Wimblemund 2011, day 10

Petra Kvitova bt. Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 3-6, 6-2

Maria Sharapova bt. Sabine Lisicki 6-4, 6-3

For a number of reasons (shut up, jokers) I've watched more of the Ladies Singles at this year's Wimbledon than in recent times, a fact that has been reflected in these blog posts. I think it's been because that side of the draw has provided more surprise results and good stories than the men's section, which had to wait 9 days until the first major surprise.

Saturday's final, then, will be between Petra Kvitova and Maria Sharapova. Kvitova is the first left-handed woman to reach the final in 17 years and should she win she'll be the first southpaw champion since 1990, coincidentally the year of her birth. It's this left-handed serve which is causing so many problems to her rivals. In fact, there's little doubting that her game has all the necessary qualities to win her a first Grand Slam title, especially against Maria Sharapova's post-shoulder surgery super-special shonky serve.

What makes Sharapova overwhelming favourite, however, is her mental strength as much as her extra experience. Kvitova ruthlessly outplayed and overpowered Victoria Azarenka today but still needed 3 sets to see her off, a similar story to her quarter-final against Tsvetana Pironkova. Sharapova, meanwhile, is yet to drop a set - in spite of going 3-0 down in the first set of today's game. Her sternest test so far came from Laura Robson in Round 2, Robson taking the Russian to a first set tie-break. Today's performance was hardly Federeresque, but it was enough to get the job done. I expect her to do the same on Saturday afternoon.

However, stranger things have happened - Sharapova herself beating Serena Williams in the 2004 final aged 17 being one example. If Kvitova does manage to prevail, there's every chance it will give her the self-confidence boost to push her up to the top table in women's tennis.

On giraffe costumes

I thought humanity was getting pretty technologically refined, until I Googled "giraffe costume". When you consider the myriad astonishing achievements of the human race, is this pathetic and dismal smorgasbord really the best we can do? (Click for bigger, or search it for yourself if you really want to be depressed)


Don't despair too soon, though, because cometh the hour, cometh the man. I have designed the Best Giraffe Costume, complete with stuffed arse end attachment. This could of course be adapted for pantomime giraffe use. No-one steal my idea. (cfb)

On goose

I'm one of those people who would never say boo to a goose. Should you ever say boo to a goose? I'm not so sure.

In a way I'd probably be happier if I ever said boo to a few geese here and there, but at the same time I'm not sure if I could live with the growing reputation as a goose booer that this might give me.

I suppose that the secret is to pick your goose, pick your moment and get the timbre of your boo just right. That's how to say boo to a goose. As long as I don't trust myself to be able to judge all of those factors just right, it's probably best I keep up my never say boo to a goose philosophy.

Geese can rest easy. But only metaphorical geese. I was bitten by a goose as a child and I carry resentment of geese to this day. Those birds have a bad attitude.

Wimblemund 2011, day 9

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga bt. Roger Federer 3-6, 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4

Roger Federer is such a remarkable player that his exit from a Grand Slam tennis tournament tends to make the news headlines, rather than just the sports news headlines. But even by those standards today was fairly remarkable. It was the first time Federer had ever lost from two sets in front in Grand Slam play, and only the third time it's ever happened in his senior career.

The odd thing is I'm not really sure how it happened. He was serving with an efficiency which could have made Pete Sampras in his pomp get an inferiority complex, and yet was broken once in every one of the final three sets. Aside from taking a 3-0 lead in the first 4 minutes of the first set, Tsonga was toe-to-toe with Federer all the way and when it came to the crunch he just seemed more animated and to have more desire. Roger Federer didn't break Tsonga's service once in the match.

Federer will be back at Wimbledon, I'm sure. He's not 30 until August, plus next year sees the Olympic tennis title he so covets being decided at his beloved All England Club - a potent combination. Whether he'll ever be the force he once was in SW19 is another matter, but one thing you can never take away from him is that he made everyone who watched him catch their breath.

