On Saturday after the Wimbledon womens final Serena Williams flew back to the USA to do an interview on David Letterman. It would have been nice to see the top players stick around until Sunday night and head to the Wimbledon Ball. However, here is a video of Serena on Letterman.
©EPA / G. Penny
Roger Federer has won an epic 15th Grand Slam title with an amazing win over Andy Roddick. The match itself was just dominated by serving and neither of the players really gained much of an advantage on the ground.
Roddick had his chances and even lead a set and 6-2 in the second set tiebreak, but was unable to finish off the set and missed a couple of sitters which allow Federer back into the match.
Roddick lost his serve for the first time in the match in the very last game. Final score 5-7 7-6 7-6 3-6 16-14.
It was great to see Roger win the title, but I felt so sorry for Andy because today he gave more than 100% and was still just pipped at the post to a Wimbledon title.
I love it when tennis players get all upset over the smallest things. Here is a match yesterday at Wimbledon between Sabine Lisicki and Caroline Wozniacki, the two ladies but each other at the net during a change over. How funny!
Is it just me or do both of these girls look exactly the same? I really wish these clothing companies would give some more of their top players just a different outfit to wear!
There seems to be a lot of celebrities heading over to SW19 and Wimbledon this year. Andy Murray mentioned on his Twitter that Justin Timberlake was wondering around the grounds, but he was still yet to see him. I love it when even the top players are really keen to meet other celebrities. Just really proves that even the top players are just normal people and they still admire people in other industries and areas.
The match of the tournament so far has just completed at Wimbledon 2009. Marin Cilic defeats Sam Querrey in 5 sets and 6-4 in the fifth set. Final score was 4-6 7-6 6-3 6-7 6-4.
Querrey started the match in great form getting a set up and 5-2 up in the second, but really let Cilic back into the match. In the last three sets it was easily some of the best tennis I have seen at Wimbledon 2009 so far.
The final set was very tight with both players barely losing a point on serve. However, when push came to shove it came down to Cilic leading 5-4 with Querrey serving. The first few points were tight and then Cilic was up 15-30 and Querrey then seemed to choke and decelerated his serve to double fault for only the 3rd time in the match, which gave Cilic a great opportunity to close out the match and that he did.
Cilic now goes on to play Tommy Haas in the third round, in which Haas is my outside pick for the tournament.
| Singles | Prize Money (£) | Doubles | Prize Money (£) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | 850,000 | Winner | 230,000 | |
| Finalist | 425,000 | Finalist | 115,000 | |
| Semifinalist | 212,500 | Semifinalist | 57,500 | |
| Qtrfinalist | 106,250 | Qtr.Finalist | 30,000 | |
| 4th Rnd | 53,250 | 3rd Rnd | 16,000 | |
| 3rd Rnd | 29,250 | 2nd Rnd | 9,000 | |
| 2nd Rnd | 17,750 | 1st Rnd | 5,250 | |
| 1st Rnd | 10,750 | - | - | |
| Q3 | 6,700 | - | - | |
| Q2 | 3,350 | - | - | |
| Q1 | 1,675 | - | - | |
| Mixed Doubles | Prize Money (£) | Invitation Dbls | Prize Money (£) | |
| Winner | 92,000 | Winner | 17,000 | |
| Finalist | 46,000 | Finalist | 14,000 | |
| Semifinalist | 23,000 | Second | 10,500 | |
| Qtrfinalist | 10,500 | Third | 9,500 | |
| 3rd Rnd | 5,200 | Fourth | 9,000 | |
| 2nd Rnd | 2,600 | three events | - | |
| 1st Rnd | 1,300 | |||
| WC Doubles | Prize Money (£) | |||
| Winner | 6,750 | |||
| Finalist | 3,750 | |||
| Third | 2,250 | |||
| Fourth | 1,250 |
Here is the official Rafael Nadal press conference about his plans for Wimbledon.
Every year at Wimbledon there is a pre tournament players party and this year is no different. We came across a great picture of Ana Ivanovic with Virgin boss Richard Branson. Im wondering if Branson actually knows who she is or just another tactical publicity stunt.
The AELTC has released the seedings for the 2009 Championships. They follow the ranking almost exactly, except Maria Sharapova has been seeded #24 despite her current ranking of 59. There is no disputing Sharapova’s grass court prowess, having won the title in 2004 and made the Semifinals on other occasions, and the All England Club clearly wanted to reward her for her past success. Why then, was the same criteria not applied to other players?
Venus Williams has won the Wimbledon title 5 times, and Serena Williams has won it 2 times, and yet they were not elevated and are both seeded behind Dinara Safina, who has never been past the third round at Wimbledon in 6 attempts. And what of Amelie Mauresmo? She has nearly identical grass court credentials to Sharapova, having won the title herself in 2006, but her seeding was not elevated from #17.
Personally, I don’t think that rankings should be changed at all for seedings. Players earn a ranking over the course of 52 weeks, which should not be able to be changed on a whim. At the same time, if they are going to alter seedings, then they should apply the same criteria to all players. They should not pick and choose which players they want to reward. This will certainly be a major topic of contention as the Championships get underway this Monday.
Full seedings may be found here: http://aeltc2009.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/pdf/2009_seeding.pdf
Ivanovic, answering press questions after her first-round loss to Petrova
It says a lot about what’s happened to Ana Ivanovic’s ranking that she is the player featured on all the posters here but after the loss of most of her 2008 French Open points is ranked too low (13) to be seeded. Instead, Elena Dementieva is the top seed and Nadia Petrova, ranked 10, is seeded 7. In the first set, Ivanovic simply couldn’t get the ball back into court, while Petrova used her powerful serve and chip returns to good effect to take the set 6-1. In the second, Ivanovic used the advice her new coach gave her during the set break: don’t go for the big shots so early in the rallies. Doing that helped her get her rhythm back, and that was enough to win her the second set 6-4. And level they stayed up until 4-4 in the third set, at which point Ivanovic’s game left again.
“She was hitting the ball better, and I felt I should go for more,” Ivanovic said afterwards. “It was a mistake.” It was: the same errors that plagued her in the first set cost her the last two games and the match, 6-4. Even so, as Ivanovic says, the last two years she hasn’t played any warm-up events before Wimbledon and still managed to make the semis in 2007. I suppose every player always has to think positively, especially when talking to the press, but last year’s Wimbledon is where Ivanovic’s slump started. This year, she’s going in having just fired her coach of three months (the veteran Craig Kardon, who coached Navratilova to her ninth Wimbledon title) and convinced she wants a full-time coach but unsure whom to pick. She will have more match practice, though: she’ll be playing doubles tomorrow.
Of course, there’s no shame in losing to Petrova on grass. Twice a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon and last year’s beaten Eastbourne finalist, Petrova was determined not to lose this match. “It would have been very hard to be out in the first round.” Petrova is also playing doubles here, with Mattek-Sands, who will also be her partner at Wimbledon. “We’re having a good time,” Petrova said. She’s not letting Mattek-Sands pick her clothes, though.
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