1. It was a bad match
There’s no getting away from it. The standard was poor. Nadal in particular looked incredibly nervous throughout and I don’t think I’ve seen him look that tight on court since he blew break points in the fifth set against Federer in the 2007 final.
Djokovic was solid but unspectacular and he looked nervous too. He won the fourth set by being less rubbish.
Between them they produced 48 winners. I don’t care how well they defend, that’s just bad.
2. It’s too slow dammit
This iceberg was recently clocked at a faster speed than the average ground stroke, post-bounce on Centre Court
I know I sound like a broken record but a match-up between two counter-punchers highlighted how slow conditions on Centre Court have become.
Forty eight winners in a four set match on grass is a joke. Get this: At Roland Garros, of the 15 matches from the fourth round onwards, just ONE had fewer winners (Nadal’s straight sets victory against Ljubicic).
Admittedly the Wimbledon final was a bit out of whack with other matches (emphasising the point that it was a poor match) but tennis is seriously messed up when such a stat is even conceivable.
It’s hard to know how the suited snobs at the LTA will feel about it. The slow surface was fine when Federer was competing for titles. I doubt they’re similarly enthused by the prospect of a Djok-Nadal duopoly.
3. Djokovic may be a nut that Nadal just can’t crack
Rafa contemplates the match-up
Not a very controversial thing to say after Nadal admitted that his game doesn’t even trouble Djokovic but it’s tough to see what he can do to mix things up.
Nadal is essentially a one-dimensional player. It’s a dimension that will leave him as one of the greatest players of all time but his bread and butter is bludgeoning opponents’ backhands with high kicking crosscourt forehands.
Djokovic has a two-handed backhand so a high bounce is never going to bother him and his elasticity compensates for the reach advantage normally enjoyed by one-handers.
It’s not as if he has a weak forehand that Nadal can attack by going down the line more either.
I don’t see Rafa coming up with a new game-plan so he’s just going to have to keep doing what he does and just do it a whole lot better. Re-finding his US Open serve would be a good place to start.
It’s not going to be easy but you’d have to be an idiot to write off arguably the single grittiest competitor in professional sport.
4. There’s no disputing the number one now
Djokovic sealed the number one berth by winning his semi-final against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga but for many it would have been superficial had he lost to Nadal in the final given that he had never before beaten the Spaniard in a slam.
There’s no argument now. The Serb has been head an shoulders above his rivals this year. Eight titles, two slams, a 48-1 match record and five consecutive wins over his closest rivals.
Defending it all next year is going to be no fun but for now Djokovic is on top of the world.
5. Seriously Dijana, shut up
Tarpischev and Davydenko respond to Dijana's latest comments
You think she’d have learned her lesson after the last time but apparently not. Give it a rest for your son’s sake if not for mine.
6. What does Mohamed Lahyani have to do to get a slam final?
Give this man a final
The sport’s stand-out official has still never taken charge of a slam final and no one seems to have any idea why.
Since the start of 2009, Jake Garner and Pascal Maria have taken charge of three finals each. Even the dreadful Cedric Mourier has been given one.
Even if he is unpopular among the big-wigs at the ITF you’d think that taking charge of the 11 hour Isner-Mahut marathon would have merited some reward.
It makes no sense.
7. I pity the part-time fans
May their 50 weeks be filled with Cliff Richard and vuvuzelas
The people who only watch Wimbledon are going to have to wait another 50 weeks to experience first class tennis again.
That’s 50 weeks of massive chokes, malfunctioning scoreboards, bitching players, moaning fans, grainy streams, rain delays, glory hunting, bandwagons, injuries, gamesmanship and blatant cheating. Not to mention all the enthralling matches, athleticism and storylines that make tennis such a great sport. Their loss.
Get your facts straight mate, I have it on good authority that Pippa was watching the grass court king Boggo in Newport…
Yeah, I am with you big time. Poor match. Poor surface. Poor conditions. We all know the problems. That winners stat is horrendous but somewhat expected considering the nature of both their games. I can’t lie in saying that it was very satisfying though to see Rafa basically fold once again and realise that he’s up against a better version of himself in that matchup. But I’m still puzzled as to the direction the sport will evolve to… who or what is going to come along to break up this monotonous style of play…
Still some good positives to take out of the tourney though, can’t fault Novak winning it, a deserving champion with an insane run this season, Tsonga’s run/beating of Fed and the entertainment he provided, and at least a couple of the youngsters seemed to put in good performances where they demonstrated alot of variety. Tomic, Harrison, Dimitrov – all at different levels mentally, and consistency-wise, but definitely showing a spark for the bigger occasions. Potro showing some signs of life, looks like he’s going to be ready for a US Open run, even showing some variety on grass for god’s sake…
Item 3 is a bit of a faux pas: If its a match between 2 counter-punchers, so you WOULDN’T expect too many winners. They happen to create more forced errors, because of their brill movement on a tennis court (too many winners don’t fly by – they don’t ace each other). So I think this one-match up is different to the other stats you quoted and might just be a better explanation than ‘slow courts’.
Speed up the grass, shift to lighter balls and there’d have been more winners coming off from both men’s racquets.
Agree. It needs to be done.