Tennis and All That

Last day of Wimbledon and Novak Djokovic has done it! He's won the men's championship. Well done!👏👏👏👏👏 He's pulled away from Federer with his now 21 Grand Slam titles.🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆Congratulations, Novak! What can one say? Djokovic certainly deserves this one after the trials he's been through this year. He's an amazing player who isn't appreciated for his talent and athleticism. Like Federer, he's an all-court player. Hope he wins many more. A worthy winner. Legends were won by my favourites including, of course, one of the greats, Martina Hingis partnering Clijsters and Bartoli (partnering Zimonjic) in the legends mixed. 👏👏👏👏🎾All the legends were not just awesome players but also highly entertaining. Congratulations to all! 🏆🏆🏆🏆🌠🌠🌠🌠🎾🎾🎾🎾🎾🎾🎾🎾🤗🤗🤗🤗🍸🍸🍸🍸🍾 And the women's doubles were also won by my favourites: Krejcikova and Siniakova. Congratulations to both!👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏🏆🏆🎾🎾🌠🌠🤗🤗🍸🍸...

What a great final! Congratulations to Elena Rybakina! 🏆🌠🎆🎉🎊🎉🎊🎾She's an exciting player and I'm delighted she won the Wimbledon title! I think many were surprised by the result but I wasn't when I saw her bio. Rybakina has had some serious training in both tennis and fitness since a child. That's bound to help and keep you in good stead later on in your career. She's possibly better off that she didn't peak in her teens but rather in her early twenties. I think she's just 23 and ranked 23 although she has been as high as 12 in the world. With only a couple of titles to date this is a big one. Yes, she's Russian born but doesn't live there or play for Russia but rather for Kazakhstan. In 2018 she became a citizen of Kazakhstan, switched tennis federation and started to represent that country. This is an historic day for tennis in Kazakhstan and puts the country on the map. Hands up those who know where Kazakhstan is and can point it out on a m...

Krejcikova and Siniakova beat Ostapenko and Kichenok in style to reach the final against Mertens and Zhang Shuai. They played awesome tennis. The rest day obviously did them a lot of good. I think they both went for a trip to London which is always energizing. The Legends kicked off with Schiavone and Pennetta against Molik and Dellacqua. That was a fascinating match. It looked as if Dellacqua and Molik were on course to win but the Italians came storming back.  (I think you can get playback on iPlayer for Wimbledon, I checked and found they include Invitational matches (available for a month) as opposed to BBC Sport Live Catch-Up. Now why didn't I think of that earlier?🤦🤷Mind you that will only work if you know which court they were on.🤔 ) Schiavone and Pennetta are such an exciting pair and their tennis is top class. Schiavone is a wonderful coach to Martic. Flavia Pennetta has three children, (5 year old Federico, 2 year old Farah, and a 7+ month year old baby Flaminia) when ...

Bartoli excelled herself again in her Invitational Doubles match partnering Zimonjic against Pierce and Ivanisevic. I've always enjoyed watching Bartoli and learning from her matches because her style of game is very much like Monica Seles. I modelled my game on Seles complete with being two handed on both sides. It worked well for me until I played competitive matches. Then I felt I needed to be able to hit a can-opener when taken out-wide (although it helps if there isn't a hanging net to divide the courts on your forehand side stopping you from running the extra distance needed!) and that requires a one-handed forehand. Luckily, it was easy for me to incorporate a one-handed forehand into my main game because I had spent several years during childhood playing only one-handed forehands and continued practising them after reverting back to my original double-handed game. But Bartoli, like Seles, makes the double-handed shots on both sides look so effortless and natural. Bartol...

For me, the match of the day has already been played in the Women's  Invitational doubles between Schiavone/Pennetta and Hantuchova/Robson. This was main draw quality! No question. Schiavone played as well as I remember despite having cancer only a few years back but she is a Grand Slam winner at Roland Garros reaching number 4 in the world. Her signature backhand is always a thing of beauty! Lucky the player who has her as coach. At the moment it's Martic. Her doubles partner, Pennetta is also a Grand Slam winner having won the Australian Open, reached number 6 in the world, number 1 in doubles, and fitted in 3 kids, the last one born last year! They won their doubles match as one would expect. Pennetta served very well and hit some amazing downliners. But they complemented each other perfectly, yet both can do everything and are speedy around the court. I particular loved their team spirit! They weren't afraid to be physically demonstrative with each other!🤗 And their se...

