Andy Roddick doesn’t suffer fools gladly. In his post-match press conference on Monday, he barely tolerated them.

After an upset loss to world No. 82 Yen-Hsun Lu, the 2003 U.S. Open champion snarked his way through the aforementioned presser, sniping at any question he perceived to be stupid and taking a shot at one respected tennis writer. It’s what Roddick has done for years — calling out reporters for lazy inquiries — but today was especially caustic. And it was completely hilarious too.

Some of the choice excerpts:

Q. Always [losing in] the fifth set in Grand Slams. Do you dread the fifth set in a slam these days?

ANDY RODDICK: No.

Q. Obviously a tough one. Anything he did towards the end? Is it just one of those things the ball bounced certain ways, shots went certain ways?

ANDY RODDICK: Well, yeah. The ball bounces and shots land.

Q. Any reason why you felt you were down in the first three sets in terms of quality?

ANDY RODDICK: What’s the question?

Q. Any reason why you were not hitting the ball that well in the first three sets?

ANDY RODDICK: If I would have had a reason, I probably would have figured it out, right? It didn’t feel clean. It didn’t feel good.

Q. There were patches in the match where you felt like he was reading your serve pretty well? You hit a lot of aces.

ANDY RODDICK: I didn’t get broken for five sets. It wasn’t my serve. It wasn’t my service games. It was my returning. That was crap. It was really bad.

I haven’t been broken since the first set against Llodra. So I don’t think it was my serve.

Q. So tomorrow when you wake up, you think you’re going to be pissed off, disappointed?

ANDY RODDICK: I’m going to be thrilled. I mean, c’mon.

Q. You’ve been through these slams before.

ANDY RODDICK: And it never gets easier. Of course I’m going to be pissed off when I wake up tomorrow. I mean, if you got fired from your job, you probably wouldn’t wake up the next day in a great mood. I mean, c’mon, let’s go. We’re better than those questions.

The final two questions came from Matt Cronin, a well-respected tennis writer who has covered Roddick for years. (Roddick threw in a referencing "Matt" somewhere in his second answer that wasn’t picked up by the transcription.) Cronin is great, but this question wasn’t. Though Roddick could use a lot more tact and a little more maturity when dealing with the press, he’s not out of bounds to call out lame "how do you feel" questions.

And before you go ripping Andy for being a sore loser, notice how he gives solid answers to more insightful queries:

Q. After the fourth‑set breaker, where he got a little bit nervous, you had a couple big serves, thought that maybe in the fifth he’d tighten up a bit. He hasn’t been in that position. What were you expecting going into the fifth?

ANDY RODDICK: Uhm, you know, honestly if you would have told me I hit the ball like I did in the fifth, I would have liked my chances at the end of the fourth.

The lesson here: if Andy Roddick is in a bad mood, come equipped with a decent question or risk getting in the way of his sarcastic wrath.

Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams was booed by fans at the All England Club on Monday morning after showing up 10 minutes late for her fourth-round match. It was a surprising breach of etiquette by the staid British crowd, particularly because past winners like Venus are usually held in high regard.

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Critics claimed the late arrival was a bit of gamesmanship on the part of Venus. The story goes that she was upset about getting put on Court 2 instead of one of the bigger venues like Centre Court or Court 1, so she took her time getting out there to prove a point. Venus gave a simpler explanation in the post-match interview:

"I didn’t know the procedure for Court 2, so I was waiting on someone to get me. No one came. So eventually I just came out (laughter).

"You know, it was like, ‘no one’s here.’ Then I saw everyone else leave. I thought, ‘Okay, time to go.’ Usually they come and say, ‘Okay, let’s go.’ So … I just figured, ‘Let me go out’. So when I went out, security was waiting. Usually there’s like a court escort kind of person, they come and get you."

That sounds reasonable enough except for the part about her not knowing the procedure for Court 2. Venus has played on the court twice thus far during Wimbledon, both times during the doubles tournament with her sister, Serena. Maybe someone didn’t come for her, but it’s doubtful she didn’t know the routine.

[PHOTOS: See Venus Williams' style on the court]

If Venus was angry at playing at the 4,000-seat court, she shouldn’t have been. Each of the eight women’s matches were scheduled for early in the day on Monday owing to the fact that the quarterfinals begin Tuesday. Venus was relegated to the third court for the very logical reason that hers was the third-best match. Sister Serena played Maria Sharapova on Centre Court, and Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters battled it out on Court 1. Even Venus herself can’t argue that her fourth-round match against Jarmilla Groth was even close to as important as those two.

