It never rains, it pours – Rain and Wimbledon go hand in hand. Something else goes with Wimbledon, too, a lack of foresight and organisation. The tournament turned into a complete shambles from the moment that fourth-round matches were being played before third-round ones. A roof over Centre Court won’t particularly help matters, either; that will only be of use to the three or four scheduled matches that day on that showpiece court. The rest of the draw will still be in the same predicament, praying that the organisers have their thinking caps on rather than their blinkers.

A tournament that prides itself on tradition should at the very least rid us of the almost-yearly poor decision making. A number of players have been critical of the tournament this year, ranging from the price and quality of pasta (Marat Safin), the lack of things to do in the area (Nikolay Davydenko) or more importantly the scheduling (Rafael Nadal and David Nalbandian among others). I can agree with Davydenko, Nadal and Nalbandian, but I haven’t had the experience of pasta tasting at the tournament as Safin has done. But I’m sure we can take Safin’s word for it, that he knows good pasta when he tastes it, and Wimbledon just weren’t cutting it on that front.

Hit it to my backhand, I dare you! – Richard Gasquet has a great backhand; all who have seen him play will know that. Andy Roddick has played him before, so he surely knew it, too. And yet Roddick continually hit the ball to Gasquet’s backhand, and the talented Frenchman, criticised in the past for failing to deliver on his potential, just kept firing the ball past the stranded American. It has become a common feature of watching Roddick to hear him continually castigate himself for his shot selection and tactics, and yet continually make the same mistakes point after point. There was a time when Roddick could bully his opponents with his ferocious serve and forehand but the flame appears to be dying out on the Connors/Roddick partnership in the sense that Roddick is still making the same errors as before Jimmy Connors came on the scene. As Connors and Roddick have repeatedly said in the recent past, it’s ‘back to the drawing board’ for them.

Signs of promise – As mentioned Gasquet is a very talented player who had not previously made the breakthroughs that had been expected. Tennis is very much a young man (or woman’s) sport in general terms and players come on the scene early . Thus much is expected of a player even before they hit 22 because they would have been around for four to five years at least by that time in many cases. Gasquet had not reached the quarter-finals of a Slam until this Wimbledon and broke through further by reaching the last four before effectively being given no realistic chance of defeating Federer.

It was no more than 16 hours between Gasquet defeating Roddick that he was on court with Federer, and although the first set was tight, the remainder of the match was largely routine for the now five time Wimbledon champion. Thanks to his efforts, Gasquet now sits as the seventh best player in the world. Will he be able to improve on this for the remainder of the season? He has the talent to do so, but talent is not all that matters in this sport, and it will be interesting to see how much Gasquet has learnt and grown from a mentality standpoint over the coming months.

Take your hat off to Novak – Novak Djokovic wasn’t the only player who had to deal with a backed-up schedule, but he certainly was the one who ended up having to work the longest. Playing his third round, fourth round and quarter-final matches with limited rest, Djokovic spent over three-and-a-half hours and four sets on court with Nicolas Kiefer. He then followed that up with a four-set, four-hour battle with Lleyton Hewitt. In the last eight, it was time for some more, this time five sets and over five hours with Marcos Baghdatis. Time to go home, Novak? No, it was time to play Nadal in the last four. Unfortunately, the weather and organisation meant we ended up seeing two players who simply didn’t have enough in the tank to give the crowd the matches they had paid to see. Djokovic retired in the third set against Nadal, the second time in successive Slams that the young Spaniard took out the even younger Serb at the semi-final stage. Djokovic isn’t just the third-best player in the world according to public opinion; the rankings now say he is, too.

*It was a good tournament for – Aside from the already mentioned players, Wimbledon proved to be a good couple of weeks for Juan Carlos Ferrero, who became the seventh active player to reach at least the last eight of all four Slams. Nikolay Davydenko may find there is nothing to do around Wimbledon, but he at least found time to win three matches at SW19, something he had never done before. Given he had only won one match  in five previous visits, this showing represented a significant improvement.

*It was a bad tournament for – David Nalbandian, a season that has yet to get going and at the current rate never will. Nalbandian was fully justified in criticising Wimbledon for what was going on off the court, but his performance on the court against Marcos Baghdatis was equally bad. Fernando Gonzalez avoided defeat in the first couple of rounds after very ordinary performances but failed to serve out the match against Janko Tipsarevic and was sent home at the third-round stage. Ivo Karlovic possesses a serve many a player would love to have; his recent record at Wimbledon, though, they could live without. The big-serving Croat (aren’t they all?) lost at SW19 at the first time of asking for the third successive year, taken out by everyone’s favourite French magician, Fabrice Santoro.

You can read Jay Jarrahi's feature on Novak Djokovic in the July issue of All Sports Magazine

(This article is courtesy of http://sportsmagician.blogspot.com/ )

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