Kvitova outplays Sharapova to win ladies' title

http://www.wimbledon.com
by Ron Atkin

Martina Navratilova, the greatest of Wimbledon's women's champions, had tipped her compatriot and fellow left-hander Petra Kvitova to cause an upset in the ladies' singles final at the 125th Championships, and the Czech duly and excitingly obliged, obliterating the ambitions of a second Wimbledon win for the hot favourite Maria Sharapova - and in straight sets, too. 

Kvitova won 6-3, 6-4 in one hour 25 minutes and though Sharapova's play fell well below her best levels, it was in no small part due to the big-hitting torrent directed at her by the 21-year-old whose first, but surely not last, Grand Slam victory this was. She has compared her own power tennis to that of the 2009 US Open winner Juan Martin del Potro and it seemed she certainly has a point.

Kvitova now finds herself £1.1m better off and becomes the youngest champion since Sharapova herself lifted the Venus Rosewater Dish in 2004 at the age of 17.

In addition to Navratilova, there were eight other former ladies' singles champions in the Royal Box, gathered to watch what many in the capacity crowd considered would be a formality for the 24-year-old Sharapova. The Russian promptly reinforced those opinions by breaking in the opening game on a pair of Kvitova forehand errors and a rasping forehand rocket of her own.

But the Czech, wearing a plaster on her right thigh as she had done throughout the fortnight, responded bravely and aggressively - an attitude she was to keep up from start to finish - to break back and it was quickly apparent that Sharapova would need to dig very deep indeed if she was to weather the hard-hitting and bigger-serving Kvitova. 

To add to her woes, double faults began to creep into the Sharapova game but early on in the battle the Czech's tendency to over-hit was enough to keep Sharapova in with a good shout, or more accurately a shriek, of her second Wimbledon title. However, she was sometimes reduced to groans as she stretched for deep bullet returns that were giving Kvitova more confidence with every passing minute on Centre Court.

The second, and crucial, break of the Sharapova serve came in the sixth game, a self-inflicted disaster on the back of a brace of double faults. It meant that she spent longer than usual communing with the back stop in her trademark moments of meditation between points, even if that routine did not seem to help her come up with the winning game plan.

It was The Day of the Sluggers and Kvitova proved to be the champion at this. She held for 5-3 at a cost of one point, was denied a set point on the Sharapova serve by a Russian ace, but then served out confidently to love for the first set in 40 minutes. Sharapova's unforced error count already stood at nine.

The Czech momentum was maintained as she broke at the start of the second set with a stunning forehand which clipped the baseline. Kvitova the developed a touch of the jitters - two double faults creeping in at this make-or-break stage - but gathered her composure to put two first serves in and take a 2-0 lead.

The sight of her big day rapidly turning to ashes motivated a Sharapova counter-attack and she pulled level, a little fortunately, when Kvitova failed to put away the simplest of smashes and the Russian lobbed her on break point.

The jubilation among the Sharapova-ites was brief. Missing three game points for a 3-2 lead proved costly as Kvitova slammed away another forehand service return winner to break the Russian serve for a fourth time. Back came Sharapova with a service break of her own to level once more at 3-3 and the Centre Court fans readied themselves for a Sharapova surge. It never came, and was never likely to, as Kvitova's intelligent serving - taking full advantage of her southpaw style - directed the ball into her opponent's body, restricting her opportunities to generate pace of her own on the return.

Another Kvitova break, following Sharapova's sixth double fault, put her ahead once more and all she needed from there was to make sure she did not lose confidence in her service action. When the time came to serve for the title, her first Slam, there was no faltering. She won it to love with her first ace of the match, a rocket down the middle, and knelt in disbelief on the baseline before rising to acknowledge the acclaim. After Navratilova, and more recently Jana Novotna, the Czechs have another worthy ladies' singles champion at Wimbledon.