Venus won the match, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

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On Wimbledon’s manic Monday, Andy Roddick‘s match against world No. 82 Yen-Hsun Lu was an afterthought. The three-time runner up hadn’t been tested thus far on the grass courts at the All England Club and nobody believed he’d have much trouble with a player who had never advanced past the second round of the championships. Serena-Sharapova, Henin-Clijsters, Djokovic-Hewitt, Murray-Querrey; those were the matches to watch. Roddick was certain to cruise into the quarters and keep alive his pursuit of a Wimbledon title.

It didn’t happen quite that way.

In the biggest upset thus far at Wimbledon, Roddick was stunned by the Taiwanese Lu in a five-set thriller, 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 9-7. Lu became the first Asian man ever to advance to a Grand Slam quarterfinal.

Roddick didn’t play well, looking tentative from the baseline and clueless at the net. His returns were ineffective, as he converted just one of eight break point chances in the match, none after the first set. At times it seemed like Roddick was waiting for Lu to fold on his serve, not a terrible strategy since Roddick himself wasn’t broken until the final game of the match. And, indeed, when Lu blew a 3-0 lead in the fourth set tiebreak, it appeared that he would fold.

Instead, the 26-year old played fearless tennis in the deciding set, attacking with his groundstrokes and staying composed when Roddick wrestled away momentum. Guys ranked No. 82 don’t often recover from blowing a lead in a Grand Slam against the defending runner-up.

Lu never wavered. He tiThis match was his victory, not Roddick’s loss.

by Pete Bodo

Lord knows the WTA branch of tennis has offered up no shortage of drama, palace intrigue, sniping, distractions and fashion statements in recent times. But today, in back-to-back matches, a quartet of Grand Slam champions declared detente and provided great competition instead of emotional crises, beatdowns rather than emotional meltdowns, a triumph of poise to go with the customary noise—the desperate, blood-curdling shriek of Maria Sharapova and the Amazon battle cry of Serena Williams.

Call it “no frills” day at Wimbledon; I’m surprised they weren’t offering the WTA calendar at a 50 percent discount. Even the wardrobes were toned down. Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova looked positively chaste in plain, pure white; Kim Clijsters looked unconvincingly commercial with a patch sewn on her white dress above each breast (the one on the right seemed to hang over the edge of the fabric, as if were a sticker pasted on mommy by little Jada), and Serena couldn’t resist complementing her pretty white dress with a seditious pair of red bloomers. Was this echo of the St. George’s flag donned in commiseration with the host kingdom, whose World Cup squad was so badly drubbed yesterday?

And we saw a lot of those red bloomers today, as Serena launched one atomic serve after another, the white hem of her skirt boiling up around her waist like an angry surf. In this second of the ill-timed fourth-round encounters, a face-off between two Wimbledon champions (it followed the clash of the two most credible of Wimbledon wannnabes), Serena rained down 19 aces, to three for Maria, while hitting just five double faults—two fewer than Sharapova.

The ace-to-double-fault ratio is significant here, because this was that rare, welcome exercise: a WTA match in which the serve was accorded its rightful place at the apex of the pyramid, anchored in a base with strategy at one corner and execution at the other.

But the serving stats tell us very little about how well Sharapova actually served. Serena dominated the ace count, but Sharapova produced a bushel of unreturnables. The numbers also obscure the costly nature of those two more double faults Sharapova hit—both of them were in the excruciatingly close first set tiebreaker, and played a major role in its outcome (11-9, to Serena).

That surfeit of aces helps explain how Serena managed to win 84 percent of points played on her first serve (compared to a healthy 74 percent for Sharapova), but Serena’s first-serve conversion rate of 68 percent was just five points better than Sharapova’s. After that first-set tiebreaker, reporters could be forgiven for quaking in their boots at a prospect of another John Isner-Nicolas Mahut stalemate. It says a lot about this match that the comparison can be drawn.

“She (Serena) served extremely well, “Sharapova said. “Some of the best she (ever) served against me.  And, yeah, I think today that was really the difference. You know, I had a few looks at her serve.  But I think even when you had a good look and the ball’s coming at you in the 120s, it’s pretty tough to do much with it.”

A few other service stats to digest: while Serena’s fastest first serve (125 mph) was a hefty nine miles per hour better than Maria’s, her second serve was, on average, just one mph faster (102), and Serena’s first-serve average speed (113) was just three mph better than Sharapova’s. They were tied for average speed of second serve at 96 mph.

Sharapova is one of the very few women who can stand toe-to-toe with Serena and take big cuts, letting chips fall where they may. The grass surface works to Sharapova’s advantage, enhancing her strengths (precision, power, and even reach) while minimizing her liabilities (consistency and general movement). And Serena’s superb serving seemed to lift Maria’s own efficiency at the notch. As Sharapova said, “By serving so well, Serena makes you think that you really need to hold on to your service games. You know, I did a good job of that. Just not enough. I was going for it when I had my opportunities. Just fell a little short.”

