2012 Wimbledon

[Hibernia&Alba]

Federer has the lost first two sets against Benneteau. Andy Murray will be rubbing his hands together as the draw opens up.

[Hibernia&Alba]

Third set to Federer

[Hibernia&Alba]

Two sets each after a tie-break. Bugger.

[Hibernia&Alba]

Federer wins the final set easily. I hoped he'd lose, but he displayed the tenacity of a true champion there. Great comeback.

[Betty Boop]

Fantastic comeback from the Fed Express !

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

Why did the officials not step in when Benneteau was receiving "treatment" for his "injury" in the final set? The trainer didn't even have the decency to only work on one of the guys legs!

[--------]

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I hope so Doddie, dont want him playing like that if he plays Murray.

I seem to remember quite a few big-serving 'phenomena' causing upsets at Wimbledon over the years, but generally they've tended to be one-shot wonders.

That was essentially an indoor match. which favoured Rosol.

But - what he did to Nadal he can obviously do to Murray unless Murray has a cunning plan in place to sort him.



A war-surplus Afghan IED comes to mind ....





.... though I'd rather he kept that in his locker for the final.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

Ivanovic beats Goerges 2 sets to 1, very enjoyable viewing!

[Hibernia&Alba]

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I seem to remember quite a few big-serving 'phenomena' causing upsets at Wimbledon over the years, but generally they've tended to be one-shot wonders.

That was essentially an indoor match. which favoured Rosol.

But - what he did to Nadal he can obviously do to Murray unless Murray has a cunning plan in place to sort him.



A war-surplus Afghan IED comes to mind ....





.... though I'd rather he kept that in his locker for the final.

Rosol lost his match in straight sets. It's strange the way a player can look unstoppable one match and then fold the next. I suppose that inconsistency is why he's ranked one hundered, or perhaps the attention he received after beating Nadal was too much for him.


On another note - the defending ladies champions has huge nipples

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

Serena Williams - explain!

[hibsbollah]

Serena Zheng is outstanding viewing. The ultimate competitor.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

Shvedova beats Errani 6 0, 6 4 she won the first set without dropping a point winning 24 consecutive points. I don't think its been done before in the women's game!

[lyonhibs]

Murray showing a few worrying signs of his old habit of allowing his opponent to become the aggressor and dictate play. Needs to stop just patting it back into play and put the Baghdatis serve under more pressure or we could be in for a long night.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

A few squeaky bum moments in set 1, but, Murray takes it 7 5.

[hibsbollah]

Good game, Bahdatis fighting hard, but it wont be complete as a spectacle for me until I see Falkirk do a wheelbound streak and invasion of the centre court.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

1 set each. Time to close the roof, resume at 2125.

[hibsbollah]

John McEnroe is that rare thing, an intelligent, engaging and genuinely.funny pundit. Wish there was someone as good on the football coverage

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

I've sat through 11 hours of tennis and its got to be said the time has just flown by, from Ivanovic v Goerges onwards its been enthralling stuff, the beeb come in for a lot of stick, but, the coverage has been outstanding!

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

Oh aye, 2 1 Murray!

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

Murray wins 3 1, what a brilliant days entertainment!

[Twiglet]

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Murray wins 3 1, what a brilliant days entertainment!

Only caught the end of the 3rd and the 4th, but it was so nerve wracking. When he broke at the start of the 4th he seemed determined to get it over with tonight. He saw Baghdatis starting to tire and make unforced errors and he pounced on that.
So glad the umpire and organisers saw sense to continue playing when it got to Murray serving for the match.
Rest day tomorrow then power-on and up his game for week 2.

[lyonhibs]

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John McEnroe is that rare thing, an intelligent, engaging and genuinely.funny pundit. Wish there was someone as good on the football coverage

Proves the correlation that you also see with football pundits, that of "Not British" = "Bloody good pundit".

What's the deal with tomorrow. NO WIMBLEDON??!! What in god's name am I meant to do until the football starts??

PETRIE!!!!!

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

You'll just need to watch the 2nd ODI between England and Australia!

[HibbyAndy]

Nice yin Andy


If he really really wanted to he could have went up 3 or 4 gears IF he really needed tae. A win is a win is a win.

[HUTCHYHIBBY]

A bit harsh on Baghdatis that HA. Murray will just be glad he is through.

[iwasthere1972]

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Murray wins 3 1, what a brilliant days entertainment!

What excitement. Beat the Clock.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/18657932

Court 12, bit of breeze ...

[HibbyAndy]

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A bit harsh on Baghdatis that HA. Murray will just be glad he is through.

