Wimbledon 2007- A box of chocolates
So, here we are Wimbledon 2007 already!!!! It feels as though the French Open was just last Sunday, yet we are at another major on a completely different surface. Looking at some of the matches from Queens and Halle, you realise how very different grass is from clay, shots that for the last couple of months we've seen players run down with easy, fly by at a comparatively dizzying speed (although most will agree that grass is not what it used to be). To transition between the two surfaces cannot be easy, which makes what Nadal and Federer did last year so amazing.. That being said, it's a new year and a new draw. Here's the link so you can check it out yourself:
http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/scores/draws/ms/msdraw.pdf
So first thing on Friday Leez printed out our draws and we had a look, we both realised that this would be a tricky one to forecast. The thing with Wimbledon is that, unlike clay, there's no real lead up. Most players pick between Halle and Queens so the talent is never really all in the same place. Roddick won Queens but what does that really say about his grasscourt game this season... not much.
ARod didn't exactly play a bunch of grasscourt pros other that Mahut who was the Junior Wimbledon champ and Tursunov whose game should translate well on grass. The point is the draw in these warm up tournaments are very unlike the real deal, i.e. Wimbledon, and will continue to be this way until we have at the very least one main MS tournament that will attract all the top players at the same tourney and then we can get a better sense of what could possibly happen at Wimbledon.
Before we say what we think, we want your opinion. Vote on our poll (look to the right just under the calendar) to give us your Wimbledon predictions
That being said here's a look at all the quarters and the main players to watch as well as some possible exciting matchups.
Federer's quarter (click on image to enlarge)
With Federer skipping Halle, his good luck charm and favourite warm up tourney, who knows what shape the reigning King of Grass will be in. One can only hope he has forgotten about the French and has his game face on 
. A possible meeting with Safin in the third round should be interesting with Safin's big serve and all court game.
Fernando Gonzalez may do well here, he' done it before in 2005 (pre Larry Stefanki) loosing to Federer in the Quarterfinals where he's scheduled to meet Federer this year.
One thing is for sure Blake must be pretty upset with his draw
, playing the big hitting Igor Andreev in the first round cannot be good news...look out for the upset!!!
Roddick's quarter (click on image to enlarge)
Well gone are the days when a Federer- Roddick Wimbledon Final is all everyone can talk about. Since ARod never got the job done on a Sunday he must be excited about the prospect of getting a crack at the Fed Express on a normal week day where he may not be a sfocused. One thing is for sure, after the smack down Fed put on him in the Aussie Open this year Roddick won't be talking crap 
. Before he gets to Fed, there's still the small matter of the Battle of the Andy's
After last year's defeat to Murray, when the Roddick downward spiral really took a turn for the worst (Roddick's expression after that match was like a deer caught in headlights 
) this year's match up will be a bit different. Murray not at his best and Roddick has way more confidence and momentum.
Djokovic's quarter (click on image to enlarge)
In this quarter we have a lot of what ifs. Nalbandian, Davydenko, Hewitt, Baghdatis, Canas and noDjoke himself. All these guys can either do really well or they can loose to some nobody qualifier who's on fire. So who knows... we sure as hell don't!!! 
Nadal's quarter (click on image to enlarge)
Everyone seems to think that the Nadal-Fish first round match may be tricky. It's possible, but I don't think Fish has what it takes to take Nadal out. Other than "Mr. Destroyer of all Federer's hopes and dreams" (Zar is still a bit upset) Berdych is definitely one to watch in this section. The Beryd man just won Halle 2007 so momentum is definitely there. Youzhny is another player to watch.
Tommy Robredo is apparently another player to watch... naked 
he claims it's for charity (we think it would have been more charitable to keep those clothes on and spare us the ballerina pose), check out the pic courtesy the ATP:
For more details here's the link: http://www.atptennis.com/en/news/2007/robredo_cosmo.asp.
We close off on that bizzare note and look foward to two weeks of tennis drama!!!
and I won't even bother to give details cause TRUST ME that will need a whole other blog. So lets get into it. The Clay court season has come to an end and as any dedicated tennis fan will know Rafael Nadal won the title for the third time in a row
This must be REALLY bad I figured. Only to find out when I got to work (totally afraid to check by the way
) that Fed won in Four Sets against Tommy Robredo.
What a freak right! Well thats what I thought until the following morning (day of Nad's quaterfinal game) I woke up and my first thought was "what if Nadal loses to Moya
" And you know what I did 
call Zar of course and said, "What if Moya Moys win!" Well like a true friend she reassured me and had a good laugh
.
. I refused to discuss tennis with Zar on this day because I knew all she wanted to do was persuade me to come over to the 
Also there was that minor issue of being granted that elusive title as "The Greatest Player of All Time".
) Why I say this? Well my dear friend Zar surprised me just a bit when she called me after the Finals. I knew she would have been sad
and probably in tears
but she was furious!
yes mad and she was mean
