by I spoke to my parents again this morning. Dad is improving day by day. Mum looked pretty zonked after staying up to watch the tennis.
Wimbledon. We’re less than half-way through the tournament, but 208 of the 254 singles matches are already done and dusted. And it will all be back on the telly in a matter of minutes. The headlines in the last three days have all been about Kyrgios and Gauff. Kyrgios is really a fantastic player, with far more finesse than I gave him credit for, and Nadal had to be on the top of his game to eke out a super-tight four-setter. All his tweeners, underarm serves and no-look volleys make him so much fun to watch. But all that magnificent madness is still possible without being a complete arse, which Kyrgios unfortunately is. Mum suggested there’s something toxic about Australian culture that produces Kyrgioses and Tomics – she said she could see it in the eleven-year-old boys she taught in Cairns in 2000.
Cori (or Coco) Gauff is the real deal. Yes, she got sucked in to playing her opponents’ game last night – all those cat-and-mouse rallies involving slice backhands – and was lucky to survive. But heck, she’s 15. People are now expecting top-level performances from her every time she steps on the court. And that was one hell of a dramatic match.
We haven’t had a 12-12 “emergency” tie-break yet. Not in qualifying (though we came very close) and not in any of the many draws either. Most of the so-called serve-bots have now thankfully departed, so maybe we’ll be spared one in the men’s singles, but I still think the men’s doubles is ripe for one.
Something appeared to be iffy with the Hawk-Eye in Wozniacki’s defeat to the very impressive Zhang Shuai. After losing the first four games, Zhang quickly entered “the zone”, and I’m sure she would have won anyway, but that’s hardly the point. Neither does the argument that it’s the same for both players hold water. If Hawk-Eye is giving erroneous output, it’s worse than useless.
