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Groundstrokes w/Brad and Gabe (2014 Wimbledon)

Including the 2012 London Games, in which he won the gold medal, Andy Murray is
Including his gold-medal run at the 2012 London Olympic Games, defending Wimbledon champion Andy Murray is 19-1 in his last 20 competitive matches at the All England Club. (Getty Images/BBC Sport)

There may be four Grand Slams on the tennis calendar, but to a man/woman, Wimbledon is the tournament that all aspiring tennis professionals dream of winning.  The hallowed lawns at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club spring into life every June, and the fortnight almost always sees the emergence of a future champion, the confirmation of a tennis legend and, many times, shock defeats of champions past.  (There’s a reason the old No. 2 Court – which is now No. 3 Court – is nicknamed the Graveyard of Champions.)

Going into this year’s event, we know for sure that one defending champion won’t  double up on last year’s success: Marion Bartoli, last year’s winner of the Ladies’ Singles title, retired from the sport altogether just 40 days after her triumph at Wimbledon. While Serena Williams remains the world No. 1, questions about her reign at the top abound after her disappointing second-round exit at Roland Garros. On the men’s side, Andy Murray was able to break the 77-year hex on male Britons by winning Wimbledon last year, but does that mean the pressure is off the Scot this time around?

To answer a few burning questions surrounding Wimbledon, which gets started on Monday, tennis experts Gabe Gonzalez and Brad Wilber engage in a 20-shot rally of dialogue, going back and forth on how they think the tournament will play out over the next two weeks, and beyond.

How far will Andy Murray get in defense of his title?

BW: I’m thinking maybe an upset in the round of 16. There are some hungry guys ranked between 10 and 20, and if Murray draws a Grigor Dimitrov or a Kevin Anderson, it will be tough. I think Andy is happy to be fit after his back surgery in the fall, but I see some of that old self-directed petulance and victimhood creeping back into his on-court demeanor, now that he’s again without the kind of team captain willing to call him on it. I’ll root for him to go farther than my prediction, but I agree wholeheartedly with Mary Carillo’s critique of Andy during the French Open coverage: basically that compared to Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer, Murray (even at his best) seems to have less awareness of how his arsenal will bother his opponent – either opponents generally or a specific opponent on that day. Murray does seem to relish what he can do with the ball, and plays to patterns that suit him, but what pattern is really going to rack up the points?

(Ed. note: Brad’s worries before the draw about Andy Murray came to pinpoint fruition earlier today, with both Anderson, Murray’s potential Round of 16 opponent, and Dimitrov, Murray’s potential quarterfinal opponent, in Andy’s quarter.  Brad is psychic!)

GG: His early exit at the AEGON Championships (Queen’s Club to most of us) was not the best sign, but this is a transition year for him after the back surgery, so there will be stops and starts. I agree with you that some of Murray’s negative self-dialogue returned at the French in the match against Gael Monfils. Murray’s new coach, Amelie Mauresmo (once a Wimbledon champion in 2006), was never known for her mental toughness as a player, so I am not expecting a miracle from her in that department. Then again, she helped Marion Bartoli win Wimbledon. I was impressed by Murray in his match against Nadal in Rome, and there is no denying that he has the strongest legs in the business. Those legs are a symbol of a quality that both helps and hurts Murray — his brutishness (not to be confused with Britishness). If he could combine that with the knowledge of how to use his strengths and exploit his opponent’s weaknesses on a given day, as Brad was saying, he would be an even more dangerous player than he already is. All this is a long-winded way of saying that I think he is close enough to peaking that he will make either the semi-finals or finals, but I don’t think he will win. He has a strong record at Wimbledon since 2008 (QF, SF, SF, SF, F, W). I think he can maintain that level of success. I am feeling that Djokovic is due for a dominating Grand Slam, and this may be the one. Murray may need some help avoiding Nole in his half of the draw (which he didn’t), even though the seeding committee helped Andy a great deal by bumping him up to the No. 3 seed for this tournament.

