Intense Tennis for Wimbledon crown
Public interest in the first week of the Wimbledon Championships focuses on survival of the seeded players, the giant killers, new talent and still-in-action veterans. Wimbledon is the event which made Tennis to what it is today over the last one hundredodd years and remarkably, even today holds on to its traditions, most of which are from Victorian England. If you notice, the popularly known men’s singles in Wimbledon is known as the ‘Gentleman’s-singles’ and the women’s go as the ‘Ladies-singles’ even today.
The large 128 draw in singles has the ‘fusion’ of three generations of players’ competitive life span. This aspect increases the global interest of the Wimbledon and gets the best rating in the media. Every region of the world has a stake in this year’s event. What more, quite a few players came from countries not much known for Tennis such as Turkey and Lithuania. The first target of the players in the draw is to enter the second week of the championships. The effort towards this in terms of physical strain and mental stress is as tough as the final rounds. A good match by a player even in the early rounds will leave a bigger impact in the sports world than other achievements.
Tough early rounds
The short pre Wimbledon grass season has had an impact on all players. Top twenty ranked players are still playing a baseline-game as opposed to the net-game for which Grass provides all the advantages. In the early round of matches net points won by players were mostly in single digits. This shows the reluctance to play at net by the top twenty, making this Wimbledon to be another opportunity to the emerging talents to break through. New comers in their ‘hunting party’ did collect quite a few big name trophies. The two exceptions to this were Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. They had double digit figures to their credit in this department.
Among the women big names who lost in the first two rounds to emerging talent are world’s number three Simona Halep, Serbian Ana Ivanovic, Italians Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci and Spaniard Suarez Navarro. The emerging players were Slovakian Jana Cepelova, Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic, Switzerland’ Bencic, Frances Alize Cornet and Kristina Mladenovic, Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas, Britons Heather Watson and the new faces of USA, Sloane Stephens [not really new] and Coco Vandeweghe.
The veteran women are having a strong run. This is the best I have seen of USA’s Venus Williams in a long time. It is not easy to forget how good she was. If she could hold fort for another four rounds as she has done in the last two rounds, I am not sure her sister Serena will not be the winner this year too. Another veteran American Bethanie Mattek-Sands along with former world’s number one Belarus’s Victoria Azerenka and Australia’s Samantha Stosur are in the third round and are bound to shake out some of the seeded players in the following days.
Men’s challenge
The top ten got tested in the first two rounds of the men’s draw. The two tough matches up to now, that is Wednesday, were Croatian US-Open title holder Marin Cilic winning against Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis in five sets and Samarkand-Uzbek born Turkish player Marsel Ilhan taking South African Kevin Anderson to four sets. Both these losers were in very commanding positions at one point with the possibility to win comfortably. This is where Cilic and Anderson showed their metal as seasoned campaigners and vanquished their opponents.
Of the three men players who came to lime light in the last two Wimbledon championships, that is, Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, Poland’s Jerzy Jankowitz and Australia’s Nick Krygios, two are still in the draw. Jankowitz has not had a good run for a while now due to injuries and lost in the first round. Talking about injuries Kei Nishikori has withdrawn from 2015 Wimbledon. I believe it is also due to injuries. Nishikori was treated by the physiotherapist in his first round match. By and large most of the men’s seeded players came through to the third round fighting their way through.
Lleyton Hewitt bids ‘goodbye’
The men’s early round match that will be remembered from the 2015 Wimbledon will be that of former world’s number one and 2001 Wimbledon champion, Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt. Prior to the championships he announced this to be his last singles appearance. Hewitt played Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen of his own age. The match took four hours and the final set went to 11 /9. Hewitt in his career has always been ‘marathon-man’ of Tennis. With his type of game and style, players will pay a price with their body. It happened to Hewitt.
The Wimbledon formula
Wimbledon triggers Tennis interest worldwide and initiates development in all corners of the world. In the appeal for Tennis, Wimbledon is the biggest ‘plum.’ The Wimbledon draws showed that Japan, China and Taipei to be the strongest in Asia. The Central Asian Republics of the Balkans and the Baltic states with their strong sporting cultures were also very prominent. Europe sits firmly as the home of Tennis and USA is slowly building up again.
The three tiers of Wimbledon players, that is, the new emerging talent; top ranked players; and the veterans have consistently upgraded the game and made Wimbledon into an appealing sporting spectacle. It is a process which has made Wimbledon exciting and entertaining throughout its century long existence. The intense competition of the event makes the players reach outer boundaries of their ability and raise the present world tennis standard which often gets compared to those of different eras.
The formula what we see today in Wimbledon for the game and its popularity has been reformed over and over again. From the gentleman’s game to professionalism was a long road. I still remember Germany’s Wilhelm Bungert who was 1967 Wimbledon finalist with Australia’s John Newcombe, commenting to me that he got thirty one pound sterling for being the Wimbledon runner up in 1967. Today a ticket to enter the Wimbledon premises exceeds that figure and the prize money is in the millions.
The scale of the challenge in management and logistics for the event is mind boggling. It is a major task for any country to create an event of this nature and stature and also to be able to continue it for many decades. Wimbledon is the fruit of the dedication of many generations in true British tradition. With Gentlemen and Ladies playing, it is making ‘sport’ a meaningful activity of our lives. In Tennis it is the Plum!
George Paldano, former international player; Accredited Coach of Germany, National coach, Davis Cup and Federation Cup Coach; ITF and USPTR; –gptennis.ceylon@gmail.com-