I met up with La Froglet in Wimbledon and we had a leisurely lunch in Wimbledon Village before heading off. Final Program bought, and the Pimms, of course, and it was time to head up.
We had seats right at the back, but lengthways on to the court.
Quite often (due to Corporate “Hostility” there are often empty seats all around the place as the Debenture holders enjoy free food and drink – but the atmosphere when the court is completely full is amazing.
The guys came out and did the usual preliminaries, and at the start everything went with serve, although maybe Nole had a little more nerves in his service game than Rafa.
Strong holds for the next few games, and it is amazing to see how many “unget-able” balls come back from Rafa. Against most other players, a lot of Nole’s shots would have been winners, but Rafa always finds a way somehow to get a ball back in play that had no right to be! Nole was going to have to keep up the aggressive play he’d started with, just to stay with him.
As the games progressed, they still remained on serve, and the rallies were a mix of brutal slugging from the baseline, or moving all around the court. Nole was making good use of his inside-out forehand early on.
Rafa was relying on some big serving to hold comfortably and as the first set was progressing, Nole was beginning to show some signs of annoyance that he couldn’t break through. He matched Rafa was some big serving in the middle of the set but there were also some careless UEs creeping in; and around the middle of the set, it was going to be a case of who flinched first.
Surprisingly it was Rafa as he faltered, serving at 4-5. Nole stepped up the aggression in the rally to force a BP. A weak second serve and a wayward forehand into the tramlines handed Nole the first set, 6-4.
That same aggression saw Nole break Rafa in the second game of the second set. Rafa was simply leaking errors on his forehand side, almost as if he’d lost his range. Nole consolidated the break to lead 3-0.
Rafa again fell back on some big serves to get a game on he board, along with the combination of a missed overhead from Novak and a fortunate netcord for Rafa which sprung the ball up past Nole’s head. Nole matched Rafa’s serving, strike for strike.
With Nadal serving at 1-4, Nole delivered another blow by taking another break. He backed this up with a hold to love and took the second set 6-1.
Let’s be clear here, the scoreline belied the quality of play – Nole was seeing the ball huge today. Rafa was not playing badly (leaky forehand notwithstanding) and was getting all around the court, getting all kinds of balls back but for the first two sets, Nole was playing amazingly.
The question was – could he maintain his level of play?
The third set bought an inevitable dip in Nole’s form and all manner of errors that he’d previously been making. Rafa broke him in the 2nd game, and consolidated with a hold to love.
Nole did manage some great touches at the net to at least get a game on the board, but certainly at the start of this set, Rafa was in control. Nole just looked listless and Rafa’s ability to get balls back into play was just astounding. Nole saved some breakpoints and got himself to deuce and looked like he was beginning to pick his game up., but handed Rafa another break, leaving him to serve out for the set.
I had to nip out for a much needed break and missed the first three games, but there had been a couple of breaks in there. Things were back on serve, but Nole was beginning to regain some of that earlier sharpness and aggression.
He was much more able to threaten Rafa’s serve but there seemed still a way to go to reach the levels of intensity in the first two sets.
Nerves were beginning to set in Rafa’s game and he started the eighth game, serving at 3-4, with an uncharacteristic double fault, and was broken. Nole was to serve it out for the match, and there were very tight moments from both of them, but Nole hung in to claim his first Wimbledon title!
Nadal was exceptionally classy in defeat, defeat some issues with the on-court mics which meant that while he could be heard on TV, nothing could be heard in the court.
We finished up with the Mixed Dubs which saw the pairing of Melzer and Benesova take out Bhupathi and Vesnina – Bhupathi seemed to be the weakest on the day and you had to feel for Vesnina who had to try and gee up Bepa last year in the Ladies Dubs final after it all became too much for her, having been clobbered by Serena and then losing the first set.
(Pictures in Gallery)
We finished up standing at the top of Court 18 overlooking the Gentlemen’s Invitation Doubles (Pictures in Gallery) – there was, by then, a forlorn sense in the air as first Centre, then Court 1 tipped out and people were racing round to catch as much of the last dying thwacks of tennis balls as they could!
This year’s round up:
7 Days
2 Defending champions' opening matches
3 Andy Murray matches
1 Jamie Mixed Dubs (just as well as J&J'11 got bounced in the next round)
Men's Quarters
Women's Semis
Men's Final (My First ever)
2 new champions, and perhaps a new age of ATP/WTA names at the top?
So long Wimbledon 2011...
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