Turkey Time

Wimbledon, well the only Slam that has the middle Sunday free, this might be a good or a bad thing, depending on whether you live near the courts or not, though in the alleged modern world, it's not like a major religious holiday, but at least it gives time to reflect on some things.

Better get the shit out of the way now. The Wimbledon organising committee are a bunch of clowns for the most part, seriously start matches on the outside courts at 11am, use some commonsense, especially when they are no lights on outside courts and start Centre court at noon. It's not like dew is going to be a problem at 11, then again this is asking too much. The matches suspended because of darkness would have better chances of completion Haas/Cilic starting an hour earlier, the South Tyrolean sex machines matches against Gicquel and Andreev. Gimeno-Traver's match against Dent, as for the WTA matches they should be moved to the Isle of Man.

Next point is the grass itself, it's a different kind of problem now to what they had in the horror days of the mid 90s, where the average rally point was 1,6 shots and it wasn't serve/volley tennis, it was just serving. It got to the point where they might as well started at the tiebreakers. The composition of the grass has been changed to be more durable and less slick than before, also the fact the balls are a lot slower are contributing to the amount of rallies seen now and it's not traditional grasscourt tennis. Has it gone too much the other way? It has, but that there has to be a compromise, a bit quicker wouldn't hurt the game, there is already too much homogenisation surface as it is.

The highlights so far Daniel Gimeno-Traver winning a match, he has the Moya gamestyle with a worse serve, too bad he has the Moya backhand, but he is a good guy. Very surprising he beat Dent on this surface, though Dent had a shocker, even then it should be good enough to win. Though DGT was in a lowlight as well, blowing a huge chance against Troicki up 4-2 40-15 on serve in the 5th set and blowing the match 7-5. He missed an easy volley and then a netcord went out for deuce, and Troicki took chances and they came off. It got too dark, Troicki was creating some antics "I cannot see, I cannot see", but hey he saw well enough to break serve.

Montañes making the 3rd round funny stuff. Leo Mayer has improved quite a bit from when I saw him personally and it's good to see, because del Potro is going to need some help in the future with Davis Cup, especially as Schwank is having a lot of problems at the moment.

Koubek once again fucks up a match, tactically played it the right way, but refused to knock off some easy volleys, though it was good that the battling Sela ended the Robredo nonsense.

Now to the last 16. Berdych has been playing well so far, but he has a fear of GS quarter finals. It won't be easy against Roddick, but they have never met on grass. Roddick loves the grass, it depends on how Berdych returns, has to be really on his game, if he does that, then he should be able to dominate the rallies, though with Berdych it's on instinct and mood. Hope he wins to prove me wrong.

Ferrero and Simon, big chance for JCF to make the quarters, he hasn't been able to back up big performances regularly. He did well to get out of the match with Fernando Gonzalez with a win, it was a hard fought match, but Gonzo had plenty of chances to take it and Ferrero took his.

Andreev in the 4th round of a grass Slam, haha that is some funny shit right there and he has nothing to lose against Haas who is the favourite here. Haas unlike Seppi has an effective slice backhand and should be able to use it to keep Andreev on the defensive and also make him hit the running forehand which is not the one that Andreev enjoys hitting. Would like this match to go to Andreev, but he has to get the serve working like he has so far in this event.

Hewitt will be too solid for sexy Stepanek, plenty of antics and facial expressions in this one. Murray and Stani, one plays a slightly disjointed but successful game and the other one hits tennis balls, the former isn't losing. Karlovic and Verdasco, someone has to win.

Federer will make Söderling a turkey tonight.