A Lifeline for Tennis

Tennis has been in need of a boost recently. Well they certainly got on this fortnight at Wimbledon.

For the Women, no top-four seed advanced to the Ladies Quarter Finals but Venus and Serena Williams (7th and 6th seeds, respectively) kept winning. Their fate was eventually sealed and they met each other in the Finals. Older sister Venus’s win gave her a fifth Wimbledon singles victory and seventh Grand Slam title. To add more excitement, the sisters combined to win the Women’s double title.

On the Men’s side, the early rounds were also a land mine as Britain’s Andy Murray (12th seed) and Spain’s Feliciano Lopez (31st seed) were the only ranked players not named Federer or Nadal to advance to the Quarter Finals…but not to worry, everyone was looking forward to the Nadal-Federer rematch since Nadal’s dominating French Open Finals victory (6-1, 6-3, 6-0). What we got was a show for the ages, and possibly the best tennis match of all-time. Nadal won the first two sets (6-4, 6-4), and Federer won the third and fourth sets (7-6, 7-6). The final set of this epic match went 9-7 to Nadal, stopping Federer’s streak of five straight Wimbledon titles and yielding Rafa his first.

After all is said and done this was the dream matchup for Tennis - the larger-than-life tennis sisters and the best, most recognizable male tennis players dominated the tournament and the final weekend. While tennis starts to groom new stars we can only hope the US Open can maintain the momentum generated at Wimbledon.