Ted Robinson’s Matchpoints

The buzz was still about Andy Murray at Tuesday’s Wimbledon card. The BBC telecast drew a 44 share; the percentage of TV sets in the country tuned to the match, and an audience of over 10 million.

We confronted this for years with Tim Henman – how to convey the obsession in England with a Brit at Wimbledon. Anyone that covers this event wonders about the day when a Brit wins. Will the town survive? Will anyone work in the next month?

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Murray’s win over Richard Gasquet afforded a small peek at the possibilities. Longtime Wimbledon observers called it one of the best atmospheres they have seen alongside the famous 2001 Rafter-Ivanisevic final. The AELTC gambled with weather and assigned Murray-Nadal the late match Wednesday. More important the Brit gets maximum time to recover from his late night than to worry about rain. Oh, they must hope to avoid a repeat of the disastrous scheduling that cost Henman a shot at the 2001 title.

On court, the Williams Sisters relentless march to the semis continued. And their success, along with the absence of so many of the top-ranked women, has raised questions.

Tracy Austin wrote in a London paper Tuesday that this “was a thin time at the top of women’s tennis….There is a big vacuum at the top of the game that none of the current players seems able to fill.” True I say, but no fault of the Sisters. Certainly their path here has been easier with the lack of significant opponents, but their play at Wimbledon, especially Venus, requires no apology. Simply, they have the track record.

The question arose in a Tennis Channel discussion with Jon Wertheim: Would you rather have the Sisters playing part-time for more years or the Clijsters-Henin mode of full-time play and early retirement? Jon’s position was that the WTA Tour requires full commitments from top players to make the “business” of tennis viable. Agreed, but I would lean to the longer run. Allow me to watch players grow, develop, mature, peak and finally, slowly decline. Meteoric rise and fall is of no interest.

How in the name of sense can the seedings be allowed? I am told that the women at Wimbledon are seeded by the rankings with no exception, explaining the incredible scenario of Thursday. Elena Dementieva will be the higher seed against Venus….and a massive underdog!

Here’s why the men’s game is so terrific: Marat Safin, Aussie champion just 3 years ago, and Marcos Baghdatis, finalist 2 years ago, met in the second round. Yes, I know we just had the Sharapova-Davenport collision but that is an absolute rarity for the women.

Safin, now a noted mountain climber, played like the former #1 for the third and fourth sets. Unfortunately for the Russian, he spotted Baghdatis 2 sets and was no match for the Cypriot in the fifth. Yet, Safin still flashed moments of utter brilliance, such as  serving at 0-3, 0-30 in the fifth and he unleashed a series of jaw-dropping shots to hold.

Baghdatis celebrated his strong 2006 (F Aussie, SF Wimby) off the court and paid a price last year. Maturity appears to have arrived and, if so, he should be back in the Top 10.

One note in the Baghdatis matches is the highly audible crowd support from the significant Cypriot/Greek community in Australia. Sadly, in a match involving a young Greek, Konstantinos Economidis, the Aussies resorted to pepper spray for “crowd control.” Seems rash from a distance, and particularly strange in such a sports-loving and sportsmanlike country.

My favorite tennis setting was the 2001 Wimbledon final, where Aussie and Croat expats jammed Centre Court to cheer Patrick Rafter and Goran Ivanisovic in their Monday fight. It had the flair of a World Cup match in tennis’ most austere setting.

Global growth in tennis means cultural clashes. Proper behavior, often regarded in societies as utter silence, at tennis matches may carry different meanings in different venues.

So, here’s a little third round men’s section: Baghdatis against Lleyton Hewitt (CORRECTION: Hewitt worked late last year with Darren Cahill, but Cahill has made a commitment to broadcasting and Hewitt prepped with Tony Roche) and Sam Querrey against Novak Djokovic.

Querrey had a moment of growth in his second round win over Dmitry Tursunov. Serving at 2-0 in the first set tiebreak, Querrey tossed in a double. Unnerved, he lost the next 4 points. At 2-5, Querrey engaged Tursunov in a long baseline battle, unyielding in his groundstrokes, until Tursunov snapped with an errant forehand. Momentum shifted on that one point and Querrey proceeded to win 5 straight points and the breaker. Tursunov rebounded to win the second but Querrey ripped off the next two to earn his meeting with Djokovic.
 
More props to Vince Spadea, a five-set winner over German Denis Gremelmeyer. Spadea, who proclaimed his longing for Starbucks, earns a longer stay in Australia (he lost 2R last year) and the ranking points that will keep him in tournaments for another year.

And James Blake (straight sets over Michael Russell) and Andy Roddick (meets Phillip Kohlschreiber Thursday night US time) move on in impressive fashion.

Yet another confounding example of the computer: if Rafael Nadal wins the Aussie and Roger Federer loses before the semis, Rafa supplants Fed as #1. Now I know the Slam count would be even at 2-2 in such a case, but Fed’s superiority on hard courts and over the duration of the year would leave at least this observer skeptical of such a ranking shift.