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2008-07-01 18:33:00
After having spent seven days watching Wimbledon, with only one rain delay, it’s time to reflect on some of the things that have taken place during an intense week.
The tournament has confirmed a lot of things that I’ve suggested in earlier posts of this blog. Women’s tennis is at a very low point at the moment with most of the top players struggling big time. The World No. 1 Ana Ivanovic is extremely inconsistent and doesn’t seem to have a second game plan when her usual winning style doesn’t work. The same goes for World No. 3 Maria Sharapova, who is incredibly one-dimensional. You would think that one of the best players in the world would be able to play tennis in more than one way, but time and time again we’ve seen how Sharapova can fall apart completely and hit outrageous double faults which are rare to find in an Under 14 tournament. Despite always appearing cool to the outside world, maybe Sharapova is suffering from the immense pressure on her to keep on winning.
The World No. 2 Jelena Jankovic made another embarrassing appearance constantly complaining about injuries. I still haven’t watched a match this year where she hasn’t called the trainer, and I’m still waiting for her to take a break from competition and come back as a new fresh player. The annoying thing is that she is clearly using her injury complains in an unsportsmanlike fashion trying to get to her opponents. As noted by John McEnroe during her third round match against Caroline Wozniacki, it was interesting how she moved at 100 % during the rallies to then barely be able to walk between points.
Richard Gasquet came back from two sets down and a break against Andy Roddick last year. Now, the Frenchman knows what it feels like to be on the losing side of a similar match. In what has been the highlight so far for the home fans, Andy Murray was outplayed during the better part of three sets but still managed to win. Murray is not the most likeable guy because of his court antics, but you’ve got to give him credit for staying in there and pulling out an incredible comeback win at Wimbledon, where he’s under brutal pressure. They are so desperate for tennis success in this country that you really wish they had more players. Murray has to handle ten times more media coverage than many other players of a similar level. There are clearly also some benefits in this for the Scot, who has been able to have the LTA hire any coach of his liking and who has been able to sign some very lucrative sponsorship deals.
The country’s desperation for having tennis success climaxed when the unknown local serve- and vollyer Chris Eaton came through qualifying and then defeated Boris Pashanski in straight sets. The unexpected success by the 20-year old ranked 661 made people believe that the story of the Wimbledon movie would become a reality. Journalists and photographers lined up outside the family home of the Eaton’s, where they were asking for photos of Chris as a three-year old and anything they could find. It seemed as if some people where seriously getting ready for a Federer-Eaton final, when DmitryTursunov ended the dreams of a nation. Among other hysteric moments during the first week, Elena Baltacha was seen on the cover of The Times sitting on her knees in good old Bjorn Borg-fashion after winning a first round encounter with Angelique Kerber. The poor German 20-year old couldn’t handle all the screaming from the crowd and started to cry even before she had lost the match to her four year older British opponent.
Finally, I’ve criticized Novak Djokovic here before, and now it seems like the majority of the tennis world is sharing the same opinion. The success has clearly got to Djokovic, and he is not the same kind of guy he used to be. There were a lot of people, including players and coaches, cheering Safin on as he took down “Nole” in the second round. Who would have thought that we wouldn’t have one Serbian player in the quarterfinals of either the women’s or men’s singles?
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