The 2011 Champions

http://www.wimbledon.com
by Ron Atkin

A memorable 125th Championships ended with two new names on the singles honours boards. The men's title went, for the first time, to a player from Serbia as Novak Djokovic halted Rafael Nadal's 20-match winning streak at Wimbledon - a run which included the 2008 and 2010 titles - with a merited 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 victory. It was the Serb's fifth victory over Nadal in a final this year and took his won-lost record for 2011 to an incredible 48-1. Nadal was playing with a pain-killing injection in a sore foot, suffered in the fourth round and was below his best form. Djokovic on the other hand swept all before him, and was justly congratulated by the loser for playing "very, very high level''.

In the ladies' singles Petra Kvitova upset the form book by outhitting the 2004 champion and hot favourite Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-4. The 21-year-old lefty added further lustre to the tennis reputation of the Czech Republic as two of her compatriots and former Wimbledon champions, Martina Navratilova and Jana Novotna, looked on from the Royal Box, alongside eight other ladies' champions of yesteryear. Navratilova, now an American citizen and winner of nine Wimbledons, had perceptively predicted that her fellow left-hander's serve and groundstrokes would prove too much for Sharapova to handle and she was proved correct. The tall blonde kept her nerve and emotions in check until she met Novotna and Navratilova afterwards, when the tears finally flowed.

For Sharapova, defeat came as a bitter blow as she gradually rediscovers the form which had won her three Grand Slams before undergoing a shoulder operation in 2008. She had reached the final without conceding a set but her service remains her weak point - the final saw her lose five of her eight service games and double-fault six times.

If the ladies' singles provided a sea change at The Championships, with the final contested by the sixth and eighth seeds, the men's always promised to be more predictable since the top four seeds looked a cut above the rest of the field from the start. So it proved, at least until the quarter-finals when Roger Federer, a six-time champion and third seed, was blasted to defeat by charismatic Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who overhauled a two-set deficit to demolish the ambitions of the Swiss who was pursuing his 17th Grand Slam title. It was unfortunate for Federer that he caught Tsonga on one of his irresistible days, as tournament statistics reveal. He finished up leading the men's ace count with 108, but was also top of the double-fault table with 27 and unforced errors (143).

Andy Roddick's hopes of another good Wimbledon to match his three runner-up years were ended as early as the third round by another left-handed Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez, one of Nadal's closest friends. Roddick, famed for his serving power, was aced into oblivion by Lopez, who ended up only one short of matching Tsonga's tournament total. But Mardy Fish, who has replaced Roddick as the top-ranked American, did considerably better until running into Nadal at the quarter-final stage. Lopez was then involved in the longest match of the fortnight, needing five sets and four hours 18 minutes to subdue Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot.

This of course does not begin to approach the 2010 Wimbledon marathon (and world record) of 11 hours five minutes set by John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, who were by huge coincidence drawn to meet again in this year's first round. Isner won again, but this time nine hours faster, in two hours four minutes and straight sets.

The struggles of the fifth seed Robin Soderling merely served to underline how the Big Four have taken control. He had to come from two sets down to defeat the 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt, but was eliminated - and in straight sets too - in the third round by another qualifier, Australian Bernard Tomic, whose reward for marching into the quarter-finals and taking a set off Djokovic was to replace Hewitt as his country's No.1.

The inability of Andy Murray to get past the semi-finals for the third year in succession was clearly a bitter blow to the player, his support team and the millions in Britain for whom he was, as ever, flying the flag alone. Hopes that he would become the first Brit to reach a Wimbledon final since Bunny Austin in 1938 were dashed by Nadal's perennial brilliance, however.

The sensation of the ladies' event was the early defeat of the defending champion, Serena Williams, and her sister Venus who between them had won nine of the last 11 Wimbledons. Thus was an era eclipsed and it did not come as a total surprise since Serena had not played (until a pre-Wimbledon event at Eastbourne) since lifting her fourth championship in 2010 because of injury and then severe illness, while Venus's last tournament had been the Australian Open in January. It was always certain that they would come to Wimbledon in view of what they had achieved in the new century, but almost as certain that, short of match practice, they would struggle. Both went out within hours of each other in the fourth round, Serena to France's hyper-active Marion Bartoli and Venus to Tsvetana Pironkova, who had also ousted her in last year's quarter-finals.

