Wimbledon Wrap-Up

After three years of magnificent, five-set finals at Wimbledon, we've finally had our first dud in a while. Despite the scorelines for the three sets being close, Berdych was never really in the match. Nadal actually did not play that well - he made a lot of unforced errors and only made a few of the trademark spectacular shots that he was making left and right against Andy Murray. His forehand, while heavy and spinny as ever, was not quite as easily placed as he would have liked - an unusual number of the Spaniard's usually reliable down-the-line shots drifted wide or long.

Despite the fact that Nadal's level of play was not as high as it's been during recent rounds, Berdych was unable to find his top gear as well. It would be one thing to come on court at the Wimbledon final and just get beaten by one of the best players the game's ever known. On the other hand, it's quite another to come out and not be able to muster your best tennis, because what other occasion is going to come along where it would be needed more?

Berdych was unable to play as well as he did against Federer or even Djokovic, and as a result, his defeat was all but assured. His other failure was an apparent unwillingness or inability to adopt another strategy when his initial gameplan was clearly unable to do the job against Nadal. Berdych tried to slug it out from the baseline, and when that didn't seem to work, he just kept on doing it. Credit to Berdych for playing so well that he made it this far, but it is disappointing that he couldn't do a bit better today.

It may have been that injury was troubling him, as he's pulled out of the Czech Republic's appearance in the Davis Cup this week. Nadal's done the same, but the loss for Spain - who has a very deep field and people of capable players to include - is not nearly so dear as the loss for the Czechs, who are already missing Radek Stepanek due to injury.

All in all, this Wimbledon fortnight had such an exciting and historic first week, that it was almost a guarantee that the second would be a letdown. There was some good tennis and a satisfying victor in the end, but aside from Roger Federer's defeat, there was nothing that really compared with the stunning action that absolutely littered the first six days of the tournament.

Almost everyone except Nadal and Serena are going to go away from this tournament disappointed - Yun-Hsun Lu is probably going to be happy for his run to the quarterfinals and his subsequent skyrocketing 40 places up in the ATP rankings, but everybody else has got to be thinking about missed opportunities. Falla and Bozoljiac could have beaten Federer, and Petszchner and Haase could have beaten Nadal. Surely, they will be encouraged by taking the game's best so close, but any excitement is leavened by the disappointment of not being able to seal the deal.

Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic fell short at the semifinal stage, once again. For players of their caliber, they won't be satisfied. They want to be in the finals, they want to win grand slams. And they certainly don't want to lose in straight sets on their way. For Andy Roddick, this is another chapter in the strange and mystifying history of the American losing heartbreaking fifth sets. I don't think it's indicative of anything new or worrisome for his progress, except that it's another chance he let get away. If he had beaten Lu in that fifth set, he really could have made a run at this title. Who knows if his draws will break so well in the coming years?

And Roger Federer drops to number three in the world this week, for the first time in seven years. With Nadal now the owner of two grand slams and three masters series shields this year, he has all but sealed up the year end number one ranking. It will be interesting to see if this loss, probably the most shocking in a year of shocking losses since the Australian Open, pumps up Fed or signals his waning interest in competing, day in and day out, in a sport that he so effortlessly dominated for more than half a decade.

While most players are taking the week (or month) off, or at least getting ready for the next round of Davis Cup, the tennis calendar marches on, and this week features the Hall of Fame championships in Newport, Rhode Island, the last grass court tournament of the year. They were kind enough to give Nicolas Mahut a wildcard (I expect he'll be getting a lot of these in the near future). It's actually an interesting field, but even though play begins tomorrow, I won't take an in-depth look until then. After spending two weeks getting up early to catch the tennis live, I need to catch up on my sleep.