The River Of Dreams

Winning Wimbledon is not just a British obsession. Witness Novak Djokovic winning the title today and dropping to his knee's to literally taste the grass of SW19.

The post-match, on-court interviews really struck me this year. Usually, I do not care for the practise of immediately badgering a response out of an either elated or despondant sportsman; nothing interesting is ever said. Today, though, the candour with which both Djokovic and defeated Rafa Nadal spoke was genuinely uplifing. The Serb staded that Wimbledon had always been his dream, and that he thought he may still be asleep. So he sleepwalked his way through that final then?

Djokovic was often brilliant, sometimes inspired and always composed throughout the 4 sets. His play in the 2nd set in particular was the best tennis on display at this year's championships. He had tactics, targetting Nadal's backhand service returns and cross court game, and he executed them flawlessly. Combine that with his talented offensive game; something that has come on tremendously in the past half year. Before, I have stated that Andy Murray needed to get to Djokovic's level of consistency to have any chance of winning Grand Slam's. This view is now too harsh on Djokovic; his game is still consistency, but in a manner that nobody else in world tennis is now able to stand up to. He is now an overpowering force, as opposed to a reactionary one like Murray. His elevation to World Number 1 is undoubtedly deserved, and adds another interesting twist to the men's scene.

(Plus, his victory means that I predicted the winner correctly from Day 1. Which has literally never happened before.)

I give a great deal of praise to Nadal as well. I think that his foot injury was impeding him in the later stages more than he showed outwardly. However, without regard to any of this speculation, he was outplayed and beaten today. And he accepted it with the grace and humility of a real champion. We are truly fortunate to have tennis players and men of the calibre of Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. The crowd certainly knew this; the cheers for Nadal in defeat were if anything louder than for the victor. I was genuinely a little moved by his respectful behaviour and connection with the crowd. He will be back, and they will cheer him again.

GM

He Didn't Start The Fire

Vladimir Klitschko is certainly a good fireman, smothering David Haye's 'over-zealous' challenges with ease last night in Hamburg.



(For today only, my posts will be using Billy Joel songs as titles)

The Ukrainian's unanimous points victory can be considered a successful night's work. Ultimately, questions over Klitschko's ability to excite an audience were of less importance to him than shutting up ill-recieved challenges to his reputation. He put together yet another solid display of strategic boxing, and reaped the rewards. This still does not make him a thrilling boxer to watch, or even a particularly memorable one, but it reinforces once and for all the fact that he is a great talent nonetheless (seriously, he looks like that, and he still got with Hayden Panettiere. That certainly took talent).

David Haye can be a lot less pleased with how things went. Seriously, after all of that pre-fight hype, to lose on points in a foreign land is his worst case scenario. It has cost him his belt, and with it his shot at a lasting legacy.

I forgive Haye's brash behaviour in the leadup to this bout. It, by hook or by crook, got people interested in the match. I do not think that Haye is genuinely a jerk; he has merely recognised that playing the bad guy would be good for bigging up the event. Frankly, it is the way he earned the 50% of the total fight revenue he eventually secured. If he wants to tarnish his name for the sake of money, then that's his choice. It is at his doorstep, after all, not ours (as Brit's).



I do not, though, appreciate a fighter who does not live up to his word. Haye was more defensive than Klitschko for almost all of the 12 rounds. He demonstrated no ability to breach the Ukrainian's defences early on, or to deliver hits of real power, and failed to take risks as the fight developed. Surely he could see that, without an aggressive approach from start to finish, he was always prey to the judge's whims. All his slips and falls, whether tactical or otherwise, certainly didn't help his image in the scorers' eyes.

I fail to see exactly what Haye actually did during his months of training. Too often he threw horrible, full arm club swing hooks; rarely did he connect with any strong shots to the head. And even as the 12 round dawned, he still refused to take the risks needed to get his hits in. At some point he must have realised that Klitschko's defence wasn't going to crack; that should have been the time he decided to become more aggressive, and sacrifice some of his defensive solidity in order to land the punches he needed to.

All in all, I am just glad I didn't pay to watch this.

(To be fair, the intro's, featuring Lennox Lewis and George Foreman, were pretty sweet)

GM