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Lemia
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* \'\'\'{{Wimbledon}}\'\'\' (late June - early July in London): \'\'The\'\' Grand Slam that most people think of first when tennis is mentioned. It uses grass courts that favor attackers due to their speed and low bounce giving players less time to return big serves and volleys[[hottip:*:balls hit close to the net]] hit by their opponents, although the courts have been slowed down recently to encourage longer rallies. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks At least twenty complaints are printed every year about this \
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* \\\'\\\'\\\'{{Wimbledon}}\\\'\\\'\\\' (late June - early July in London): \\\'\\\'The\\\'\\\' Grand Slam that most people think of first when tennis is mentioned. It uses grass courts that favor attackers due to their speed and low bounce giving players less time to return big serves and volleys[[hottip:*:balls hit close to the net]] hit by their opponents, although the courts have been slowed down recently to encourage longer rallies. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks At least twenty complaints are printed every year about this \\\"slowing-down\\\".]] Also known for its all-white dress code and rain showers delaying play, although a roof installed in 2009 has mitigated the latter. Roger Federer, who has won a record-tying 7 trophies here, has been dubbed Wimbledon\\\'s \\\"Favorite Son\\\".
* \\\'\\\'\\\'US Open\\\'\\\'\\\' (late Aug - early Sept in New York City): The last Grand Slam of the season (but not the \\\"true\\\" end of the season), it has the highest attendance record of all Slams. Like the Australian Open, it\\\'s played on hard courts that fall somewhere in between the slowness of clay courts and the fastness of grass courts. Unlike all other Slams, its venue doesn\\\'t have a roof which means that gusting winds and match-delaying rains frequently affect play. It is also the only Slam that decides a 6-6 final set by a tiebreak system instead of the \\\"win by 2 games in the final set\\\" rule, which (un)fortunately means that there\\\'s no chance of its matches becoming a 3-day epic like Wimbledon\\\'s 2010 Isner-Mahut match.
* \\\'\\\'\\\'Year-End Championships\\\'\\\'\\\' (Oct. for the women, Nov. for the men): The event that marks the true end of the tennis season, the YEC is ideally supposed to determine the No. 1 player with only the top eight players in the world being pitted against each other in separate tournaments for the men and women. More often, what happens instead is that there\\\'s already a runaway No. 1 who doesn\\\'t even need to win the YEC to be the clear Player of the Year, and the fun of the YEC lies more in its unique round-robin format that lets people see their favorites play for at least three guaranteed matches in the opening rounds[[hottip:*:the 8 players are split into 2 groups of 4 and each player dukes it out with the 3 other members in their group, with the best-performing 2 players from each group advancing to the semifinals; the semis and finals use the more typical knock-out format]]. Also worth watching for the [[BigEntrance dramatically-lit entrances]] of players and the ConfettiDrop during the trophy ceremony.
* \\\'\\\'\\\'Other tournaments\\\'\\\'\\\' (various dates/places): The smaller tournaments that don\\\'t get as much publicity as the Grand Slams but are still important to top-ranked players who are required to enter a certain number (but not all) of them, and lower-ranked players who can farm ranking points at low-profile tournaments higher-ranked players are unlikely to bother with. The tournaments usually serve as lead-ins to a Slam, such as the clay-court Madrid and Rome tournaments that precede the French Open, or mainly to ensure that the players never get a moment of rest even between Grand Slams with even the lull period between the US Open and YEC being jam-packed with multiple Asian tournaments. Suffice it to say that players can consider themselves blessed if they don\\\'t get a single cramp or injury during their 10/11-month-long season. Professional tennis is no endeavour for the faint-hearted or weak-legged.
And then there would be a bullet point about the Fed/Hopman/Davis Cups preceding or following the YEC paragraph, but I unfortunately don\\\'t know much about them other than the Czech Republic recently beating out Spain for the Davis Cup. Suggestions?
Once again, feel free to make suggestions and tell me if these bullet points would be too long or detailed for casual readers, because I am a natural rambler too. :)
ETA: As for the page image, tennis doesn\\\'t have the absurdly complicated field of cricket and I think we already have the humor of tennis\\\'s \\\"ludicrous\\\" scoring system. We \\\'\\\'could\\\'\\\' replace it with a picture of a player smashing a racquet, though, if we wanted even more humor about tennis being true SeriousBusiness.
* \\\'\\\'\\\'US Open\\\'\\\'\\\' (late Aug - early Sept in New York City): The last Grand Slam of the season (but not the \\\"true\\\" end of the season), it has the highest attendance record of all Slams. Like the Australian Open, it\\\'s played on hard courts that fall somewhere in between the slowness of clay courts and the fastness of grass courts. Unlike all other Slams, its venue doesn\\\'t have a roof which means that gusting winds and match-delaying rains frequently affect play. It is also the only Slam that decides a 6-6 final set by a tiebreak system instead of the \\\"win by 2 games in the final set\\\" rule, which (un)fortunately means that there\\\'s no chance of its matches becoming a 3-day epic like Wimbledon\\\'s 2010 Isner-Mahut match.
* \\\'\\\'\\\'Year-End Championships\\\'\\\'\\\' (Oct. for the women, Nov. for the men): The event that marks the true end of the tennis season, the YEC is ideally supposed to determine the No. 1 player with only the top eight players in the world being pitted against each other in separate tournaments for the men and women. More often, what happens instead is that there\\\'s already a runaway No. 1 who doesn\\\'t even need to win the YEC to be the clear Player of the Year, and the fun of the YEC lies more in its unique round-robin format that lets people see their favorites play for at least three guaranteed matches in the opening rounds[[hottip:*:the 8 players are split into 2 groups of 4 and each player dukes it out with the 3 other members in their group, with the best-performing 2 players from each group advancing to the semifinals; the semis and finals use the more typical knock-out format]]. Also worth watching for the [[BigEntrance dramatically-lit entrances]] of players and the ConfettiDrop during the trophy ceremony.
* \\\'\\\'\\\'Other tournaments\\\'\\\'\\\' (various dates/places): The smaller tournaments that don\\\'t get as much publicity as the Grand Slams but are still important to top-ranked players who are required to enter a certain number (but not all) of them, and lower-ranked players who can farm ranking points at low-profile tournaments higher-ranked players are unlikely to bother with. The tournaments usually serve as lead-ins to a Slam, such as the clay-court Madrid and Rome tournaments that precede the French Open, or mainly to ensure that the players never get a moment of rest even between Grand Slams with even the lull period between the US Open and YEC being jam-packed with multiple Asian tournaments. Suffice it to say that players can consider themselves blessed if they don\\\'t get a single cramp or injury during their 10/11-month-long season. Professional tennis is no endeavour for the faint-hearted or weak-legged.
And then there would be a bullet point about the Fed/Hopman/Davis Cups preceding or following the YEC paragraph, but I unfortunately don\\\'t know much about them other than the Czech Republic recently beating out Spain for the Davis Cup. Suggestions?
Once again, feel free to make suggestions and tell me if these bullet points would be too long or detailed for casual readers, because I am a natural rambler too. :)
ETA: As for the page image, tennis doesn\\\'t have the absurdly complicated field of cricket and I think we already have the humor of tennis\\\'s \\\"ludicrous\\\" scoring system. We \\\'\\\'could\\\'\\\' replace it with a picture of a player smashing a racquet, though, if we wanted even more humor about tennis being true SeriousBusiness.