So Djokovic is your pick for the men’s title? Who is a dark horse that could make a deep run?

With three titles under his belt and a quarterfinal appearance at the French Open this year, Grigor Dimitrov is on the cusp of tennis stardom. (Harry Engels/Getty Images Europe)
With three titles won and a quarterfinal appearance at the French Open this year, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov is on the cusp of tennis stardom. (Getty Images Europe)

BW: I agree with Gabe that Nole is due. He has the most pride on the line in terms of recent Grand Slam finals. Roger keeps relatively mum about how his back is doing, but he seems to be in a great head space and he’s not spraying the ball nearly so much with his new racket. Wimbledon rewards his variety more than any other venue. I’d love to see Kei Nishikori around in week two; I was in awe of what he was able to do in Barcelona and Madrid this year on clay. He has accuracy, power and court sense. He could be No. 1 if he can take a page from Djokovic’s book and go all Ironman on us. If Feliciano Lopez isn’t despondent after failing to convert a match point in the Queen’s Club final against Dimitrov, he will make some noise. There are many fans around the world who long to watch players play like he does – the ability to hit winners off the ground but also eagerness to use canny approach shots and deft volleys.

GG: Roger Federer shouldn’t be a dark horse, but the guard has changed. I agree with Brad that Roger’s game looks much better than last year and that Roger knows how to exploit Wimbledon. Having the No. 4 seed is huge, too, as he will not have to face Djokovic, Nadal, or Murray until the semifinal stage. Baby Federer (a.k.a. Dimitrov) had an impressive run to the title at Queen’s Club, so I’ll peg him to make a deep run, as well. The big question mark is Stan Wawrinka. He lost in the first round last year to former champion Lleyton Hewitt, and he has never advanced past the fourth round at Wimbledon. He has shown us that he can play as well as anyone, but, at age 29, he needs to start showing that level more consistently. He’s a fun player to watch (and to follow on Twitter), so I hope we see him in the second week.

Spare a thought for Juan Martín del Potro, who gave Djokovic such a brilliant tussle in last year’s semifinals but is now out long-term with another wrist injury.

BW: He will have to mount a second major comeback to get back to the top, after his tough climb in 2011. As we anticipate the “Federer vacuum,” I could see many Roger fans gravitating toward Delpo as their perceived gentle, unassuming champion. Delpo can bludgeon the ball like Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga but he seems more at home on big stages in big moments than they do. Hoisting the U.S. Open trophy, as he did in 2009, will do that for you. The bad wrist this time is in his non-racket, left hand, unlike 2010, but I don’t necessarily think that means rehab will be faster.

GG: I thought I had a new guy to champion, and then he turned out to be held together with Scotch tape. It’s hard not to enjoy watching him play – he’s graceful, he’s modest, he’s creative, he’s driven. I hope he makes another successful comeback. He’s 25, so, even if it takes some time, he could still reach the top tier again and maybe grab another Slam title. Perhaps he needs to become stronger, though. Pack some muscle on, Juan Martín. You and Aga Radwanska (whose Scotch tape seems to hold better) seem so frail.

So can we believe that Serena Williams’ major-less campaign so far is due to some sort of “burnout?”

BW: I think we have to; it’s the only thing that explains some of her losses this year. I still believe she can have almost any match all her own way if her circumstances are anywhere close to normal. A player might have a truly inspired day against her (see: Garbiñe Muguruza), but nobody is managing to find a weakness in her game and use that as a strategic building block from match to match. In many people’s minds Sharapova is next in line to the throne, and she has not beaten Serena in 10 years. Ten. Years. Remember when Chrissie went for two years without a win against Martina and it was all anybody could talk about? (The weird thing is that both pairs played about the same number of matches against each other in those one-sided streaks — the time frame is just vastly different.) Now I think commentators go out of their way not to dwell on Sharapova’s sheer futility against Serena. I hope Li Na can get some good karma this year – she got robbed of an ace up set point in the quarters last year and lost needlessly in three sets.

