Steve,
It’s well past teatime here at Wimbledon, and I’ve seen some pretty entertaining stuff today. The highlight was watching the fans live and die with Henman over five sets on Court 1. High English drama at its finest. Federer looked absolutely awesome, Blake’s return of serve is downright obnoxious, no matter what PMac says, and Agassi played like someone who’s a bit rusty, and, dare I say, long in the tooth. Just doesn’t seem to move well enough anymore. The Grinch, er Dave Rosenberg, saw him at his press conference and said that Agassi was hobbling. I hope he can find some better form in the next round. Thanks for the update on the necklace. I figured it was something from his kids, but with Agassi, you never know.
The biggest disappointment for me today was watching Monfils fold against a Russian journeyman who’s much older than he looks. Monfils won the first set, and had an easy overhead to win the second in a tiebreaker. Instead of simply finishing the point, Monfils tried to be flashy and jumped (man can that guy sky) before he hit the overhead and shanked the smash into the net. It was all downhill, and rather quickly, from there. Monfils has so much talent, but he plays a maddeningly defensive game, even on a fast surface. He’s so passive with his ground strokes and rarely cranks his serve. Not sure the reasoning behind that strategy.
Did you spy him on the telly?
When I arrived at Wimbledon this morning it was early enough that the crowds weren’t permitted on the grounds yet. I passed by Court 18 and saw three groundskeepers dropping a ball from a specially made pole to test the height of the resulting bounce. They were checking the firmness and condition of the court. Watching the matches up-close it seems that the grass plays almost like a fast, hard surface. It’s still early, so the court isn’t chopped up, but the bounces are fairer, the rallies longer, and the serves more playable than even a handful of years ago.
Not to be a numbers geek, but the most telling stat I found was that over a 5 set match with 144 service points, Tim Henman served and volleyed a grand total of 19 times. He won 15 of those points, for a 79% success rate, but it’s a tactic he obviously no longer feels comfortable doing on a regular basis. And this is chip and charge, net hugging, grass loving (can’t confirm that in social circles) Tim Henman we’re talking about.
What’s your take on modern grass court tennis? I guess you can’t have addition without some subtraction. The points are longer, and largely more entertaining, but net rushers, and the variety in style they bring, have gone the way of the dodo. As Henman does now, if Sampras, Rafter, and Edberg played today, would they all be forced to do more battle from the baseline in order to succeed at Wimbledon? Hard to believe, but maybe so.
Anyway, don’t know if you caught it, but two of our first round picks in the suicide pool made it through. Mirnyi gave me a scare as he was down a set and a couple of break points at 3-3 in the second. But he managed to hold and then bury Ramirez-Hidalgo the rest of the way. And Sprem made you look smart, crushing her British wildcard opponent.
I never made it to Court 2 to watch Safin, but he had no problems with Rusedski, winning in straight sets. From what I saw, Rusedski was helpless on Safin’s serve. So I’ll still have a chance to watch him play at Wimbledon, and, who knows, maybe on that famous “graveyard.” By the way, you hinted at it, but you never did tell me who the three players other than Agassi who you’ve never rooted against. I’m curious if I was close.
That’s all for today. After a horribly delayed flight, the wife finally made it to town and I might as well go say hi.
And I’m not sure what a bumbershoot is, but if that’s my brolly it’s like a serve and volleyer – hard to find. Bollocks!
Until tomorrow.
JL