Wimbledon Latest: Quarter Final Action at the All England Club
July 1, 2008
The Ladies Quarter final’s were completed today, and unfortunately for the spectators, there was not too much excitement.
Both Williams’ sisters had routine matches as I predicted, however my other two were off the mark. Jie Zheng went to three sets with Vaidisova, but disposed of the 18th seeded Czech easily in the third set. Perhaps the only match with some drama today was the last quarter final meeting between Russian compatriots Elena Dementieva & Nadia Petrova. Dementieva had a strong grip on the match before letting the second set slip away (losing a 5-1 lead), but rebounding to take the third 6-3. While the score may have been exciting, the tennis was relatively atrocious, as the two combined for 71 unforced errors and 14 double faults.
With regards to tomorrow’s Mens Quarter finals, I see two obvious picks and two complete toss ups. Federer (over Ancic) and Nadal (over Murray) are the two easy ones. While Ancic is a very accomplished grass court competitor, and in fact the last person to beat Federer on grass (backin 2002!), Federer is simply too confident and playing to well for Ancic to pull off the upset. I do believe Andy Murray will compete with Nadal, as he has played him tightly in the past. Moreover, even though he may be feeling a bit tired after his five set match against Gasquet, the home crowd will carry him through that and I feel if he can get an early lead he might be able to use the crowd to spurn him on to victory. That being said, while that could happen, I don’t think it will.
Lopez against Safin is nearly impossible to predict, mainly because both players themselves are so hard to predict. This may be a copout, but a close five set victory for either player would not surprise me, nor would a blowout for either player. I’m hoping it goes on for a long time though, as these two players could make for some very exciting tennis.For those who enjoy history, Lopez has a 4-1 head to head lead over Safin.
The final match is the one that most people won’t care about, but you have to give Clement & Shuettler a lot of credit for making it this far. And while Schuettler has played very well to get to this point, I like Clement here, as he may be playing the best tennis of his career this fortnight. But remember, I only picked two of the four Ladies matches correctly, so don’t put too much stock into anything I say!
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