Wimbledon Titlists: And the Rest

Congratulations to the other champions from Wimbledon 2010. It’s been an amazing fortnight for all sorts of people.

Mixed Doubles: Paes/Black d. Moodie/Raymond, 64 76(5)

I watched them lose last year, so this pleases.

Ladies’ Doubles: Shvedova/King d. Vesnina/Zvonareva, 76(6) 62

Tough day for Vera, but these two are adorable.

And my favourite team of the year …

Gentlemen’s Doubles: Petzschner/Melzer d. Lindstedt/Tecau, 61 75 75

To quote Petzsch, “I’ve fcking won wimbledon!omg.”

Classic.

And among the juniors …

Boys’ Singles: Marton Fucsovics d. Benjamin Mitchell, 64 64

Fucsovics? Yes please. Also delighted to see he’s carrying on the tradition of boys’ singles winners being cute as a little pie.

Girls’ Singles: Kristyna Pliskova d. Sachie Ishizu, 63 46 64

The Czech Republic = the new Serbia?

And a quartet of tiny Tims …

Boys’ Doubles: Tom Farquharson/Liam Broady d. Lewis Burton/George Morgan

I nominate all four to the GBR Davis Cup squad, effective immediately.

AO Day Two: Let the Carnage Begin

Seeds on both sides fell today. I’m reckoning the most surprising was Robin Soderling, who lost to Armada coracle Marcel Granollers 57 26 64 64 62.

Sunstroke? The elbow? Inspired play by Granollers? We shall never know, or at least I shan’t, because I was extremely not watching.

Huge win for Granollers, though. I shall now remember him for something other than having the second-longest eyelashes on the ATP tour.

We also lost twenty-fifth seed Sam Querrey to Rainer ‘in my day, this was played on grass’ Schuettler, although it might have been a good thing based on this outfit.

Boss lost to Ivan Dodig (or Dingo Diva, if you will) after leading two sets to love, and Jeremy Chardy continued his recent dismal run of form, but perhaps the most baffling was Tommy Robredo’s straight sets defeat by Santiago Giraldo, 4, 2 and 2. I mean, you can normally count on Tommy not to lose in the first round of a Slam, right? If nothing else.

On the women’s side, Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginie Razzano were both shown the door, but the biggest upset came courtesy of Vania King, who took out Dominika Cibulkova 75 in the third.

Well … OK.

Fed Cup Final: Forza Italia!

No last-minute miracle for Team U.S.A. Flavia Pennetta clinched the tie 3-0 by beating Melanie Oudin, 75 62, and Roberta Vinci and Sara Errani beat Vania King and Liesel Huber for a perfect 4-0 scoreline. Let’s hear it for the ladies bringing home Italy’s second Fed Cup. Not bad for a country who celebrated its first WTA top-tenner this year.

(My Italian dream involves climbing trees to shout ’Courage and love!’ and then getting kissed in a field of violets on a Tuscan hillside, but each to their own.)

I didn’t see the match in its entirety, but on watching the highlights, it seems to me that Pennetta just turned in a dominating performance. Credit to Oudin, who fought hard, but Flavia simply didn’t let her in to the point where she could dictate the match. It’s no mean feat, especially as her reaction afterwards showed how much the victory meant to her.

Fantastic for Flavia to seal the deal, but it was a team effort and it seemed like everybody there knew it.

A lot of teeth in that team.

Flavs and Schiavs warm my heart.

This should be painted in oils.

Give it up for Corrado Barrazzutti, the man with the unspelleable surname and solid teamwork ethic.

I’m told they’re running away from champagne. This concept eludes me.

It wobbles my lip that Flavs brought on her dad.

Melanie’s not impressed. But Vania’s just happy to be included.

Love.

Fed Cup Final: Fighting Words

With the draw for the Fed Cup final being held tomorrow, both teams held press conferences in Reggio Calabria.

Team Italy (captain Corrado Barrazzutti, Francesca Schiavone, Roberta Vinci, Sara Errani and Flavia Pennetta).

Italy has never beaten the U.S. in nine attempts, but captain Barrazzutti seems pretty confident:

“The players have the right spirit for this type of competition. When they play in Fed Cup, they give something more,” added Barazzutti. [...] “When they play, they don’t play for themselves, they play for their country, for Italy. That makes the difference [...]“

“The fact that the Williams sisters aren’t here won’t change anything. We will be concentrating on the players that are here, not the players that aren’t here,” said Barazzutti, insisting that Italy is ready for the job in hand.

Barrazzutti’s crack team.

Team USA (Liezel Huber, Melanie Oudin, Vania King, Alexa Glatch, team captain Mary-Joe Fernandez)

Fernandez seemed cheerful enough, although she did take a moment to address the Williams question in a not-totally-USA-AOK kind of way:

Fernandez spoke of her “tough week” when she received two separate calls from world No. 1 Serena and No. 6 Venus Williams informing her of their decision not to travel to Italy and responded to questions about the impact of their absence on the result this weekend.

“It would have been a big bonus having them here. But having said that, this is the team I know the best and the team that got us here. You want your players to have the same amount of pride as everyone else but you can’t force it on anyone.”

Well …. OK. Anyway, obviously a lot of attention will be focussed on Melanie Oudin, who seems to have committed the unforgivable sin of not winning everything since the US Open.

“Everyone expects me to win everything now after I did good in one tournament. Everyone has ups and downs and I happened to be up at the US Open,” said the smiling Oudin. “I’m playing well again and I’m ready for the psych-up this weekend. We’ve gone through so much and we’ve fought so hard together as a team, so winning this final would mean a lot to me.”

I’m genuinely excited about this one. I think we could get some unexpected drrrrama. Hope there’s a good crowd in.

USO Day Five: Crampgate Rematch!

Serena Williams will meet Daniela Hantuchova in the round of sixteen. Whenever these two names are coupled (I so nearly wrote ‘crippled’) together, I’m irresistibly reminded of Dani’s inability to close out Serena at Wimbledon 2007 when Serena was basically on one leg. Classic Dani.

Anyway, I was expecting her to choke on Arthur Ashe today, but actually she did very nicely, taking out Stosur-slayer Vania King 62 62.

So rocking the Adidas.

See you, tiny little Vania King person.

Serena already took care of some revenge business, beating Maria-Jose Martinez Sanchez 63 75 in what was by all accounts a fairly scorching match. I only saw a very little bit of it, there being Elf, Boss and Marin-style action happening on other courts (why do they let me have match choice? I do not use it wisely). But Martinez Sanchez certainly didn’t roll over for Serena. She made her work for it, and that’s no small achievement.

See you, many-named cheater-type person.

USO Day Three: Who Saw This Coming?

If you’d asked me at the beginning of the day to name two players who were an absolutely safe pick to get through the day, then Agnieszka Radwanska and Samantha Stosur would have been near if not at the top of the list.

Well, it shows what I know. Agnieszka Radwanska lost to Maria Kirilenko (seriously), 64 26 64.

Agnieszka was not playing great, but I’ve seen her get through matches on similar form. All credit really has to go to Kirilenko, who was not only looking great in her new Adidas gear after being dropped as the Stella face, but playing beautiful, clever and consistent tennis. Kudos.

She held her nerve brilliantly in the end to serve it out, and unlike her boyfriend was on the right side of one of the upsets of the Open. Good for her.

As for Samantha Stosur, I have no idea what happened. I hear she was playing bizarrely listless and defensive tennis. But how someone with her game loses 75 64 to Vania King, I do not know. I mean, who the hell is Vania King?

Vania King, apparently.