I wondered if Serena likes the challenge of facing an opponent who won’t be cowed, and seems happy to play at the high-stakes poker table: Aggression-plus, meet aggression squared. But it was a discussion in which Serena had little interest. She said, “It doesn’t matter (who I play). You just have to be ready for anyone and everyone. I don’t really care who or what style I play, to be honest.”

Well, there’s no love lost between those two. At one time, the same could be said about Henin and Clijsters, although the Belgian rivals figured out along the way that is in their best interest to remain above it all and capitalize on the honor they’ve jointly brought to their tiny nation. A week after Wimbledon, Champagne Kimmy and The Sister of No Mercy will meet on home soil in an exhibition match that might shatter the record for the largest live audience to watch players of the same sex battle it out.

The last few matches between Henin and Clijsters have been expressionistic affairs, filled with mental anguish and emotional tension, error-fraught, almost lurid. If the confrontations in Brisbane and Miami (both of which ended 7-6 in the third) were painted, it would be by the ghost of Edvard Munch. It looked for a bit like we might be in for the customary chaos angst and woe. Clijsters, after having played in a semi-paralyzed state in the first set, won the second set by the same 6-2 score. I reached for an air sickness bag, but the expected turbulence never materialized. The women kept their emotions leashed and their groundstrokes dialed in, and Clijsters won it, 6-3 in the third.

This has to rank as a crushing blow to Henin, who has let everyone know that perhaps her main reason for coming out of a brief, premature retirement was the lure and challenge of winning Wimbledon. She thereby sparked a renewal of a familiar narrative that the only Grand Slam she hasn’t won is the one to which her versatile, skill-based game and nimble feet are best suited. I embraced that theme as wholeheartedly as anyone, although lately I find myself rethinking that position. For Clijsters, mercifully free of anxieties, demonstrated the value of an aggressive, physical game played from on or inside the baseline.

Henin’s problems were—and perhaps inevitably are—manifold on grass. There’s that big wind-up, especially on the backhand side. There’s that shortfall of pure power—Serena or Maria-grade power—that can earn you that welcome number of free or at least easy points. And there’s that awful, critical lack of time that an aggressive player forces upon you. The single most striking symbol of some or all of the above was the number of times Henin was rushed, forced to hit her backhand while on the verge of falling over backward, or from a position so awkward that at times she looked more like a bumbling understudy trying to hit a backhand like Henin’s, and making a hash of it.

It took Clijsters the entire first set to get her bearings, while Henin started fast and well. “I was just very overwhelmed by the speed of her game in the beginning,” Clijsters admitted afterward. “She was just on top of every shot that I hit.”

Finding room to operate on Clijsters’ forehand side, Henin pounded away at it—so much so that once Clijsters settled in and began to find her rhythm, Henin fed her such a steady diet of forehands that Clijsters got grooved, and more accurate and consistent as the match chugged along. By the mid-point of the third set, Clijsters had found her range and she pushed Henin way behind her baseline, thereby opening up the court for her own incursions. And by the end, Clijsters looked like a player with a skill-set, based on strength and mobility, better suited to grass courts.

With this match, Clijsters appears to have overturned the long-term status of her rivalry with Henin. It now looks like perhaps Clijsters is the one who “ought” to own a Wimbledon title, and she’s open to that theory. When I raised the issue in the Clijsters’ presser, she said:

“I’ve always had a lot of respect and admired Wimbledon as a tournament. But in the past, I’ve never had that same comfortable feeling out there as I did on hard court in America or the U.S. Open. I have to say since I’ve come back, I feel definitely a lot more comfortable. . . I definitely feel that I’m more at ease moving from side to side.  Especially those first two steps forward on grass are extremely important, especially against Justine, because she has that slice that kind of drops dead a little bit. . .I really felt that on grass now I can really, yeah, just step up.”

Or, if Clijsters was taking her first two steps forward, Henin was more inclined to take them sideways and admitted as much: “I wasn’t moving forward enough, that’s for sure.”

About that “drop dead” slice: It was nowhere in evidence today, which was the second of Henin’s two greatest tactical mistakes (over-working Clijsters’ forehand being the first). She seemed willing to play the game on Clijsters’ physical terms, and trying to manage instead of neutralize or even preempt her opponent’s aggression by taking the game to her. All of which raises an interesting issue when it comes to Henin’s coach, Carlos Rodriguez. Her steadfast mentor spent the match enthusiastically coaching Henin out of contention, which some will interpret as a satisfying form of poetic justice.

After all, coaching from the gallery is forbidden at Grand Slam events. And the impunity of Rodriguez’s coaching activities was such that it was—rightly, I thought—much discussed by Lindsay Davenport, who’s working as a color commentator for the BBC. At one point, Davenport said: “I believe in allowing on-court coaching.  But if you have rules you ought to police them. The coaching has been very blatant, so you have to wonder, were the Wimbledon umpires told to ignore it?”

