| tableman
- 22 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 690
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Congrats to Niki Flanagan for again capturing the Women's title by virtue of being the top woman finisher. She should be approaching a USAA record for most Women's titles. Niki, how many is that for you?
Is Niki the greatest female player of all time?
Mark
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| carolina phil
- 23 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 1084
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Below is a section on women ah from my recent article in GoalGrinder on the evolution of ah:
"Also, women played a role in the early days with the bull dog Pam Patock of Colorado sport’s fame, and others such as Kelly Weaver, Savannah Moore, Debbie Wolan, Sheri Hausey, Debbie Dogget, Melanie Leaper, Donna Perez, and Marialice Cameron Lindig. Some of these females played on into the 80s until the fastest woman player ever emerged in Houston, Barbara Marquis, who won six women’s world titles. She was followed by Lady Hammer Hand, Patrice Nale Cizini who won seven. Heir to their throne is current World Women’s Champion Niki Flanagan with her fast side to side drift set up game."
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| tableman
- 24 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 690
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carolina phil said:
Below is a section on women ah from my recent article in GoalGrinder on the evolution of ah:
"Also, women played a role in the early days with the bull dog Pam Patock of Colorado sport’s fame, and others such as Kelly Weaver, Savannah Moore, Debbie Wolan, Sheri Hausey, Debbie Dogget, Melanie Leaper, Donna Perez, and Marialice Cameron Lindig. Some of these females played on into the 80s until the fastest woman player ever emerged in Houston, Barbara Marquis, who won six women’s world titles. She was followed by Lady Hammer Hand, Patrice Nale Cizini who won seven. Heir to their throne is current World Women’s Champion Niki Flanagan with her fast side to side drift set up game." |
Let's not forget Kara Klyn (Adema) of CA who won multiple women's titles in the 90's.
Mark
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| carolina phil
- 24 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 1084
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Kara should certainly be included. How many did she win? Also, I think Connie Rhector won one, beating Patrice; but that may have been a set to determine the highest finishing woman in that national. Lorraine and another Colorado woman played a bunch in the mid 80's. Not to leave out the Barney's gals: Mike's sister; the two short twins, and Terry Quarles back around 74 to 77.
Phil
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| ajflanagan
- 24 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 509
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| The history lessons are great... but the past is the past. The fact remains, there is not a single woman in the entire Universe who can take a set off of Niki right now. That's pretty cool.
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| tableman
- 24 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 690
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carolina phil said: Kara should certainly be included. How many did she win? Also, I think Connie Rhector won one, beating Patrice; but that may have been a set to determine the highest finishing woman in that national. Lorraine and another Colorado woman played a bunch in the mid 80's. Not to leave out the Barney's gals: Mike's sister; the two short twins, and Terry Quarles back around 74 to 77.
Phil |
Connie Rector did win one. Then Patrice took the #1 women's ranking from her in a 48 (or was it 49) game match at Scoreboard.
Cathy Brown of CA also won one - '91 CA Nationals.
Mark
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| carolina phil
- 27 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 1084
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Jennifer, or Jinny, of Colorado was another good steady competitor in the 80's.
Phil
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| carolina phil
- 27 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 1084
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I would go farther and say that Niki at her best would beat the other women's champs at their best in a four of seven match. I would add these caveats:
Barbara at her best was practicing twice a week with Robert Hernandez in the summer afternoons in a garage that had to be 110 degrees for hours. That has to have given they very hyper Barbara more endurance to push her fast game than any woman Niki has or will ever face. Barabaras quick set up game with overs and straight to both sides would have kept driving the puck at Niki without ceasing. A short set could have gone either way. But even with Barbara's extreme conditioning and speed, over seven sets the superior style and superior techniqes of Niki would gain Niki the victory, 4 sets to 1.
Against Patrice at her best, Niki should win with her modern style and various set up shots. Patrice's chance would have come from her deceptive long wind up (Travis like) with much space between the puck and her long arc swing, unleashing over the mallets from far back on the Table to both sides. Plus her formal attire and unathletic appearance hid the fact that Patrice was Hammer Hand, whose shots with that pingng grey mallet were painfully hard and sudden. Both Barbara and Niki are World Champs whose will to win is greater than 99 percent of all male or female players; nevertheless one thing Patrice had going for her was a hard headed stubborness that was so focussed on her goal that it began to feel like a heavy foot pushing you down under the tub while you vainly tried to get out for air. She would not let up; and the cackle was in her eyes as you began to know it was over. She broke you.
There is also the issue of who would continue to improve with time. In my opinion, Connie Rechtor could have, but did not. Barbara got faster and more accurate, but did not have the patience to learn the new shots and techniques. Patrice seemed content with her fast moving game, as if it was the art that she wanted to create. No interest in the slow set up workmanlike game.
The woman players from Venezuela show potential for growing with the new modern styles and could become threats in they have the time to practice and compete internationally.
But Niki already has learned new styles and modern ah and incorporates new and modifies style and techniques. She has the heart, will, and natural skills to use these innovations and get even better with time. She is surrounded with talent, not only at SRO, but in the home with Number 16 Andrew who improves too yearly; plus an athletic son whose constant talk and play of baseball and football sets a tone for competition and personal growth.
Niki's game also has longevity.
