Magic Monday and Thunderstorm Tuesday

Hmm, may need to work on the title a little. In my head 'Thunderstorm Tuesday' sounded great but written down it looks a little... well, rubbish.

MONDAY was a mind-blowing day of tennis. So many three-/five-setters; so many upsets. The biggest casualties? I guess it's a toss-up between world number 1 (not to mention my tip for the title) Caroline Wozniacki crashing out to Diminutive (because she's only 5'3"...) Cibulkova, and both Williams sisters being beaten - Serena to Bartoli and Venus to Pironkova. Who'd have thunk it? Well, actually, I have to point out that I did think that from the get go. No further than the third or fourth rounds. You can see it in writing a few blogs down. proof that occassionally I know what I'm talking about.

Bartoli was brutal in her demolition of Serena, winning in straight sets 6-3 7-6. Serena's fighting instincts saw her pushing through to a tie break in the second set, after being a break down with Bouncy Bartoli serving for the match at 5-4, but she was unable to withstand the accurate and powerful hitting from the double-handed Bartoli. Or perhaps she was mesmerized by Bartoli's bizarre pre-point-post-point bouncing and swishing and running around. I know I was distracted. As Alistair McGowan quipped, 'She seems to be playing two matches at once - one against her opponent and one against an imaginary friend.' (NB: NOT an accurate quote.)

Pironkova is becoming something of an achilles heal for Venus. She beat her at Wimbledon last year, didn't do a lot of anything in between, and now comes back to SW19 only to beat Venus again. And comfortably at that - 6-2 6-3. Perhaps Venus was reeling from the shock of her sister losing but I suspect her defeat, and the defeat of Serena, has more to do with the inevitable decline of the sisters. They've been unbeatable for over 10 years but with Venus turning 31 and Serena 30 in September, surely their time has passed?

The men's draw fared much more predictable results as all four of the top four got
through, although that isn't to say there were not some tricky matches. Ray-ray found his best form of the Championships so far and beat a dangerous Gasquet 7-6 6-3 6-2, whose challenge all but crumpled after losing a very tight first set. Dojoko creamed Llodra 6-3 6-3 6-3 and never looked threatened. The Fed and GoNads both dropped sets against their opponents - Youzhny and Del Potro respectively - but the Swiss came through far more comfortably than GoNads, who required treatment before the first-set tie break on his heel. He put in a typical gritty performance and eventually over came old Potty but it was not an easy win and I sense he'll be feeling the repurcussions of it going into his quarter final.

The other quarter finalists are Tomic (that's ICK not ITCH) who continues his amazing run and becomes the youngest player - at 18 - to go into the quarters since Boris Becker in 1986 by beating Malisse 6-1 7-5 6-4. He'll now play Djoko in the next round. Tsonga beat Ferrer in rather convincing fashion and will become The Fed's dangerous quarter-final opponent. My tennis coach reckons Fed will win in four with Tsonga squeezing a tie break, I countered with straight sets to Fed but close all the way. We shall see. Ray-ray's opponent will be one Feliziano Lopez who beat Kubot in 5 nail biting sets - 3-6 6-7 7-6 7-5 7-5. That is one close match. Last but not least we have GoNads who will be playing America's number 1 male and only remaining American player in the torunament, Mardi Fish.

BRING IT ON!

Yesterday the women's semi finalists were decided:
Screamy Shara v wildcard Lisicki
Annoying Azarenka v Kvitova.

What do I want? A Lisicki/Kvitova final. I'll leave it at that.

I'll keep you blogged...