons to her game and not using that grinding style over the years.
Beside that grinding style seems useless when big hitters are on, she can't do much and can be easily hit off the court.

[Queen_Vee_92]

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.

[dsanders06]

Originally Posted by Jimmie48

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

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.