Wimbledon at its best - and worst

WHAT a spectacle it was at Wimbledon.

Even accounting for Maria Sharapova — whose new clothing range generated more copy than her on-court exploits — the men’s final was just about the most exciting tennis-related thing ever witnessed by anybody. Anywhere.

It wasn’t just that it featured arguably the two best players ever to turn out at SW19. As in boxing, styles make fights. And this was “the artist against the house wrecker” as tennis historian and broadcaster Bud Collins put it.

In the red corner, five-time winner Roger Federer exudes elegance and economy of movement, with an inhuman knack of timing his strokes perfectly.

In the blue, the muscular and quick Rafael Nadal, who whips the ball over the net harder than anyone else on the circuit, using steely wrists to impart so much top spin he threatens to tear the fabric of space and time.

Some of the winners the pair traded in this five-set classic took the breath away, especially from a BBC commentary team already predisposed to hyperbole.

In the end Tim Henman et al were reduced to making astonished noises, having run dry of descriptions.

It is hard to begrudge Nadal coming out on top, seeing as he appears to be so darned pleasant.

And the gracious way Federer accepted his defeat also left everybody feeling as happy as a local strawberry farmer (cost: 22p each) with the way things had transpired.

There was even a rain interruption or two to remind wistful Cliff Richard fans of soaking wet afternoons in years past.

While the players were off waiting for the retractable roof on centre court to finally be finished — or for the heavens to close up, one of the two — someone at the BBC dug out a replay of the epic five-hour final in 1969 between Pancho Gonzalez and Charlie Pasarell.

Fair play to the lads involved, but they may as well have been playing holding a wet salmon instead of a racquet, such was the responsiveness (or lack of it).

Fitness has come a long way since then, of course, but technology has also played its part in helping make top-level tennis so visceral nowadays.




EXPECTATIONS are currently being heaped on the shoulders of the British girl who won the junior Wimbledon title.



A look at the list of past winners who haven’t gone on to forge careers at the top level should temper any excitement — but it won’t.

This is a public so desperate for success that in Laura Robson’s semi-final, her young opponent Romana Tabakova was heckled for long sections of the match for what was seen as gamesmanship.

While the kids ape the grown-ups, the grown-ups act like kids.