But let’s focus on all the positives produced this day. Serena is imposing a welcome, much-needed sense of order and structure on the matches she plays. Clijsters has emerged to become the accidental contender. And Maria Sharapova seems headed for the lofty region she once occupied in the rankings.

“I was very happy that I got myself in the situation to win the match,” Sharapova reflected. “I certainly could have done a little bit of better job in executing. You know, I can sit here and whine about that. But the fact that I gave myself a chance and I went out there and I’m feeling, you know, just really happy to be playing out there the way I want to play, and the way that makes me happy playing, uhm, it’s a joy.”

That too was a welcome if unexpected element on no frills day at Wimbledon.

You have to hand it to boxing and college football. It’s not
enough for them just to show the games and the bouts, and to build up the requisite hated rivalries.
They also, in the long-held American belief that you can never have too much
hype, feel the need to name them. The Thrilla in Manila, the Border War,
Separation Saturday (I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds crucial), and my
favorite, the War at the Shore. Just in case you’ve forgotten, that was a
heavyweight fight between Michael Spinks and Gerry Cooney in Atlantic City in
1987. Spinks won on a TKO in the fifth, but more important, Cooney came away from it with one of the best nicknames in sports history: the Great White Dope.

Tennis is obviously lagging in this department, as evidenced
by the second Monday at Wimbledon. Here is an unprecedented day, in which all
16 fourth-round matches go off around the grounds at the All England Club. What
do we call this day? If Brad Gilbert has come up with a name worthy of the
moment, I’m unaware of it. The best the New York Times could do this morning
was: “a Monday likely to be remembered.” Wow, this is something I gotta see! (To be fair, it is better than, “a Monday that someday will be forgotten.”)

Big Monday, Manic Monday, Magic Monday, Happy Monday,
Overkill Monday, (I Don’t Like) Monday. Or maybe, in the
tradition of The Shining, we should just
say, as ominously as possible . . . Mon-day, and imagine a screeching, frightening sound effect playing in the background.

Anyway, you know what I’m talking about. There was enough
going on at Wimbledon today to discombobulate ESPN’s programmers right from the start. After showing
most of the second set of Venus Williams and Jarmila Groth, the network cut away to
the snooze-fest between Federer and Melzer just as Groth was failing to serve
it out. At the same time, they pretty much gave up on bringing us the first two
sets of Henin and Clijsters altogether. I didn’t get a feel for what was happening until I
got to work and could line up three courts across my computer: It was all going
down at once. Maybe that’s
our name for the second Monday at Wimbledon: The Big Bang. Here are five thoughts
that came to mind as I watched it unfold.

Is it better to be tight than calm?

I found myself asking this at the end of the first set
between Andy Murray and Sam Querrey. Murray was tight—gagging, really—and
Querrey had his usual “what’s going on in that head of his” look of blank, mouth-breathing placidity. It seemed that this was going to benefit
Querrey, especially when he got a break point at 5-5. He worked the rally
the way he wanted it, earning a look at a hanging inside-out forehand. But he
overcooked it wide. Murray scrambled out of the hole, won the set 7-5, and
didn’t look back. In retrospect, it seemed that Querrey pulled the trigger one
shot too early—he was too loose, too freewheeling. Murray, nervous, played it
safe, but it worked. Sometimes being tight means that you feel the needed desperation to win, even if it’s not pretty or fun while you’re doing it.

Serena-Maria: Not Really as Close as the Score?

Yes, Sharapova made it a match and nearly pulled out the
first set. But she struggles against Serena because she plays a very similar
game, only without as much strength or speed. Both of them swing big, hit flat,
dictate rallies, and intimidate with intensity. I liked the way Sharapova
upped her level for this one—she lost not because of her own errors, but
because Serena was able to move her side to side on the important points. There’s not really a lot she can do about that if Serena is finding the
corners. Sharapova, unlike Henin, lacks the versatility to change a losing game
against her.

Liking Yen-Hsun

The few times I’d seen Taiwan’s finest, I thought he
looked something like a raw-boned Andy Roddick. But he showed that, at least for one
day, he had something Roddick didn’t: The ability to push his opponent just off
the baseline and sneak into the net, or at least into an attacking
position. Lu even did it off a play that I’ve always thought could be used more
often: the deep approach right down the middle. It’s a tough shot to counter,
but it’s risky; you can’t leave it short. Roddick wasn’t broken until the final
game, but it was Lu’s versatility around the court that made the difference and
allowed him to be decisively the better player most of the afternoon. Kudos to
him for coming back after blatantly choking the fourth-set tiebreaker, and
drilling a forehand pass to win the fifth. I like his wiriness.

