With Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Roger Federer struggling with injuries, can the next generation, led by Dimitrov, Thiem and Zverev, finally step up?What to make of the state of men’s tennis? For the best part of a decade a quartet of hall‑of‑famers have transcended their sport by lifting it to hitherto untouched heights with their titanic struggle for supremacy while below them a host of challengers have strained to swell the numbers of the elite club known as the Big Four. Plenty have tried, most have failed. Some have offered flashes of impertinence but only Stan Wawrinka has provided a sustained threat to the established order. The entry requirements are gruelling. The top players ally astonishing skill with an...
The numbers may be impressive but they do not reveal the full story behind the brilliant and balletic Swiss who demonstrates such poise under pressureRoger Federer is one of those rare champions for whom numbers cannot gild genius. He loves to win, and strives for it more convincingly in the autumn of his career than scores of young contenders, as he proved for the eighth time on Centre Court on Sunday. Yet it is as if victory follows art, not the other way round.For the record, these are the bare statistics that will go into the history books to embellish his achievement, after he had spent just an hour and 41 minutes beating a wounded Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-1, 6-4. Related:...
The American is enjoying one of her best seasons at an age when most players have retired. How has she come back from injuries and an auto immune disease?It is hard to underestimate someone with seven grand slam and 49 WTA singles titles. But despite this, Venus Williams’ remarkable run at Wimbledon is a surprise not just because of her age – at 37 Williams was the oldest finalist since Martina Navratilova – but because her battle with a chronic health condition nearly forced her out of tennis.Diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome, an auto-immune disease whose symptoms include joint pain and fatigue, Williams has struggled in the demanding two week grand slam events since her diagnosis, pulling out of the 2011...
When the Spaniard found her rhythm against Venus Williams she raced away to add her name to the champions’ board that has been inspiring herThroughout this Wimbledon Garbiñe Muguruza has paused at the Centre Court honours board, immersing herself in the legendary names of the past before willing herself to join them. On Saturday afternoon she got her chance – and, with a performance of stunning clarity and brutal unsentimentality, she took it. Now, following her 7-5, 6-0 victory over the five-times champion Venus Williams, her name, too, is etched in gold.The 23-year-old Spaniard’s talent has never been in question but she has always blown hotter and colder than most. This fortnight, however, those tennis winds must have come from...
History tends to forget that Britain’s last victor in the Wimbledon women’s tournament lost her first two semi-finalsFirst you have to suffer. The unspoken rule for any British hopeful striving to scratch the nation’s itch at Wimbledon is that the journey is never complete until they have dragged themselves off a deflated Centre Court at the end of their semi-final debut with sympathetic applause ringing in their ears, their bottom lip quivering and that lump in their throat threatening to spill on to the grass, guilty only of daring to think it would be different this time. Related: Venus Williams into Wimbledon final with smooth defeat of Johanna Konta Related: Johanna Konta: quiet Sydney schoolgirl always had focus of a...