Guns prepared, draw complete, ready to fire...

The Wild (South) West London showdown commences on Monday.

Murray's guns are ready for a show...

A deathly silence descends as the crowds' attention fixes on the contest to come. Saloons empty and tumbleweed hurries its way along the soon-to-be crammed streets. Competitors' guns are loaded (see pic). The preparations are complete and we've even had the draw. All that is left is for our shooters to fire. 

First, the preparations... Nadal had a truncated week at Queens where he may have started to adjust to grass but fatigue meant he didn't get a full run out. Djokovic had one exhibition match in leafy Bucks where he crushed Gilles Simon in 47 minutes. Federer has kept a low profile, recovering from a minor groin strain (a friend saw him getting some treatment in the Wimbledon physio room) and hitting the practice courts. Interestingly enough, in '07, '09 and '11 Federer withdrew from Halle due to fatigue - he won Wimbledon in '07 and '09. The only year he's failed to win Halle, since '02, was last year, when he had his worst Wimbledon performance since his first round loss to Mario Ancic, also in '02. Murray has put in the hours, with his Queens success as well as a match, albeit cut short by rain, against Troicki at the Boodles.
All the supporting players have been running through their lines as well, at Halle, Queens and The Boodles. We're ready to go


Next, the draw. Some interesting possible clashes lie ahead, before we even think of the latter stages, here are some of the picks:


3rd round: Cilic - Murray
3rd round: Wawrinka - Gasquet
3rd round: Federer - Nalbandian
2nd round: Soderling - Hewitt
1st round: Stepanek - Verdasco
1st round: Dolgopolov - Gonzalez
1st round: Baghdatis - Blake


But who does the draw favour? Difficult to say until things unfold but a bit of statistical speculation is always entertaining...
Taking the draw in 8 sections, each containing 4 seeds, we can look at the potential difficulty of reaching the quarters for our main quartet by looking at the credentials of the other 3 seeds in the section (average seeding, how many Masters series, Slams and total titles they've won)

• Nadal (1st section): 31 Raonic, 24 Del Potro, 15 Simon = 23.33 ave seeding, 0 Masters series titles, 1 Grand Slam (JMDP), 18 total titles
• Murray (3rd section): 27 Cilic, 17 Gasquet, 14 Wawrinka = 19.33 ave seeding, 0 Masters series titles, 0 Grand Slam, 14 total titles
• Federer (6th section): 16 Almagro, 18 Youzhny, 28 Nalbandian = 20.66 ave seeding, 2 Masters series titles (both Nalbo), 0 Grand Slam, 28 total titles
• Djokovic (8th section): 13 Troicki, 19 Llodra, 32 Baghdatis = 21.33 ave seeding, 0 Masters series titles, 0 Grand Slam, 10 total titles

If the success of the draw is all about reactions, so is the returning of serve. Which would suggest that Djokovic is the man. He breaks 41% of the games he receives (AM 39%, RN 39%, RF 27%), converts 48% of break points (RN 47%, AM 46%, RF 38%) and wins 59% of points on his opponent's second serve (RN also 59%, AM 57%, RF 51%). Murray leads % points won on opponent's first serve with 38% - ND and RN have 36%, RF back on 34%. 
But the best defence is unlikely to win you a shootout and so it is at Wimbledon. On the grass, just staying in the rally only gets you so far. You need to attack and put away the winners. Or so you would think.... 
Numerous people have suggested that court speed at SW19 is no faster than at 75016 (Roland Garros 'code postal') and a quick look at the stats from the top 3's matches against Berdych last year tell quite a story...


Quarter Finals: Federer - 44 winners, 18 unforced errors. 4 set loss
Semi Finals: Djokovic - 25 winners, 22 unforced errors. 3 set loss
Final: Nadal - 29 winners, 21 unforced errors. 3 set victory


Maybe it's not all about the winners after all. Whereas looking at the winners they each conceded (RN only 27, ND 34, RF 51) indicates that the defensive skills could be the ones that make a difference. 


Prediction time:
Nadal in 3, losing 4-6 games
Murray in 3, but taken to a tie-break in one set
Federer in 3, with at least 30 winners
Djokovic in 4, outrageous enough prediction to not have to give further detail
Nishikori - Hewitt will go to 5 sets
2 or 3 seeds will fall (from Baghdatis, Llodra (come on Ward!), Almagro, Dolgopolov and Tipsarevic)

Who will be the Wimble Don?

