Word: slams
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...accomplishment was very nearly nonpareil. To put the grand slam of tennis in perspective, it is far rarer than either baseball's (16) or horse racing's (eleven) triple crowns. The recent demigods, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Billie Jean King among them have 47 major tournament victories, but none managed that perfect dominance over their rivals and the calendar. Only four other tennis players, male and female, belong in this most exclusive of tennis clubs: Don Budge (1938), Maureen Connolly (1953), Rod Laver (1962 and 1969) and Margaret Court (1970). On Saturday Steffi Graf of West Germany joined that...
...conquest. In the first act, the Australian Open in January, she sent Evert down under 6-1, 7-6. In Paris in June, she pulverized Soviet Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0, the only double bagel ever in a French Open singles final and the first in a grand-slam final since 1911. The walkover took all of 32 minutes on the soft, molasses-slow red clay. During the award ceremony, when the centurion had metamorphosed back into an unaffected teenage millionaire, Graf meekly apologized to the crowd, "I'm very sorry it was so fast...
...task was made even easier when Navratilova exited prematurely in the quarterfinals after a fabulous seesawing bout, probably the fortnight's best, with Zina Garrison. It was a particularly melancholy end for Navratilova, who during 1983-84 won six consecutive majors and contends that she too has won the slam. Few, however, agree: the slam, like all classic stories, must adhere to certain unities of time and space, the calendar year being one of them...
...interviewed Akeem Olajuwon, the Houston Rockets center, who was in town to be a judge at a slam-dunk contest. He sat on a bench. I kneeled at his feet, scribbling in my notebook...
...peak in past years by Julian Symons (The Players and the Game) and Ruth Rendell (Live Flesh). That sort of book has been attempted unsuccessfully this season by Robert B. Parker, whose uninsightful Crimson Joy (Delacorte; 211 pages; $16.95) suggests that he would do better to return to slam-bang action. Symons and Rendell, meanwhile, are represented by more conventional fare resurrecting characters from some of their earlier novels...