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Post by rubcale on Jul 9, 2016 17:51:30 GMT 1
Great day's watching tomorrow Heather Watson and her partner through to XD final 7-5 6-3.
Delighted to see Serena finally win her 22nd Slam singles title - it seemed as if the pressure had been getting to her since last year's Wimby final.
It was a really enjoyable match to watch with excellent tennis and I felt quite sorry for Angeliqua Kerber, she actually played well and would probably have beaten anyone else in the world but the power and serve which Serena seemed to have lost somewhat was back in evidence on grass.
This will be AndyM's eleventh Slam singles final now two short of Fred Perry's 13 with Ann Jones in third place with 9. Unfortunately apart from Perry the conversion rate is weak with Andy only having won 2 to date and Ann Jones won 3.
Mrs Jones still holds the record for the Brit with the most semi appearances at 21 but with Andy now on 20 it looks likely he will soon equal and probably surpass this.
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Post by raliverpool on Jul 10, 2016 17:10:26 GMT 1
So Ivan Lendl finally defeats John McEnroe at Wimbledon. Well done Andy Murray!
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Post by Mart!n on Jul 10, 2016 17:14:01 GMT 1
Well done Andy
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Post by Shireblogger on Jul 10, 2016 17:45:24 GMT 1
Murray was brilliant today. I don't recall ever watching him and being less tense !
Great result.
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Post by raliverpool on Jul 10, 2016 18:39:29 GMT 1
Murray was brilliant today. I don't recall ever watching him and being less tense ! Great result. I agree it was a very un-Murray like performance, not getting broken on serve once during the match!
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Robbie
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Post by Robbie on Jul 10, 2016 18:47:49 GMT 1
Yes, well done Andy, a great result!
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 10, 2016 19:19:10 GMT 1
These are the only players to have won Wimbledon twice in the open (1968 onward) era:
Pete Sampras (USA) 7 0 7 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Roger Federer (SUI) 7 0 7 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Björn Borg (SWE) 5 0 5 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 Boris Becker (GER) 3 0 3 1985, 1986, 1989 Novak Djokovic (SRB) 3 0 3 2011, 2014, 2015 John McEnroe (USA) 3 0 3 1981, 1983, 1984 Rod Laver (AUS) 2 2 4 1961, 1962, 1968, 1969 John Newcombe (AUS) 2 1 3 1967, 1970, 1971 Jimmy Connors (USA) 2 0 2 1974, 1982 Stefan Edberg (SWE) 2 0 2 1988, 1990 Andy Murray (GBR) 2 0 2 2013, 2016 Rafael Nadal (ESP) 2 0 2 2008, 2010
2nd column is pre-1968 wins and 3rd column is total wins, then the years.
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Post by rubcale on Jul 10, 2016 19:46:00 GMT 1
So glad to be wrong.
I was actually able to enjoy watching this today unlike 2013 when my nerves coud hardly take it - it wouldn't have been a disaster if he had lost since he had previously won it and I was convinced he was going to lose anyway!
His defence was really fantastic, the second serve held up well and there were no lapses in concentration.
Even more good news as Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen have won the mixed doubles but Henri looks even more uptight than Ivan Lendl.
Just what does this say about Andy Murray that he can only seem to reach the pinnacle when Ivan joins the team?
I'd really love to see him win the Australian.
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Post by suedehead on Jul 10, 2016 20:13:07 GMT 1
Murray was brilliant today. I don't recall ever watching him and being less tense !Great result. The Olympic final?
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Post by Shireblogger on Jul 10, 2016 22:04:02 GMT 1
Murray was brilliant today. I don't recall ever watching him and being less tense !Great result. The Olympic final? I didn't watch that match. (I was at the Olympics, watching hockey I think).
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Post by suedehead on Jul 10, 2016 22:15:29 GMT 1
I didn't watch that match. (I was at the Olympics, watching hockey I think). Fair enough
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Pablo
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Post by Pablo on Jul 11, 2016 0:20:50 GMT 1
Just what does this say about Andy Murray that he can only seem to reach the pinnacle when Ivan joins the team? I would partly agree with this statement but I think on this occasion this one was different to the others - particularly because he wasn't facing Djokovic or Federer in a GS final so expectation was very much on his side. You could argue Ivan wasn't there when Murray reached a career best final appearance at the FO. I don't think Raonic did much wrong today, served big and attacked well at the net. Murray was just superb with his returns and defence. He clearly learnt his lessons from when he played him at Queens and his 5 setter blip against Tsonga. Brilliant news for Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen, it was an enjoyable match to watch to cap a wonderful final Sunday at Wimbledon.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 11, 2016 16:45:24 GMT 1
Just catching up on posts from the last week and this seems a good place to start. Caught up with Katie Swan's first round junior match earlier. She retired 6-5 down in the first set with what seemed like a leg injury, really disappointing and it came out of nowhere. Her opponent had a lengthy stoppage early in the match as well, almost a 10 min delay, to have treatment for an upper leg/waist injury, not sure. She started getting upset after going 0-30 down on her serve at 5-5 (a game in which she was eventually broken) but don't really know how she did it. Seems like it was a recurrence of the injury she had before Wimbledon. That ends my interest in the juniors unless someone makes a name for themselves. There isn't really anyone else i'm that familiar with.