Phil
ajflanagan said: | The history lessons are great... but the past is the past. The fact remains, there is not a single woman in the entire Universe who can take a set off of Niki right now. That's pretty cool.[/quote |
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| brain
- 27 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 578
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Niki is the best female player by rank and by skill. No question. But it is not appropriate to bestow the title " female champion". That title must earned through a specific competition. She is the "highest ranked female player" as she has been for over a decade.
While I agree with Andrew that no woman on earth could defeat Niki a set, if we want to have a woman champion, then we need to have a female only tournament where we remove all other variables such as seeding and other players that could potentially knock a worthy competitor out of contention based on lower seed and strength of opponent. With the men removed, the ladies could go after it. At present, if we had such an event, I would pick Niki Flanagan and Lorene Shoukry in the finals, though I recall 1-2 Venezuelan women that were also pretty talented but dount they would make the trip for it.
If there is interest in organizing such an event and we could get 16 or more women, we could easily do it at SRO, and I will personally sponsor the Female Champion trophy. I will have it pre-embroidered with Niki's name. :)
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| tableman
- 28 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 690
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brain said: Niki is the best female player by rank and by skill. No question. But it is not appropriate to bestow the title " female champion". That title must earned through a specific competition. She is the "highest ranked female player" as she has been for over a decade.
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This debate has gone on for decades. Historically we have recognized women's champions either via a special women's event at the Nationals, or - in its absence - via the highest finish by a woman. We also used the "highest finishing" criterion to determine the Junior Champion.
There's a strong argument made that it's not fair to expect the women to play a whole separate tournament while at the same time they are competing in singles. That's why we tended to drift away from a women's event, because most of the women want to compete in Open singles and get a world ranking.
And for the record - I think it's great to have a kids' tournament the weekend before the main event. But it wouldn't be fair to crown a World Junior Champion based on an event designed for local Houston players only. You can't expect a kid from out of state to come to Houston on two consecutive weekends. And many up and coming kids want to compete in the main event vs. the best in the world. Think of 14-year-old Tim Weissman finishing just below the top ten in his very first National, Boulder, Colorado 1984.
Mark
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| ajflanagan
- 28 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 509
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This is a topic for another thread Mark... but as the sport continues to grow, promoters will have no choice but to start treating the sport as a more professional level event. There is no other professional sport in the world I can think of where 14-year-old children are participating on the same playing field as the 30-year-old adults. Going forward, we will be forced to draw clearer lines for both our participants and for our sponsors.
In the case of this years WC's, our title sponsor had significant legal restrictions to consider. We had to be very careful to comply with their legal requirements... in both our marketing efforts and in player participation.
The youth event at SRO on July 10 was marketed as the Youth World Championship. It was an open event to anyone worldwide. There is nothing either in writing or precedent that says it wasn't.
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| Darth_Wafu
- 28 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 117
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I would say 14 year old players in professional sports are exceedingly rare, but there are examples. Jennifer Capriati turned pro at 14. Martina Hingis was the world number 1 player at 16. There is precedent. However, as the sport grows, there should be less opportunity for a 14 year old to be competitive in open singles and hopefully more participation and interest in the junior tournaments.
Nick Geoffroy
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| carolina phil
- 28 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 1084
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When the sport grows very large, I agree new divisions will prevail. For now, it is best to turn our "anyone in the world can play for the World Championship" into a marketing advantage. If this is packaged with flare and with sizzle, it can grab the attention of the media and become a great asset.
"This event is open to anyone, man, woman, child or beast who can win it! Come one, come all. If you think you can do it, come prove it! No one in the world is excluded from the World AH Championship."
Phil
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| carolina phil
- 29 Jul 2010
Total Posts: 1084
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carolina phil said:
I would go farther and say that Niki at her best would beat the other women's
After remembering some old videos and Barbara at her best, in shape, practicing with Robert at his best, I now think the match would be closer with Niki's advanced set up game still winning by a set or two, 4 to 3 or 4 to 2 with close scores.
To get an idea we could say playing Barbara would not be like playing a Tom or Goofy or Donovan or Tad; but it would be like a Frank Perez or a Fernando; good, tough, but not an advanced expert level yet. Over a match of several sets, the weaknesses of Barbara's game would allow Niki to expoit it. Patrice would take two sets, due to her offensive machine and constant consistency, but over time would be scored upon too much by Niki's set up game.
So, Niki would win all matches against all women who have ever played, in my opinion; but could be upset by Barbara or Patrice one set in a tournament, Men's or Women's. But Niki would be favored to win every set. Again, the reason is that she has taken early insturction from Jesse Douty in how to play the slower set up game and has gone on to add to that game fast side to side motions with Hernandez like fast hand motions and added excellent over the mallets into her game.
Phil
champs at their best in a four of seven match. I would add these caveats:
Barbara at her best was practicing twice a week with Robert Hernandez in the summer afternoons in a garage that had to be 110 degrees for hours. That has to have given they very hyper Barbara more endurance to push her fast game than any woman Niki has or will ever face. Barabaras quick set up game with overs and straight to both sides would have kept driving the puck at Niki without ceasing. A short set could have gone either way. But even with Barbara's extreme conditioning and speed, over seven sets the superior style and superior techniqes of Niki would gain Niki the victory, 4 sets to 1.
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