Wimbledon: Fantastic Final

I've just watched the greatest tennis match of all time or at least the greatest one I've seen. Rafael Nadal overcame a lastlustre Roger Federer in a marathon 7 hour rain-interrupted match 6-4 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-7 (8-10) 9-7. Federer worked hard to come back at the end of of the 3rd set but he was let down by poor backhands in the first half of the match and errring forehands in the second half.

Wimbledon: Torturous Thursday

I arrived for my yearly sojourn to the home of British tennis at around 11am. I usually go on Monday and Tuesday during the first week but this year I'm going on Thursday and Friday to meet up with different friends.

I was due to meet R but he and his girlfriend decided to arrrive at 7am to queue for tickets. That's like hard work for me. By the time, I had joined the queue, I was told that I might get in at 4-5pm. I thought the stewards were trying to put me on. I texted R and he said he had to queue 3 hours and was now in a good seat.

The queue moved slowly and as predicted, instead of the usual 1-2 hour wait in the past, I did have to wait 5.5 hours and I didn't get in till 4:30pm.

I think the wait was a lot longer for lots of reasons:

• The South queue had been abolished. In theory that should have made no difference have the number of the ticket booths was unchanged but I think there was a difference
• Overnight queuers were now allowed to camp in the quiet and comfortable surroundings of Wimbledon Park rather than on the noisy and hard pavements of Southfields.
• It was sunny and warm
• It was getting to the end of the week and I'm sure people were starting long weekends with a spot of tennis watching
• The Brits were playing - Andy Murray & Chris Eaton were drawn today

I did manage to catch Jonas Bjorkman and Alicia Molik play in the mixed doubles, Sebastian Grosjean lose against Richard Gasquet and the Williams sisters triumph in the doubles. R saw Sharapova and Eaton lose.

I'm going to have to think about what to do next year if I don't score a ballot ticket - either an early start or maybe crash at J's place.

Wimbledon: First British champion for 20 years

Congratulations to Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic for winning the Mixed Doubles. Let's hope it isn't another 20 years for the next British champion.

I hope & believe Jamie's brother, Andy can win the Men's competition before the decade is out.

Wimbledon: French firing back

In both the men's and women's draws, French players came back from within 1 set of being sent home to triumph in the final set.

Richard Gasquet was down 4-6, 4-6 against Andy Roddick before coming back to win in 2 tie breaks and 8-6 in the fifth. He seemed to have his own Hawk-eye, finding corners and lines from acute angles.

Marion Bartoli was down 1-6, 7-5 against Justine Henin before trashing her fellow francophone 6-1 in the last set. Henin seemed to get tired and inoffensive in that set. She had no ideas and was simply running like mad just to get the ball back whereas Bartoli was flinging winners to all sides of the court and managing to retrieve incredible shots.

My predictions are Federer to win the final and Venus Williams to win in 2 sets but if it goes to 3 sets, Bartoli could just frustrate her.

Why oh why oh why can the French get players into the semi-final and final yet the Brits can only get into the second round? They say that the East Europeans & Russians are hungrier than the Western World but France is a First World country like the UK, with population of around 60m - also like the UK.

Fortunately, in the mixed-doubles, Jamie Murray (brother of Andy Murray) & Alex Bogdanovic have both taken their ladies into the quarter-finals.

The ticket ballot for 2008 opens on 1 August and closes on 15 December