1. Well, congrats to Roger on a stunning upset of the entire tournament. And Mirka shot about a million photographs of him. I'm not sure why, since he's going to be on the cover of every magazine for the next year and a half.
2. enough about roger! Rafael Nadal can play on grass. and played he did, for seven straight days.
3. enough about rafa! onto...robin soderling. I wasn't amused by his antics during his third-round and neither was nadal. the entire universe knows that rafael takes a lifetime between points, but it certainly isn't up to Captain Soderling (!!) to save the day. tell the ump. don't try to embarass rafael in public. because you might end up embarassing yourself.
4. ana ivanovic vs. nicole vaidisova was almost exciting as djokovic vs. baghdatis. why do these guys all investigate their boxes between points? good tournament by vaidisova to take out mauresmo, although losing to ana after three match points must have been painful, especially for such a young teenage player. baghdatis/djokovic was a crowd-pleaser, despite djokovic remaining strangely clothed at the end.
5. sad exit for djokovic, even though i only picked him for the semis and picked rafael for the final. but i was still hoping that he'd go down gracefully and not with a foot injury. he should be cheered, because he's now number three in the world; not bad for a twenty-year old. he is also now the second-youngest player to reach both the french open and wimbledon semis in the same year. so still a good tournament for our beanpole serb. i can't wait for him to be the champion here, because apparently he promised to strip naked if he wins.
6. henman hill was packed once more, this time at carlos moya's expense. and then feli lopez (my favorite) took him out. ps-you know you're a tennis fan if you're at a crowded bar with a number of attractive social climbing stars, and the only thing you can do is sip your drink and watch henman lose.
7. i guess maybe you guys got the memo about sending good karma to JCF because he's poxed (did i type that? i mean pwned) Blake and then he went to the quarters and took a set off federer with some phenomenal serving. good stuff from a man the commentators called "a clay court veteran."
8. Marion Bartoli? I still don't really have anything to say about it. I still don't understand it. Good surprise though, even though she ruined all my predictions.
9. Nice for Venus. I want to point out that Tennis magazine only got her to the quarters (most of their predictions were pretty inconsistent), but she came and got a fourth Wimbledon (who said that would happen?), being the lowest seed to win it.
10. The greatest moment for me was when Monsieur Bartoli began to cry and Richard Williams reached over and hugged him. And held him. For a good half a minute. And then Williams patted Bartoli on the pack while he sobbed into a handkerchief. It was really touching, in some terribly bizarre and comical way.
11. Richard Gasquet. the man hit 93 winners against Andy Roddick, who isn't a slouch. he hit more shots that andy roddick didn't even touch than than two-thirds of all the points of the women's final. Federer won the entire thing and all that jazz, but seriously, it was pretty phenomenal, especially since Gasquet looked like he just wanted a hot shower and some wine in the middle of the third. and then suddenly found his brain and feet enough to win. if you're not a tennis fan or a new tennis fan, watch his tennis. it's like everything french, like wine and couture and impressionism-you just want to soak your fingers in it. it's so beautiful and tactile. he's such a dancer on court, i'd hate to see him break it down in the club.
and ps-it was terrible to see andy roddick in the post-match interview. i think tragedy actors could take a few tips from it.
12. I hereby say: No more Brad Gilbert. No more calling Rafael Nadal "Ralph Nader." I'm praying for Andy Murray to come back fast so that Brad has his hands full dealing with surly Scotsmen instead of harassing innocent television viewers.
13. Darren Cahill was a good commentator, and so was John McEnroe. the host at ESPN, chris fowler is fun. Bud Collins has been fired, praise Jesus. And besides that, nothing really changes in commentary. There's always the Blake/Roddick lovers (P.McEnroe), the ones that don't seem to know what's going on (Ted Robinson), the ones that seem to think we're blind (Dick Enberg), and one that just seems like everyone's senile grandfather (Cliff "Cliffie!" Drysdale).
14. From how many angles can you see a calf cramp? Apparently enough angles to fill hours and hours of television coverage during a rain delay. I'm only surprised that they didn't stick a camera up Serena's skirt to give us the aerial perspective.
15. James Blake is a published author now! When I heard this news, I was hoping that it would be an answer to the feud publicized by Vince Spadea in his Pulitzer-winning book, but instead it's actually (brace yourselves for innovation) an inspirational and original story about a kid from the who battles adversity and crushing defeat to make it big in the tennis world. Good idea, because we all know that Spadea ain't afraid of ya.
16. "It's the most boring tournament in the world. Apart from tennis there is hardly anything to do. Luckily we hired a house in the city because there's nothing to do elsewhere. But still, all we do here is yawning." -Nikolay Davydenko, on oldest major championship in tennis.
17. Who else hates the challenge system other than Roger Federer? I too think it's a little ridiculous. I don't like the finality of the computer; not only does it only have a margin of error of four millimeters (doesn't sound like much unless it's a close call in the men's final), but it's only 90% accurate. So 10% of the time, the call is going to be wrong. And no one knows which 10 times it is. I'm not in the Roger camp (how enjoyable was it to see his pokerface flip out and ask it to be turned off?), but I'm not in NBC's 'IN-SYNC!' camp either.
18. Sunday's weather was so lovely. I mean, that middle sunday. The one that no one used? I know that they weren't too far behind by Friday, but when the weather forecast was so grim for the early part of the week (on the plus side: serena's calf never got so much publicity!), there should have been an emergency plan. I was seething to think of Djokovic and Nadal sitting in the locker room (not that there was much sitting, I guess. Nadal was probably jumping up and down while Djokovic imitated his moves right behind him.) while the Wimbledon official was on tv talking about how much fun the tournament was. Three cheers for Wimbledon 09: once that roof goes on, I don't ever want it coming off.
All in all, despite the best effort of injuries, cramping, upsets and rain, it was a good two weeks. Between Borg watching Federer win the final, Nadal's incredible play, a good effort by Ferrero to take a set of Federer, the breakthroughs of young and future victors, you have to admit that it's an exciting time in tennis; it isn't often that you get to see the emergence of legends. By any standards, Roger Federer has now penciled in a paragraph in sport history.
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