WIMBLEDON – If a tennis tournament was remembered only for its championship matches, this year’s Wimbledon wouldn’t go down as one of the most exciting in history. Shakespeare would certainly be disappointed by the lackluster ending that went against the most elementary rules in theater.
The finals Djokovic-Anderson and Kerber-Williams were not particularly exciting, despite the fact that both the men’s and women’s tournaments offered plenty of drama during the fortnight. The men gave us two incredible quarter final clashes (Anderson-Federer and Nadal-Del Potro) along with two outstanding semifinals (Anderson-Isner and Nadal-Djokovic) that will be remembered many years from now.
The women’s tournament saw all of the top seeds fall in extraordinary fashion as if the French Revolution had expanded all the way to London. All of the top ten seeds were gone like “Ten Little Indians” before the quarterfinals. No. 11 seed Angie Kerber survived the massacre to shock Serena Williams in a final that should have celebrated the triumph of motherhood and instead gave us the first German female champion since Steffi Graf. Serena was gunning for Grand Slam title No. 24 – which would have tied Margaret Court’s all-time record – but fell short in a championship match that Angie dominated from start to finish with the score of 63, 63.
The beginning of the men’s final was even more straightforward, with Djokovic capturing the first two sets 62, 62. While everyone was looking at the stats to find the most one-sided finals in the Open Era – McEnroe-Connors 61 61 62 in 1984, McEnroe-Lewis 62 62 62 in 1983 and Connors-Rosewall 64 61 61 in 1974 – Anderson showed some pride and started to close in on the Serb. The South African had five set-points – two at 5-4 and three at 6-5 – that could have extended the match to a fourth set, but Djokovic was clutch in the most important moments and closed out the match with a convincing tie-breaker.
Wimbledon is Novak’s first title in 2018: The Serb couldn’t have picked a better tournament to start a remarkable comeback to the top of the game. “There’s no better place to start winning again! And it is the first time that someone shouts ‘Daddy, daddy’ from the stands,” Djokovic said during the trophy presentation while his son was watching him with the rest of his family.
Novak – who now is 31 years old – dominated men’s tennis from 2013 to the first half of 2016. He was more dominant than Federer, who didn’t win any Grand Slam titles between 2012 and 2017. Djokovic also defeated Nadal in multiple occasions, leading the head-to-head with the Spaniard. In those four years, the Serb contested an astonishing 12 Grand Slam finals winning 7 of them. He was also the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four Slams at the same time: Wimbledon and the US Open in 2015, the Australian Open and Roland Garros in 2016. After that historical run, Djokovic started suffering from an elbow injury that tormented him for a couple of seasons, until he finally decided to undergo surgery earlier this year.
The injury also got into Novak’s head to the point that he didn’t even look like the same player anymore: “I had moments during which I was very frustrated and didn’t know if I could ever play at my level again. Now it’s easy to talk, but I went through a bunch of conflicting emotions, turbulence, doubts, disillusionment, frustration and anger. We all are human beings and go through difficult situations. It truly was a learning process that allowed me to get to know myself much better,” Djokovic said in his post-match press conference.
Besides Novak’s outstanding victory that gave him his 13th Grand Slam title and put him only one behind Pete Sampras in the all-time list, many memorable stories at this year’s Wimbledon showed the most human and personal side of tennis’ greatest champions: From Novak’s kid cheering his daddy from the stands to Serena’s groundbreaking motherhood, the Championships certainly enchanted us with two weeks of wonderful sunny weather that I hadn’t seen since the first Wimbledon that I attended in 1974.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global, www.t-lglobal.com )
