Sunday, July 8, 2007

RDT (Random daily thought)

Woke up a little past noon and turned on the TV to see that the Wimbledon final was still going on. It was 2-2 in the fifth set when I started to watch and Nadal had 2 break points at 15-40. I glanced at the scores of the previous sets where Federer had won in tiebreaks and Nadal had won with one or two breaks. I was wondering whether this was going to be the time for Nadal to break out and start winning everything, not just on clay. Then Federer reeled off four straight points, including a service winner and an ace, and we were back on serve. I was setting up a couple of tables for my online poker session and didn't notice the match resume from commercial. Before I knew it, they were about to go to another commercial break as Federer took a 5-2 lead in the set. What happened? Wow, that was fast. Nadal played well but Federer turned it on in that last set and it was all over. Federer won his fifth Wimbledon championship.

On the ladies' side, Venus Williams continues her amazing comeback by winning her second Wimbledon in three years. For a sport where the players start playing professionally at such a young age, I'm kinda surprised that there have been a good number of Wimbledon winners over the age of 25 in the last 25 or so years. This is remarkable to me because Wimbledon is the only grand slam played on grass, which is the fastest surface and would tend to make me think that youth and foot speed would win out more often.

The grand slam that seems to cater best to older players seems to be the US Open. My guess is that this has to do with the cooler temperature and the night matches. It also seems that the older American players tend to do really well, and that could be from the crowd support.

No comments :