Now that Wimbledon is done, it’s time to look back at the past two weeks and see who were the winners and losers.
The obvious winner was Roger Federer. With this title, he won his 6th Wimbledon title, one short of Pete Sampras’s record. He also broke Sampras’s record of 14 Slams. He also accomplished the rare French-Wimbledon double, something that only Rafael Nadal (last year) and Bjorn Borg have done in recent memory.
Two other folks, seen as heading into their twilight years, also had wonderful Wimbledons. Obviously, finalist Andy Roddick, with the help of Larry Stefanki, made great strides in his game over the last 6 months, including beefing up his backhand, his volley, and the variety in his serve. A year ago, Roddick wondered aloud if he would ever be able to reach the top of the game again. One caveat. Roddick is 26. Still, players like James Blake and Mardy Fish played better as they got older, and Roddick could still have 4-5 good years before he hangs it up.
The other guy is older. Tommy Haas, long troubled by injuries, had a marvelous Wimbledon, beating Novak Djokovic, before tamely bowing out to Roger Federer in the semifinals. This should push Haas into the top 20. Can he continue to move his game up?
Lleyton Hewitt also had a bit of a comeback making it to the quarterfinals, where he lost to Andy Roddick. For that matter, Juan Carlos Ferrero also made it to the quarters and lost to Andy Murray.
How about Andy Murray? Well, he got one step further than last year. He made the quarters last year, and the semis this year. Even though he didn’t serve well, he played a resurgent Andy Roddick very close. However, the Brits will have to wait another year. Andy Murray, meanwhile, gets ready for the hardcourt season, the surface he likes best.
Juan Martin del Potro showed that grass is still not his friend. Lucky for him, there’s only a month’s worth of grass events. He too should thrive on hardcourts where he first started to make a name for himself about a year ago.
The French generally didn’t do so well. Monfils didn’t play, injured again. Tsonga lost to hard serving Ivo Karlovic, but was playing pretty good. Gilles Simon lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero, but hopes to do better once the hardcourt season starts.
Robin Soderling, French Open finalist, had a pretty good Wimbledon. He went out tamely to Roger Federer, but otherwise, did pretty well, making the fourth round.
Two American juniors did well. Devin Britton and Jordan Cox, doubles partners, fought each other in the semifinals, with Cox winning 16-14 in the third set. Cox failed to win the title, losing in three sets to Andrey Kuznetsov. Neither player was seeded, which goes to show you how little seeding matters in the juniors.
The losers? Well, in a sense, Nadal was the big loser, though not from playing poorly, but of course, from not playing at all. An afterthought once the tournament got started, his absence made a lot of people’s Wimbledons including Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick, and Andy Murray (and Roger Federer for that matter). Since he failed to defend the title, and Roger won it, Roger becomes number 1.
And, although Djokovic did pretty well, reaching the quarterfinals where he lost to Tommy Haas, a better result than in 2008 where he lost to Safin in the second round, his results have become less stellar. He retired in the quarters of the Australian Open to Roddick, then lost in the 3rd round of the French to Philipp Kohlschreiber, then to Tommy Haas in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon, 2009 has not been that friendly to Djokovic. Can he recover for the hardcourt season, or will 2007 and 2008 be seen as a bit of a fluke? And how much can be attributed to a change in racquet?
Overall, there weren’t really much in the way of losers. However many players of Federer’s generation, including Federer himself, had a pretty good Wimbledon. The question is whether these successes will lead to future successes especially for Andy Roddick.