GG: Don’t get me started on that Li Na ace on set point against Radwanska, Brad! My kids are tired of my ranting about it. I would have gone ballistic if Radwanska had won the whole tournament, after that match. (Breathe!) Anyway, the topic was Serena, right? She is 32 years old, and she has been at this jetsetting game for a very long time. She seems bored to me in matches. It’s looking like work. She has all the tools to win every match, but so did Björn Borg when he retired. Serena is stuck in a trap – if someone else would just play more consistently and take over No. 1, Serena could retire in a way that made sense. But, because she is No. 1, it makes it harder to call it a day. Also, she is only one Grand Slam singles title away from joining Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert in the “18” club. (Sure, Margaret Court has more, but 11 of them were Australian Opens when no one played that tournament, and, sure, Steffi Graf has more, but, c’mon, she would not have won some of those if Monica Seles had not been the victim of a senseless stabbing.) Maybe the Williams sisters can go out in a blaze of glory – Serena wins the singles and she and Venus win the doubles, and then they retire together.

Do you think Simona Halep will be the next dominant Number One player in the women’s game?

World No. 3 Simona Halep has yet to get out of the second round at Wimbledon, but is poised to change that on this fortnight. (Reuters)
World No. 3 Simona Halep has yet to get out of the second round at Wimbledon in three previous tries, but is poised to change that fact on this fortnight. (Reuters)

GG: Can anyone dominate the women’s game anymore? Serena is hanging on, but she is the current titleholder at only one Grand Slam and has been inconsistent in both big and little tournaments. Simona Halep does seem to have that Martina Hingis-like ruthlessness that is needed to be No. 1, something that recent No. 2s Li Na, Aga Radwanska, Vera Zvonareva, and Petra Kvitova lacked. But, unlike the days of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, injuries now determine who gets to the top, and who stays there. Maria Sharapova has had remarkable comebacks from career-threatening injuries, but she always seems to be playing catch-up in the rankings after months off. Victoria Azarenka is another former No. 1 who has been diminished at her prime by injuries. Halep is a bit younger, so she may have a few years of good health to prove herself. If she maintains the consistency she has exhibited in the past 12 months, she will be No. 1 in the near future. But, I’d love to see a healthy Serena, Sharapova, and Azarenka battling Halep for the top spot.

BW: As recently as last year, Halep was just the woman who was Hoovering up all the small titles around the globe, without any convincing credentials in larger tournaments. But now she has those — she won the big Doha event this year and got to the finals of Madrid and Roland Garros. Picking up on Gabe’s point about killer instinct, I do think the most promising thing about her is her ability to take a match by the throat and close, close, close. She’s recording the kind of scorelines we used to see from Graf and Seles. Halep win lots of matches comfortably, and even when she doesn’t she can weather the storm without a lot of overwrought jawing to her box in the stands. Maybe if she becomes the player everybody wants to be (including no stroke-by-stroke screaming!), they will rescind on-court coaching. What an insulting double-standard, even more so than unequal prize money – women can’t summon the emotional stability or problem-solving skills to get through a match on their own, so we’ll bring a counselor out.

Next year, there will be extra tournaments between the French and Wimbledon—a three week gap between those majors instead of two. How will that change the complexion of the tournament at SW19?

BW: The top players simply want rest, I think. We now have three French Open precursors (Monte Carlo, Madrid, and Rome) that are Masters 1000 “mandatory” events for the men, so the two months on clay is that much more draining. The midlevel players, who can’t even get into those tournaments because the fields are so gaudy, just want more chances to play and earn money and ranking points. I don’t really think it’s about tactics and adjusting between surfaces anymore, as it would have been if the change had been made in the 1970s. The courts at Wimbledon are now seeded with 100% perennial rye, which stays drier and yields a higher bounce, so unless other venues follow suit, players are not replicating the Wimbledon experience by playing Birmingham or Halle. And with the Wimbledon courts slower, I don’t think players fear as many surprises from potential opponents. People are going to play the same way they have all season – not exploit the grass or reinvent themselves as demon net-rushers. The top women patently ignore the warmup events now – Eastbourne used to attract all the major contenders and be a feather in the cap of Evert or Navratilova or Tracy Austin. In the future, players may be more rested and more secure in their footing on the grass, but we won’t see other differences.