Tsonga will now face Novak Djokovic, a man in form so good that if he were a bluesman you'd think he'd been to the crossroads. The winner of that will play Andy Murray - the only semi-finalist of the four to not drop a set today - or Rafael Nadal. Nadal leads Murray 11-4 in head to head play (including a win over the Scot in the semis here last year) and hasn't lost a match at Wimbledon since the 2007 Final, but is troubled with a foot injury. Any one of these four men would be a very deserving Wimbledon champion, so Friday's and Sunday's matches will hopefully prove very exciting.

On friends

I think the word "friends" is rapidly becoming the most abused in the entire English language, thanks to its casual use on social networking sites. I generally use Tweetdeck for my Twitter account, for example, and the fact that the aggregated column of all the latest tweets from the people you follow is entitled "All friends" with no way of changing it always sticks in my craw.

It's not that it isn't a nice thing to say, or not a useful shorthand. It's that it's inaccurate. Some of the people whose tweets will spring up there are indubitably my friends. But I follow 140 accounts on Twitter (neat, huh?). I would think that at about half of those are not people who I would immediately think of as friends. I would be highly surprised if any of those people would think of me as their friend, either. Many of them are people I'm friendly with and all of them I like, or am at the very least sufficiently interested in to invite directly into my face on a daily basis.

I can't imagine it's just me who feels this way, although I'm entirely readily believe that people who feel so indignant as to go on about it are in a minority. But it's a big deal to me, the word 'friend'. I can't think of any other title I would relish or treasure more. I don't like to use it lightly, and personally speaking my little heart always skips a beat with joy, excitement and honour when someone whom I consider to be a friend also describes me as such. In the past few years I've come to really understand more about the nature of true friendship, and it seems to be an odd thing to use as a throwaway term of convenience.

Incidentally, the titular character in the TV sitcom Friends were definitely friends. So let's not be hating.

Wimblemund 2011, day 8

Today, an almost-certainly-premature-but-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-getting-your-news-from-me-anyway LACK OF SURPRISES ladies quarter-final special.

Sabine Lisicki bt. Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-1

It was faintly surreal experience, watching a match at Wimbledon as a great big thunderstorm raged around West London, but this is the brave new world of the Centre Court roof. At times the rain was drumming on the roof so hard it was louder than the play and at least one thunderclap made Sabine Lisicki jump out of her skin, but British engineering held firm and we even got a decent match out of it.

Lisicki has a thunderbolt of her own up her arm, and now she seems to be grafting a growing confidence to her monumental serve. Bartoli, who had clearly run herself ragged beating Serena Williams yesterday afternoon, was lucky to take it all the way as her opponent had 3 match points in the 2nd set. However, Lisicki's mental strength has been rather suspect - she had to be carried off after succumbing to cramps with the stress of her encounter with Vera Zvonereva at last month's French Open - so she had to wait until a fairly comfortable decider.

Next up, she will play Maria "The Grunt" Sharapova, who made very light work indeed of Dominika Cibulkova 6-1, 6-1 under the roof. Sharapova is now a nailed on favourite for the title - no-one else left in the women's draw has ever even reached a Grand Slam final before - but Sabine Lisicki, a wildcard entry in the Championships, has a whiff of Goran Ivanisevic's similar run to the title in 2001. Although she doesn't have a beard.

If she wins Wimbledon, she would be able to afford one.

++BREAKING++

Petra Kvitova bt. Zsvetana Pironkova 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-2

Wimblemund 2011, day 7 - TENNIS SPECIAL

A lot of balls under the bridge today. Oh mamma.

Marion Bartoli bt. Serena Williams 6-3, 7-6(6)

After my rather outraged response to Serena "I'm just grateful to be here" Williams' disdain for having to play on Court 2 last week, one might expect that I found this result pretty funny. And I did.

Marion Bartoli reached the final here in 2007 and she certainly seems to be solid enough to repeat that feat in 2011. I was particularly impressed with the way she has achieved such self-mastery, especially with regard to her previously problematic serve. Bartoli now has a strict routine to adhere to, and she's getting great results. The only downside is that her pre-service build up is getting increasingly akin to the episode of Malcolm in the Middle where they go bowling and Hal is on for a perfect game. Should Bartoli be serving for the title on Saturday afternoon, I'd not be surprised if a few extra ticks - a burp, maybe, or getting her left tit out - had crept into the mix.

