The first thing I want to write about is the 2009 Wimbledon Championships. I will write about the players who impressed me, and the players who didn't do as well as they could have. I will then write a bit about the Final.
So first of all the players who impressed me! Andy Roddick played much better this year then last year (he lost to Tipservic in the second round). This was probably due to a new couch( Larry Stafanki who decided that Andy needed to lose some weight, that mixed with some sublime game plans explains while he did so much better this year (the absence of Nadal probably helped as well).Although Roddick didn't play great in the quarter finals against Hewitt he caused an upset when he beat the home favourite and predicted finalist Andy Murray. Against Murray he employed different tactics then his usual big serve and then big forehand. His backhand slice floated very low over the net and was more effective then I have ever seen it before. He also came to the net more often and was successful their. His first serve percentage was about seventy five percent which would have been good if his average first serve speed was one hundred and twenty never mind mid to high one hundred and thirty's!Which meant as Murray pointed out and Federer later found out he was very difficult to break(more about the final later).
The thirty one year old German Tommy Hass was the biggest surprise of the tournament who on his way to the semi-finals beat the six foot six number 11 seed Marian Cilic in five sets. Although he lost to Federer in straight sets he played a solid match and should have been happy about how he has performed throughout the Championships. Lleyton Hewitt played like the Hewitt of old beating the number 5 see Del Potro and not coming to far off beating Roddick in the quarters. His mentally is similar to Nadals in the way that he will play each point like his life depends on it, maybe if he had done less double faults he could have gone one stage further in. Next up Andy Murray. After I had seen Murrays draw I predicted that he would get to the final and then loose to Federer. But I didn't think that Murray played his best at any time over the Wimbledon fortnight. Although his late night match with Stanislas Wawrinka was very exciting, if Murray had a higher first serve percentage and his his second server was better( it got as slow as seventy mph) then he would probably would have won the match in straight sets. He played better against Roddick but was a bit to defensive. He actually did more winners, less enforced errors and more aces then Roddick but in the end he lost out on the important points.
Federer played his usual high level of Tennis to get to the final without to many problems. I think that he must have been relieved to find out that he is playing Roddick, because of his excellent record against Roddick( out of their twenty meeting's Federer has one eighteen and all of them on grass. However I think he was like Muarray surprised at the level of tennis Roddick was able to play for the whole match. I think that if he had won the second set tie brake where he lost four set points, he could won the match. But Federer was just to good. He served almost twice as many aces as Roddick( fifty one) and patiently waited for the break in the fifth set eventually winning it 16-14 and getting his 15th grand slam. I think that the reason only two British people advanced to the 2nd is because of the lack of funding in tennis and because their aren't enough courts available for people to play in. If money was invested into making more courts and advertising tennis for children then hopefully the future generation of British tennis players will be more talented and successfully then the current.
See you at the US open
DJM
