Wimbledon diary: the inspired and the inspiring

Williams sisters

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Roger and Rafa all set for Indian Wells

After being laid low by illness and injury, the world No.1 and No.3 are fired up ahead of the year’s first Masters 1000 event

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The boy’s a bit good…
With over 200 of the men’s and women’s entrants heading home or wrapped up in doubles encounters, there are plenty of fresh young faces carpeting the outside courts in the juniors draws to keep the ground pass holders entertained.

While the majority milling around the south corner of the All England Club probably don’t know the all that much about junior tennis, there’s still plenty to be impressed with among the well-drilled strokes of teens learning what it takes to make the jump to the professional ranks.

One player that knows that task better than most is Australian world junior No.3, 16-year-old Bernard Tomic, who yesterday ended British interest in the boy’s singles with a third straight sets victory over Tom Farquharson.

On court, Tomic is the antithesis of his country’s No.1 Lleyton Hewitt. He is economical with his movement to the point of looking lethargic, with his silent court presence and bowed head of a monk.

At times he almost looks lazy and disinterested – and decidedly unaustralian – but that is to misread his demeanour entirely.

As Hewitt was the first coming of the supercharged Nadal, sqaring up for every point and with a no-ball-left-behind mentality, Tomic resembles his idol Federer, happy to let points go when the fare is cheap enough to allow it, and strike when the time is right.

But even Federer couldn’t stomach such a patient approach at the age of 16 – it was still many tempestuous years before he learned the art of court economy. Now the Swiss stands on the edge of history with fifteen slams in his sights.

With the Swiss through to another semi-final and Nadal recuperating back in Spain, you can’t help but feel that Tomic has picked his hero well. Expect to hear more and more about this young gun in the coming year as he continues his efforts to bridge the junior-senior divide.

Journos say the unfunniest things
If there’s one thing we didn’t know before Wimbledon that we really didn’t need to know at all, its that Andy Roddick has Rick Astley on his iPod.

But since the ‘news’ broke – via a tiff with his girlfriend over her poor taste in music on twitter – not a press conference has gone by without one reporter or another shoehorning the northern crooner into a question.

Yesterday, Roddick snapped. “Hardcore journalism,” he said after being asked who he thought Astley would be rooting for. “We have a show called 20/20 back home where they ask questions like that. Just hardcore.”

If that wasn’t Pulitzer material, the wasn’t half as ill-considered as one posed to his semi-final opponent Andy Murray earlier.

Sniping for a headline, one journalist wondered if Andy Murray was a cricket fan after his series of cricket-flavoured forfeits this week – and, of course, would he be supporting England in the Ashes.

Murray buried his head in his hands, no doubt amazed they thought he’d fall for that one again. “Yeah, let’s go to the next one” was all he had to say to that.

Venus and Serena – inspired and inspiring
Only Serena Williams will know why – or more incredibly how – she played her doubles third round match with sister Venus in a long sleeve top.

Temperatures hit a sweltering 30 degrees once again in the mid-afternoon (and no, we’re not complaining), but it made no odds to the younger of the sisters as they romped to a straight sets win against Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Vania King.

The first ladies of American tennis may have their critics for the way they hop-scotch through the tour calendar each season, but there is no denying their popularity. Throughout the match, cries of “come on Venus”, “come on Serena” and even a “come on the Williams sisters” could be heard – all from the mouths of youngsters in the audience.

Say what you want about their approach to the tour – the Williams sisters are the dominant forces in women’s tennis, and are sporting heros to kids the world over. That can only be good for the game.

To err is human – but to really screw up…
You’ve got to feel for Juan Carlos Ferrero. Not only did he face an inspired Andy Murray and a partizan Centre Court crowd in good voice – even HawkEye was against him.

In the third game of the match, the Spaniard questioned a dubious line call after Murray’s serve caught a net cord. All eyes on the big screen to see the ball apparently roll through the court and land comfortably inside the box.

There was no way HawkEye had tracked the flight of the ball correctly, but umpire Jake Garner simply shrugged his shoulders and bowed to the computer-generated call.

It was a mistake, perhaps a first, but certainly one that should be learnt from. Umpires are in the habit of overruling line judges when they don’t agree with the call – and HawkEye should be no different.

It’s one reason that we can’t let the computers take over – just ask Arnie what would happen if we do…