Andrew Murray bt. Richard Gasquet 7-6(3), 6-3, 6-2

In their previous three meetings - including a famous Murray win at Wimbledon in 2008 - Gasquet had managed to win at least two sets against the British number 1. Today, however, the biggest question mark was whether or not the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - sat in the Royal Box - would actually talk to one another. The match was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair after a close first set. Indeed, I switched over to see the final game and the tie-breaker in the Bartoli-Williams match with Murray about to serve at 5-3 in the second. As soon as that was over, I switched back to find Murray serving for the match at 5-2 in the third. A pulsating display against a very gifted opponent. He even found time to look positively jovial in the post-match interview. Andrew Murray is starting to look like a player who is genuinely not feeling the pressure, rather than just saying he isn't.

Other news

Women's seeds and tournament favourites continued to go flying, as if everyone on the WTA tour had unconsciously decided to clear out of the way and let Maria Sharapova - through in straight sets against Shuai Peng on Court 2 - win her second Singles title. World Number 1 (a title conferred to the woman who plays the most matches in a season, rather than on any basis of excellence) Caroline Wozniacki started well but then faded horribly to lose to 24th seed Dominika Cibulkova 1-6, 7-6(5), 7-5. Meanwhile, Venus Williams fell to the same opponent and to the same score as she did 12 months previously at Wimbledon, listlessly succumbing 6-2, 6-3 to Zsvetana Pironkova. Still motoring on in the ladies singles are Petra Kvitova, who will play her fellow 2010 beaten semi-finalist Pironkova in the last eight. For an outside bet, Sabine Lisicki continues her return from serious injury and will now face Bartoli. Meanwhile, the unseeded Austrian Tamira Paszek - who knocked out Francesca Schiavone in round 3 - stands between Belarussian 4th seed Victoria Azarenka and her first ever Grand Slam semi-final berth.

On the gents side, Novak Djokovic made light work of Michael Llodra and will now face Australian number 1 Bernard Tomic, an 18-year old qualifier who is the 4th youngest player - after Becker, Börg and John McEnroe - to make the last eight at Wimbledon. With chaos reigning in the ladies' section, it would still be a brave person who bet against the world's top four ranked male players - Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Murray - making up the semi-finals as they did a month ago in Paris.

On animals having pubes

My friend and I are deeply embroiled in science. Particularly the science of pube eugenics, or Peugenics. This is the area of genetic engineering which seeks to grant animals the gift that evolution has so far seen fit to deny them - pubic hair. The way I look at it, we're actually giving nature a bit of a helping hand, as I'm sure it would get there in the end. Pubes have so many uses, after all.

Here is a handy 1200 x 1024 pixel guide to our work so far. (click for full-size)

On yesterday's walk

I spent Friday night shooting the shit with my friend at his house in Brighton. Literally, in fact, we got a shotgun and shot a poo. Actually that is a lie. Although we did discuss bowel movements. Stop trying to weedle your way into my social life, you voyeur.

This meant a walk to the station on Saturday. And what an eventful walk it was! Especially if, like me, you are able to conjure scandal and intrigue out of the smallest nugget of happenstance. If you are dangerously paranoid, in other words.

The first thing that happened was that a man with a folder and clearly in more of a hurry than I was passed me in York Place. We then ended up side by side once again at the crossing, but he of course ended up ahead once more when the walking resumed. I had some business to attend to in the North Laine, which if you do not know Brighton is a little warren of narrow streets just south of the station, packed with independent shops and the sort of cool people who patronise independent shops. So, being pretty au fait with the old topography, I cut through the back streets to get there. As the streets get narrower, it's less and less likely that there'll be a great deal of foot traffic.

But here I was, in a not-especially packed Gloucester Road and I was still just behind Folder Man. This was beginning to get suspicious. As the streets get smaller, the more unlikely it would be that two people would both be following the exact same route. What could it mean?

Naturally, I ended up stood on the roof of a nearby parked car, shirtless, screaming "I AM NOT FOLLOWING YOU, I AM NOT AN ASSASSIN" with tear-flecked cheeks.