World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, who has yet to win a Grand Slam, also failed to get past the fourth round, while Li Na, a heroine in China following her success at the French Open, lost in the second round to Sabine Lisicki, a wild card from Germany making a comeback after a serious ankle injury in 2010. Big-hitting Lisicki, who finally fell to Sharapova in the semi-finals, topped the ladies' ace count with 44. All eight ladies' quarter-finalists came from Europe, while only Fish and Tomic interrupted European domination of the men's last eight.

The men's doubles was annexed by the top-seeded American twins, Bob and Mike Bryan, who defeated the Swedish-Romanian pairing of Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau 6-3, 6-4, 7-6. It was the Bryans' 11th Grand Slam and second Wimbledon triumph, an honour for which they had to fight hard through two earlier five-setters, including a 16-14 fifth-set win over Simon Aspelin and Paul Hanley. The Czech-Slovak second seeds Kveta Peschke and Katarina Srebotnik became ladies' doubles champions by defeating Lisicki and Australia's Samantha Stosur 6-3, 6-1. The mixed doubles title was won by Jurgen Melzer of Austria and another Czech lefty, Iveta Benesova, who beat Mahesh Bhupathi (India) and Elena Vesnina (Russia) 6-3, 6-2.

There was a double triumph in the Junior singles for Australia. First Luke Saville outlasted Britain's Liam Broady 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the Boys' event, then Ashleigh Barty captured the Girls' title with a 7-5, 7-6(3) victory over Russia's Irina Khromacheva. There was a guaranteed British winner in the Boys' doubles, where George Morgan teamed with Mate Pavic of Croatia to beat Oliver Golding and the Czech Republic's Jiri Vesely, while the Girls' doubles went to the North American combination of Eugenie Bouchard (Canada) and Grace Min (USA) who edged to a 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands and Hao Chen Tang (China).

Take a look at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum

http://www.wimbledon.com
by AELTC

Part of the All England Club's Centenary celebrations, the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museumand the associated Kenneth Ritchie Library, was officially opened on 20 May 1977 by HRH The Duke of Kent, and over the years has become a major London tourist attraction in its own right.

Determined to cover all aspects of tennis from its origins, not just those associated with Wimbledon and The Championships, the Museum touches on every aspect of the historical and modern game and its evolution from a garden party pastime to the globally popular professional sport it is today.

Designed by Robin Wade, many of the initial exhibits in the Museum came from the private collection of Tom Todd who acted as historical advisor, and the canvassing efforts of Tony Cooper, the former Assistant Secretary of the Club and the Museum's first curator. The collection has grown over the years, thanks largely to the donations of equipment and outfits from former champions.

Current highlights include:

• The glittering Championship Trophies
• A 'ghost' of John McEnroe which appears in the very changing room he once used! Watch as he speaks about the game and his legendary opponents
• 200° Cinema with special effects capturing the science of tennis
• Film and video footage which take visitors right into the action of some of the most memorable and exciting tournament matches
• An extensive, unsurpassed collection of tennis memorabilia dating back to 1555
• Museum gallery with fascinating displays drawn from our vast collection
• CentreCourt360 - the new viewing experience of Centre Court, located right by the grass, with touch screen interpretation and two fun interactive galleries

Visitors to the Museum are also able to go on a tour of the grounds, taking in all of SW19's most important areas.

The museum's latest exhibit features the history of the queue, one of Wimbledon's most unique and interesting characteristics. The special display conjures the queue 'experience' so vividly that visitors who have turned the long, slow shuffle to the turnstiles into an annual party will feel, 'Yes! This is exactly what it's like.'

