Official Wimbledon Site | Men’s Draw | Ladies’ Draw |
Wow! John McEnroe opined that the 2008 Wimbledon men’s final was the best match he’d ever seen. At 4 hours and 48 minutes it was certainly the longest (the previous record was the 1982 Connors v. McEnroe final at 4 hours, 16 minutes). I loved it, stomach twisting and turning all the way.

In the end Rafael Nadal won the a gut-wrenching five set  6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 match that spanned two rain delays and threatened to go into Monday. Nadal had two championship points in the 3rd and 4th sets that Roger Federer managed to stave off. But Nadal was just too good. As hard as it is for me to say it, Nadal deserved that win. Point for point he chased down everything Federer threw at him.

(Nadal collapses after his hard-fought win)

    
(Nadal hugs trophy - Federer contemplates defeat)

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Tags: federer, grand slam, murray, nadal, v williams, wimbledon, wimbledon 2008

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Ah …. Finally …. Wimbledon in HD!

I’m happy to report that NBC lived up to its promise to provide high def coverage of Wimbledon for the first time this weekend. And, surprisingly, they’ll be broadcasting all of the second week at Wimbledon in HD too.

With the U.S. Feb 17, 2009 digital cut over deadline looming, my bet is that the 2009 Australian Open will be carried in HD too, making all four grand slams available in HD in North America for the first time.

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Tags: ESPN2, HD, NBC, wimbledon

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Official Wimbledon Site | Men’s Draw | Ladies’ Draw |
The first week of a grand slam usually offers terrific tennis. This week was no exception. There were some major upsets and terrific matches.  See my “Wimbledon 2008 Begins” post for my Monday observations.

There was a touching moment (depicted in the picture above - click for larger view) this week when Richard Williams went over and shook the hand of Mr. Keothavong after Richard’s daughter Venus beat his daughter Anne 7-6, 6-2 in the 2nd round. Mr. Keothavong was clearly impressed.

Tuesday - Davenport Injury

It was difficult to watch my all-time favourite woman’s player, Davenport’s,  struggle with an ‘aggravated’ knee (an MRI after the match revealed inflammation behind the knee cap - not a permanent injury). Davenport’s career is near and end. It was sad to see her bow out on Thursday. But in an interview on Thursday she said she’ll be ready for the Beijing Olympics in a few weeks.

Wednesday’s Matches

Two of Wednesday’s matches are prime examples of why watching early round grand slam matches can be so fulfilling:

• Nathalie Dechy and Ana Ivanovic played three nail-biting sets. As much as I like Ivanovic I was cheering for Dechy all the way. What terrific play. But for an Ivanovic shot that barely dribbled over the net on match point in the 2nd, 97th ranked Dechy would have won the match against the current world’s number 1.  Below Ana is kissing the part of the net where the ball hit the net chord.

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Tags: blake, davenport, dechy, djokovic, grand slam, ivanovic, jie, kudryavtseva, roddick, safin, safina, sharapova, tipsarevic, wimbledon, wimbledon 2008

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Official Wimbledon Site | Wimbledon Live | Men’s Draw | Ladies’ Draw |  

With the exception of Nalbandian (7), all the major seeds advanced to the second round including: Federer (1), Djokovic (3), Hewitt (20), Safin, Gonzalez (15), Baghdatis (10), Ivanovic (1), Kuznetsova (4),  S. Williams (6) and Mauresmo (20).

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we’ll see the first round matches of: Nadal (2), Davydenko (4), Roddick (6), Blake (9), Murray (12), Fish, Tipsarevic, Jankovic (2),  Sharapova (3), Dementieva (5), V. Williams (7), Safina (9) and, my favourite, Davenport (25).

The Canadians

Canadian Frank Dancevic made it through to the second round. Stephanie Dubois lost in the first. Aleksandra Wozniak plays her first match tomorrow.

Can Roger Win It?

Ever since Nadal wiped the floor with Federer in the French, the press has been a-buzz with talk about whether Roger can win Wimbledon again.  I say, of course he can. He’s won 5 straight Wimbledons. Why not another? Every great player goes through lean times. He had no problem knocking out his buddy Hrbaty in straight sets today. My money is still on Federer to take a 6th straight victory.

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Tags: canadians, challenge rule change, espn 2, federer, grand slam, HD, new scoring system, retractable roof, roddick, wimbledon

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Wimbledon 2008 starts this Monday June 23 and runs to July 6.  I just discovered (ironically through an adsense ad on The Daleisphere) that Wimbledon provides a two week ‘Wimbledon Live‘ service where, for a flat fee of $24.99 (approx.  £12.65) you can stream live matches to your PC or download up to 250 matches in .wmv format after the match is complete.

2008 matches will be available until May 1, 2009. Day passes are will be available but so far I have not found pricing details.

As usual, my TiVos are queued to record as many matches as TSN and NBC air. But, all too often,  matches that I want to watch are not broadcast. Or, too frequently, certain channels have exclusive rights to particular high profile matches with the result that they are not shown on the channels that my cable provider, Rogers, makes available to me!

Formats and Quality

All video is in 384 x 288 format with a 4:3 aspect ratio.  I took a quick look at the free streaming demo of the 2005 Federer vs. Roddick Wimbledon Final.  The quality wasn’t great (see pic above) but it wasn’t bad either. Because the service works with Windows Media Player only, the service is not available to Apple users and, presumably, not available through AppleTV.

Note: In addition to the free streaming demo, I tried downloading the free downloadable version but it would not play without my having to first sign up and give them my credit card. This kind-of defeats the “free” part of the ‘Download (FREE)’ offer :).

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Tags: streaming, wimbledon, wimbledon live

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