Nightshift Sports: Wimbledon Day 12

14 July 2018
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Context
Entering the final weekend of play at Wimbledon, the oldest of the “major” tennis tournaments. Today was a busy day at the  Big W. One match from yesterday was held over (Djokovic vs. Nadal) and had to be played this morning before the regularly scheduled Women’s Singles Championships between Angelique Kerber of Germany and Serena Williams of the United States. The Men’s Singles final will be played on Sunday. Plus.. Saturday is also the day for the Men’s (called Gentlemen’s in Wimbledon verage) doubles finals and the Women’s (Ladies) doubles finals.
Results to Date
Friday was the endurance test. John Isner and Kevin Anderson–playing for a spot in the men’s singles finals–went to 26-24 in the fifth set, with Anderson coming out ahead. He’ll be in Sunday’s finals against Djokovic.  The Isner-Anderson match was over six hours long. Isner had previously played the longest single match in tennis history, an eleven hour five minute  marathon that stretched over three days, against Nicholas Mahut  of France. Isner won in the fifth set, 70-68 (that’s a 138 game final set). Obviously, Isner has the stamina and concentration to stay focused longer than anyone on tour. The Isner-Anderson match was one of those that was really, so close and so hard fought, you didn’t want to see any one lose. After Isner and Anderson played, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal took the court for their semi-final match. Play was suspended at 11PM with Djokovic leading 2 sets to 1; the suspension was due to the infamous late night curfew–imposed by the town where Wimbledon is located–which mandates that competition must stop at 11PM at night.
Djokovic and Nadal played out their singles match first thing on Saturday morning, with Djokovic winning in the 5th set; he will now play Kevin Anderson on Sunday morning for the Men’s Singles Championship.
Right after Djokovic and Nadal finished, the two women finalists, Kerber and Williams, were on the court to play their championship match. The storybook run through the tournament by Serena Williams was halted, with Kerber winning 6-3, 6-3.  We shall see if this was a one-off by Serena or if she can maintain form and go deep into the U.S. Open tournament.
Click this  link to see the draw (and results) for all classes of competition at Wimbledon. 
Court Notes
The Djokovic-Nadal match was full of superb play from both men. They were not tired, they had plenty of energy and hit some amazing shots. The match was played with the retractable roof over center court closed. Regrettably, on at least two occasions (and one is too many) some fan in the stands fired off a camera or phone camera flash, which is just enough of a visual disruption to distract a player. Even after the crowd was cautioned against such activity, it did continue, sporadically.  Very bad form on the part of the patrons who did the deed and they should be banned from future tournaments. Period.
After the Isner-Anderson marathon, the talk on the grounds and in the announcing booth was about sorting out some new strategy to finalize a match in the fifth set besides continuous playing of games until one player (or team) is ahead by two. When matches run long, the entire schedule is disrupted–not just for the players affected, but for matches yet to come as well as scheduling for the biggest spectator of all: television. The consensus in the media compound was to go to some type of tie-breaker–i.e. let them play to 10 games and if no one wins by then, bring on a tiebreaker, 9 or 18 points or something besides the normal 7 point tie breaker.  Tradition is a wonderful thing but the modern sports world wants predictable starts and stops, and so do all of the players. Something to think about (will it change? probably not…but at least someone has started the conversation).
As noted before in this same space, if you’ve got a DVR use it to tape some matches. If you play tennis, it’s a great chance to see the best in the world hit every shot in the book; you can learn a lot if you take your time to review the matches. Nightshift Sports Tennis Coach (and consultant) Ricco is unhappy that certain members of the staff are very carefully watching and learning Vitalia Daitchenko two hands off both sides form. No question about it, you can whack some penetrating ground strokes with the two-handed forehand but you still have to be able to hit a one-handed forehand because of the loss of reach with the two hander. Experiment and try it yourself. And use our links to visit the Official Wimbledon site…we have a direct link and the site is loaded with information, photos, links, schedules, results. The photography is stunning. With the Nightshift Sports site (and all of it’s links and updates) and TV coverage, you can enjoy Wimbledon in depth and in all of its facets. Have at it.
ICYMI
The daily video review of play at Wimbledon, courtesy of Wimbledon, YouTube and The Guardian.
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Resources
You know the drill by now: Nightshift Sports provides overnight updates on the previous day’s play, along with relevant links to the best coverage (print, on the net, TV, and streaming) and an amazing collection of photos from the event. We continue to add interesting links to and about Wimbledon. There’s a new link to Wimbledon’s Instagram feed, as well as one to the Wimbledon official Twitter Feed. Now you can stay in touch from the comfort of your phone…..
Direct Link to The Official Wimbledon Website
The Wimbledon Dress Code
The 2018 Draw
Time Magazine Deep Background on the Wimbledon Dress Code 
Wimbledon Background and History
Wimbledon Results (updated Continuously)
Where to Watch Wimbledon 
Wimbledon Apps Link
Wimbledon YouTube Channel 
The Guardian Covers Wimbledon (great print coverage, continuous update)
Wimbledon Instagram Feed
Wimbledon Official Twitter Feed
 
The Fine Print: Embed courtesy of our friends at Getty Images (gettyimages.com) who have photographic history of the 20th and 21st century on file. This photo has not bee altered in any way. We thank them, deeply, for sharing. Video Embeds courtesy of YouTube, Wimbledon and The Guardian. It has not been altered in any way; we thank for sharing. Nightshift Sports is produced by Perception Engineering and The Media Bunker. All rights–except those expressly reserved by others–are reserved by donald pierce. All text, copyright (c)2018 donald pierce. Enjoy the tournament, and check in often, as the site will be updated as often as possible.
 

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