It's middle Sunday at Wimbledon, with the players and spectators enjoying a break from the harried pace. Of course, there are differing opinions on whether this time honored tradition should be upheld even when rain delays wreaked havoc with the schedule and will throw off the Monday custom of all the Round of 16 being played in one day. In fact, Roger Federer is one of the players who will be affected by this. Although he successfully completed his third round match with a decisive win, as did his next opponent, they have decided to postpone his next match until Tuesday so his whole section will be in the same predicament - having to play matches on back-to-back days (in fact, a couple will have to play three days in a row).
But even with that little bit of negative, everything else has been a whole lot of positive. The King of Wimbledon Center Court has looked sublime in his first three matches. While #1 and #2 seeds Djokovic and Nadal have both lost a set (or more) in the first week, Roger has not been challenged whatsoever, looking very much like the seven time champion so far. And we are well aware that matches that look on paper to be simple (e.g., Stakovsky 2013), in reality the result can sometimes turn out quite different, so floating through the first week with no stress on his mind or body will be much appreciated.
The second week obviously will become much tougher. My hope is for another decisive win against another opponent who delivered a shock loss in '13 US Open, Tommy Robredo. As that loss never would have happened had Roger been healthy, let's hope he can put the matter to rights in a quick three-setter so he will be ready for whoever his quarterfinal opponent may be, which is still quite up in the air since two of the third round matches have yet to be played.
I continue to have high hopes and good feelings about this tournament. I know we need to take one match at a time, since anything can happen, but Roger is playing great tennis, serving incredibly well, keeping the errors very low (in fact, in his second round match his error count was only 5 for the whole match!). If he can keep this up I believe he could be the one hold the trophy next Sunday. One more week and we will know!
It has been way too long since I have done a post, thanks to some health issues I have been experiencing. But tennis goes on and I thought I would check in before the great Wimbledon begins.
Of course, our hopes that Federer would go deep at Roland Garros this year was cut short when he unexpectedly lost in the 4th round, but I'm not a clay fan anyway and was so very ready to move onto grass. Roger had pressure on him at his beloved Halle, being the only title he had to defend from his depressing 2013 season, but he was up to the task, playing well to hold his up his 7th trophy there.
So here we go into Wimbledon, a tournament that was crazy last year with many unexpected losses, including the one that broke many hearts, Federer's second round loss to Stakhovsky. But this is a new year with a healthy Roger, and he realizes as much as anyone that his chances for winning majors gets less as time goes by, so this is a perfect opportunity to grab that elusive #18. In fact, not only would it be #18 for majors, but it would be Wimbledon #8 and title #80. Given that his favorite number is 8, with his birthday being 8/8/81, it seems like the peRFect situation.
The draw is out now and Roger appears to have a pretty decent one for a change, other than the potential difficulty against Julien Benneteau in round 2, who has beaten him a couple times. I feel that Roger will be highly motivated for Wimbledon this year, though, and that he is going to do very well. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for disappointment.
I will keep this short and sweet, but just wanted to write something after so long and I will try to do much better during this exciting fortnight of tennis.
