 It's the tenth day of Wimbledon. Eight men and four women remain in the singles draw after a mostly full schedule of play-the first one in a week. The grass court championship of the world behaved like a garden that's been getting too much rain and not enough sun by growing very fast all at once. I felt like I had no idea what was going to happen in the tournament yesterday, and now the draws have shaken out and the drama is set up. Venus and Justine Henin are set to collide in an epic final on the women's side unless Ana Ivanovic, the young Serbian player with the throwback game, can disrupt Venus in the semifinals. On the men's side we could still see Nadal and Federer on the last day, but Berdych, Djokovic, and Roddick have all played their ways into the tournament.
The best match on the men's side today was Hewitt/Djokovic. A lot of people had been looking forward to that collision. Hewitt is trying to regain a foothold at the top of the men's game, he is a past champion, and has the game to earn a lot of points in the upcoming hard court season if he goes in with confidence. Djokovic is a young player with a huge game and the competitive presence of a much older player. It is only a matter of time before he breaks through.
The match featured two of the game's sweetest two-handed backhands. Hewitt took a pretty defensive posture, stood further back in the court, and played very deliberately on his serve. Djokovic controlled the middle of the court and attacked with his smooth, flat, deep shots. Neither man used the net much unless they had to. The number of times Djokovic took balls from the service line and then backed up after hitting to the corner would have blown McEnroe's mind. It is really a different era in the grass court game, and guys want to take their chances from the back of the court. The result came down to the three tiebreakers. Djokovic stole the first one. He dominated the second and third. The attacking player and the better server will always have the advantage in breakers, and Djokovic was both today.
In the other much anticipated match-up Baghdatis played the big points better than Davydenko. He won two tiebreak sets in a row on the way to a straight-set victory over the Russian, who by the end of the match, looked totally disgusted at the tournament and tried to get off the court as fast as possible. Baghdatis has a beautiful way of moving his opponents around the court, up, back, and side to side. His pirouette to celebrate the victory was very Zorba the Greek and his happy hand of Greek Cypriot supporters adds energy to the tournament.
I thought Nadal would handle Youzhny, but he had not really found his rhythm going into the match and dropped the first two sets. Youzhny is a nice player and Rafa had to ratchet his game way up to come back and win in five sets. He has expended a lot of energy to get this far in the tournament, but I don't worry about his physically and he played really great tennis in the last three sets, never giving his opponent a glimpse at victory.
On the women's side Ana Ivanovic and Nicole Vaidisova slugged it out for three nervy sets in a battle to claim supremacy as the game's top young player. Vaidisova was the aggressor mainly and she had the match on her racquet serving at 5-3 in the third set. But she played a nervy game, gave up the break, and you could see her deflate after that. Ivanovic is tough, and her game reminds me of Chris Evert some, another baseliner who always made it to the Wimbledon final.
Yesterday, Justine Henin beat Serena Williams in a match that could have been a final. I think Venus is playing better than Serena in this tournament, though, and I expect her to duel with Henin in the final. Justine is so solid in every way and the economy of her shots really helps her on the slick grass. She is not so different from Federer in the way she can hold her position and accelerate the racquet head through the ball in a flash.
I cannot wait to see Berdych and Nadal play. Berdych won at Halle and has walked through the draw. The two of them had an incident with one another at a match in Spain and are not purported to be best friends.
The lesson reiterated to me by this tournament is that tiebreaks are extremely important on grass. Tiebreak tennis is a unique kind of game. Every point carries the tension of a break point and it's extremely difficult to develop any shot-making rhythm. Tiebreaks shrink the game down to serve and return. Pitcher and hitter. It would not surprise me if we saw a lot more tiebreaks in the last three rounds of play.
Statistic of the Day. Men's Tiebreak Records in the 2007 Wimbledon Championships.
Berdych 6-1. Federer 1-0. Roddick 5-0. Djokovic 6-1. Gasquet 0-0. Nadal 1-1. Baghdatis 3-1. Ferrero 3-2.
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