Before the start of a tournament, especially the start of a Slam, there are questions being asked and the tournament, like students taking an exam, hope to provide answers to. For Roger Federer, the question was: can he win Wimbledon again? Is the great Roger Federer in decline? In the last two years, Roger Federer
Due to some previous commitments, I couldn't see any of the day's matches. Although I thought maybe Petzschner might give Nadal trouble because he gave Federer trouble in Queen's, I didn't think he'd take two sets off Nadal. The last two sets resemble the Haase match, i.e., it seems Nadal figured out what to do
Let's take a quick rundown of Saturday's matches. Petzschner vs. Nadal (Centre Court, Match 2) Petzschner was a bit unlucky. The last player not to get seeded, he was "awarded" the 33rd seed when Ernests Gulbis withdrew shortly after the draw was announced. Petzschner was moved to Gulbis's position in the draw, which meant the
Roger prefers playing players he's played a long time. There was a time that a handful of players gave Roger trouble. Lleyton Hewitt, David Nalbandian, and, yes, even Arnaud Clement. Federer overcame many of his nemesis by 2004 when he started becoming the Roger Federer of today. You have to credit Arnaud Clement, at 32
Well, you have to realize that the Isner-Mahut match was something of a perfect storm. A big server facing a guy (Mahut) that couldn't see his serve, first or second. Isner was able to hold serve mostly because nearly every big serve wasn't coming back. That lead to many games with easy enough holds. Similarly,
The match continued much where it had left off. Isner, who said he was delirious when he came off the court, and wondered a day after why he wanted the match to end despite Mahut looking the fresher of the two, was back to serving well. His first few serves went awry, and it seemed,
Most tennis experts felt Nadal would get a challenge from Robin. Only, they figured it would be Robin Soderling, not Robin Haase. Haase was considered a potential up-and-comer, perhaps not at the level of Ernests Gulbis. Haase had defeated a few top players including Andy Murray at Rotterdam in 2008, Ivan Ljubicic, Tomas Berdych, and
It was surprising the players held up this well. Today's players have so much support with them, that they recover much better than they would have 30-40 years ago where a player might be lucky if they had a coach. Few would have any idea how to recover in such a situation. But today, both
The day began with many Americans looking somewhere besides the lawns of Wimbledon. Down in South Africa, the US team, in Group C, was fighting for its World Cup lives. The math worked liked this. If the US beat Algeria, then the US would be one of two teams into the main draw. However, as
It was five hours ago that I was reporting on the Roddick-Llodra match. At the time, the Isner-Mahut match was called due to darkness at 2 sets each. Most people felt the set would be over an hour later. Not. Even. Close. More than 6 hours later, with over 100 games played, a decision was
