What I didn’t know until I lived in the UK is that this time of year there are hundreds of small children in every neighbourhood diligently mucking around with tennis rackets in parks and on quiet suburban cul-de-sacs. Then those rackets get put away until next year. Some of them probably belonged to the great-gran’thers.
Anyway, have a thread for general Wimbledon appreciation, commentary and speculation. You know you want to.
Come On!
When I lived in England, you could buy a ground ticket (admittance to outside courts only, although you might be allowed onto a centre court if people were leaving) after 6pm for, IIRC, around 10 pounds. On a fine evening, play might continue until after 9pm, bathed in sunshine, and you could take your pick from the best players in the world, watching them from court side, not from miles up in the stands. (Is the Aussie Open like that? I’ve never been.)
Tennis played on grass in an English summer. There is nothing like it.
Not worth watching post Margaret Court. A lot of people with strange names from obscure countries belting a ball around as if their lives depended on it. Grunts, curses, bad tempers.
I have a few (very) early strawberries bearing fruit, but I shall be enjoying them sans the ugly spectacle of professional sport.
“Not worth watching post Margaret Court.” Neither is Margaret Court worth watching post Margaret Court. Rather vile brand of christianity being spouted by her on community TV.
True – further evidence that too much sport will ruin you one way or the other.
Just reading The Spectator and come across this:
“Britain now has a Wimbledon economy: we provide the charming venue, and foreigners come over to enjoy themselves on Centre Court …. the English summer has never been so English. It’s just a shame that the English can’t afford it any more.”
Many years ago my boys really enjoyed the tennis and to that end managed to convince me that they should be allowed to stay up late because they would make some scones to be enjoyed by all as we watched the finals.
They have long since grown up and somehow I fail to recapture the magic that once was.Mind you, there was no grunt factor back in the old days.
Wimbeldon is rather speccy.
So I think the Brits might take this year.
Murray – 5 sets perhaps v Jo-Wilfried.
On our one visit to Wimbledon, we sat all day watching Jelena Dokic warm up. Very occasionally it would sprinkle lightly – I mean really lightly – and the covers would return. The players were quietly sent home about 6pm but the crowd was left to fester till 8pm, having seen not a ball struck in anger except on centre court. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but it smacked of a very haughty approach to the plebs. We befriended a Polish au pair that day who’d saved up leave and pay for over a month for that one day of being treated shabbily.
But then I’m not much of a tennis fan. What can you say about a sport where about a dozen officials/ball girls/flunkies service just two players?
A photo gallery from Day One.
My most abiding memory comes from just after my wife and I were married. We used to set the alarm and get up to watch Bjorn Borg take on the likes of Connors and McEnroe in the semis and finals. In 1981 Borg defeated Connors in the semis after being down two sets to love. The final with McEnroe was a close 4-setter (scores here).
I remember the haunted look in Borg’s eyes as he finally sank to his knees in defeat. That was indeed the last of him as a champion player.
Lleyton Hewitt knocked out in the 2nd Round despite winning the first two sets against Robin Soderling.
Li Na was beaten by big-serving German wildcard Sabine Lisicki.
I believe Li Na was scheduled to meet Sarina Williams down the track and one expert said that whoever won that match would win the tournament.
oh ohhhhhhhhh ATOMIC OH OHHHHHHHH A T O M I C….
That Bernard Tomic is sweet: he could win the lot and do a Boris Becker!!
Go Aussie!!!
Tomic again, beat Robin Soderling in straight sets. Wiped him off the court 6-1 in the first in 17 minutes.
I heard them say on the BBC that Soderling had an upset stomach, but the way Tomic played in the first set, by all accounts, it may not have mattered.
I think none of the four top men seeds, Nadal, Dokovich, Federer and Murray, have lost a set. If they all go through, then the eventual winner has to beat two of the others. Frankly I can only see Nadal or Dokovich doing that, Federer just possibly.
Tomic won another one and now faces practice partner Novak Djokovic, who, he says, destroyed him when they played a set on grass before the tournament.
Others have been quick to praise.
Amongst the women just about everyone who’s anyone has gone, with Maria Sharapova looking like one to watch.
Marion Bartoli, who knocked over Serena, now has to face big-serving German wildcard Sabine Lisicki, who sent one down at 197kph in her last match.
Love the way Tomic plays. Poetry.
We stayed up and watched Petra Kvitova defeat Maria Sharapova in the women’s final. It was probably the left-hand serve and the heavier ground strokes that did it. At the end of the first set we were told that Kvitova’s ground strokes were 10mph faster.
There was a point in the second set when Kvitava missed two easy put-away shots and lost her serve to let Sharapova back to 3 all. It looked like a momentum change, but Sharapova didn’t win another game. Kvitova served out the match to nil and finished with an ace.
In other matches Australian Luke Saville won the boys’ final, Queensland’s Ashleigh Barty is in the girls’ final but Sam Stosur with Sabine Lisicki missed out in the doubles final.
Wimbledon is over, and you’d have to say a new champion has arrived as Djokovic takes the title and the no. 1 ranking.
At 4 all in the first set it wasn’t possible to predict a winner. Then Nadal played a poor service game and Djokovic won the next 8 out of 9. He has a number of real strengths in his game and no weaknesses.
In spite of a third set rally and a period in the 4th set where he threatened, Nadal never really got back into the match. Another poor service game at 3-all and there was no way back.
Our Ashleigh Barty took out the girls’ final.