Later, I saw a dog trying to fellate another dog in the gardens at the corner of Church Street and Queen's Road.

Wimblemund 2011, day 6

Novak Djokovic bt. Marcos Baghdatis 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4

One of the most fascinating aspects of tennis for me is that its scoring system does not necessarily favour the person who scores the most points or wins the most games: it's sets and the timing of the necessary points and games which counts. This gives it an innate tactical aspect to go along with the physical challenges. With every good player who looks like they may become great, it is this tactical understanding that is often the last piece to fall into place.

I think that, with Novak Djokovic's annus mirabilis seemingly back into full swing, there are clear signs that he may do what he's been threatening to do for a number of years and become the total package. The first set of this match was an object lesson. Expending just enough of himself against a tough opponent to stay in contention before pouncing in the final game to earn the break of service. It was high-quality stuff the whole way and tough on Baghdatis - the Cypriot is a talented, spirited and formidable opponent for anyone, but he had the frustrated look of a man who realised he was fighting against a force greater than his capabilities.

Could this be Djokovic's Wimbledon? I wouldn't be surprised.

Wimblemund 2011, day 5

Today, a plucky Brit overwhelmed by grunting special.

Shuai Peng bt. Elena Baltacha 4-6, 6-2, 7-5

The British number 1 succumbed in three sets to the world number 20 on Court 18. That's the numerical breakdown of events. The standout thing for me, though, was Peng's astonishing grunting. Unlike so many of her fellows, my issue here is not one of volume. Peng's grunt is actually fairly restrained and demure. But the sound of it and the sustain is something quite apart. It may be the only doppler effect grunt in women's tennis. The overall effect is that of a Kookaburra pleasuring itself sat by the door of a departing Routemaster bus.

I've long held the belief that grunting, particularly loud grunting, could and perhaps should be looked upon as a form of gamesmanship. I will now add 'completely preposterous grunting' to that list.

Maria Sharapova bt. Laura Robson 7-6(4), 6-3

Meanwhile on Court 1, Queen Grunt was in action. Sharapova has always sounded like a fire in a barnyard, particularly when she's under the cosh. So it is very much to young Laura Robson's credit that, towards the end of the first set particularly, Maria was making noises like a backfiring yak. Robson's performance was excellent today, and not just in the plucky pluckins sense. She raced into a 4-1 lead, then as soon as Sharapova had pegged her back equal, Robson managed to break the Russian's service again. Eventually, Sharapova's quality and experience told, but I think most people will have seen enough of Laura Robson today to believe that she could well have the game to transfer her dominant form at junior level into a substantial professional career.

On mackerel trading and British life

I've given some consideration to getting a Tumblr account in recent weeks, to serve as a general purpose repository for one-line stuff I don't want to put on Twitter, sketchy pictures, links I like... you know, all that Tumblry sort of jazz. However, my friend assures me that the whole experience is a maddening and confusing one, plus I don't like the way you can't comment.

This is a rather long-winded - you know, that Bloggery sort of jazz - way of saying that I'm just going to do it here, in the increasingly white-hot crucible that is my blog.

Today, I have two very important links to share. The first one comes via the excellent @qikipedia on Twitter and relates to prison inmates in the United States coming up with a currency based on vacuum-packed mackerel fillets. As wonderful as it sounds.

online.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html

My second link is a more personal one. It is a burgeoning blog written by my friend's dad, featuring little vignettes of the documentaries he's made during his career as a multiple-award winning sound recordist and engineer. There are currently two to listen to, hopefully with many more in the future. The clips here are profoundly evocative nuggets of little pieces of British society which make life so endlessly varied, fulfilling and fascinating. I find them really rather moving, if I'm honest. Please give them a listen.

www.mikedickins.co.uk

Mirror man: a study in genetic unfairness

I'm better looking in a mirror than I am in real life. Consider for a minute if you will the full implications of that. It is dramatically unfair. I'm trying to think of ways that I can somehow reverse my face, but until then I'm going to have to ask that you all try and reverse the polarity of your eyes by sellotaping magnets to your head at night.