It’s tough to beat human nature

It’s exciting to see a player exceed your expectations for
the better part of two sets. You think they’re going to fold or cave or
screw-up, but they keep hitting big shots. Groth can hit a bullet serve, has a
backhand that she can use as a point-ending weapon, and was timing Venus’s serves well.
How many people can put the ball past Venus Williams for clean winners once or
twice a game? Groth was doing it today.

Then, she caved. Like clockwork, Groth was broken when served
for the set, and she seized up on the final forehand in the tiebreaker, after
she had put herself in a good position. It wasn’t surprising that
she couldn’t handle her nerves—it’s natural. Unfortunately, that’s what tennis
asks you to do: Defeat human nature.

The return of the Big 4

There are surprises, like Lu, who come out nowhere. Then there are surprises that happen right under your nose. But that doesn’t make them any less surprising. When you try to see into the future in sports, all you can
do is go by the past, by the current trends. It’s just that half the time the current trends have no bearing on the future. Take Novak
Djokovic and Andy Murray. They’ve been non-factors for months, and it would
have been easy to pick them to go out early here. We were even talking about
how we had all gotten on their bandwagons prematurely. Today they faced two
players, in Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Querrey, who came to Wimbledon after winning
grass-court titles, and who seemed like good dark horse picks. So what happens?
Murray and Djokovic beat them routinely. The beauty and the terror of
sports: Every day is new. Who knows, maybe Murray and Djoko will go out in the
quarters and show us we were right to doubt them all along.

***

Looking at the draws now, it seems like the most appropriate name for this day might be Bottleneck Monday. Suddenly, there are just eight players left
in each draw. Suddenly, it feels like the Williams show again on the women’s
side. Suddenly, the men’s draw—Federer-Berdych, Nadal-Soderling, Murray-Tsonga,
Djokovic-Lu—looks like, hmmm, what should we nickname it? The Clash of the
Titans (and Someone Named Lu)? The Monsters on Turf? How about—drumroll, please—the quarterfinals.

Mornin’ from tropical London, folks. I rolled in last night and had a nice, late dinner at a local Italian joint with Rosangel, who picked me up at Heefrow. There was only one other couple in the restaurant, until Jeff Tarango and a couple of young kids came in and sat at the next table. I always have to chuckle when I see Jeff at Wimbledon (he does color commentary for Radio Wimbledon), given that he was once a pariah here, after playing the lead role one of the most bizarre and comical (to us, if not Jeff) controversies in recent Wimbledon history.

That incident occurred in 1995, and the most striking thing about it was the way Benedicte Tarango, Jeff’s wife (they’ve since divorced), strolled out onto the court and slapped chair umpire Bruno Rebeuh across the face. Not once, but twice. Rebeuh isn’t seen in the umpire’s chair very much anymore, and all I’ve heard recently is a rumor that he’s the tournament director of a small event in France. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if he hooked up with the hot-blooded and (presumably) single Benedicte?

Anyway, the tennis is starting here, and as you all know this is the best of all days at any Grand Slam event – the second Monday, when the event is awash in great match-ups and still intriguingly chaotic, as a dozen story lines struggle to emerge from the smoke and din of the battlefield. It’s downright distracting; I’m watching Justine Henin battle Kim Clijsters as I type this (Henin is up 3-1, and playing like she means it), and also trying to keep an eye on Venus Williams and Roger Federer.

I expect I’ll write the women today, and probably post some thoughts on one or more of the men’s matches tomorrow morning.

Justine just called for the trainer. She appears to have a right elbow problem, but says she’s alright, and said she’s already taking medication for her shoulder. I like that you can hear the dialog, and wonder if the players are aware of it. Don’t say anything nasty about Champagne Kimmy, Justine, unless you want to end up on YouTube. . .

Justine seems to be finding her groove; that win over Nadia Petrova (see photo) was one of those over-the-hump matches that can really loosen up and energize the winner. Henin had every right to walk off the court after that one, thinking, Hey, I can do this. Piece of cake. And she’s getting slaphappy now, expressing her exuberance right in Kim Clijsters face via a 5-2 lead. But you know the recent history of these two, so this is probably far, far, far from over.

Catch you all later. This is your Crisis Center post for today.

– Pete

If the Middle Monday at Wimbledon is traditionally the best day in tennis, the 2010 edition might have to be known as the best best day in tennis. After the usual day off on Sunday, each of the 32 remaining players take to the
grass courts of the All England Club on the second Monday to winnow the
men’s and women’s fields down to eight quarterfinalists. It’s always a grand show, but this year promises to be even better than usual.