In another news, quiz question, which British player won an epic doubles match today? I hadn't realised when I posted that that Gabi Taylor was also in the draw. It seems ages ago (was 2014 I think) that I was impressed by her in the juniors, and she also won a match in Wimbledon qualifying that year too. I'd wondered what had happened to her since then, and had actually forgotten about her. She didn't have a junior ranking getting in purely on her WTA ranking, and going into the quarter finals after she'd thrashed the second seed (who it should be said had a much lower WTA ranking than she did) in her previous match I thought she had a real chance of reaching the final. Unfortunately she had to retire from her quarter final 6-4 1-1 down from food poisoning. This was her last junior event, she's now 18, and her goal next year should be to get into the women's singles, possibly with a wildcard.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 11, 2016 17:23:10 GMT 1
In another news, quiz question, which British player won an epic doubles match today? I'm assuming you meant Johnny Marray at your time of posting before the Jamie Murray doubles match, which is finishing tomorrow locked at 13-13 in the final set. Yep I was, won it 14-12 in the fifth after their opponents served for the match at 5-4 earlier in the set, also saved a couple of break points at 11-11 too! When I saw they'd won the third set I assumed that was it without realising that the doubles, which had been best of 3 for the first couple of rounds, had reverted back to best of 5 from the third round onwards. When I saw they were a break down in that fifth set I was cursing the change, which also reinforced my belief that the best of 3 set format had helped them get to that stage in the first place. A joke that it didn't seem to be on a televised court, a Wimbledon champion in the third round against a seeded pair, what more reason is there to stick them on a better court?! Ended up losing to the 12th seeds Huey and Mirnyi in straight sets in the QFs. Another bad resukt for Jamie Murray in doubes as he was beaten in last 16 yesterday - the wheel's are beginning to loosen. rubcale it was actually the quarter finals where they lost. They won that long third round match on Tuesday 16-14 in the end - which was pleasing but also frustrating at the same time. They actually served for that at 5-3 on the Monday night and not finishing in 1 day meant I wasn't going to be able to see the conclusion. I feared that not having a day's rest may count against them and given that they lost that QF 10-8 in the fifth on the Weds it may well have done. What made it worse is they lost to Benneateau/Roger-Vasselin who'd knocked out Dom Inglot and Daniel Nestor, the 9th seeds, 7-6 (7-0) 6-4 in the second round They may not have ended up winning the title, but their opponents went on to reach the final so it was definitely a missed opportunity. I'm not really that bothered about the doubles rankings, not specifically whether Jamie is No 1 or not anyway, i'm not interested enough in the doubles tour these days, but Jamie has said he values it highly and that defeat meant he's slipped from no 1 to no 5.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 11, 2016 17:47:10 GMT 1
Everyone got excited when Djokovic lost but I had no fear of Andy beating him at Wimby this year, in fact he needed Djoko to take Raonic out. I can't see Andy winning the final. While he beat Raonic easily on clay in both the Australian and Queen's finals he basically " got lucky" and I don't see this happening a third time unless Raonic serves well below his best. Andy will also have to serve close to his best, his second serve is still something of a liability which considering his success jusr shows the strength of the rest of his game. I can only hope the occasion somehow affects Raonic. Good news on the doubles front as Heather Watson and her Finnish partner Henri Kontinen are through to the semis in the mixed doubles on Court 1 today after a relatively easy quarter fina victory but at times Heather's forehand was embarrassing. A pity they couldn't get a coach to sort this out but it's probably too late now to help her singles career. I was 50/50 about the final, part of me was worried about the Raonic game based on what he did to Federer, and the trouble he's given Andy in the past, but I also hoped the experience of winning Wimbledon may help Andy. I wanted Federer to beat Raonic, not just because I'm a fan (though the Brits will always come first, same applies to Tsonga) but I also thought if Andy had played Fed there was less pressure on him.
