Immediately after Roger Federer won his record-setting 15th grand slam title at Wimbledon 2009, this amusing Nike commercial ran congratulating him. It features John McEnroe, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan, Pete Sampras, and Tiger Woods.

Sorry for the TiVo bloops at the beginning. This is my second YouTube video. I don’t know how to edit videos yet.

Can someone point me to a free video editor that is easy to use and works with Windows 7?

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

After winning his 15th grand-slam at Wimbledon 2009, Federer slipped into this designer cardigan with the number 15 on the lower right back side.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

You know you are a super rich tennis star when your cellophane tennis racket bags bear your personalized logo!

The announcers were as surprised as I was when Federer reached for a replacement tennis racket during the Wimbledon 2009 final.

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

In another terrific Wimbledon final, Roger Federer defeated the terrific Andy Roddick (7-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-3, 14-16) making him the undisputed best tennis player of all time. With 15 slam titles he passed Pete Sampras’ 14 and stands alone. With his French Open victory a few weeks ago, he has won all four grand slams. 

(click images for larger views)

See also: Brooklyn Decker Cheers for Andy Roddick at Wimbledon 2009

Sampras travelled to London (his first time back since winning in 2002) to attend the final match where his record 14 grand slam title record was  surpassed. It’s too bad they didn’t have Pete hand the trophy to Roger.

Nobody could be certain that Roger would win, however. Following on from a fantastic semi-final win over Andy Murray, Andy Roddick played a beautiful final match – perhaps the best of his career.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

(click for larger view)

Sorry, folks, but these are the best shots I could get of Federer’s tennis shoes during Wimbledon 2009. The camera never went up close in any of the matches I watched.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

Since my post about Brooklyn Decker being engaged to Andy Roddick drew such a huge number of visitors to The Daleisphere, I snapped these pictures of Brooklyn cheering her new husband, Andy Roddick, on at Wimbledon 2009.

As always, click the images for larger views.

Brooklyn During Semi Final Against Andy Murray

Andy Relieved After Tough Set in Andy Murray Semi Final

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

On Monday June 29, 2009, during a fourth-round match between Amelie Mauresmo and Dinara Safina, at 6-4, 1-4. the new Wimbledon Centre Court roof was closed for the first time during a match. (Safina won) The subsequent match between Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka was the first full Wimbledon match to be played under the new roof (Murray won).

The video above was shot by me off broadcast TV while I watched the match.

Click the roof-closing images below for larger views.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

Last year (see my 2008 post), both live and downloadable versions of most Wimbledon matches were available to all over the Internet through the Wimbledon Live service for a flat fee of $24.99.

Unfortunately, Wimbledon’s 2009 licensing regime makes it so that honest viewers from many countries, including Canada and the U.S. (see complete list below) can no longer access the service for any fee.

Amercian’s can watch online through NBCSports or ESPN360.com. Unfortunately NBCSports must be using the same proxy-shield blocking technology as hulu because Hotspot Shield users can’t access the site outside of the U.S.

Below, I include links to several bootleg services offering 2009 Wimbledon matches live streamed. Some are fantastic. Some less so. When I clicked around I could usually find the match I wanted to watch in English.

Of course, these only work when Wimbledon matches are underway. To schedule your viewing, the play schedule is here.

Channelsurfing.net

As far as I know there is no legal way for me to watch streamed Wimbledon matches in Canada. Fortunately there is at least one bootleg service available where Canadians, and anyone else, can view live matches – Channelsurfing.net.

Once on Channelsurfing.net scroll down to the Wimbledon logos and click on one of the several available streams – available in different languages. As I’m watching now (June 24, 2009 at 3:00 pm Eastern) there are 7 available live streams. I am watching the ESPN stream on both my iMac and PC and both are working fine.  [Update: The ESPN stream cut out midway through a Roddick match and hasn’t returned as 11:30.am Eastern June 25]

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

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)

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

Since I wrote about Rafael Nadal’s designer tennis shoes at the 2008 French Open, it is only fitting to post pictures the designer shoes worn by Federer at Wimbledon 2008.

As you can see, he wear’s custom Nike, Zoom Air, Fit Frame tennis shoes. On the left heal, his RF trademark is displayed. On the right heal, the Wimbledon gold trophy is emblazoned with the number 5 – signifying his 5 prior Wimbledon singles championships.

[June 6, 2008 Update: Having lost to Nadal in the finals, it appears that the insignia on the right heal won't be changing any time soon ]

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

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.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

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.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

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.

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments 

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 .

CONTINUE READING →

Digg Del.icio.us Comments