TENNIS: Queen’s, Eastbourne and Wimbledon

[feather_ghyll]

I haven’t written about the end of the Queen’s championship. There isn’t much to say, I watched the semis on the Saturday, but after a week of fine weather, rain delayed the more interesting semi-final, as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t watch the tennis on Sunday, although some argued that finishing off the semi on the same day as the final helped Murray. As a four-time winner, he joins some illustrious names. What struck me about those names was that they’d all been no. 1 in the world. I wonder if that is an ambition of Murray’s or if he’s not looking further than grand slam wins. Djokovic is way ahead on points though. Still, with Murray’s win at Queen’s and Federer’s at Halle, they’ve earned being mentioned as favourites alongside the world no. 1 at Wimbledon.

Then on Friday, I realised Eastbourne was being shown on the Beeb, watched the very end of Radwanska seeing off Stephens, settled down for the second semi-final, only to see that Wozniacki was out of sorts and so pulled out, leaving Bencic to go through to the final after three games. Bencic looks a bit like Monica Seles to me.

I was hoping to watch the final of youth versus a wily, experienced player, and I wasn’t strongly supporting anyone going in, but I only saw bits of the first and second sets as it turned out. However, the result for Bencic is encouraging. Williams is the favourite for the women’s side. I’d love to see her versus ‘good Petra’ in the final, but I wouldn’t be surprised if neither make it.