WIMBLEDON 2012

i don't like any of the 4 players on court but it's very enjoyable! hoping for some more chokes in the 3rd

Highest ranked players I've never seen play for even a point - Albert Ramos (43), Alexandra Panova (74)

i saw ramos live vs federer just 2 weeks ago! he sucked lol. he's number FORTY THREE IN THE WORLD?

i don't think i've seen berlocq (37) play

wta i don't think i've seen begu (64)

Oh no wait Vesnina just remembered who she is.

I'm struggling with some of the South Americans - Andujar? Giraldo? Get into the 70s and 80s and the HUH?s come thick and fast: there are Aussies called Ebden and Matosevic? And I'd never heard of Lukas Rosol. Whereas I knew Peter Doohan pre-June 1987. So I must've paid more attention then (poring over the ranking lists in the back of Tennis World mag).

andujar i remember from a very wta-esque horroshow at the french last year vs nadal

I saw Berlocq a few years ago, terrible clay grinder with terrible grunt. That was the year he double bagelled Young and then immediately got double bagelled by Blake. He's doing much better this year for some reason.

Saw Begu when she first had her breakthrough run to the Marbella final last year (beating Sweta, lulz). She's pretty decent but has been sucking this year.

Ramos in the top 50 is such a joke, also how is Go Soeda so close to the top 50?

Giraldo is a pretty fun basher! Really uncompromising.

Don't think I've seen Matosevic but I know he has a reputation for gamesmanship. Lots of the ATP players around there I know from seeing their results but don't know much about. With the WTA it goes down further.

WTA ranks http://www.wta96.com/wiki/lranking100.htm

Vesnina back being a bawse out there, they break back...

lol @ vesnina's inspired performance here

mixed doubles tends to bring out the best in the wta girls. will never forget zvonareva's incredible performance in the 2006 final here

love the sound of torrential rain <3

I love it when the WTAers ace the men

remember Ivanisevic being outraged at Hingis - Hingis! - acing him in Hopman Cup one time

incidentally on the topic of seasonal tennis fans, my mum had been enthusiastically supporting murray these last few days even though she has never heard of roger federer

I watched it in the pub with a bunch of women at the next table. One of them glanced up at the telly at one stage and explained to her friends that Federer had 2-4-40 and Murray had 1-2-A. She wasn't sure what that meant, but Murray was probably winning. We also heard her tell her friends that Federer had won Wimbledon for the last 7 years, and that Andy Murray had never beaten him. They then, despite paying no attention to the entire game, proceeded to go on at length about how badly Murray had played the entire match.

god those people are the worst

now that makes me want to create a sport where the scoring system is a beautifully baroque alphanumeric mystery.

it's called cricket

a guy I know asked a couple of years ago "is federer any good still?" and when he was told Fed was number 2 in the world "well, those rankings are just based on reputation"

can u beleev that federer won Q9L to 1D▲ in the seventeenth quarter? (sad xps to myself)

Oh my god Paes and Vesnina flopping so hard at everything right now

Especially returning, how hard is it to return Lisa bloody Raymond's serve back in court

"I don't think I was totally tested today; it's hard to say something after 6-2, 6-2 against Lisa Raymond," Hingis said.

(RG 2006 in response to a question about where her level of play was)

Right can Bryan choke for the match again plz

No choking :( Poor Elena :(

3rd wimbledon final this weekend where the winners have had sizable leads and been pegged back before going on to finally winning

Roll of honour

Men's singles: Roger Federer
Women's singles: Serena Williams
Men's doubles: Jonathan Marray & Frederik Nielsen
Women's doubles: Serena Williams & Venus Williams
Mixed doubles: Mike Bryan & Lisa Raymond
Boys' singles: Filip Peliwo
Girls' singles: Eugenie Bouchard
Boys' doubles: Andrew Harris & Nick Kyrgios
Girls' doubles: Eugenie Bouchard & Taylor Townsend

Clean Canadian sweep of the junior singles crowns. WTF is Bouchard doing still playing juniors though, she's nearly 19! Can't even credit the finalist instead because Elina Svitolina, already firmly ensconced in the top 200, shouldn't be playing juniors either.