Of the 16 singles matches, three will feature former Grand Slam champions on both sidesides of the net, six will include at least one former Wimbledon champion and one will showcase everyone’s favorite running Wimbledon storyline, Andy Murray and his quest for history.

Here are Busted Racquet’s choices for the five can’t miss matches for Monday:

Serena Williams (1) v. Maria Sharapova (16) — second match, Centre Court

Kim Clijsters (8) v. Justine Henin (17) — first match, Court 1

These were the two matches everyone was looking forward to when the draw was released. So often, the most-anticipated pre-tournament match ups fail to materialize because someone inevitably looking ahead trips up in the early rounds. Thankfully, these four women, with 24 Grand Slams between them, didn’t disappoint.

Serena hasn’t lost a first set game thus far at Wimbledon and looks to be primed for a run at a fourth title on Centre Court. Sharapova has made just one Slam semifinal in the past three years, but her shoulder finally appears to be healthy and the Russian has responded by playing her best tennis in years. It’s a rematch of the 2004 final in which a 17-year old Sharapova stunned Serena in the final to win the first of her three Grand Slams. The two haven’t played at the All England Club since.

This is the first Wimbledon in the comebacks of Henin and Clijsters and, fittingly, the Belgians will play one another for a spot in the quarters. Clijsters won the U.S. Open last fall, but struggled in Australia and was forced out of the French with an injury. Henin was the favorite at Roland Garros but was ousted by Sam Stosur in the fourth round.

Neither Clijsters nor Henin has ever won Wimbledon. This will be the 25th meeting between the pair. They’ve split the first 24.

Sam Querrey (18) v. Andy Murray (4) — third match, Centre Court

Every match is tough for Andy Murray once the second week of Wimbledon begins. The Scotsman has always carried the weight of the United Kingdom on his shoulders as he attempts to become the first Englishman to win Wimbledon in 74 years. But now that England’s soccer team has flamed out of the World Cup again, all eyes will be on Andy. That’s not a good thing, as Murray has been known to cave under the intense scrutiny in the past. Querrey is a nightmarish match up for the great Brit hope. The American’s big serve and booming forehand could give Murray fits. Querrey is on an eight-match win streak on grass.

Roger Federer (1) v. Jurgen Melzer (16) — first match, Centre Court

Rafael Nadal (2) v. Paul-Henri Mathieu — third match, Court 1

The good news for Roger and Rafa: Neither of their opponents has ever made it past the fourth round at Wimbledon. The bad news: Neither had the other three players who pushed the top two seeds to five sets last week.

Federer and Nadal have combined to win the last seven championships at Wimbledon, yet they’ve never seemed as vulnerable as they do right now. Even when they’re struggling, as Nadal did with Philipp Petzschner on Sunday, there’s always been the sense that they’ll pull it out in the end. One day, they’re not going to.

by Bobby Chintapalli, Contributing Writer

If Serena Williams wins Wimbledon, I’ll remember Dominika Cibulkova’s smile. The way she was beaming during the handshake after her third-round match against Serena you’d think she won, maybe even served up a bagel along the way. (She lost 6-0, 7-5.) I can only guess what the smile was about, and I’m going with disbelief and relief. Disbelief that Serena served like that, relief that finally it was over.

I saw the stats before I saw the match. They showed that Serena served 20 aces. I was suspicious, because who does that?  Not Lucie Hradecka, I knew; she served the most aces in one WTA match this year, but that was a mere 18 in a French Open first-round match against Alexandra Dulgheru (Hradecka lost). Not even Serena Williams, I thought; she served 17 in that I’m-awake-now-and-ready-to-play Australian Open quarterfinal win over Victoria Azarenka. To make things more perplexing the stats showed Serena served no double faults. (Incidentally the Wimbledon website’s match stats, which first showed 20 aces for Serena, now show 19; I counted 20. They also show 13 aces for Cibulkova, and that’s not close to true, by my count.)

I also read Serena’s presser before I watched the match, and her words suggested she had a good serving day, even by her standards. She wasn’t thrilled with her whole performance, but she was happy about the same thing that stood out in the stats: “Serving that well feels awesome… I wish I could serve like this every tournament.”

The only thing left to do was watch the match. And count. The aces were there all right, all 20 of them. Watching Serena in that match I didn’t think of those things I call her out for off the court, not even about that “strawberries and cream” tennis kit or those eye-popping nails. I thought about that all-powerful serve. What must it be like to possess a shovel you know can dig you out of almost any hole, and for your opponent to know it too? It was the most dominating WTA serving I’ve ever seen.

First Set (6-0, 6 aces)

The serveathon began as you’d expect – with Serena serving an ace, about as out wide as you could go. A point later she served another ace, about as down the middle as you could go. Six games and 18 minutes later, the first set was over. Cibulkova had won one point on Serena’s serve, and Serena had racked up six aces.

