Wild, Wild Wimbledon

Britain's savior!

Wimbledon was invaded. It was invaded by a bunch of newcomers and randos that left viewers asking one simple question, “Who?” The answer of course was Steve Darcis, Sergiy Stakhovsky, Lukasz Kubot, KirstenFlipkens, Michelle Larcher De Brito and Sabine Lisicki….again, who? These are the culprits who barged through the door and turned Wimbledon into a wild and crazy amusement park ride. Well, that and the serious lack of time between the French Open and Wimbledon. Oh and let us not forget proper grounds keeping as well.

It all started Rafael Nadal to Darcis in round one, then it was Roger Federer to Segiy and Maria Sharapova to Brito or De Brito or Larcher De Brito, whatever her last name is, in round two and then came what is being referred to as “Black Wednesday.” Black Wednesday will forever be remembered as the day in which there were upsets galore and withdrawals from matches due to injuries. The withdrawals all came so suddenly it caused Wimbledon to issue a statement claiming their wet grounds that a football player with metal spikes could slip on, was not in fact the cause for the withdrawals. Marin Cilic, JohnIsner, Steve Darcis (fresh off his Nadal win), Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and VictoriaAzarenka were among the list of players who withdrew with injuries.

Once the dust settled after Black Wednesday, which is ironic because the grounds were too wet for there to be any dust, there was only one thing that was important from there on out. Andy Murray was to win Wimbledon for Britain.

It had been 77 years since a British person (Scottsman in this case) had won Wimbledon for the host Country. In fact the British got so desperate before Murray came around that they tried using a player born in Canada because his parents were British. But times have changed now. They not only have a horse in this 4-player tennis race, but they also have a player that downright looks like a horse.

Murray was the 2 seed coming into the tournament and things could not have worked out more in his favor once the tournament started. However, before the tournament started, if you looked at Murray’s draw you would have seen that he had Rafa, Federer and Tsonga all in his portion of the bracket. It was enough to have anyone saying that is going to be quite troubling for the Scott. Then, as if by magic, everybody in his path disappeared. It was so crazy, absurd and wild that if this were the NBA, people would be calling for a conspiracy. All three of those players went down faster than the Bruins and Spurs combined…..too soon.

After his quarter final match against Fernando Verdasco I don’t think there was any doubt that this title was Murray’s for the taking. Murray dropped the first two sets to the Spainard and things looked pretty bleak. In the 3^rd set though, Murray came out roaring and took it 6-1 and used that fuel to close out the match 6-4 and 7-5.

In the semi-final Murray faced off against a new comer on the scene Jerzy Janowicz. The 21 year-old bust onto the courts this year with a ferocious serve. He led the field in aces after his first six matches with 103 and at one point hit 146 on the speedometer with one of his serves. The big serve caught Murray off guard as he fell behind again, this time he lost the first set in a 7-2 tiebreak, but then followed that up by winning the next three sets to cruise into the final.

Then came the final versus the No. 1 ranked player NovakDjokovic. If you had asked me what I thought the chances of Murray winning the final against Djokovic in straight sets were, I would have laughed in your face. Then after watching the final, I’d have a very nice piece of humble pie because that’s exactly what happened. Murray won the first set 6-4 and people got a little excited. Then Djokovic turned it up a notch and opened up a 4-1 lead on Murray in the second set. That didn’t slow the chosen one though. With the raucous crowd behind him on every point Murray fought back and won 4 straight games to retake the lead and he would go on to take the set 7-5. In the third set Murray found himself behind again, this time 4-2, and again he battled back and won 4 straight games and ultimately, Wimbledon.

Of the four major Grand Slams the next longest drought for a host country winner is in the Australian Open at 37 years. Oddly enough, the last French person to win the French Open is none other than Yannick Noah the father of everybody’s least favorite NBA player. With exception to Tyler Hansborough and Adam Morrison, is he still even in the league? Anyways at least if you didn’t enjoy the tennis post you left it with a piece of interesting trivia.

Another interesting piece of trivia is Yannick Noah also is a musician. What went wrong with Joakim?

Oh and Aaron Hernandez still killed a guy.