2006 WIMBLEDON REVIEW
Strawberies and cream. Posh gits. Ultrapoliteness. Rain delays. Cliff Richard. Why should a guy like me be halfway interested in Wimbledon? Well back in '95 this Canadian guy called Greg Rusedski decided that he wanted to play tennis for this little island I call home. And he turned out to be pretty good. So did Tim Henman, a guy from Oxfordshire. Cue Henman Hill, cue atmosphere. Cue a sport worth watching(the men's game at least).
Fast forward to 2006 and Henman and Rusedski are coming to the end of their careers. Henman's made the semi finals four times but not since my Uni days of '02. With both players on the fade, Andy Murray turned up last year but still none of the three main men were good enough to get seeded this year - been about a decade since that happened. So the odds of a first British Wimbledon finalist, let alone winner since my grandparents were kids were pretty slim. Still, worth giving it a look.
Fortunes were about as mixed as you can get for the main three in the first round. Murray cruised past Chilean Nicolas Massau(seeded 31 despite me never having heard of him) 6-1 6-4 6-4. On the oppisite end of the scale though Rusedski had an early exit, admittedly against the quality Russian Marat Safin but still...he should have done better than lose 6-4 6-4 6-4. In between was Henman, who scrabbled to beat the Swede 6-7 6-3 6-2 1-6 6-3. Worrying.
Particularly as Tim was up against Roger Federer in round 2. Anyone who hasn't heard of Roger Federer doesn't know much about tennis. It didn't look like Henman knew much about tennis in this match either, a 6-4 6-0 6-2 loss. He says he'll be back. I say 'hmmm...'. Murray came up against new French hotshot Julien Beniteau who turned about to have a decent knowledge of grass play but Murray still had his number to the tune of 7-6 6-4 before the Frenchman rallied to claim the third set 6-4 and force the match to a second day. Not a problem, Murray simply refueled and blasted Beniteau back accross the Channel 6-1.
So Centre Court had a new king. Slight problem, he wound up agaist Andy Roddick in round 3. Not that the young Scotsman had reason to be scared of the elite Yank, having beaten him Stateside before. Watching this match gave you a pretty good idea how - Murray forced Roddick into overdrive. Admittedly he needed a tiebreak to win the first set but after that he was straight up awesome. 7-6 6-4 6-4. Who could beat this guy?
Surely not Marcos Baghdatis, a Cypriot who seemingly made this years's Australian Open final on a fluke. Well I don't know what happened, Andy shouldn't have run out of fuel and if there was something physically wrong with him then he shouldn't have played. Baghdatis certainly was all fired up though and Murray lost 6-3 6-4 and just when it looked like he might have a slim chance of getting back into the match, 7-6.
It turned out to be no fluke though, the Cypriot went on to dispatch Leyton Hewitt 6-1 5-7 7-6 6-2. Elsewhere Federer was still no near breaking sweat and Croatian Mario Ancic was the latest to bit the dust 6-4 6-4 6-4. His main threat seemed to be Spaniard Rafael Nadal who beat Federer in this year's French open final and beat Finn Jarko Nieminen 6-3 6-4 6-4 in the quarters here. The semi final lineup was completed by the unseeded Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman who beat Czech Radek Stepanek 6-7 6-4 6-7 7-6 6-4.
So next came the semis and the best way to sum them up is that my grandmother fell asleep for one of them and stayed glued to the screen for the other one. The one she fell asleep for was Federer vs Bjorkman, the Swiss 'master' winning 6-2 6-0 6-2. And then she woke up for Nadal vs Baghdatis. The Spaniard still won in straight sets but the Cypriot still went out in a blaze of glory 6-1 7-5 6-3.
In the meantime, I guess that if I don't mention the women's tournament at all then someone's going to flame me. The early exit of the Williams sisters raised even my eyebrows but this side of things was never going to get much interest from me. The final was won by French lady Amelie Mauresmo who beat Justine Henin-Hardenne 2-6 6-3 6-4.
Back to the men's tournament and in the final Federer was up against Nadal, the one guy who looked like he might be capable of beating him on grass - the Spaniard certainly had the winning record between the pair. He froze in the first set though, Federer winning 6-0 before Nadal won the first two games of the second set and forced the Swiss guy to a tiebreak only to lose that one as well. Both players continued to go all guns blazing in the third set with Nadal forcing Federer into a fourth set since the early rounds of '05. At which point Federer decided 'sod this - I'm going to win the fourth set 6-3. Great tennis.
As for the Brits - well there's alway next year(is that a groan I can hear?)
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