July 6, 2007

The final weekend at Wimbledon is here. On both the men’s and women’s sides of the brackets, there are surprises. First, take the women’s final which features Venus Williams versus Marion Bartoli. Coming into Wimbledon, Venus was a sleeper pick to reach the final. Having not played much this in 2007, her ranking has dropped to #31. But Venus is a different woman once she steps onto the grass of Wimbledon. After fending off match points in her first and third round matches, Venus caught fire against Maria Sharapova. She turned in a near flawless performance as she won 6-1, 6-3. Williams then went on to defeat Svetlana Kuznetsova and Ana Ivanovic to earn her place in Saturday’s final.

Her opponent, Bartoli, is even more of a surprise. Bartoli, who is ranked #19th in the world, earned her spot by defeating #1 seed Justine Henin. Even more impressive is the fact that Bartoli lost the first 6-1 and was down 4-3 in the second. Bartoli then rebounded, won the second set, and pulled away to win 6-1 in the third set.

On the men’s side, the final four has more household names. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic, seeded #1, 2 and 4th respectively, all have made the semifinals. The surprise comes from the fact that the 3rd seed, Andy Roddick, isn’t there. Roddick lost in five sets to Richard Gasquet. Even more surprising was that Roddick lost the match after being ahead by two sets. Add that to the fact that Roddick lost two straight tiebreaks after winning 18 straight tiebreaks, and you can see why Roddick was at a loss for words in his post-match press conference. Gasquet gets a great gift as he gets to face Federer in one semifinal while Nadal and Djorkic face off in the other.

So after several washouts, the final weekend has the possibility of providing some magic. Federer can match Bjorn Borg’s record of five straight Wimbledon championships, while Venus Williams can win her 4th championship. The win will be her first since 2005, when she also was ranked in the teens. Watching these two events is reason enough for me to tune in. What about you?