Like...it's as if Martina Hingis still played the junior tournament in 1999 o_0

all you guys who are like "as soon as the roof came on it was all over" don't forget that Fed had already turned it up about eight notches, to the point where the BBC commentators were like "Andy could sure use a break right now" and "surely this is the last point before they stop play - COME ON, COME ON" as if even just a respite from play would somehow turn the momentum around for their boy

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 8 July 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well that ws bollocks from the commentators - Andy held his first serve in that one game of the 3rd set. Fed hadn't turned it up about eight notches at all, he continously struggled to hold his own serve in the 2nd - Murray had about 5 breaks points.

What does it matter I suppose but I am pleased that he got into a slam final (saw what was coming at the rain break, went to a film) and reckon he'll win one or two now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-18765015

amazing story

"In 2003 Nick Newlife, from Oxfordshire, made a wager of £1,520, at odds of 66/1, that the Swiss tennis star would win seven Wimbledon titles by 2019.

Mr Newlife died in 2009 but had left the betting slip to Oxfam in his will.

Federer's defeat of Britain's Andy Murray in Sunday's Wimbledon final means the charity will now collect a payout from William Hill of £101,840."

New rankings! New No 1s!

1. Victoria Azarenka (2)
2. Agnieszka Radwanska (3)
3. Maria Sharapova (1)
4. Serena Williams (6)
5. Samantha Stosur (5)
6. Petra Kvitova (4)
7. Angelique Kerber (8)
8. Caroline Wozniacki (7)
9. Sara Errani (10)
10. Marion Bartoli (9)
11. Na Li (11)
12. Ana Ivanovic (14)
13. Vera Zvonareva (12)
14. Maria Kirilenko (19)
15. Dominika Cibulkova (13)
16. Kaia Kanepi (16)
17. Flavia Pennetta (17)
18. Sabine Lisicki (15)
19. Andrea Petkovic (18)
20. Jelena Jankovic (21)
21. Nadia Petrova (20)
22. Francesca Schiavone (23)
23. Lucie Safarova (22)
24. Julia Goerges (24)
25. Jie Zheng (27)
26. Anabel Medina Garrigues (28)
27. Roberta Vinci (23)
28. Christina McHale (32)
29. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (30)
30. Petra Cetkovska (25)
...
35. Kim Clijsters (47)
36. Tamira Paszek (37)
46. Yaroslava Shvedova (65)
58. Tsvetana Pironkova (38)
68. Venus Williams (58)
79. Heather Watson (103)
89. Camila Giorgi (145)

1. Roger Federer (3)
2. Novak Djokovic (1)
3. Rafael Nadal (2)
4. Andy Murray (4)
5. David Ferrer (5)
6. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (6)
7. Tomas Berdych (7)
8. Janko Tipsarevic (8)
9. Juan Martin Del Potro (9)
10. Nicolas Almagro (11)
11. John Isner (10)
12. Gilles Simon (13)
13. Mardy Fish (12)
14. Juan Monaco (14)
15. Marin Cilic (18)
16. Fernando Verdasco (16)
17. Gael Monfils (15)
18. Kei Nishikori (20)
19. Alexandr Dolgopolov (21)
20. Richard Gasquet (19)
21. Philipp Kohlschreiber (30)
22. Florian Mayer (29)
23. Milos Raonic (22)
24. Marcel Granollers (23)
25. Stanislas Wawrinka (24)
26. Radek Stepanek (27)
27. Andy Roddick (25)
28. Mikhail Youzhny (33)
29. Feliciano Lopez (17)
30. Andreas Seppi (26)
...
34. Denis Istomin (39)
45. Bernard Tomic (28)
75. Brian Baker (126)
78. Ernests Gulbis (87)
103. Lukas Rosol (100)
195. Robin Soderling (154)

Ok, can you explain Rosol? Last 32 of the main draw vs out in the first round of the qualies last year? And yet he's dropped? I know there's no bonus points for beating Nadal thesedays but this seems weird.