No really Hutch..All the best players have an extra gear they can use if the really have too, Baghdatis played out his skin to a 65 % Murray id say and still came naewhere near to winning.

Murray is just one of these guys that cant really get going till an hour into the game, Fair play Baghdatis but he wasn't even close to beating AM.

[Sir David Gray]

Really enjoyed Wimbledon again this year. Would have liked to have got an extra day, tried to get tickets for yesterday but no joy.

On Wednesday, I saw Federer vs Fognini which was pretty boring as it was too one-sided.

Wozniacki vs Paszek was a great match, I don't normally watch a lot of women's tennis but it was very exciting and Paszek did so well to come through and win that from a set down.

Clijsters vs Hlavackova was quite boring too as it was also one-sided.

Djokovic vs Harrison under the roof wasn't bad, although it did have a sense of inevitability about it. Harrison may have a big future ahead of him but Djokovic was far too strong.

Also saw the first set of Lisicki vs Jovanovski on Court 12 which was quite a good match. Jovanovski won the first set but Lisicki eventually came through.

More to follow...!

[Sir David Gray]

On Thursday, I thought the Serena Williams vs Melinda Czink match was going to be finished after about half an hour when the first set was won after 19 minutes! Fortunately Czink put up a bit more resistance in the second set, although the overall outcome was never really in any doubt.

Then, Andy Murray never does things the easy way! Ivo Karlovic was never going to be an easy player to play against with his 130mph serves.

I never really thought Murray was going to lose the match to be honest but it only needs one bad service game and the set can be gone as Karlovic is so dominant on serve.

That match will be remembered for the number of foot faults that were called against Karlovic though. I believe the total was 11 which is basically unheard of and Karlovic is supposedly putting in an official complaint.

However, having been at that match and seeing his service action, it looked as if most, if not all, of the foot faults were absolutely correct.

But the match that will live longest in my memory has to be the last match that I saw at Wimbledon 2012 - Rafael Nadal vs Lukas Rosol.

As match ups go, this is the most accurate description of David vs Goliath as you can possibly get.

Rafael Nadal - the winner of 11 Grand Slam titles and one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He hadn't failed to reach the Wimbledon final in any of the years that he has appeared at the All England Club since 2005 and was fresh from his success on the Roland Garros clay.

Lukas Rosol - a player ranked 100th in the world, had NEVER won a match, even in qualifying, at Wimbledon prior to this year and who has spent the vast majority of his career playing in the second tier of men's tennis.

Even at two sets to one up, I fully expected Nadal to come back and win and when he took the match into a fifth set by winning the fourth set 6-2 and THEN there was a delay of nearly an hour to allow them to close the roof, I honestly could see no way how Rosol could come out and see the match out.

Usually, over five sets, the bottle of the lower ranked player goes when they get close to winning the match but Rosol seriously looked like a top five player on Thursday evening, he was absolutely immense for almost the entire match and fully deserved his victory. He was the better player by far and Nadal had no answer to his massive serves and huge shots.

The atmosphere at the end on Centre Court when Rosol had 3 match points and then afterwards when he actually won, was just amazing and something I will remember forever.

I don't think I'm exaggerating at all when I say that was one of the biggest upsets in Grand Slam history.

However, by the same token, I was also not surprised in the slightest to see Rosol go out with a whimper yesterday against Phillipp Kohlschreiber in straight sets. It was always going to be hard to get over the emotions of Thursday evening and there is a reason why Rosol is nearly 27 years old and has barely been heard of until now.

Watching Murray last night against Marcos Baghdatis was hard work. His performance in the first two sets last night was very shoddy to say the least but then it's all about getting through the early rounds. He has admitted in his interviews that he will need to play a lot better over the next week if he wants to win the tournament and I'm sure he will.

He has a big match tomorrow against Marin Cilic and, unlike his previous three matches this year, he won't have the Centre Court crowd behind him as he has been put onto Court One, which also means that he will be exposed to the elements and on a day when the weather forecast is to be pretty grim, it may mean that his match, once started, will be full of interruptions which will be far from ideal.

I fully expect him to beat Cilic though over five sets and all the pressure is on him now to reach the final, following Nadal's exit from his half of the draw. Cilic will probably still be feeling the effects of his marathon five setter against Sam Querrey yesterday which Cilic eventually won 17-15 in the final set and was the second longest match in Wimbledon history.

Second only to a certain match a couple of years ago between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut.

It'll be interesting to watch the match after Murray as well. David Ferrer vs Juan Martin Del Potro has the potential to be a bit of a classic and the winner will play Murray in the Quarter Finals on Wednesday - if Murray wins, of course!