Off The Net: Djokovic grass blades of glory, Federer drought

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  • Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams clinched men's and women's titles at Wimbledon.

    As the sun set on the final day of this year’s Wimbledon, Off The Net jovially raised a glass to the moments and matches that gripped and re-gripped more often than Richard Gasquet and his remarkable racket maintenance.

    For the first two sets of the Men’s Wimbledon Final Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer went tightly toe to toe like a world class salsa dance pairing. Eventually the Wimbledon waltz unravelled as Federer’s classy choreography finally broke down, whilst Djokovic barley missed a step.

    Grass Blades Of Glory

    And the Serbian’s step is quite the marvel. Both his rocket-fueled baseline blitzers and cotton wool soft drop shots were masterminded by his rubber-legged fleet of foot. Throughout the game and indeed the tournament, the World No.1 put in sequences of movement that would have won him the Olympic Gymnastics Gold — consistently showcasing splits, spins, skidding and triple salchows to get the ball back again and again…and again. Audacious athleticism and flexibility that truly knew no bounds. Whilst others head to the locksmith when they get locked out of their house, Djokovic simply folds himself up and posts himself back into the building.  

    This part of his competitive arsenal has been famously fuelled by an almost pathological commitment to sound sports nutrition. Until now, Djokovic has been reluctant to go into detail about the secret diet, but his celebration after sealing victory finally revealed what he has been eating all this time — luscious Wimbledon grass blades. Yes, the dusty patches on the baselines are not caused by erosion from scampering trainers, but Novak ‘The Human Lawnmower’ Djokovic grazing through the night on the pure tennis nutrition of Centre Court grass. Never has Wimbledon glory tasted so sweet.

    Federer Form Causes Superlative Drought

    Whilst Federer came up short in the final, he certainly played some of his very best tennis throughout the two weeks. Before he met Djokovic he had only lost his serve once and he hit the lines relentlessly against Andy Murray, kicking up so many white plumes of chalk that flights to London were forced to divert to Manchester.

    With jaw-dropping form like that, the demand for fancy words to describe the brilliance of Federer this year reached unprecedented levels. It caused the world’s leading wordsmiths to work overtime shifts to churn out enough new superlatives for increasingly desperate sports journalists to use.  The epidemic had got so bad that even halfway through the tournament the man himself has run out of phrases, falling back on an avalanche of emoticons:

    Incidentally, our favourite Federer highlight has to be his ‘hot dog’ lob against Sam Querrey in the second round match.  It was a fine illustration of what a  and player Federer is. 

    Serena’s Supreme Silver Lining

    Serena William’s trophy counting abacus must be smoking with steam. By winning in SW19 she has now won a total of six Wimbledon crowns, 21 Grand Slam trophies and 68 titles in full. If she continues to win titles at this rate silver metal mines will be completely empty by the time Serena is 36. Buy your wedding rings whilst you still can. At least the supreme Serena is trying to create a more even playing field by offering to compete in the forthcoming US Open whilst balancing the Venus Rosewater trophy on her head. Ever the competitor, practice has begun already:

    It was a great shame that her road to victory here was not graced by a firecracker of a match against World No.2 Maria Sharapova.  However, expecting the ‘rivalry’ to catch light was more misguided than a Eugenie Bouchard forehand. Including this year’s semi-final, Sharapova has been beaten 17 times in a row by Williams — a losing streak running back to the year she stopped Serena in the 2004 Wimbledon final. That is quite the response from Williams — a sweeping and relentless revenge of Kill Bill proportions. 

    Gripping Gasquet

    Men’s Semi-finalist Richard Gasquet was amazing to watch in the match coined  ‘The Battle of the Backhanders’ — not a cinematic tale of FIFA’s backroom deals Off The Net should add, but an almighty clash with fellow backhand specialist Stanimal Wawrinka. Top-drawer five set thriller aside, it was the Frenchman’s activity at the change of ends that really caught the eye. At nearly every break of play Gasquet transformed Wimbledon from one of the greatest sports events in the world to an intimate Arts and Crafts workshop — all courtesy of his relentless habit of wrapping a fresh grip on his racket. 17 seconds of hypnotic millimetre-perfect precision. Imagine what his Christmas presents look like. He could only have impressed us more had he used his God-given gripping talent to cover the gargantuan gob of Nick Krygios.

    Krygios – the genetic fusion of Mario Balotelli, John McEnroe and an irritable little sibling on a very long family road trip in a hot car — is an unbelievable talent but his tongue looks set to keep him buried outside the top 10 for eternity.

    Along with sock-gate, racket-smash gate, tanking-gate, swearing-gate, swaggering-gait-gate, the Australian had more gates in his fourth round match than the entirety of mansion residences in Beverley Hills. 

    Dreddy To Rumble

    Dustin Brown proved that you don’t have to be madder than a bag full of flamboyant ferrets to be considered ‘a character of the game’. Qualifier Brown completely reinvented tennis year – unscrewing the lid off the sport and totally rewiring it all for the watching world’s entertainment. A case in point was his signature shot of returning 100mph serves with a backhand slice drop shot.  This fantastical wave of the wand, dispatched amidst flailing medusa-like dreadlocks, turned Rafa Nadal’s game to stone. 

    Brown even hit one of them so sweetly against Viktor Ttroicki that he achieved the fabled ‘boomerang’— successfully looping the ball over the net before it violently spun back on to Brown’s side of the court. Our shot of the tournament. Hitting a shot so good that your opponent can’t knock it back without trespassing into your own service box is impossibly brilliant, an aberration of all known rules of physics. We’ve still got whiplash from shaking our head in disbelief. For as long as Brown plays on the greatest stage, a surplus of superlatives will always be on hand to decorate an evergreen Roger Federer and an ever-wondrous Wimbledon.

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