I've just found out some rather shocking news. This may come as quite a surprise to much of the British public but apparently there are other tennis tournaments during the year. I had wondered how players' rankings were determined simply by virtue of their performance at Queens and Wimbledon. Now it turns out that they play all over the world, on surfaces other than grass, in every single month of the year. 


I can only presume that from mid-July one year until mid-June the next, these players are training and preparing themselves for the real thing. It seems odd that they should travel such distances, play on clay, carpet and hard... courts (no-one seems to know what hard courts are, just that they're hard), but I suppose with 11 1/2 months to fill they feel the need to have some variety. Quite why they can't just live off the excitement and anticipation about a trip to a London postcode, I have not yet discovered. My journalistic skills are admittedly limited but then who has time to do such work when you can watch 30 second snippets about decades of Wimbledon greatness?


So, as our favourite tennis fortnight of the year approaches again, how are the main contenders looking? 


Rafael Nadal - Title favourite? I know he's only good on clay but he's not actually lost a match at Wimbledon since 2007 and even that was a 5 setter against Federer. He did look extremely weary against Tsonga in the Queens quarters but he always raises his game for the Slams and has just returned to winning ways at the French Open. William Hill have him at 2/1 and that's probably about right - no question he'll be in the hunt come the second week


Novak Djokovic - 2011 has all been about Djokovic. Not since Federer of about 5 years ago have we seen one man dominate so completely. He has remarkably already qualified for the ATP World Tour Finals (as has Rafa now), is almost certain to overtake Rafa for World No. 1 within the next month or two and has only lost once all year. But, he's never been to the final here and for someone who has been frail mentally in the past, we've yet to see the effects of the end of his unbeaten run. William Hill odds: 11/4 - could be vulnerable if he gets a tough opponent in the early rounds but if he gets used to winning again he could go all the way.


Roger Federer - At Roland Garros Federer demonstrated that he's still one of the greatest and more than capable of winning a GS. He has only lost twice at Wimbledon in the last 8 years and will be more confident taking on Nadal than on clay. Half of the times he's participated, he's won. There's no doubt he's a contender and potentially some's marginal favourite. His persistently attacking style means more UFE but also a lot more winners. Expect to see him right there at the end. William Hill odds 5/2


Andy Murray - this year? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's his best chance yet. At least in terms of his own form: coming off the back of his best ever French Open, a devastating performance against Roddick at Queens and another year of maturing and growing. He's had another GS final to learn from and has the impressive record of always matching or improving on his previous performances at Wimbledon: '05 - 3rd round, '06 - 4th round, (didn't play in '07), '08 - Quarters, '09 and '10 - Semi's. Consistent improvement is a good sign. There will of course be a massive pressure, building to a fever pitch should he make the second week (type 'Wimbledon hype' into Google images and see who all the pics are of), which he's not dealt with well in the past but he's got the ability and with the crowd behind him, it could push him one step closer. The problem he has is that he's likely to face 2 of the top 3, and he's yet to show in a GS that he can perform at his absolute best twice in a row. At 6/1 with William Hill, he's definitely worth a stab but I won't be holding my breath...


Of course there are more than 4 gents playing and there are a few others to watch out for:


Juan Martin Del Potro - it's hard to totally rule someone out when he's won a Slam, beating Nadal and Federer on the way, but grass just isn't his glass of Pimms. He's never got beyond R2 at Wimbledon and just lost to the decidedly unimpressive Mannarino at Queens. Dangerous on any given day but very unlikely to sustain a challenge if has to play more than a couple of top tenners. William Hill odds 16/1


Andy Roddick - always has the potential to be dangerous on grass but has no form at all, put up virtually no fight against Murray and seems to be sliding sadly down the rankings. He's only made one GS quarter final since the '09 final loss to Federer and is in real danger of failing to qualify for the Tour Finals for the first time since 2002. Don't waste your money, even at 33/1


James Ward - a fantastic run at Queens and will be full of confidence, especially if he can get a win or two down in Eastbourne. If he can avoid a high seed for a couple of rounds then he could get past some top 100 players but anything more than that I don't see happening. William Hill have him at 250/1 but I'd say 1000/1 might be more accurate!


A few others to keep your eye on, last year's finalist Berdych (25/1), Queens finalist and all-round entertainer Tsonga (33/1), Gael Monfils (125/1), forgotten man Nikolay Davydenko (150/1), the battling Gilles Simon (200/1) and one of Ward's Queens victims at a remarkably generous 300/1, Stan Wawrinka. They could all cause a major seed some trouble on a given day but none really have the capacity to go all the way. 