GG: I seem to recall reading something about a new grass tournament in the works in Mallorca, of all places. It’s going to be a WTA tournament, but, maybe, it will go co-ed (like Eastbourne has), and Rafa will get to play at home. Or, maybe, with that extra week of rest, Ivan Lendl will come out of retirement and go for his maiden Wimbledon win!! Joking aside, the main benefactors of the extra week in between the French and Wimbledon will be those players who went deep in Paris. The French Open is a challenging tournament, physically and mentally, and someone like Rafa or Andy Murray would greatly benefit from an extra week of rest.

Will Wimbledon ever switch to final-set tiebreaks?

BW: Gabe and I are both pretty old-school fans, but I’ve come around to the idea that we now need these tiebreaks in the final set. The wear-and-tear of the game is much greater. Nowadays on tour you’re seeing both male and female players have a grueling win in an early round, and then be unable to finish a match the next day, or even take the court. If not that, often they are a shadow of themselves for the next match, or they withdraw from the next tournament. People are struggling to build on their successes. I think the elite men often trust that they can avert most Grand Slam upsets by sheer endurance. The rank-and-file have many fewer opportunities to play best-of-five sets now than they did 15 or 20 years ago, when weekly tour-level finals were best-of-five, so the ebbs and flows of a match that long seem alien to them. A final-set tiebreak would give players the freedom to put forth maximum effort more consistently in a match, because they know about when it will end, even if it goes the distance. The men would not play as many indifferent return games as they do now, and the women would concentrate more on holding serve.

GG: Brad is so right on this. I am tired of players being so spent that they cannot perform in the next match or next tournament. A tie-breaker is usually more thrilling than a “hold serve forever” marathon (sorry, John Isner). But, I propose a deal, Wimbledon: we’ll agree to a final-set tiebreaker if you convince the other Slams to do away with the final-set super tiebreak (no third set, just play until one team gets to 10 points and leads by at least two points) in the mixed doubles. Interestingly, Roger Federer won the Gerry Weber Open, a grass-court warmup tournament in Halle, Germany, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3) in the final against Alejandro Falla, and Grigor Dimitrov won the AEGON Championships by a score of 6-7 (8), 7-6 (1), 7-6 (6) over Feliciano Lopez.

Has the retractable roof over Centre Court changed the tournament for the better or for the worse?

GG: I don’t like the roof. I don’t see that it’s made the tournament any better than it was for years and years. If anything, it’s added an element of unfairness. The conditions are not the same for everyone in the tournament, and those who are regularly scheduled to play on Centre Court could potentially be playing an indoor tournament for a chunk of the fortnight. Grass is an outdoor surface, and the tournament should be played in the outdoors.

BW: If they have a day early in the tournament that’s washed out, the ability to stage four or five matches on Centre Court is not very meaningful in terms of the entire schedule. It seems all about preserving a day of play for the highest-paying ticket holders. I wonder if they would ever restrict themselves to using the roof in the second week, when allowing the Centre Court schedule to march on would have an impact on whether a player has to give up a rest day in-between two huge matches. But now that they’ve shelled out for it, they’ve got to use it, I suppose. The humidity generated by closing the roof makes the balls and the Centre Court play even slower than we’ve already mentioned, so the matches lose even more fizz.

[About the authors: Western New Yorker Brad Wilber is a college librarian and crossword puzzle editor for the Chronicle of Higher Education. His tennis fandom began when he sat down in front of the TV for Super Saturday at the 1984 U.S. Open. For many years he has been a major statistical contributor to www.chrisevert.net. Gabe Gonzalez is a DC-area lawyer, whose love of tennis began as a teenager while growing up in Miami. He misses the ’80s because, not only was the music better, but he could play tennis after school every day. He considers Martina Navratilova the greatest tennis player of all time.]


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