I don't know how many of Heather's mixed doubles you saw - the first one coming in the third round after 2 walkovers lol! I didn't see much of the 3rd round match but saw most of the other matches they played in the competition and the SF was by far their worst of the competition. Thought the other matches were fantastic but the SF was an ugly win. As for the coaching, Veronelli has gone back to South America to see his family so Heather was being coached by Kontinen and John Peers coach, Chris Eaton! A few weeks ago he couldn't have imagined what was going to happen. Willis qualifies meaning that people want to interview him as the last Brit to qualify, then Peers and Kontinen reach the quarter finals in the men's doubles before Kontinen wins the mixed! The interview with Eaton in the first week did mention that he was coaching Peers/Kontinen but by the time I saw Kontinen play with Heather I'd forgotten that!
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 11, 2016 18:00:31 GMT 1
Murray was brilliant today. I don't recall ever watching him and being less tense ! Great result. I thought Sue Barker got it absolutely spot on when she said Murray was "almost perfect".
I was nervous in the second set but other than that I've never felt so confident watching him. That seemed to start for me when Henman revealed the text exchange he had with Murray before the tournament when Murray said he had a good feeling about it. He says stuff he means, as seen by his glowing tribute he paid to Raonic and his support team afterwards, shows he has a huge respect for the work that Raonic puts in. Anyway I think everything fitted into place after that insight from Henman. Still thought he may lose the 3rd set tiebreak though, given that Raonic doesn't lose many tiebreaks and hardly lost one to Murray before.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 11, 2016 18:12:45 GMT 1
So glad to be wrong. I was actually able to enjoy watching this today unlike 2013 when my nerves coud hardly take it - it wouldn't have been a disaster if he had lost since he had previously won it and I was convinced he was going to lose anyway! His defence was really fantastic, the second serve held up well and there were no lapses in concentration. Even more good news as Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen have won the mixed doubles but Henri looks even more uptight than Ivan Lendl. Just what does this say about Andy Murray that he can only seem to reach the pinnacle when Ivan joins the team? I'd really love to see him win the Australian. I thought that may be a match too far for Heather and Kontinen, especially after watching that semi-final (TV first then caught up with the rest online). In a way I was more pleased for her than for Murray. I saw her second round womens doubles match and that restored my faith in her after her singles defeat. When it really mattered she stepped up. No disrespect to Naomi Broady but if it wasn't for Watson they wouldn't have won that match. I could see why Naomi hasn't won a grass match this year, she was disappointing. Heather took that form into the mixed and if anything improved on it. As said I didn't see much of their first match but saw the majority of the other matches and thought apart from that ugly semi final win they were fantastic throughout. If anything yesterday she was the better player of the two of them. Just shows what she's capable of when the pressure's off, it's been a long time since I've seen her enjoying herself so much on court too (talking about the whole mixed doubles run here not just the final).
I can see why Judy Murray thinks she's a Top 30 player now. I hope if she can take anything away from this its not to worry about ranking points, certainly not in the slams, and don't think about her US Open record (still looking for her first win there).
As for Murray, absolutely agree about the Australian, that's the missing piece in the jigsaw.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 11, 2016 18:25:36 GMT 1
Sorry about the multiple posts and rambling.
Just a final point. Said on Facebook that yesterday must surely have been the greatest day for British tennis at Wimbledon with 4 titles out of 4!
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Post by rubcale on Jul 11, 2016 18:37:49 GMT 1
As for Murray, absolutely agree about the Australian, that's the missing piece in the jigsaw.
His game is ideally suited for the Australian the only problem is that Djokovic is almost unbeatable here. A couple of years ago you'd have been certified for suggesting he could ever win RG but he's such a cussed character and if Lendl remains on board I actually think this could be possible.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on Jul 18, 2016 14:27:56 GMT 1
So much news from the last week, but just to say what a performance from Kyle Edmund yesterday to beat Serbia. Absolutely awesome and until he failed to serve it out at 5-4 in the third he looked a Top 10 player, he'd been totally dominant up until then against a good player in Lajovic. AndyM hit the nail on the head when he said "he is a lot better than a lot of people thought he was going to be, myself included". Jamie Baker said he thought his forehand, which has looked particularly impressive on the clay for the last 12 months or so, was among the top 5 in the world! I know it's only the Davis Cup with all the extra preparation he has in the days leading up to it and on his best surface but even more excited about his future now. It's hard to believe he's only 21, as Andy said there's still things to improve on. It's going to make it so much better having a second singles player who can win matches. It is only one surface but i'd be surprised (like I was last year) if we're playing more home ties than away ties for the time being so we're likely to be playing on clay at least once or twice a year.
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