Last year he won the Braunschweig challenger in the second week of Wimbledon (125 points), which a 3R at Wimbledon (90 points) doesn't quite make up for.

Olympics are gonna make the rankings extra-wacky this summer, with tournaments shuffled around and held in different weeks than last year, plus I expect all the scrubs who didn't get into the Olympics to vulture up all the high-tier points on offer in the weakened high-tier US hard court draws (as well as a couple of shameless top players, Mardy Fish I'm looking at you).

Right, thought it must've been something like that - thanks, Lex!

On yr second point - they retain true 52-week rolling ranking even in Olympic year, right? There's no provision for Rogers Cup 2011 points not dropping off until the Rogers Cup 2012 is held (whenever that is)?

Yup, 52-week all the way - there's already been a calendar stagger this year with everything shifting a week later than usual (so for this week's rankings it's not just Wimbledon points off but the tournaments held in the week after Wim last year - hence eg Vinci's fall, as the winner of Palermo 2011). It makes things a bit crazy but given that lots of tournaments may not exist from year to year, or new events may pop up, it's probably the more sensible option.

This coming week is madness, 4 ATP events (Stuttgart, Bastad, Umag, Newport) and 2 WTA events (Stanford, Palermo) crammed into what's usually a quiet week thanks to the Olympics.

what happens to the rankings now ATP company is liquidated?

Rankings will be agreed by a committee drawn from members of Mogwai, Shellac and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Roscoe Tanner expected to re-enter at #31 next week.

Bollocks to all this "We like Murray now 'cos he cried" nonsense

What he could do now to reverse this tide of sentimentality would be to withdraw from the Olympics, citing "grass court season is over, need to prepare for North American hardcourt season", and then go and win the US Open. That would be great.

haha, yeah it really would.

"I don't want to represent Britian, I'm fuckin' Scottish right, fuck the Queen!"

Yeah. "Put tennis in the Commonwealth Games, I might be interested. Glasgae 2014 COME ON."

re: crying at finals - does that always happen? all 4 singles finalists cried at the end at this wimbledon. is it a particularly emotional year? also, the collapsing on the floor after winning thing - genuine exhaustion/emotional overload, or contrived?

liked that federer put on his special gold watch before lifting the trophy though

Federer's bawled a couple of times after winning and at least once after losing. Murray's cried after losing before SO I DON'T KNOW WHY PEOPLE ARE GOING ON ABOUT IT SO MUCH NOW unless they literally have no idea that the Australian Open 2010 existed. The only one of those I felt was anything other than embarrassing was Murray yesterday. Don't think Djokovic and Nadal have cried after finals before?

Novotna after choking in '93 - the first tennis match I ever watched, no wonder I'm hooked on the psychodrama of the sport - was understandable and turned her into a British sentimental favourite 4eva. Hingis at RG '99 was an epic tantrum.

I wasn't sure whether Radwanska was crying out of emotion or illness on Sat - prob both. That wa OK b/c it was such a surprise, she's usually so poker-faced.

The first prostrate-on-the-ground moment I remember (apart from Charlie George) was Agassi in '92. There was some suggestion that Bolettieri was gesturing for him to do this as soon as Goran missed his volley. Made for a more marketable image or something. Obv, you've got Bjorn on his knees. You seem to get a combination of the two thesedays.

With Fed it does seem a bit contrived; the one time he didn't do it was 2009 which was a real match-point-out-of-nowhere moment with little build up, so I guess he wasn't thinking about it.

Lendl might've cried when one of his German Shepherd dogs died but not on the court.

xp

Nadal definitely cried after beating Fed at Wimbledon the first time. At the time I was pleasantly surprised; it wasn't the kind of thing that somebody off the back of a Hed Kandi compilation would do (that's how I had him pegged, in my mind).

Lendl might've cried when one of his German Shepherd dogs died but not on the court.

That makes him sound like Hitler.

Also heard some dimwit this morning, re: the anti-English joke, going on about how Murray should always be careful what he says because he is "representing Britain", NO HE FUCKING ISN'T! (Well, OK, he is at the Olympics... and Davis Cup)