Brace yourselves for the evidence. The top one is as nature (for whatever cruel reason) intended, the bottom is the mirror image. The brown things are a gibbon's legs. (Click for bigger. Plus I promise to shave tomorrow, honest).

On ears

You know that thing where you hear a song you've heard hundreds of time before, but you really properly hear it for the first time? That doesn't happen to me very often, but it happened today. And it happened with what is perhaps a strange song, but I'm perhaps a strange man. Anyway, it was The Vagabond by Air with Beck Hansen. This song is ten years old but during that decade it's seemingly been consolidating its power, waiting to creep up on me and say THIS IS ABOUT YOU, YOU KNOW.

I'm terrified as to what other songs I know are planning a similar move. I do listen to a lot of Velvet Underground, for one thing. But I'm also happy in a way, because The Vagabond is an ultimately optimistic song, which I think pretty well reflects my ultimately optimistic mood at present.

Golden waves

In all directions
I could lose my soul right here

Colour lights
On the runway
Makes a stranger feel unchained

I'm running after time and I miss the sunshine
Summer days will come happiness will be mine
I'm lost in my words I don't know where I'm going
I do my best I can not to worry about things

I feel loose
I feel haggard
Don't know what I'm looking for

Something true
Something lovely
That will make me feel alive

I'm running after time and I miss the sunshine
Summer days are not so far everything's gonna be fine

Wimblemund 2011, day 4

Angry time coming up. Do indulge me.

Serena Williams bt. Simone Halep 3-6, 6-2, 6-1

The Williams sisters' bold attempt to win Wimbledon but at a slower pace than usual continued out on (shock!) Court 2. Today's fresh meat was Romanian teenager Simone Halep, the only remaining player in the draw whose name sounded like a distressed Penelope Pitstop.

Halep did well to win the first set - every player who has encountered Serena since her comeback has managed to take at least a set - but then hit a wall familiar to newcomers and seasoned top-10 players alike when they encounter a Williams. Put simply, it looks like no-one believes that they can win, and even getting 50% of the way there on the scoreboard does nothing to change their perception. Serena prowled about like a caged lion at the back of the court, waiting to dismissively wallop every ball back to an increasingly cowed Halep, who even from a set ahead never looked like she had a chance. The length of the match, however, did allow me to develop a theory that I will be able to test once Laura Robson's match with Maria Sharapova begins on Court 1 - women who play tennis against each other for a sufficient amount of time have their grunts synchronise.

The impressive manner of her victory - Serena looks to be battling against herself and her physical limitations more than she is any opponent - was somewhat tarnished, however, by her stroppy outburst about how unfair it is that she and her sister's so often get pushed out into the sticks. Court 2? That's the one with the broken bottles and dog turds on it, right? The one that's downhill? The one with the lines marked out wonky? Landmines?

Come a long way since Compton, haven't we Serena? Growing up surrounded with poverty, violent gang culture, racial tension and drug dealers one day, complaining about playing on Court 2 at The All England Club the next. She's certainly achieved much in her career, and her and her sister's continued presence in the ladies' game really does so much to legitimise it. It's probably fair to say she is, by a distance, the greatest player of her generation.

A bit of humility doesn't always follow from such things, of course, but it would be nice. Considering that she herself has already said that she has been on her death bed in the past few months with a pulmonary embolism, one could also hope for a bit more wisdom or perspective. But I have personal experience of surviving a life-threatening situation and I found the old clichés to be largely incorrect. No external thing can really change the person you are. Such a thing has to come from within. This is a real shame in instances where you happen to be an ingrate.

Robin Soderling bt. Lleyton Hewitt 6-7(5), 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4

The fifth seed found his top form in the nick of time against perennial challenger Lleyton Hewitt under the roof on Centre. It was so nearly an early defeat. Hewitt is now a massive THIRTY years old and as such clearly completely past it, but he will still punish you if you ease up for more than a second at a time. Soderling showed his class, but most of all he showed a fighting spirit which could serve him well later in the tournament. In many ways, he out-Hewitted Hewitt.

