SW19

SW19

And for a fortnight packed with happenings both on and off field, a few stray thoughts and a few general observations and a few points of view (some of it my own work and some as reported by media)

Like the biggest story this week has to be the judgement passed by Chief  Justice Lodha. But before we get into unsavory off-field deeds, let’s devote some time to the on-field activities which have seen some superlative performances in the past few days.

Top of the heap among on-field activities has to be the happenings on grass-courts of SW19. The weather gods were in a good mood throughout the Wimbledon fortnight and the quality of tennis was excellent to say the least. Simultaneously we also saw an all-round performance by England to beat the Aussies at Cardiff to kick-start their Ashes campaign. This surfeit of good matches meant one had to keep on switching the channels to get the best of action on both the channels. Thank God the Cardiff test got over in four days, otherwise it would have been a torture deciding between Novak V/s Roger and Poms v/s Kangaroos on the fifth day.

Roger Federer made a determined bid for his eighth Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Single crown and it took Novak Djokovic all his game to subdue him.  Federer’s game shows no effect of the passage of time and his backhand cross-court swishes still remain better than the two-handed backhand strokes popularized by Jimmy Connors.

Men’s section remains as competitive as ever and forget the Calendar-year Grand Slam, Career Grand Slams are also becoming a rarity; watching Novak’s reactions at Roland Garros after  making his exit this year, probably he realizes that he is not going to have more than one or two chances to complete his suit. If he can’t manage to do that, he will have to be content with the company of such greats as Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors, Stefan Edberg and his own coach Boris Becker, all of whom missed the French connection.

Ladies section, though, is still dominated by Serena Williams who came through without breaking too much sweat. This year threw up Gabrine Muguruza (21 years) who is to be clearly marked as a potential champion of the future in spite of the gaggle of long-legged Russian and East European beauties swarming all over the circuit.

Surprise packet of the show however came from the Indian troupe with Sania winning the Ladies Doubles and Leader Paes winning the Mixed Doubles both in partnership with the Swiss Miss Martina Hingis. Never knew cheese and chocolate could go so well with biryani and machher jhol.  

Little known Sumit Nagal – born in India but now settled in Germany won the Boys’ Doubles  in partnership with Ly Hoang Nam (from Vietnam, where else?). I don’t know if that gives us Indians any bragging rights to add one more junior title to the five previous ones in a Grand Slam tournament (after  Ramanathan Krishnan, Ramesh Krishnan- twice and Leander Paes - twice).   

Leander class cruisers of WWII vintage have all been phased out the world over, but aamader Leander continues his class act and the way he is still playing at the age of 42, I am sure that if there was a Veterans trophy at a Grand Slam event, he will walk away with it hands down.

LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

15^th July 2015