Off the Grass...

Another Wimbeldon over and of the two singles champions one confirmed himself as greatness whilst another rekindled a career...

Lets start with Greatness.... How good is Federer on grass?? well, here are some stats and they definitely speak for themselves. His career Wimbledon record thus far of 125-4 with 3 titles... thats a 96.8% win rate for his career so far at the All England, he's won 21 straight finals (all tournaments), 36 straight matches on grass and the next two best players on grass have a 9-1 (Roddick) and an 8-0 (Hewitt) record against him on the surface..

Stats aside, just looking at him dominate Hewitt and Roddick in the Semi's and Finals was all that was required to see how great he is. Be it cross-court, volleys, passing shots, lobs, baseline rallys, whatever... Federer did it great, he made perfection look easy... Hewitt tried his socks off, so did Roddick but no way was anyone going to put thier hands on the trophy but Federer.. and to top it off it seemed like he did it with relative ease. He didn't sweat like Roddick, he didnt have to run around like Hewitt, he just covered the court with great efficiency that it looked all to easy...

Now the debate will begin amongst tennis 'experts' and weekend tennis players... Will Federer be the greatest ever? A huge topic of debate, similar to Tiger vs Nicklaus vs Palmer or Magic vs Bird vs Jordan... John McEnroe thinks "he's the greatest talent of all time", well everyone will just have to wait and see.. and not all of McEnroe's calls were always correct...

On to the Women's finals.... well, I actually missed the live coverage of the final (was stuck on the coverage of Live 8). Anyway, I've read internet reports, newspapers, etc and realised that I had missed and epic ladies finals match. Anyway, I will obviously catch a repeat telecast sometime this week.. but whatever it is Venus shines again!!... all I have to say is good for her.. she's been out of the limelight (tennis wise) but the past two weeks at Wimbeldon we saw a Venus of old... one that was truly dedicated on winning...

One final point of discussion... why do they still play the mixed doubles finals after the mens singles finals?? Its a pity to see good players like Bhupati and Pierce winning a grand slam in a half empty arena... dont they get it??.. people leave after the main event.. to me it should be played before not after the Mens finals... anyway, maybe theres a historic reason to it, who knows..