This made me happy, as Lleyton Hewitt has always annoyed me. There's no great reason for this, he just sets me on edge. Every year I feel I should make a scrapbook of the people who knock him out of Grand Slams, with hearts and flowers drawn all around them. So, well done Robin.

Wimblemund 2011, day 3

Venus Williams bt. Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-7(6), 6-4, 8-6

For the first time ever play began with the Centre Court roof closed and it served up a terrific match. Venus Williams, a five times Wimbledon champion, is returning from a persistent hip injury whilst her Japanese opponent will be 41 in the autumn - a remarkable athletic achievement. Williams' power was complimented by Date-Krumm's precision and consistency and it went all the way to the wire. Venus will be glad to progress, as losing would have been akin to being knocked out of Wimbledon by Methuselah. However, she may want to reconsider her current - presumably self-designed - playing attire. It looks like two pillow cases sewn together by an inmate of an institution for the criminally insane. The last time I have seen anything like it, someone was climbing down one in a daring jail break.

Mathilde Johansson bt. Heather Watson 2-6, 6-4, 6-4

On the revamped Court 3, one of the major prospects of British tennis made her senior tournament debut. Watson, 19 last month and the 2009 US Open Junior champion, made nothing but a good impression but was unfortunate to sustain an elbow injury during the second set. With her arm heavily strapped from that moment onwards, she lacked the weapons to beat an opponent whom, had she stayed fit, I suspect she would have beaten easily. Unlike so many other British women players of the past, Watson looks like she could be the real deal. Watching her match was certainly marked by the absence of the familiar white-knuckle terror of the patriot during each and every backswing, especially as she bossed the opening set from the baseline.

She has said that she doesn't particularly feel the pressure, or let it get to her. Let's hope this continues. The BBC commentators were full of admiration for her attitude, blithely unaware, it seems, that it's precisely this type of two-hour long eulogistic commentary performance that leads to the pressure being ramped up in the first place. Complimenting her attitude, her game, her family and coaching teams, her fingernails and even her politeness when asking for the trainer... it got to be a little wearing. Hopefully it will continue to roll by her as if she's a pebble in a stream, because Watson and her fellow Brit Laura Robson (two years her junior and through to the second round this evening) look to be the most genuinely promising British female tennis players in over 30 years.

So, no pressure there, ladies.

Wimblemund 2011, day 2

Novak Djokovic bt. Jeremy Chardy 6-4, 6-1, 6-1

The world's most in-form player's easy win on Centre Court captured my imagination today, simply for the commentary by Barry Davies. Barry Davies is perhaps the most under-appreciated treasure that British sports broadcasting possesses. His speciality is the kind of sparing but incisive commentary that will be declared clinically deceased when Davies hangs up his microphone. Coverage of Djokovic's match was characterised by oceans of silence, with only the sound of the crowd and the match to add to the atmosphere. Imagine that! After the parade of gasbags who had inhabited the comms box for the previous two days (and umpteen years), you wondered if perhaps there was a technical hitch, or if there was something wrong with the telly.

I really can't praise commentators like Barry Davies enough. They (he, actually) alone understands that the medium of television will quite happily speak for itself for much of the time. The irony is that this new breed of commentators' stream-of-consciousness meanderings would be more at home on the radio, where almost none of them are old enough to ever have had to have plied their trade. Barry Davies, of course, has. Someone give the man a knighthood, or give all the rest of them a pacifier.

I will add, however, that Davies was very much aided by a similarly reserved and concise Tim Henman alongside him. Henman seems to be the only ex-pro brought in to provide expert analysis who has anything approaching Barry Davies' sensibility and understanding of the medium. Nice work, Tiger Tim.

Wimblemund 2011, day 1

More sport! And not just any old sport, Wimbledon! My favourite sporting event of them all, with all its tramlines and furry balls and that. Seeing as I've been blogging more regularly - mainly about my own introspective crises, but blogging is blogging - and that I tried to do this the other year, I suppose that my dusting off the old Wimblemund category had a grinding inevitability to it.

This year I'm aiming a little lower than any in-depth analysis. Rather, this will be a repository for my thoughts on some of the games I've seen. Hopefully by doing them here, rather than in 140-character increments on Twitter, I can avoid 470 people telling me to shut up. But if they want to, there's always the comments.