Legends: What made today different was the variety of legends playing by invitation. It's wonderful to see so many legends (not just the usual few) producing a great standard of play this year - sometimes you forget it's not a main draw doubles match! This was down to a broad age bracket (30+ years old to 60+ years old, with the exception of Laura Robson who is 28). Of course, Bahrami is an essential ingredient of the Invitational Events😍. But it's still nice to see some new faces from the past who don't normally play the legends at Wimbledon e.g. Mary Pierce, Casey Dellacqua, Natalie Dechy, Flavia Pennetta, Agnieszka Radwanska, Jelena Jankovic. Martina Hingis is as though she's never left! Today I noticed her excellent shoulder rotation on her groundstrokes, perhaps I didn't fully appreciate before how that aspect of her technique gives her strength, accuracy and control.  The best point in an Invitational match today was Bartoli 👏👏👏👏👏 (partnering Zimonji...

I was cheering on Watson and Dart in the Women's Doubles today, but Ostapenko and Kichenok beat them in three sets. The last game of the first set went on for over 10 nail-biting minutes and was won by Watson and Dart which gave them the set. Nevertheless, they went on to lose the next two sets. I didn't realise that Ostapenko and Kichenok have played doubles together since ITF days! This helps them really understand each other without having to constantly bolster the other's confidence routinely after every point. Mind you, I'm not sure Eastern Europeans feel the need to over-encourage their partner. That's an American style of doubles and a good one, especially if you don't know your doubles partner very well, to create a team spirit 👊💪or if your doubles partner is stressed and feeling down. 😣🎾🙂🎾 I played doubles with my mother in practice (no bolstering up just pressure to do better!) partly because I tended to train under pressure recreating match cond...

Today is the first middle Sunday in Wimbledon's history which saw play. It's no longer a day off!🙂👏👏👏👏👏❤ That's the good news. Today was also a celebration of 100 years of Centre Court.  Happy Centenary to Centre Court. 🎾🍸🍸🍸🍸🍾🎆 There was a roll call of past players but not all were present. Most importantly, Virginia Wade was absent and considering she's the past Silver Jubilee winner (1977, the year that also celebrated the centenary of the founding of the Wimbledon Championships with full status granted in 1913) and this year we are celebrating the Platinum Jubilee, I think that is a pity! Wade won 3 Grand Slam singles titles (all GS's except RG) all on grass in those days except RG and 4 Grand Slam doubles (with the exception of Wimbledon) with Margaret Court, and accumulated 55 titles overall reaching world number 2 in 1975. At the age of 37 Wade won the Italian Open with Ruzici, who has been a long-term manager of Halep, but now isn't after 14...

Today is Pride UK 🏳️‍🌈which, for me, takes precedence over tennis. Nevertheless, it raises the question, once again, why are there so few gay women on the tour. Who is putting them off from coming out? It is particularly strange because the tour was set up by Billie Jean King who is part of the LGBT+ community. So you'd think there would be a positive encouragement of gay women to play on the tour. Surely, one would expect it to be a safe space for lesbians, bi, transwomen, queer, intersex, androgynous/agender, asexual, pansexual, demi, and non-binary women. But if they are there they are keeping quiet. All one hears of is boyfriends and babies. The tour should be for all, which it might be in theory but doesn't appear so in practice.  Day 6 was exciting because Swiatek's record run of 37 consecutive match wins was ended by Alize Cornet, a French player who I have always enjoyed watching. I'm pleased for her and hope she doesn't retire from tennis this year. She...

I've just finished watching Venus Williams and Jamie Murray win a thrilling three set match in the mixed doubles 🎾🎾👏👏👏👏🎊🎉🎊🎉 against Rosolska and Venus (Michael). It was an exciting match that had me shouting and chanting with the crowd: 'Let's go Venus, let's go' complete with Mexican wave. Venus is hugely popular with the English crowd!! As is Jamie who the spectators cheered on to victory. Well done to both. I avoid talking about how old someone is because it's irrelevant but Venus at 42 has lost none of her talent, firepower and technique. She has a tremendous feel for the game and understands how to negotiate and structure every point. By now you've gathered that I am a huge admirer and supporter of Venus and have been ever since she came onto the tour. I think she's unique and a tennis genius! For me, the Williams sisters and Monica Seles are the greatest of all time. They brought something very special to tennis, dazzled us with their tal...