Tennis and All That

Following on from an earlier blog of mine 1 I am delighted that Serena Williams has been seeded for Wimbledon albeit not as high as I and others, including McEnroe, think she should have been. Seeded at number 25 does not reflect her achievements at Wimbledon. This is despite a player’s grass court record always being taken into account when deciding seedings at this tournament irrespective of pregnancy. As the Daily Mail reports, the All England Club “reserves the right to change the women's seedings to 'produce a balanced draw' ”. 2 Hopefully, the US Open will give Serena a higher seeding, if not joint number 1 then at least a top 8 seeding. Katrina Adams shares the sentiments I expressed in my blog post 3 when she believes that: “forcing a player to come back from pregnancy at a lower position than when she left would be like asking a top executive to return from pregnancy leave at an entry level position in her company.” 4 Hence, Adams announced that the...

There was an exciting line-up for the French Open this year. As usual the main topic of conversation was who would win the trophies at the end of the 2 weeks. On the men's side it was more of a debate as to who would derail Rafa's attempt for an 11th title at RG. Names were put forward but Rafa remained supreme and came through the competition to win. This is not to say that it was plain sailing for him as he himself points out. He has to put in the hard work and can't just rely on talent and his record on clay. However, the questions remain: What does Rafa do, especially on clay, to stay ahead of the competition? Is it in his preparation? Is it his match play style? Does the clay play to his strengths? Or are the other men in awe of him? Has Rafa managed to plug his weaknesses on clay better than other surfaces? After all, when he improved his return of serve on hard courts, he won the US Open 2017. Not that it matters, we all love watching Rafa play and would be bitt...