Francesca Schiavone bt. Jelena Dokic 6-4, 1-6, 6-3

The second match on Centre Court was packed with interest. The French Open finalist Schiavone, who could easily beat any number of goalkeepers in a Who Looks The Most Like An Italian Goalkeeper? contest is seeded 6th and was firm favourite over Jelena Dokic, a woman whose tumultuous private life rivals anything you've ever seen on EastEnders. But Dokic is a former top-4 player as well as a former Wimbledon semi-finalist. She's got the chops, in other words.

She also had the nips. Either her dress was very tight or it was unexpectedly cold. All in all, she cut a slightly unusual figure out on court. She is starting to resemble her own drawing should she ever be in The Simpsons. However, her touch on the biggest stage hadn't deserted her, and both players headed for the first of what looks likely to prove to be many rain breaks finely poised at 1-1 in the third set.

Returning to play out their match under the roof, the remainder proved a scintillating demonstration of what makes a top-10 player a top-10 player. Dokic had played well and was still giving as good as she got in every one out of 3 or 4 strokes. Dokic is a rather flighty-looking individual with a rather chequered history, and such unreliability makes her compelling to watch. When she approaches to volley a winner into an empty court, the safest place to stand probablistically is usually within the lines of the playing area itself. But for the TV viewer, knowing that the ball can't possibly hit them, it's rivetting. You can even have bets on it. Will she cane it high like it's a baseball or scuzz it low as if she's wielding a putter? Will she conk it off the frame of the racket into a pigeon? Will she even hit it at all? When she hits a winner, though, it's a timely reminder of what she could achieve if she could concentrate for minutes at a time. Schiavone battled through, then, but Dokic will definitely be missed.

Andy Murray bt. Daniel Gimeno-Traver 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0

The British tennis fan of this generation will never embrace Andrew Murray the same way as they did Tim Henman. Murray is suffused with this air of competence which is so un-British in a tennis pro. Even after he tipped his hat to the old master by losing the opening set under the Centre Court roof, it was still fairly clear that Murray would prevail. With Tim Henman, every single point was a triumph of collective will over individual frailty. Murray, meanwhile, looks like a player nailed on for every Grand Slam semi-final for the forseeable future. It's the odd set spread over the fortnight which is likely to be his undoing.

Still, it was an impressive start. Gimeno-Traver came out well and was good for his early lead. However, it was immediately clear after Murray broke his serve in the eighth game of the second set that he'd burnt himself out in the process. Murray barely gave the Spanish player a point for the remaining 14 games. It was as complete a rout as you're likely to see in this year's tournament.

If Andrew Murray manages to win Wimbledon this year - or any year - I will be delighted. But in the back of my mind will always be the thought of how much richer the experience could have been, to have seen Tim Henman's disbelieving, dog riding in a car, happy face had he ever been in the same situation.

On thrashings

Sport! Last night the spirited young UK golfist (and 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year - you heard it here first) Rory McIlroy won the US Open golf by 8 strokes from whoever else it was who was playing. Because sometimes someone is so completely dominant it doesn't matter.

I love a tense and close sporting tussle as much as anyone else, but sometimes it's just as restorative to watch a complete demolition. Here are my four favourite sporting masterclasses.

1. Rafael Nadal wins the 2008 French Open tennis

Rafael Nadal winning at Roland Garros is rapidly becoming a non-news story, but his win in the 2008 event was completely extraordinary. He reached the final without dropping a set before facing his biggest rival, world number 1 and potentially the greatest player of all time Roger Federer. Nadal won 6-1, 6-3, 6-0. It was the first time Federer had lost a set to love since he was a junior. A month later Nadal defeated Federer on the Swiss' own stomping ground at Wimbledon in the greatest tennis match the world has ever seen.