“As a player you just feel so helpless playing against a player like Serena when she’s playing this well,” said ESPN commentator Mary Joe Fernandez of Cibulkova. “It’s crossing her mind right now that this could be a love and love match.”

Second Set (7-5, 14 aces) 

Things changed some in the second set though. Cibulkova showed she “packed a punch”, as Serena put it. She served better and went for her shots more. (Billie Jean King cautioned Serena that if an opponent gets bageled “you’ve got to expect them to really come out loose, like they have absolutely nothing to lose.”) Serena made a few more unforced errors and didn’t return serve as well.

But her serve never went away, not to Hawaii or anywhere. She served two aces in every game except one – in that one, she decided to serve four. By the end of the second set she’d served 14 more aces, taking her match total to 20. ESPN’s Mary Joe Fernandez and Dick Enberg couldn’t help but feel for the unwitting participant in Serena’s serving practice.

Enberg: “This is a heavyweight fighting a bantamweight.”
Fernandez: “My goodness – this doesn’t seem fair sometimes.”

Cibulkova, like Azarenka at the Australian Open, seemed calmer than you’d expect. She twirled her racquet, bounced around, prepared for every serve like she had a shot at it. If it was another ace, she walked quickly to the other side of the court and started her routine all over again. A few times she shrugged, threw her hands up or looked up at the sky or her box, but for the most part she seemed resigned to her fate.

After 20 Aces

After match point it was Serena who looked annoyed. She looked at her box and shook her head slightly. A few minutes after walking off the court she said, “I served well in the second, and that’s about all I did well. Hopefully I can keep serving well, but I have to play better than I did today.” Surely she’s thinking about the level of tennis she’ll need to summon for her fourth-round match against Maria Sharapova, the only former Wimbledon champion in the draw who’s not her sibling.

If Sharapova remembers one thing about this match – she’ll study it, won’t she? – it will be the 20 aces. They’ve taken Serena even higher on the ladies’ singles ace list. She now has 43 aces. That’s more than twice as many as Jarmila Groth, who’s in second place with 21, and more than Venus Williams, who served 18.

How does she do it? John McEnroe has commented that Serena practices her serve more than others do, in a way that others don’t. Maybe. And the serve seems too simple to be so effective, but is the simplicity the secret sauce? There are no long rituals beforehand, few retosses, hardly any moving parts. It’s toss, hit, ace… and, on a special day, repeat 20 times.

Hi all. On this Wmbledon middle Sunday please feel free to use this post to carry on discussing the tennis. Pete will be making his way across the Atlantic today, to cover the rest of the tournament onsite at the All England Club. I’ll have a chance to catch up with him later when I meet him at Heathrow. 

– Rosangel Valenti

By Jackie Roe, TW Social Director

Evening, everyone! In just a little bit I’ll get into the crazy week that was at the AELTC. But first, I wanted to thank so many of you for the thoughtful birthday wishes via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s weird, but I can’t remember how I ever got along without you, my “tennis friends.” When I first started posting here, I was someone who believed “real life” connections were far more substantive, meaningful, and true than online ones. I never imagined it wouldn’t be so, never fathomed a relationship born on a blog (and rooted in tennis!) could offer so much gratification. And here I am now, realizing that in all the ways that really matter, they’re the most fulfilling bonds I’ve forged in years. I’m really blessed to have you guys in my life – know that your presence is valued beyond measure.

Enough with the sappy stuff! *blows nose* It’s time to talk Wimbledon. First up is a Suicide Pool update from TalkAboutTennis.com’s Mariya. Note that she sent this to me last night, so this doesn’t take into account today’s action:

On the ladies’ side, there were 46 people from the TWibe. The survival rate through Day 4 was pretty low, sadly; only 7 are through to Day 5!

“beautiful tennis” fan: Wickmayer – Zheng – Zvonareva – Azarenka
Bismarck: Kleybanova – Hantuchova – Petrova – Sharapova
cneblett: Flipkens – Rezai – Kirilenko – Pennetta
jbradhunter: Makarova – Rodionova – Kleybanova – Kanepi
Papo: Kleybanova – Pavlyuchenkova – Zvonareva – Pennetta
Peg: Groth – Errani – Kirilenko – Dulgheru
white line fever: Kulikova – Jovanovski – Petrova – Pennetta

The TWibe is faring better on the men’s side. There were 48 TW participants in the men’s pool and 16 are still alive at the end of Day 4:

