Sports Then and Now

After reaching the French Open semifinals, Maria Sharapova will look to take the next step at Wimbledon.

This week Maria Sharapova chose to withdraw from the Aegon Classic tournament in Birmingham, a competition the Russian traditionally uses as her one and only warm-up event on grass before Wimbledon. Having recently lost to Li Na in the semi-final of the French Open, Sharapova has stated the reason for her withdrawal as being an unspecified illness –and given the regularity with which she normally takes part in the Eastbourne-based competition it would only be natural to worry for her wellbeing ahead of Wimbledon which is due to begin in just eleven days.

Maria Sharapova has played in Birmingham on the last seven occasions, winning the title twice and reaching the final on two other occasions, and as a result it is normally a fair representation of how the athlete is performing. But she is not the only major player to withdraw this week after Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli has also pulled out of the tournament through injury, leaving Estonian Kaia Kanepi as the top seed remaining in the event. Anyone planning on placing a Wimbledon bet 2011 will probably have to look elsewhere for form guides.

However, Sharapova has previous at Wimbledon – it was of course on the grass-courts of this competition where the Russian burst onto the international scene by taking apart Serena Williams five years ago. Now, provided that her illness is not too serious and that her injury fears are in the main behind her, she will have her eyes firmly set on a fourth Grand Slam title and a second Wimbledon crown, something the Wimbledon betting indicates she has every chance of doing. Read the rest of this entry →

It may be difficult for Serena Williams to repeat her Wimbledon title in 2011.

Serena Williams’ place in the order of Open era Wimbledon greats is hard to measure. Although Roger Federer is certainly near the top of the list of male Wimbledon legends, Serena, the female incarnation of the modern great, might not even be the best Wimbledon player in her family.

It is too early to write the 13-time slam winner’s career obituary, although her prospective absence from this year’s tournament would make her a less dominant favorite in 2012 at the age of 30 with a serious medical problem only just behind her. Anyone looking at the 2011 Wimbledon betting will doubt her ability to challenge this year.

Although the Williams sisters have prospered as siblings on the WTA tour, their bond allowing greater longevity than most of their rivals have achieved, they suffer from their family connection when it comes to an evaluation of achievements, especially at Wimbledon.

This has partly by their joint domination – they have played four finals against each other that have often disappointed – and their success in the ladies’ doubles, a title they have won on four occasions. Followers are used to seeing ‘a Williams sister’ win succeed at SW19. Read the rest of this entry →

Roger Federer is used to winning at the U.S. Open

Do you remember what it felt like when Emmitt Smith hung up his cleats,  no longer hustling in the Dallas Cowboy backfield?

Or how the “Windy City” sighed when the Chicago Bears could no longer rely on “Sweetness” to gain  impossible yardage to convert on a third down?

When was it that Edwin Moses no longer dominated the 400 meter hurdles at the summer Olympics or when Michael Jordan no longer jammed the ball home for the Chicago Bulls?

You see, great athletes not only impact themselves and their teams––they have a profound influence on the game itself, and its fans.

They push the limits and stretch former boundaries as peers and competitors learn that something new is possible and follow their lead.

The longer they play, the greater their record.

Their  time to excel on the playing field––whatever its boundaries––is limited by time because no player’s athletic life goes on forever, despite rumors to the contrary brought on by Brett Favre aficionados.

Sooner or later, the athlete cannot continue to improve and if you cannot continue to add to your game, the process of subtraction begins––you began to move toward “less.”  You settle for “good” rather than maintaining “great.”

For Roger Federer, proving he is moving forward, adding to his game, means increasing the distance between himself and everyone else on tour.  He must add to his already staggering records to bounce back to glory again.

How many of these records are reachable by anyone currently playing tennis today, including Federer himself?

Can Federer himself improve on perfection??

Read the rest of this entry →

Defending champion Roger Federer lost in the quarterfinals of the 2010 championships.

Last time we looked at those who either met or exceeded their Wimbledon expectations. However, one player’s success at a major comes at another’s expense, and a surprise victory by one guy requires him to disrupt another’s plans. Here are some guys who left SW19 with regrets, and what we can expect from them on firmer footing.

Roger Federer: There certainly have been better times to be The Great Swiss. After a triumphant turn Down Under, Federer has not won a single tournament and has lost at the quarterfinal stage of the last two majors. That said, when one looks at each of the matches he’s lost this year —from Marcos Baghdatis in Indian Wells to Lleyton Hewitt in Halle—one sees that each match was competitive.

Even his four-set loss to Tomas Berdych at the All-England Club went four sets and Federer had break points as the Czech was trying to serve the match out. This indicates that a piece of the puzzle is missing, and if he finds it he’ll be back in the last weekend of majors.

I can’t tell you what that piece is, though; if Federer could tell us we probably wouldn’t be having to ask him about it. Read the rest of this entry →

One Wimbledon finalist was a familiar face while the other was a new one.

It’s too early to make predictions for the US Open; I think they at least have to play the Master’s Series events in Canada and Cincinnati before we do that. That’s especially true now that the defending champion of the event won’t be playing it due to injury, the player who has dominated the event in the past decade is slumping, and the man dominating the tour at the moment hasn’t been past the semis there.

But one thing we can do is look at the players who made a splash at this year’s Wimbledon, where they stand now, and what they need to do between now and then to be ideally prepared for the year’s last major. We start with none other than …

Rafael Nadal: After winning his eighth major and solidifying his stature as the game’s No. 1, we’ve seen a few, including (sigh) Chris Chase speculating about whether the Spaniard can match Roger Federer’s 16 Grand Slam wins.

Let me be emphatic: We should not be talking about this yet. It’s been five years since Nadal won his first major and he now has eight; he’s also been through a grocery list of injuries in that time and is having to schedule more and more carefully to avoid hurting himself. For now, let’s focus on a few other goals that more attainable but far from automatic.

First of all there’s the US Open, the one major he hasn’t won. This year is reminiscent of 2008 in more ways than one, now that Nadal has completed the Channel Slam for the second time and has firmly established himself as the best in the world. He fell short that year, losing to Andy Murray in the semis, saying later that the season had finally caught up with him and he had “nothing left.”

The US Open’s position as the last major of the year is always going to be tough for the player who works hardest on the court, and it’s surface is both faster than Nadal’s liking and least forgiving of his brittle joints. Read the rest of this entry →

Tomas Berdych has broken through to reach his first Wimbledon final.

The first time I watched Tomas Berdych play was in the fourth round of the US Open against Tommy Haas. He was only 18 then, but had already attracted some buzz for having knocked Roger Federer out of the Olympics in Greece just weeks earlier.

And at the time, it was impossible not to already be impressed with his shotmaking.

It was not like with Andre Agassi or Fernando Gonzalez, where even the viewers watching on TV could see and hear how hard the ball was being hit, but Berdych, when he had time to set up, had a way of almost casually flicking the ball into corners, lines, and angles that could not be retrieved.

In that first set alone, Berdych must have hit two-dozen winners, but it wasn’t enough. Haas squeaked out that first set and the big, lanky Czech went away after that. Read the rest of this entry →