2. Steffi Graf wins the 1988 French Open tennis

There may well be something in the water in Paris (just ask Arnold Bennett), but Roland Garros produces more than its share of shocks and surprises. Steffi Graf winning a Grand Slam isn't a surprise, but the manner of her victory in the 1988 event was definitely a shock. Graf - the reigning champion - was a week shy of 19 years old while her opponent, the Soviet Union's Natalia Zvereva, was 17. Graf won 6-0, 6-0 in 32 minutes. Zvereva went on to be one of the game's greatest doubles players but never made another Grand Slam singles final. Graf went on to win all four Grand Slams plus the Olympic gold medal in 1988. Roland Garros 1988 was the third of an eventual haul of 22 Grand Slam titles.

3. Michael Schumacher wins the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix

A double-World Champion, Schumacher made a switch to Ferrari for the 1996 Formula 1 season. Ferrari proceeded to reward him with the 310, a car with all the racing pedigree of an ocean liner. In a streaming wet race in Barcelona, though, he drove it as though he was a nymph riding a gazelle. He almost stalled on the grid, leaving him 11th at the end of the first lap. By the end of the thirteenth he was in the lead, lapping 3 seconds faster than everyone else. It was Schumacher's first of an eventual 71 wins for Ferrari and perhaps the first true indication to the Formula 1 world that he was a class apart.

4. Usain Bolt wins the 2008 Olympic 100 metres final

Usain Bolt isn't quite like the other sprinters. He's a good 6 inches taller, for starters. But then there's also this air of complete invulnerability. We all knew he would win the sprints at the 2008 Olympic games - earlier in the year he'd lowered the 100 metres World Record to 9.72 seconds. In Beijing, though, the manner of his victory was still enough to be stunning. He made a poor start from the blocks, but by 50 metres was streaking ahead. By 90 he was winding down and celebrating his triumph, a clear 5, 10 metres ahead of the rest. He crossed the line to record a time of 9.69 seconds. Bolt went on to decimate the field in the 200 metres, breaking Michael Johnson's 12-year old world record of 19.32 by two-hundredths of a second in the process. He then lowered the marks again at the 2009 World Championships to 9.58 and 19.19 as the world looked on in a rather stunned silence.

On idiocy

After a long Friday of the soul (see that day's thrillingly oblique post for details), this weekend was much better. A fairly conventionally awesome evening of good food, better company and awful television. On the way home I arrived at Brighton Station too late to get the train and, with no other one for half an hour, a packed concourse and a nice day, I decided to go one stop down the line on foot.

Walking through Hove is something I always enjoy but it is fraught. It has layers upon layers of memories of all kinds for me. At the end of April this year, a perfect storm of sunny day, deep thoughts about the future and the blossom falling from the trees round the corner where I had started school twenty years previously - all soundtracked by Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes - nearly saw me bursting into tears in the middle of the street.

Today was less full of machismo than that high watermark, but it still made me stop and think. As I approached my old school once again, I decided to go to the station along the same route I'd taken on the way home from school so many times 15 years or so ago. Fortunately, this time the soundtrack was Sister Ray by The Velvet Underground, a song which lacks the emotional punch or lyrical resonances to my past, current or (maybe) future situation.

It's about a 10 minute walk between the school and Hove Station. After a few minutes you have to cross one of Hove's busiest roads, The Drive. 15 years previously we'd take reckless jaywalking across it as a badge of honour. What on earth - on EARTH - were we all thinking? That road, even on a lazy Sunday afternoon, is terrifying. To attempt to cross it without using the crossing - even just for old time's sake - would be to take your life in your hands.

Yet that's what I did and what my friends did, twice a day, five days a week, 200 days a year, for five years. 15 years later I'm a little older and wiser, plus I have some pretty stark personal experience of winding up incapacitated as a result of your own stupidity. When I watch people jaywalking now I often wonder if they've ever considered the unbelievable stress, misery and pain - physical and emotional - that getting seriously injured brings. Do they weigh it against the advantages of arriving wherever they're going literally seconds earlier?

One day on the way to school, one of us got hit by a car. It was inevitable, really, and the lad who copped it was always the boldest of us. Luckily for him it was fairly low speed, causing no damage to him or anyone else. It just knocked him over. We all found this uproariously amusing.

Children are idiots. We were idiots. I was an idiot. I think I'm probably still an idiot, but in different ways. And hopefully, I'm getting better.