Sooooooo that's another Wimbledon over as the mens singles final has finished and we saw Rafa fall to the mighty Novak Djokovic, very much the man of the moment who has now stepped up to the plate and taken it and swopped it for a 12 inch buffet plate! In otherwords Djokovic managed to defeat Rafa and take his first Wimbledon title.
The match did in my opinion fall a bit short of my expectations, it was still a good final, but it lacked what anyone's expectations of a pure classic might have promised. Djokovic for the most part was in control, after a tightly contested 1st set Djoko got the break at 5-4 on Rafa's serve and took the first set. In the second Djokovic was in full control as he blootered Nadal off the court, in the third however Rafa fought back into the match and got an early break to take the set, but in the fourth Rafa despite breaking back at one point, had his serve broken once again and secured Djoko's first Wimbledon title. I was glad it wasn't a straight set defeat for Rafa, but if you look at the scoreline 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3, Rafa didn't fare much better than Andy did, in fact Rafa won one less game than Andy did in their semi final match, i.e. Rafa won 14 games to Andy's 15. So in retrospect Andy really didn't play that badly overall in the semi finals, and he should at least take a little solace from that, as Djokovic made Nadal look quite ordinary at times. In fact Nadal had a similar problem in his match where he had a good chance to break Djoko in his opening service game of the 4th set, but he couldn't take it as he fired a forehand that went long, ring any bells? If Nadal had got that break things might have turned out differently or we might have been looking at a 5th set at least, but again its the fate of circumstances in a way. But its ironic that the losing players in both the semis and finals matches had very similar patterns in their outcome.
Regardless of the match, Djokovic definitely deserves praise for his performance, he came through a very tough Wimbledon campaign to win the title, having dropped 4 sets throughout the tournament, whereas he only dropped one in the Australian Open. His performance against Rafa was mostly imperious as he showed nothing but control over the now former World No.1, who for the most part couldn't do much against the Serb's all out attack on his serve and return. Nadal must be kicking himself over his defeat, as that's five in a row now, in his post match interview you got the impression he was saying "how in the hell can I beat this guy?? What do I have to do??" cos right now he doesn't have the answers. I'm sure at some point Rafa will beat him again but not just now.
But of course now that Djoko is the World No.1 we can unfortunately expect yet another unceasing winning streak, so far he's up to 7 matches, how long will this one go on for???? It could be another 6 months or at least until next year at the Aussie Open where he will probably win again and extend the streak even further!!! I hope it doesn't last as long this time, but let's face it, who is to stop him??? Not Rafa that's for sure, the only two players that can potentially stop him are Federer and Murray, Roger handed him his only defeat this year while Andy came to within 2 points from beating him in Rome.
But Djokovic is the world's best player now without a doubt and he is a likeable guy and has definitely worked very hard to get to where he is, so we will see how his career pans out for the remainder of the year. But with the hard court season coming up again, Djokovic's favourite surface, all I can say is God help the rest of the players on tour because this man is about to clean up once more! No one once again will ever win a title with him in it lol. Jeez! This time he might try and equal Stefi Graff's record of 66 matches in one season, I hope not, it would be just a bit too much. But all that aside Djokovic definitely deserves credit for his performance throughout the year so far, he has become such a complete player, the guy serves great, returns great, vollies and drop shots brilliantly, he can hit winners from virtually anywhere on the court and he can break serve like snapping a twig. In short he's the complete package.
One thing I must say though is Djokovic couldn't take his hands off that trophy and he kept snogging it! I mean get a room!! ;-) Oh and one more thing I have to say about the Wimbledon champions is I was looking at the Wimbly website and they had a picture of Novak Djokovic and Petra Kvitova with their respective trophies in hand (or cup and saucer!) both all dressed up. And I have to say that Petra is a bit of a honey all dressed up with her hair done, she looks pretty good. Just thought I'd share that. :-)
Anyway it was good to see Andy still writing on his BBC column after his defeat about his loss and how he took it, but he's ready to come back for the Davis cup this week, and he will put in a lot of time to train hard for the US Open which will start at the end of August. Can he rise to the challenge and win the title there? Well after 3 grand slam losses this year I have to say no, I don't have any expectations of him winning because these top 2 guys are just better than everyone else. Djokovic is red hot just now and hard court is his playground, so I'm almost 100% certain he will be the one lifting that trophy come September. But you can but dream I guess, then wake up. ;-)
No but seriously if Andy does train hard enough and believe enough and if he most importantly SERVES well enough then he will have a chance. But in these instances its usually the same outcome, every grand slam comes around we build up our hopes only to have them crushed once again. Its all "ohh he's gonna do it! this time I can feel it! He will win!" then "ahhh shit he didn't win again, oh well maybe next time!". But hard court is Andy's best surface he will be able to go toe to toe with Nadal but with Djokovic he will most likely be outmanoevered by him on the court, but if he ever plays him in the final I hope he gives him a real match and not allow himself to be trounced like he did at Melbourne. Achhh well time will tell, but the Serb is the overwhelming favourite I think as he can now beat Rafa even in grand slams, so there was no difference in the pressure of the event and it didn't phase him at all. What Andy has to do now is to try and emulate what Djokovic has done and above all work on his mental strength, especially when dealing with adversity as Tim Henman so aptly put it, and get his 1st serve percentages consistently high up in the 75% area at least, then his chances will get better. John McEnroe himself made the prediction last year that Andy Murray's grand slam breakthrough will come at the 2011 US Open, usually he get's it right, but he might be wrong this time, as Djokovic might have pipped him to the post already.
David Lloyd, a former Davis cup captain said that Andy needs to improve his image in public, i.e. come on court clean shaven and well dressed as well as to work on his serve. I mean he doesn't half state the bleeding obvious does he???? Its just nitpicking actually, as we all know Andy needs to work on his serve more than anything else, so whether he comes on court sprouting a bit of stubble or not isn't exactly going to ruin his chances is it??? Just because Djokovic, Federer and Nadal are clean shaven, it isn't necessarily the key to success, but then again, it might be worth a shot, in fact Andy has taken it onboard as he has been seen in the press since with a stubble free shaven face. Perhaps that grand slam isn't far away now! ;-)
Anyway that's enough tennis for now, my next tennis post will be based on live tennis, i,e. the Davis Cup which takes place at Braehead Arena this Friday, so I'm going along to see that for sure, and Andy Murray has confirmed that he will be playing at it, and he's tweeted that he's arrived in Glasgow, heyy! Hopefully Muzza will put in a good performance, although I heard that he will play Gilles Muller, who took on Rafa in his 3rd round Wimbly match, and he gave him quite a test (well for 2 sets 7-6, 7-6 that is before he gubbed him 6-0 in the 3rd) and it might be a tough match for Andy too, but I'm really looking forward to it. I just hope he is playing on Friday as I'd hate it if it were Sunday! So I will post more on that later in the week.
So that'ssssss it!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment