The Greatest Wimbledon Final Ever?

Changing of the Guard: Roger hands over his bling...


...and settles for a first on grass: 2nd best.

Did you see it?

Yesterday, Roger Federer and and Rafael Nadal played tennis for 4 hours and 48 minutes on Wimbledon's Centre Court through wind, rain and near-darkness before a Federer forehand into the net finally ended his five-year reign as champion of the All England Club. Yes, after being down two sets to nil and twice facing match point, Federer lost to Nadal in near-darkness at 9:15 p.m. (it was the longest match in Wimbledon history - and that's not counting the three rain delays that prolonged the proceedings for close to seven hours) after five sets of tension-filled tennis of the highest quality. Or rather, to give the Spaniard his due - for he surely played brilliant tennis on this day - Nadal won, and deservedly so: 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7.


It's All Over Now: The devastating denouement

With the victory, Nadal became the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win Wimbledon and the French Open in the same season, ended Federer's 40-game win streak here, and ended Federer's grass-court win run at 65 matches. It also gave Nadal his fifth Grand Slam title, and first outside of his four French Open crowns earned on the clay courts of Roland Garros; Federer remains stuck at a dozen Grand Slam titles, two behind Peter Sampras' record 14 - a record which suddenly look to be relatively safe.

Three-time Wimbledon champion and TV commentator John McEnroe called it "the greatest match I've ever seen." And he should know, having played what many consider to be the greatest match prior to July 6, 2008: the 1980 final between Mac and Bjorn Borg that went 4 hours and 16 minutes (previously the longest Wimbledon match in history), which Borg won in the fifth set after losing an 18-16 tiebreaker in the fourth set - the match we seem to see every time there's a rain delay at Wimbledon. As McEnroe and fellow commentator Ted Robinson also observed, it's doubtful there was ever a final in which two opponents struck the ball so hard, so consistently, on virtually every shot. Listening to each volley was like hearing someone repeatedly smash a watermelon with a sledgehammer. The quality was of play was unbelievable. And it followed on the heels of an unexpectedly excellent final between the Williams sisters the day before, when Venus beat her sister Serena 6-4, 7-5 to win her fifth Wimbledon title.

I missed the first two sets (did Federer really blow a 4-1 lead in the second set?), but I caught the last three and as a viewing experience it was both agonizing and exhilarating. Agonizing in its nail-biting tension and exhilarating in the quality of play. As an emotional McEnroe put it, when he congratulated both players after the match, "As a tennis player I want to thank you for that match." The beauty of the game won on this day, for this was as good at it gets.

What a boost in the arm for the sport! As Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

"Almost always, tennis is a niche sport, something watched by the general public if the garbage has been taken out and the ironing is done. Then, every so often, there comes a perfect storm. It happened Sunday, in the cathedral of the sport, Centre Court at Wimbledon, when typhoon Roger Federer met cyclone Rafael Nadal. Even for those who don’t know a backhand from a backbite, what transpired was mesmerizing...It doesn’t happen often, but it was a day when tennis stormed into the mainstream on the wings of two incredible players, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal... If tennis is lucky, the stuff that blew in may just stick around for a while."

And the quality of athletic play was matched by the quality of sportsmanship these two champions exhibited. As the Telegraph Uk reported,

"Every superlative imaginable has been deployed to describe the standard of tennis from the two men. But more striking even than their athleticism and skill was the way they played the game. How refreshing, then, that these two men, playing under great pressure for the highest prize available in their sport, were able to do so in a manner that did them both great credit. They both even agreed to read passages from Rudyard Kipling’s If for use during the anticipated interludes caused by the rain. Lines from the poem are above the entrance that the players use before walking on to Centre Court: If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same. It would be nice to think that many youngsters witnessing the way Nadal and Federer behaved on Sunday night, both in victory and defeat, now understand the meaning of those words."

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Nadal and Federer exemplify the word "class."

What a shock. Although not really shocking to anyone that saw last year's final. Not after Nadal had reached two previous finals here against Federer and came within two points of winning it all last year. "It's a pity I couldn't win it...I tried everything," Federer said afterwards, exhausted. "But Rafa's a deserving champion, he's the worst opponent on the best court." And when John McEnroe asked Federer how he was feeling, Roger politely begged off, saying, with sincerity, "This is probably the hardest loss of my career so far. It really hurts right now." He later told the press that "Losing Paris for me was nothing, this was disaster."


Gloomy Sunday: Federer in his darkest hour (literally)

I'm still depressed after seeing it. Because my tennis hero has been shown to be human and vulnerable this year, and very likely will lose his No. 1 ranking to Nadal. I mean, Roger's only won two minor titles this season (winning Portugal's Estoril Open after Nikolay Davydenko retired with a leg injury and picking up his fifth Gerry Webber Open title at Halle, Germany by defeating the relatively unknown No. 35 Philipp Kohlschreiber) - albeit making it to the semis at Indian Wells and the Australian Open and two Grand Slam finals - and has even lost to nobodies like Czech Radek Stepanek (!) at the Rome Masters. Perhaps, like Icarus, the high-flying Federer has for too long flown too close to the sun of acclaim and now must plummet down to earth. After many a summer dies the swan, as Tennyson said. Asked how Sunday's result might affect his ranking, Federer told the press, "Write what you want. I’m going to try to win at the Olympics and the US Open and have a good end to the season. That’s it."

I hope Federer hasn't lost his mojo on the men's tennis tour. I know he would like to match or surpass Sampras' Grand Slam titles record, so he has the motivation to play for history. But I fear that his standards - and the standards the press have set for him ("I've created monster" he said after losing to Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, alluding to the fact that he's expected to win everything, all the time) - are so high that he might be tempted to pull a Bjorn Borg disappearing act. Shortly after consecutive Grand Slam final losses in 1981 to John McEnroe at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, a 26-year-old Borg shocked the tennis world by retiring from the tour, saying that the losses confirmed that he was no longer the World No. 1 and that he did not wish to be No. 2. Can Federer handle not being No. 1? "Tennis, life goes very quickly," he once said, "It happens very quickly for you, but it can also be over very quickly for you." For Borg it was a run of four straight French Opens and five consecutive Wimbledons before he felt his dominance slipping away. Is this the moment that Federer, approaching his 27th birthday in August, senses that his four-year stranglehold as the dominant force in men's tennis (315 wins, 11 Grand Slam titles, 13 Masters Series titles and a record 232 consecutive weeks ranked as World No. 1 from January 2004 to July 2008) comes to an end? And if so, will he want to stick around, lurking in the shadows of the spotlight?

Though Federer added that he learned nothing new about his opponent in this loss or about his own game that he could try to improve - other than his first serve percentage (this despite 25 aces) - I noticed that on key points Federer tended to abandon his backhand to fall back on his most trusted and reliable weapon, that Hammer-of-the-Gods forehand, only to overhit it. It's almost as if subconsciously he felt that in a pinch he had to go for that extra something against his nemesis, Nadal-the-indefatigable-retriever.

Meanwhile, the reign in Spain continues to fall mainly on the Iberian plains...Nadal's win coming on the heels of his nation's victory over Germany in the Euro 2008 soccer championship. (By the way, was I the only one who noticed soccer fanatic Nadal shaking hands afterwards with Ramon Calderon, president of Rafa's favorite team Real Madrid?). But despite being on cloud nine, Nadal put his rivalry with Federer - one in which he now leads the Swiss maestro 12-6 in head-to-head play - in an existential perspective befitting the great Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936), when he said of Federer, "For me it is hard to have to play in same time as him, best player in world...in history." Exactly! Think how many more titles he could have garnered playing in an era sans his Swiss rival. And think how many elusive French Open titles Federer - the world's second-best clay court player - would have amassed after making it to three finals at Roland Garros!

Federer could probably relate to Unamuno's world view that the deepest of all human desires is the hunger for personal immortality against all our rational knowledge of life. In other words, we know our limits, yet we still want to live forever and strive for perfection every time - be it in cheating death or winning Grand Slam titles. It's a tough pill for Federer to swallow to know that he is indeed, on a tennis court - even a grass court - mortal after all. He knows that, for Federer is a rational man. But as his courageous comeback yesterday proved, dreams - even impossible ones - die hard.

The king is dead, long live the new king. For Federer, who has been king for so long, here's hoping he can again find the motivation - other than his Quixotic quest to win the French Open - that he seems to have lacked this year. Nadal worked hard to improve his game after two finals defeats here. Now that Federer has been vanquished on his "home turf," perhaps he has a little more incentive next year for a Tolkienesque "Return of the King." And for Nadal? Strive for five.

Half-Assed On Center Court

The Sorry State of Women's Tennis



Reports from Wimbledon about the lack of bums filling the Centre Court seats and what it says about the women's game...

Paolo Bandini and Les Roopanarine, covering Thursday's Wimbledon semifinal match between Serena Williams and Zheng Jie - which Serena won in straight sets, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), to set up an all-Williams final against her sister Venus - for the Guardian UK, reported, "I'm disappointed to say ... that a staggering number of empty seats remain on Centre Court. I would be very surprised if we see similar gaps for the men tomorrow. Is this an indication that, despite equal pay, men's tennis remains more popular with the fans?"

Guardian blogger Gary Naylor follows up this theme:

"On the blogs, it has been claimed that Zheng's giant-killing is a reflection of the depth of the women's game. Isn't it, and the empty seats to which you refer, more a reflection of its shallowness? Outside the top few, all are much of a muchness, neither fit enough nor powerful enough to challenge the elite. That elite has now shrunk due to the physical and psychological burden of ascending through junior tennis, then staying at the top. Clijsters, Henin, Hingis and this Wimbledon, Sharapova, Ivanovic and Jankovic are all absent or as good as absent. Richard Williams may not please everyone (or anyone) but he knew what he was doing with his dazzlingly dedicated daughters."

Another blogger, Andi Thomas, blames the sorry state of women's tennis on the lack of competitive challenges and a strong storyline to match the Nadal-chasing-Federer narrative:

"I think part of the reason for the Centre Court gaps might be the relative lack of any strong narrative to the tournament, especially when compared to the men's tournament running alongside. Somebody (McEnroe? Bolletieri?) said that this was the best men's No1 and No2 in the history of the sport, and the momentum building behind their possible/probable final meeting is almost tangible. Add in the frankly unknowable Marat Safin, and that's a fascinating build-up.

"By contrast, the women's tournament has been underwhelming. The upsets have been down to poor performance and fitness, and the two favourites are the only two elite players so far who've been playing anywhere near well. Add to that the general shallowness of the field, the stylistic mundanity of 99% of the women's game, the general antipathy of the tennis establishment to the Williams' sisters, the all-round brevity of three-set tennis, and you don't have a recipe for bums on seats."

The astute Thomas adds that the all-Williams final narrative pales against the men's 1-2 Punch storyline:

"The Federer/Nadal dominance stays interesting because their excellence feels like a pushing of the boundaries for men's tennis, particularly from Nadal. It feels like we're seeing something of importance and significance for the game as a whole: the undisputed king and the up-and-coming pretender (at least on grass). As such, the smoothness of their progress is less due to the weakness of the game and more due to their extraordinary talent."

"Whereas the Williams sisters have proceeded this smoothly largely thanks to the inadequacies of those nominally around the same level Ivanovic, Sharapova, Jankovic, Dementieva) and the retirement of Henin. It's more interesting to watch two players demolish everything around them because they're that much better, than to watch two players demolish everything around them because it's been weak, at least from a narrative point of view. Much better to see excellence rewarded than competence indulged, I reckon, and the sisters haven't had to be anything but competent so far."

Plus, those all-Williams finals tend to be very dull and undramatic, not the stuff of great tennis. Almost like watching a celebrity charity match in which neither side wants to show up their opponent so they tamp it down a bit.

The All England Rack-it Club

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others


Martinez Sanchez: Top Heavy Topspin


Caroline Wozniacki's Big Sweet Spot

After a week of watching the great tennis on display at this year's Wimbledon championships in London, I've noticed two most unusual sights at the All England Club: breasts.

I noticed them on the 25-year-old world No. 101-ranked Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and "Sweet Caroline" Wozniacki, the 17-year-old Danish Lolita-wunderkid and 2006 Wimbledon Juniors champ with the Polish name and polished game who's already attained a WTA world ranking of No. 30 (and this just two weeks away from her 18th birthday!). And, like Morrissey, I could not help but notice that "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others." They simply stood out like, well, breasts. Needless to say, I am smitten with this year's models of grace and beauty at Wimbledon; I have discovered new obscure objects of desire, ones whose careers I must now follow dutifully.


Nordic Lolita Wozniacki


Barcelona Babe Martinez Sanchez

What's unusual about about this occurence is that with the obvious exception of Serena Williams, Poland's No. 65-ranked Marta Domachowska, India's No. 32-ranked Sania Mirza and the Czech Republic's No. 22-ranked Nicole Vaidisova, sizeable breasts are few-and-far-between on the bodies of today's long, tall and mostly flat-chested athletes whose games are build for aerodynamic speed, not comfort.


Warsaw Packed: Marta Domachowska


Nicole Vaidosova's Rack-and-Pinion Design


Sania Mirza is known for her big toss

Fact is, big breasts tend to be a hindrance to female athletes - other than world No. 6 Serena, none of the top-heavy C- and D-cup players have attained Top 10 A-list status. If you don't believe me, check out this MSNBC report, "Exercise unleashes a bounce bras can't handle," which suggests that the bigger a woman's breasts are, the more pain and discomfort she's likely to experience during physical activities.


Feel her pain: Woz struggles to keep her form under wraps

The study cites the fact that because breasts tend to bounce up and down a distance of up to eight inches during "physical activity" (and tennis is pretty damned physical!), and with some breasts weighing 20 pounds or more (a pair of D-cups weighs roughly 15 to 23 pounds), more bounce-to-the-ounce can prove painful and damaging to the limited natural support system.


More ounces mean more bounces

Case in point...In days of lore, I remember marveling at how French star Sandrine Testud (pictured right) kept her massive breasts from getting in her way enroute to her No. 9 world ranking in 2001. They seemed to get even bigger after she had a child in 2002. And I think they held her back from ever going further than the quarterfinals at Grand Slam events (1997 QF at U.S. Open and 1998 QF at the Australian Open) and achieving more than her three singles and four doubles titles on the WTA tour.

In-Sania Mania

And then there's the case of India's Sania Mirza who, on top of having to keep her bosoms under wraps to maximize her on-court play, has to deal with the moral concerns of Muslim groups in her native India. Mirza has been chastised by Muslim groups that claim her attire - wearing a sleeveless top and a mini-skirt during matches - degrades Islam. (She's even had to cancel doubles matches with her good friend Shahar Pe'er because Pe'er is an Israeli - and that incenses Islamic groups as well!)


Muslim groups approved Mirza's "Active Wear Hajib" ensemble for outdoor play

Woz and M.J.

But I digress...

In all seriousness, what truly attracts me to Caroline Wozniacki and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez is their play. The long-legged, long-named 5-9 1/2, 150-pound Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez - sorry, I just gotta call her M. J. from now on as my fingers are getting tired from all that typing - delighted me with her serve-and-volley game in her loss to Venus Williams. What touch, what volleys at the net! The serve out wide, the rush to the net and the perfect cross-court put-away volley: pure, beautiful geometry at work! Sure, she got passed, but this was against the early-hitting Venus Williams who, on grass, is pretty unbeatable. No wonder Venus has four Wimbledon titles in six finals appearances there.

And the 5-10, 128-pound Caroline Wozniacki took a set off Jelena Jokovic before her inexperience kicked in, losing 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Wozniacki used deep groundstrokes to take the first set, but seemed to lose steam after blowing two break chances at 3-4 in the second set. Still, she was right in the match in the third set, forcing an injured Jankovic (hyper-extended knee) into a host of errors before succumbing 6-4. Obviously her game, like her physique, is still developing.

In short, these two attractive, well-built players are ones to look out for - especially Wozniacki, a bust-out talent whose power is right on par with today's heavy hitting, baseline-hugging players.

Eurocentric Sexist Disclaimer: In light of former pro and current Tennis Channel commentator Justin Gimelstob's oafish, egregious and sexist comments on the Washington, D.C. morning radio show "The Junkies" about female tennis players in general - and Anna Kournikova in particular - I hope my comments about breasts don't come off in any way as sexist or chauvinist. I'm a fan of women and tennis and merely a courtside observer of breasts.

Janko Tipsarevic, Balkan Baseliner

Will the beauty of his game save the tennis world?


Janko Tipsarevic
Age: 23
Country: Serbia
Ranking: No. 40

There's a new Serb gunslinger in town and he's got game. While the world rightly raves about Novak Jokovic - and Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic on the women's side - Janko is the latest Serbian tennis star whose name ends in "vic" with a game ready to break into the Top 10. If the world hadn't heard of him before - or seen him take world No. 1 Roger Federer to five sets at this year's Australian Open - they had after he bounced world No. 6 Andy Roddick out of Wimbledon's second round this past Thursday. The colorful Tipsarevic had lost to Roddick here in 2006, but avenged his defeat to the two-time Wimbledon finalist in four impressive sets, outlasting Roddick 6-7 (7-5), 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4). Roddick served 27 aces but he was 0 for 8 on break points and squandered three set points in the final set. In the tennis world this is known as "choking."

Yes, but that's not to diminish the influence of Tipsarevic's play on that result. The Guardian's Robert Kitson was so impressed by the young Serb's game that he wrote a poetic piece about Tipsarovic following a 2006 loss at Wimbleton to Andy Roddick. "Imagine a fly fisherman on the deck of a deep-sea trawler and you will get an idea of how Tipsarevic operates. In a world full of power-hitters he directs balls to improbable corners of the court with more subtlety and skill than the pile-driving Roddick will manage in his entire career."

Tipsarevic followed up his defeat of Roddick with a win Saturday over another hard hitter, Russian Dmitry Tursenov (the world No. 33 who had paired to beat him in doubles at this year's French Open), 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-3), 6-3, to advance to a fourth round showdown with Rainer Schuettler.

Tipsy's trademarks, besides the noseguard over the bridge of his nose (what's that all about, anyway?) and the plentiful tattoos that peek out from under his shirt (forearm and back of neck), are his unbelievable power and baseline game. His forehand is a force to be reckoned with - this guy hits winners that leave no doubt about their intention - and his two-handed backhand is not far behind. Admittedly, he'll need to improve his serve to break into the Top 10 (as Roddick - who scoffs at any serve under 100 mph - said afterwards, "He hit 90 mph serves down the middle of the service box and I netted them"), but his mental acumen is worth an added 20-mph of zip any day. He got inside Roddick's head and played a game of chess with his opponent, constantly keeping him guessing. This kid's smart.

Tipsarevic started 2008 by reaching the third round of the Australian Open, where he more than held his own against World No. 1 Roger Federer, losing the deciding fifth set by 10-8 in a match that lasted 4 1/2 hours - no wonder they call the guy "Marathon Man"! He made it to the quarter finals at Zagreb, the third round of Monte Carlo (beating Paul-Henri Mathieu and Nicolas Lapentti before falling to David Ferrer), and barely lost a third-set tiebreaker to big-serving Chilean Fernando Gonzalez in Rome. He's also beaten James Blake this year. At the French Open, he lost in the first round, in four sets, to Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti (which helped drop his ranking from world No. 33 to No. 40), but made it to the quarterfinals in doubles with his fellow Serb partner Victor Troicki before losing to the Russian team of Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov.

Oh, and about those tattoos. According to Wikipedia, they reflect his love of classic literature (rather unusual for a pro athlete): his left arm features a quote from Fyodor Dostoyesky's The Idiot ("Beauty will save the world") written in Japanese characters (after deciding it didn't look as cool in Russian), while a tattoo on his right arm represents the first two letters of the names of his father, his mother, himself and his brother, also written in Japanese Katakana. The tattoo on his back is a quote from German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Word has it that he reads Goethe and Nietzsche - for fun.


Tipsy's Tats quote Dostoyesky (L) and Schopenhauer (R)

Tipsy is quite the entertaining character to watch. Besides the tats, he also has piercings (he has a labret and a barbell in the right brow) and at one time sported glasses, which is rarely seen on today's tour...



...and even sunglasses - which you never see in the pro game (I wonder why?).


Future's so bright he has to wear shades

Grass Stains: Upsets Continue at Wimbledon

More Top Seeds Find Their Ass Is Grass

What a week of upsets at the All England Club!

On Wednesday, Australian Open champion and No. 3-ranked Serb Novak Djokovic fell to a focused comeback veteran, No. 75-ranked Marat Safin. On Thursday, 2004 Wimbledon champion and World No. 3 Maria Sharapova was defeated by 154th-ranked upstart Russian Alla Kudryavtseva and two-time men's runnerup and world No. 6 Andy Roddick was ousted by "the other Serb guy," the 40th-ranked Janko Tipsarevic. But the biggest upset was still to come...

LI'L ZHENG BEAT BIG ANA IVANOVIC!

World No. 1 Ana Ivanovic was mowed down in the third round of Wimbledon on Friday by 133rd-ranked wild-card Zheng Jie of China in straight sets, 6-1 and 6-4 - the latest victim of a series of upsets on the greens at the All England Club.


A Zing and a Zheng!

This was a collossal upset of David and Goliath proportions. Not merely because of the disparity in rankings, but because the towering 6-foot 1-inch 152-pound Ivanovic was undone by a tiny Chinese woman standing no higher than 5-feet 4-inches tall and weighing 130 pounds. I've been watching tennis long enough to know Asian women don't fare too well on the Eurocentric-dominated pro tour and in Grand Slams (except in doubles), mainly because they're fairly small. I know that sounds like a racial stereotype, but in tennis size (and especially height) matters. (Yes, Michael Chang won his lone Grand Slam at the French Open in 1989, but show me another Asian player who's a threat at the Grand Slams today.)


Zheng Plays Serb & Volley

The upset was also one for the record books, as Zheng became the first Chinese player ever to beat a reigning World No. 1. Speaking of record-breaking, Zheng was also the first Chinese player of her generation to break through at a Grand Slam event when she reached the Round of 16 at the 2004 French Open. And the first to win a Grand Slam when she teamed with Yan Zi to win the 2006 Australian Open doubles title. Zheng also helped China save face at the 2006 Asia Games by winning a gold medal in singles after top-seeded Na Li and the doubles team of Li Ting and Tiantian Sun were upset.

Ivanovic's loss also points out the sorry state of the WTA tour in the wake of Justin Henin's retirement. No one wants - or has the chops - to be the Queen! I seriously think that if Henin had stuck it out for another year she could have bagged the French, and U.S. Open crowns and seriously challenged the Williams sisters for the Wimbledon title (which increasingly looks to be an all-Williams sisters final this year). (Of course, the petite Henin - all 5-feet 5 1/2-inches and 130 lbs of her - was the exception to the Size Matters Rule, but then she had that "backhand for the ages" and French Existential Grit.)


Zheng Jie and Yan Zi at the 2006 Australian Open

Still, Chinese women seem to be the coming New Wave in women's tennis, following the ascent of the Russians in recent years, no doubt inspired by the 2004 Summer Olympics (where Li Ting and Tiantian Sun won the gold medal in women's doubles) and the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Four Chinese women are in the top 100 singles: three from the People's Republic of China - Yan Zi (No. 44), Na Li (No. 45) and Shuai Peng (No. 55) - and Taiwan's Yung-Jan Chan (No. 72). And they excel in doubles, which gives them a volleying ability sorely lacking from most of today's big, heavy-hitting baseliners. In fact, the 24-year-old Zheng is known more as a doubles player, having won Grand Slam doubles titles in 2006 at the Australian Open and Wimbledon with Yan Zi (she's won 11 doubles titles with Yan Zi) and being ranked as high as No. 3 in doubles that same year (those Grand Slam wins also helped her achieve her career-best overall ranking of No. 27 in 2006). Her descent to No. 133 is partly due to complications arising from an ankle injury; needless to say Zheng's ranking should rise shortly after Wimbledon.


"How do you like us now?"

I think Ivanovic is a charming and talented young woman, but her imposing physique masks an inner fragility and vulnerability - clearly, she's finding the weight of being No. 1 to be too much to handle. Ivanovic had ascended to the No. 1 world ranking after beating Dinara Safina in a battle of nerves in the French Open final earlier this month, but her nerves undid her at Wimbledon. On Wednesday, the 20-year-old Serb barely squeaked by crafty French veteran Nathalie Dechy, who was two match points away from a win before a net cord and a lucky bounce opened the door for Ivanovic's eventual "Great Escape" in three sets. (The classy Gallic beauty Dechy, whose biopic would have to star Juliette Binoche, also suffered a freak "equipment" violation when she hit a winner against Ivanovich but had to replay the point because her hat fell off her head onto the field of play!) But there was to be no escape against the diminuitive but hard-hitting Zheng, who returned well and sent a barrage of flat, low and deep shots at Ivanovich that had her pinned to the baseline.

Tennis Is A Game

Lest we forget, there was this photo op moment during the last changeover in the third set of Roger Federer's opening round match against his good friend Dominik Hrbaty on Wimbledon's Centre Court. Hrbaty walked past his designated seat on his side of the umpire's chair and instead went to sit next to Roger Federer - something you never see in professional tennis! I can't even envision Venus and Serena Williams doing it, and they're sisters! And if I saw James Blake and Leyton Hewitt pal around, I think I'd fall over.

Hrbaty and Federer chatted away, with Roger explaining later that Hrbaty said something along the lines of, "Can I sit next to you?" "Sure," Roger replied, "There's an extra seat." The 30-year-old Slovakian, who may be playing his last Wimbledon before retirement, added that it was an honor to be playing Roger and that he was glad they were friends. A charming moment and, like those American Express ads, you could probably put a price tag on what each player technically earned for this first-round match (needless to say, won in straight sets by Federer 6-3, 6-2, 6-2), but the end sum remains: priceless.