William Hill also have Milos Raonic installed at 33/1 despite having never played a game at Wimbledon or won any ATP Tournament above 250 Series level. If he wins it or even gets close I'll fly to Canada and apologise to him personally

The Fantastic Final French Four

As I write, Nadal is cruising through against Soderling, Murray is coming through after an early wobble against Chela (and apparently some later wobbles) and Djokovic/Federer are preparing themselves for another massive Grand Slam clash on Friday


Everything points to a 5th final of the year between Nadal and Djokovic. 


Murray has had a patchy couple of rounds, ankle injury or not (and judging by his movement in latter sets against VT and now against JIC, I'd say there's not too much wrong), and although seems able to battle through against the likes of Troicki and Chela, coming up against a good player for the first time in the tournament may come as a bit of a shock. 
Someone like Nadal doesn't let you back in from a double break down, especially not twice in a match! The players he's played to get to the semi have an average ranking of 79. Federer's opponents average 55, Djokovic's 42, Nadal's 71. But haven't we seen this before? At the Aussie Djokovic had a significantly harder run to the final but crushed Murray. Then again, we didn't know at the time that Novak would go on such an absurd sequence of victories.


Murray and Nadal have played 3 times on clay and unsurprisingly it's 3-0 Nadal. Given Murray's record for not exactly excelling on the biggest stage, and Rafa's utter dominance at RG, I just don't see how Andy can get past him.


The potentially more competitive and interesting semi match up from these big 4 could be Djokovic Federer. Roger leads the clay head-to-head 2-1 but one victory was by retirement and the other was when Novak was only 18. Federer hasn't lost a set yet this year, but nor has he been entirely convincing at stages, especially against Wawrinka and Monfils. Djokovic's only set lost was to Del Potro who was back to his best for a while during that match. 


Federer has been so attacking during this year's FO, going for his forehand very early in the rally and targetting the corners. Players like Monfils can stay with that for a while but not long enough to increase the chances of a shank. Djokovic and Nadal though have such a level of defence that Federer has to hit a fiercely accurate winner 3 or 4 times before he actually gets the point. As a result, he misses them, then tries to make the winners even better and closer to the lines, misses more and ends up not really making a fist of the match. That's how it's happened in the last two Slams. This is the unforced error count for each: 


Aussie Open Semi '11: Federer 44 Djokovic 35
US Open Semi '10: Federer 66 Djokovic 38


Can't help but feel this may well be the pattern of it on Friday too. I looked in detail at their GS Semi match ups during the Aussie Open and we all know what happened then. I'd love to see Roger perform as he can, if he does it could achieve the potential it has to be a classic.




*if something dramatic happens and either Murray or Nadal lose their quarters, I can't be held responsible!

A silver seam to the English ODI cloud?

A few days ago I had every intention of writing an upbeat blog about the irrelevance of the current ODI series looking ahead to the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup. Fortunately I was away for the weekend and thus had the chance to consider this ill-fated series' final match before expressing an opinion.

Why should one last failure make such a difference? Perhaps it doesn't, but somehow the last vain shred of optimism that I was clinging to for the showpiece of the one-day game disintegrated inside the first 2 duck-filled overs of England's innings.

A cursory glanced over the statistics does not exactly inspire one to find the nearest bookies and place a wager on our Ashes-winning heroes. Here are a few particular highlights:
1) Most runs - 4 of top 5 were Aussies (Trott our lone stalwart)
2) Most wickets - all of top 4 were Aussies
3) Batsmen with strike rate of 95+ :
- England: 2 Davies (102), Finn (130)
- Australia: 7 (Watson (102), Johnson (96), M Hussey (140), Lee (103), Bollinger (106), Voges (111), Krejza (150)

But anyone who has followed the series at all will surely have heard that after the 06/07 Ashes debacle, we actually won the ODI series (despite Aus winning more games than us). That time round there was a triangular series with New Zealand, we scraped through the "group stage" to have a best of 3 final with Aus, and promptly beat them 2-0. 