"I have always wanted to do an exhibition on the queue and it seemed a tremendous 'popular' subject for the Club's 125th anniversary," said museum curator Honor Godfrey. For the last 10 years, Honor has made a concerted effort to document all aspects of queue life. Her collection aims to examine the 'British' phenomenon of orderly queueing and to celebrate the ever-evolving range of Wimbledon queue paraphernalia - from tennis ball spectacles to hats, witty signage to wristbands, quirky fliers to stickers, snack packets and badges.

If anything sums up the extraordinary appeal of Wimbledon it is the fact that tennis fans come from all over the world, often tucking up for the night in tents, often returning year after year, often meeting friends made the year before, and spend the day happily inching towards the holy grail of the ticket office.

To find out more about the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum, or to book onto a tour, visit the Wimbledon year-round site

Wimbledon men's doubles

http://www.wimbledon.com
by Helen Gilbert

Beaming Bob and Mike Bryan lifted their second Wimbledon trophy and, in so doing, created history by equalling Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde's record for the most Grand Slam team doubles titles in the Open Era.

The top-seeded Americans, who won here in 2006, made light work of last year's runners-up, Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau, to claim their 11th Grand Slam 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(2). It was their 73rd career title and they dedicated the achievement to their grandfather who is in hospital battling cancer.

The current Australian Open champions have been in glittering form since winning their fourth Queen's title two weeks ago and their path to the Wimbledon final only served to sharpen their skills. They had to play an epic third round match that finished 16-14 in the fifth; a meeting with defending champions Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner in the quarter-finals and a five-set thriller against Michael LLodra and Nenad Zimonjic.

But while the final had all the hallmarks of a fascinating affair, Tecau and Lindstedt failed to live up to expectations. The Romanian/Swedish pair teamed up at the 2010 Miami Masters 1000 event and since then have notched up an impressive five titles together, but it was a decidedly rusty partnership that showed up on Centre Court.

Tecau, in particular, suffered with his serve and in the second game a double fault on the first and third point made it easy for the Bryans to snatch an early break. The brothers were rarely threatened and a winning backhand volley by Mike sealed the set with just 27 minutes on the clock.

The pattern was repeated in the second when Tecau was broken again in the opening game and Mike engineered yet another winning backhand volley, this time with a leap, to take the second set.

The third set boiled down to a tie-break, but the brothers dominated again, racing to a 6-2 lead before Lindstedt netted a forehand to hand the brothers their second title.

Speaking after the match, Mike said: "This is a Wimbledon title. This is as special as it gets. I always thought we'd play our best at Wimbledon and we've lost three heartbreaking finals. To get on that board again, to have two Wimbledon titles, is really special. And then to equal the Woodies, a team that we idolised, the greatest team in our mind, is unbelievable.

"To get their title record and get the Grand Slam record, I'm trying to figure out what's left. We'd love to try and get to 12 and do that at the [US] Open, but those guys have been really gracious. They're the first to come up to us and congratulate us."

Bob revealed the title was extra special as their 90-year-old grandfather had surgery earlier in the week. "He went in for serious surgery. He had a cancerous tumour cut out. This one was for him. Right before he went in for the surgery, we won that [third round] 16-14 in the fifth. I know he was really scared to go in."

Mike said the twins have four grandparents who are all aged 90. "We feel like, in some certain way, we're keeping them going with our tennis. My grandma has marked off every point we ever played in our whole career, which is wild. She's got a stack of yellow note pads this deep. So they're following it closely. Whatever we can do to keep them happy, give them a little joy."

Bob admitted the brothers had talked about retirement but they have no plans to hang up their rackets anytime soon. "I think we can see the finish line now, which makes it easier to work hard. We see our time out here as I think five or six more years." But he quickly added: "I think we're going to milk it as long as we can."

http://www.wimbledon.com
by Ron Atkin

Novak Djokovic underlined his new status as the world's top tennis player by shattering Rafael Nadal's winning streak at Wimbledon to add his own name to the roll of honour at The Championships for the first time.

