Wimbledon 2013: A memorable and entertaining affair

After 10 days of gripping, high quality tennis, we have our Wimbledon semifinalists. While two of the men’s “big four” have managed to progress to the semis, in the women’s draw, none of the semifinalists are former champions, making this a first-of-a-kind in the Open Era. Now with the focus on these semifinalists, let’s take a look at the other unfortunate (or less talented) players, who couldn’t progress to the end of the fortnight.

First, let’s take a look at the men’s draw. It is obvious that the two big names missing are defending champion Roger Federer and former two time champion Rafael Nadal. Both had surprisingly early defeats, getting knocked out by unseeded players in the 2nd and 1st round respectively.

While Nadal was nowhere near his best against Darcis, Federer was outplayed by some tremendous display of serve and volley by Stakhovsky. Many of the seeded players, including Federer, fell victim to the “Black Wednesday”. While some withdrew due to injury (like Marlin Cilic and John Isner), others just fell to some good tennis. Another victim was Jo-Wilfried Tsonga,who had a terrible fall and hence, had to withdraw from his 2nd round match.

After “Black Wednesday”, things began getting back to normal. Though the likes of Murray and Djokovic cruised through, many others were given some tough competition. Unseeded players like Lukasz Kubot and Fernando Verdasco had dream runs, making it to the quarter-finals.

Some other unseeded players who made it into the second week of Wimbledon were the old-horse Jurgen Melzer, the unheard-of Adrian Mannarino and another Frenchman, Kenny De Schepper. The claycourt specialist David Ferrer had a decent run up to the quarterfinals, falling to an impressive del Potro.

Some young players did manage to make an impression. The troubled Aussie, Bernard Tomic, made it deep into the tournament, managing to reach up to the 4th round and giving Tomas Berdych a run for his money there. On the other hand, Jerzy Janowicz is having a dream run, having made it to the semis. The highly rated Grigor Dimitrov, however, disappointed as he fell in the second round itself.

The men’s draw was quite interesting, with major names falling early and names unheard of making it deep into the tournament. The semifinals will be quite interesting, indeed.

Now when we look into the semifinalists of the women’s draw. The big surprise is that no former champion is among the last four. While Azarenka and Sharapova were victims of injury (the latter did finish her match, but lost to some good tennis display by Michelle Larcher de Brito), Serena Williams fell to Sabine Lisicki, who is in the form of her life.

Like in the men’s draw, some of the other seeds fell to some good display of tennis by the unseeded players. And even among women, the youth managed to impress. Sloane Stephens continues to make a good impression in her young career. The young Brit Laura Robson was clearly the find of the tournament, entertaining the crowd with some amazing tennis display.

This year’s Wimbledon has been thoroughly entertaining. Though only four players still remain, the other 124 did give us some memorable moments.