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Novak Djokovic - Source: Reuters -
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With Novak Djokovic defeating Rafael Nadal last night in the men's finals at Wimbledon, Martin Devlin gives his two cents on the event.
* Right now, on this day, at this time, Novak Djokovic is indisputably the best player on the planet. His victory over defending champ Nadal was his 47th in 48 matches thus far this year. He deserves to be ranked number one in the world.
* "Build it and they'll stay away". (The "they" being raindrops). The centre court roof was an obvious and brilliant answer to combat the annual match backlog caused by rain delays - but since it's been operational it's hardly ever been used. Seems like the mere presence of a solution was enough to provide an effective deterrent.
* New Zealand has about as much chance of winning the next Davis Cup as Britain does of producing a homegrown champ anytime soon. That's because Andy Murray is fast becoming the Sergio Garcia of men's tennis - "potential" counts for diddly if you can't clinch the Major titles.
* Equally there are no decent US men's players at the moment. A few top-10 tryers, sure, but no-one anywhere near the ilk of recent past greats like Sampras or Agassi.
* Djokovic doesn't sweat! Even after three hours of blasting bombs back and forward the bloke still looks like he's only just walked out onto centre court.
* We'll be disappointed but not suprised to learn that at least one of the racquets Novak threw into the crowd afterwards is now for sale on Ebay.
* It was a nice distraction for Marina Erakovic to make the doubles semi-finals but her efforts in the singles (2nd round Wimbledon, 1st round French) are actually of far more significance.
* The fact that the (zzzzz) chest-bumping/high-fiving/guitar-strumming/blah-blah Bryan twins won the doubles again - to now equal the record for most ever Grand Slam titles (11) - should be all the reason the sport needs to stop pretending anyone cares about these sideshow matches masquerading as sport.
* Take Maria Sharapova, Li Na, the Belgians and Williams sisters out of the women's game and everyone else is just another player with a bland personality and a surname commentators struggle to pronounce.
* There's something about grass court tennis that simply has to be preserved. If ever there was an obvious explanation for why tradition plays such an important part in sport, then Wimbledon provides the perfect working definition. Yes, so the insistence on wearing only white clothing can look a little starched, but if it means no more flesh-coloured undies (Venus) then surely the rule is worth keeping.
* Top tennis players seem to attract only the most beautiful of girlfriends. Their ability to secure gorgeous mixed doubles partners is on a par with F1 drivers and sports blog writers.
* There is a reason that grass is best left for cows, Novak. Even the world's best player and newly crowned Wimbledon champ found it hard to digest without a cud!
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Post new commentedzen said on 2011-07-09 @ 01:04 NZDT: Report abusive post
Speaking of diddly - it appears to accurately describe Mr Devlin's knowledge of or passion for the game. What a piece of fluff