The 24-year-old Serb, with his country's president watching from the Royal Box, won 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 in two hours 28 minutes to continue his domination of tennis - and Nadal in particular - throughout this most amazing season in his career. Five times in succession he has now defeated the Spaniard in finals, but none were as important or will taste as sweet as this.

Djokovic is the first from his country to capture a Wimbledon singles title and his joy as a Nadal backhand sailed over the baseline was unconfined. He fell flat on his back, arose with both arms uplifted before squatting down with his head in his hands to briefly contemplate what he had achieved.

On such an occasion the first prize of £1.1 million was virtually meaningless, especially to a Monte Carlo-based millionaire. He had turned a childhood dream into reality and to any true sportsman that is priceless. Officially installed from Monday as world No.1 by virtue of reaching the final, Djokovic showed he is worthy of usurping Nadal in that position as he took his win-loss record for the year to 48-1.

A pair of cracking forehand winners followed by an ace in the opening game were clear indication of Djokovic's intent to carry the fight to the defending champion and what ensued merely underlined that intention. Djokovic was playing a smart game, serving to the widest corners and drawing Nadal forward with drop shots, which enjoyed mixed fortune. One was exquisite and unreturnable, another struck the netting and a third was run down by the Spaniard.

So there was the unusual sight of the man who specialises in destroying the opposition forced onto the defensive, especially in the longer rallies. "You're a genius, Rafa, genius" bellowed one Nadal fan, but it was a worried genius who was attempting to stem the flow of Serbian winners.

Djokovic was untouchable on service and moved 5-4 ahead with his third ace, clipping the sideline - at which Nadal stared long and hard without issuing an official challenge for a Hawk-Eye decision.

Stepping up to attempt to break the Nadal serve to win the set seemed to inspire Djokovic to new heights. At 30-0 down, he struck two brilliant winners, one on each wing. Then Nadal's netted forehand handed the Serb his first set point.

One chance was all that a Djokovic in such form needed. He returned a 93mph second serve with such venom that Nadal's forehand response was wide. So the underdog was a set up in 41 minutes with some superb tennis. He had dropped a mere six points on serve and Nadal - denied even a sniff of a break point - had committed seven unforced errors. To put that into context, that was equal to the defending champion's total in his semi-final win over Andy Murray.

Having won the last two games of the opening set, Djokovic promptly won the first three of the second set, too. On a perfect day for tennis, warm and still, it was the Serb who was playing perfectly at this stage, quicker around the court and more resilient in the rallies.

Nadal finally applied the brake to that streak, albeit temporarily, by holding to love. Once more however Djokovic revved up, lifting his ace count to seven and wrapping up the second set in a little over half-an-hour. This time he had conceded just five points on his serve and lifted his total count of winners to 22. With justification, Nadal looked a worried man.

A counter-attack was the urgent requirement, and Nadal duly launched it, finally reaching his first break point and cashing in on it when Djokovic netted a backhand approach. It was precisely the lift Nadal needed and he roared through the third set in inspired fashion, winning three service games to love and breaking Djokovic for a second time when the Serb perpetrated his first double fault. That set lasted a mere 30 minutes.

Having been rocked back on his heels by that typical Nadal fightback, Djokovic reacted like a champion by going 2-0 up in the fourth. First, he survived a break point to hold serve and then a perfect drop volley set up another break of Nadal. The Majorcan's response was to break Djokovic immediately and go on to level at 2-2, but nevertheless he was the one who looked more likely to crack again in a tense fourth set - and that is exactly what transpired in the eighth game.

First Nadal double-faulted, for the first time in the match, then he sent a crosscourt forehand unforgivably wide before netting a forehand and handing his opponent three break points. Another error, this time on the backhand, and Nadal was duly broken, leaving Djokovic to serve for the title.

Despite the enormity of that prospect, Nole did not falter. A glorious backhand volley took him within one point of glory, at which Nadal - the champion for the last two years he has competed at Wimbledon - obliged with another error, a backhand out of play.

On the occasion of the 125th Championships, the Centre Court crowd had a new champion to acclaim.