Sex Differences

(Before we start; Ryan, I use a lighter)

Wimbledon has now reached the stage where most of the matches are interesting. So far the tale of the tournament has definately been the discrepancy between the men's and women's tournaments. Basically, all the pre-tournament men's favourites are winning, while all the woman's favourites have already lost.

This year's opening rounds have gone by fairly anonymously. There has simply not been a memorable match to talk about in the early stages. Going back only as far as last year we had the Federer-Alejandro Falla near-upset and the Isner-Mahut physiology-defying encounter. No such excitement occurred this year.

Now that we are in the latter stages, though, things have started to pick up. We lost Robin Soderling, Stanislas Wawrinka, Gael Monfils and Andy Roddick before the 4th round, and last year's runner up Berdych fell soon after. We now have a quarter final lineup featuring Feliciano Lopez, Mardy Fish and young Bernard Tomic competing with the big favourites. Nadal's 'will it-won't it' injury might make the final stages even more interesting, and could provide Andy Murray with an actual, quantifiable chance of reaching the final. My tip is still Djokovic but, frankly, let's just see what happens.

The women, in stark contrast to the men, have been fucking up all over the place. The consistency in the women's game is terrible; witness Li Na, with the best form entering the championship and with the French Open in the People's trophy cabinet, crashing out early. Both Williams' are gone, proving that experience and testosterone can only take a rusty player so far. And daft old Caroline Wozniacki, upon finding out that her route to a first Grand Slam was wide open, promptly got herself beaten as well. It's looking very much like Sharapova and Azarenka will be competing in the final, but with the sheer random nature of this year's results, I reckon it is just as likely that Virginia Wade comes down from the commentary box and wins the damned thing herself.

GM