“beautiful tennis” fan: Llodra – Bellucci – Kohlschreiber – Querrey
Beth: Hanescu – Petzschner – Kohlschreiber – Bellucci
Codge: Roddick – Isner – Monfils – Simon
Dave G: Llodra – Simon – Montanes – Bellucci
Gcatcee: Melzer – Simon – Kohlschreiber – Bellucci
GVGirl: Dent – A Beck – Hewitt – Bellucci
Jamaica Karen: Dent – Petzschner – - Kohlschreiber – Ferrer
Maedal: Fish – Benneteau – Lopez – Youzhny
Markic: Dent – A Beck -Brands – Petzshner
Mr. X: Llodra – Chardy – Hewitt – Bellucci
Musab: Lopez – Petzschner -Monfils – Querrey
Observer: Llodra – Simon – Melzer – Fognini
Sher: Davydenko – Tsonga – Kohlschreiber – Simon
Sokol: Melzer – A Beck – Monfils – Bellucci
White Line Fever: Kohlschreiber – A Beck – Monfils – Malisse
yello fuzzy: Lopez – A Beck – Hewitt – Querrey

Keep up the good work, TWibe. I hope we still see some of these names come next week’s Deuce Club. (beth, you’ve rebounded nicely from your RG debacle!)

This week, I considered doing the usual – soliciting your favorite presser quotes from Week 1, fashion hits and misses, biggest upset, that kind of thing. But as I started to draw it up, I just kept coming back to how odd the tournament has been thus far. Federer escaping a first round loss by the skin of his teeth, the James Blake vs. Pam Shriver squabble, and of course, *that* match. What event surprised/shocked/unnerved you the most?

Rhetorical question, maybe. If you answer with anything other than the Isner-Mahut marathon, you’re lying. We’ve talked about that record-shattering battle for days now, but I haven’t seen very many “where were you when it happened” accounts, and you know me, I’m more interested in that than in match analyses. So let’s use this space to share how we experienced the Isner-Mahut epic. Where were you? Were you watching, scoreboarding, or neither? How did you react to what was happening?

Here’s my story:

Wednesday. I remember being late to check scores since I was having major computer issues that morning. When I finally did, I noticed the Isner-Mahut 5th was somewhere in the teens. Whoa! A few e-mails came in about it, including one that referenced Mahut’s 24-22 victory just a few days earlier. I thought, “No way they’re going to hit that, but boy, it’d be cool if Mahut could make it happen twice in the same tournament!”

Ha.

Right then I remembered I had an 11 AM meeting. Convinced the match would end any minute, I asked my friend (aka our resident Julien fangirl) if she wouldn’t mind sending me e-mail updates while I was in the meeting. Just let me know when it ends, I told her.

No e-mails. Well, none aside from “This may go on all day.” Indeed, when I came out of the meeting, it was almost as if nothing had changed in that hour. The match was still as deadlocked as ever.

Went to lunch with my co-worker Dominick, who also loves tennis (he was my Cincy partner-in-crime a couple of years ago). We couldn’t focus on anything but the match, manically checking the live scores on my phone as we ate. Take bite of pizza – hit refresh – gasp at score. Repeat. Before the check came, I put my phone away, and Dominick yelled, “What are you doing?!”, to which I responded, “Come on, you know we’re going to go back and it’ll be 47-all – you’re not missing anything.” I was half right; we were only missing one of the most historic matches of all time.

Back at the office, I was fixated on my scoreboard. At that point I decided to check out Twitter, and I was amazed by the amount of attention this match was getting. My feed filled up every 30 seconds with commentary, jokes, reactions, exclamation points. Yet there was no snark, no negativity, no raining on anyone’s parade, as is wont to happen on Twitter. Everyone was just in delirious awe of what was happening. I felt lucky to be a part of that communal experience.

I started off the day rooting for Mahut, considering he’d already been to hell during that Bogdanovic match (I called the 24-22 score “obscene” over on Twitter … more like child’s play now), and because he was the one serving from behiind. Then as the hours passed, I cared increasingly less about who I wanted to win, or even if I wanted anyone to win at all. I could only feel admiration for these two warriors who were busting their behinds and giving all of themselves to a first round match on little court 18. How were they still doing this? Who knows. They just were.

And I was proud to be a tennis fan, too. I marveled at the sight of Mahut and Isner as the top trending topics on Twitter and was pleasantly surprised to receive e-mails from co-workers who had never before watched a tennis match in their lives. Finally, everyone was seeing what you and I have always known – that, in the words of Andy Murray, tennis is “one of the toughest sports in the world.” If only it didn’t take a basketball scoreline for people to realize that.

Thursday was a little anticlimactic, after Wednesday’s drama. I pulled up the scoreboard again, prepared for a repeat performance. And then, in an instant (relative to the day before, anyway), it was over. Isner wins, Mahut loses. I guess I never wanted it to end.

I’ll stop there and save the rest for the Comments. Now tell us your Isner-Mahut story.

As always, feel free to go as OT as you please here. Have a wonderful weekend!