Aus then lost Chappell-Hadlee trophy to New Zealand. (Ian) Bell-ringingly, the Aussies' batting and bowling never performed on the same day (the exact problem with England currently). In the 1st match they were bowled out for 148, in the second match they posted 336 but NZ chased it down and in the final match they racked up a huge 346 only to again fail to defend it (these two NZ victories are the 3rd and 2nd biggest ODI run chases in history respectively- incidentally 4 of the top 5 chases are Aus failing to defend big totals)

So Aussie form going into the WC was relatively poor, especially for such a golden generation of players. How did this affect their performance? Well here is a summary of their 11 matches:

Won by 203 runs

Won by 229 runs
Won by 83 runs
Won by 103 runs
Won by 10 wickets
Won by 7 wickets
Won by 9 wickets
Won by 7 wickets
Won by 215 runs
Won by 7 wickets
Won by 53 runs (in a shortened match)

On an individual basis, they had 2 of top 3 in both bowling and batting (McGrath/Tait (26/23 wickets) / (Hayden/Ponting 659/539 runs). Additionally Matthew Hayden scored more than twice as many 6's as anyone else (29 - Gibbs was next closest on 14)


It was an utterly devastating and dominant performance, crushing every opponent they faced, including South Africa and Sri Lanka twice each. It was seemingly such a pinnacle of Australian cricketing dominance that the Australian Cricket team Wikipedia article is mysteriously lacking in any detail of any match since. Perhaps even more curious is the almost complete absence of any mention of a particular recent Ashes series, in either the main article or one of the links it provides. Remarkable.

Australia are currently undefeated in 29 consecutive WC matches - and I think it's unlikely their 1st match this time round, against Zimbabwe, will break that (Heath) Streak


But who knows, maybe our beloved captain Strauss is right and there is hope after all. Group B opponents, you have been (Shane) Warned. 


I remain unconvinced...





PS - I hope you enjoyed the introduction of the odd pun, so long as I keep it down to an average of only 3 puns an over, I could probably open the bowling for England

Murray, we will see you again, but not yet, not yet

Congratulations to Novak Djokovic for a thoroughly convincing and deserved Australian Open victory.

He has been highly impressive throughout, dropping just a single set on the way (a tie-break to Ivan Dodig in the 2nd round) - overcoming some extremely good opponents along the way. Indeed it seems, as previously discussed, that a tougher route through is no disadvantage to an eventual finalist.

So what of Murray? There is no question that he is better than Henman ever was but is getting to 3 GS finals and never winning really preferable to getting to 6 GS semis and never further? Of course it's better but I doubt getting one round further but still falling short is exactly the improvement British tennis is looking for. Henman gets a lot of bad press but I believe he achieved appropriately for the level of ability he had - he maybe should have won a GS (particularly thinking of Wimbledon '01) but in 5 of his 6 semi-finals he lost to the eventual winner, and not a bad list of names (Wim '98 Sampras, Wim '99 Sampras, Wim '01 Ivanisevic, Wim '02 Hewitt, US '04 Federer).

Murray on the other hand, clearly has the ability, fitness and desire to win a major tournament. His record of 6-1 in Masters 1000 series finals says that he knows how to win a final. And the 3 GS finals he's lost have been against awesome opposition in Federer (x2) and Djokovic, not that that's an excuse - you can't hope to win a major tournament without beating the best.

That is what sets Grand Slams apart. The added pressure, expectation, tension - the tennis is only a part of what it takes to win. It'll only get worse for Murray the longer it goes on.

He committed 47 unforced errors (UFE), bringing his total for the tournament to 204. A massive 110 (53.9%) of these were in his last two matches - if this doesn't suggest someone tightening up and making mistakes as a result, I don't know what would.
Compare to Djokovic, 181 UFE for the tournament, 68 of which came against Federer and Murray, only 37.6%. In other words his UFE count was hardly up at all compared to his earlier matches (30% of the sets he played were in the last two matches, so 37.6% is only a marginal increase).

Djokovic of course has already won the big things - a Grand Slam (Aus '08), the Davis Cup ('10), the World Tour Finals ('08) - so that pressure is eased and there is a confidence, a knowledge that he can do it. All he had to focus on was his extremely high standard of tennis.

A lot of the BBC commentary following the match discussed Murray's need for a coach or someone in his team who could help him with this mental side of the game. They may have a point. He's certainly no choker but let's face it, he hasn't even been competitive in any of the 3 finals he's lost and that's not just a question of ability. He beats these guys regularly - perhaps he loses sight of that when it comes to the crunch.
I'm sure there'll be plenty more Slams for us to see what he's done about it...