Wimbledon 2013: Talking points from Day 11

Novak Djokovic pumped up during his epic semi-final encounter against Juan Martin Del Potro

Djokovic prevails in outstanding contest

I told you it would be a classic didn’t I! In the best match at Wimbledon for over four years, Juan Martin Del Potro and Novak Djkovic produced an astonishing display of power, retrieval, guts and determination in a near five hour epic.

All the concerns surrounding Del Potro’s knee vanished into the warm air as he chased down ball after ball of Djokovic’s deep baseline strokes until he eventually cracked at 6-5, when Djokovic’s brilliant defence earned him the first set. Del Potro refused to wilt and after some incredible power shots that saw the world number one scrambling all over the dead grass at the back of the court, Del Potro broke to love and served it out for parity.

For two more sets, momentum shifted time and time again with each player looking like they had the match by the horns before the other wrestled it away. Come the fourth set tie-break, the play reached out-of-this-world levels that hadn’t been seen on Centre Court since Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer in 2008. What is it about fourth set tie-breaks and Wimbledon? Del Potro produced four of the best points of his career to snatch control away from Djokovic and take the match into a deciding set.

Despite the breathless crowd’s best efforts, the big Argentine finally ran out of gas at the end of the fifth set and surrendered his serve at the most crucial of times. He tried his best to recover, earning a break point on Djokovic’s serve but the Serb has seen this so many times and held on long enough to wrap up the match with a gorgeous backhand down the line winner.

What’s scary is that this was the best match Del Potro has played since he won the US Open in 2009 and Djokovic was still able to overcome the rockets, the Argentine was sending down to him. There is little doubt that Djokovic is playing the best grass court tennis of his life right now. Some of the returns he managed to get back into court were mind-blowing and you would have thought he was playing on a clay court the way he effortlessly slid across the brown turf.

But he still saw himself tighten up at some stages and his normally steadfast line backhand was wayward throughout the afternoon. But still this was an almighty display from a man, who knows he is top dog and from someone who will now have added belief that even the best tennis of one of the most dangerous players on tour wasn’t enough to beat him.

Back to normal for Murray

Although it wasn’t always plain sailing for Andy Murray tonight, let’s look at the straight facts. Jerzy Janowicz is a massive server and if you don’t break him in the first 12 games of a set, the lottery of a tie-break always means you are in danger of losing that set. Murray would have been disappointed with how he lost two of those points but it probably still wouldn’t have been enough to stop the growling Pole taking the opening gambit. So losing one set against a massive server isn’t a huge surprise.

The way Murray fought back in the face of Janowicz’s confrontational attitude was as predictable as it was gripping. Eventually, he found a way through that massive serve in the second set and although the Pole was still alive in the third there was a sense that Murray was just having his traditional start of the third set blip.

Janowicz didn’t do himself any favours though with over enthusiastic fist pump after breaking Murray in game four. One thing you do not do in front of a British crowd is make yourself look arrogant. The 15,000 in attendance were suddenly whipped into a frenzy and gave Murray the push he needed. After a 30 minute break for the roof to close, Murray kept on the attack and eventually broke the Pole’s heart and reached his second consecutive Wimbledon final.

He’ll have to improve against Djokovic if he wants to finally end Britain’s tennis pain, but I think he’d rather play his long time friend/rival than Del Potro. They are both so similar that it will simply come down to who is the better player on the day. As Del Potro showed he can hit you with so much power you can get overwhelmed and as good as Murray is at defence, he wouldn’t have got half those balls back that Djokovic managed. It’s the final we’ve all been waiting for since the start of the tournament and we’ve got it. Bring on Sunday!

Andy Murray celebrates his semi-final win

Roofgate!

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the decision to close the roof before the start of the fourth set between Murray and Janowicz due to bad light. Murray was furious saying that the court was good to play for another 35 minutes at least. And considering the fourth set took exactly 35 minutes – and probably would have been shorter seeing as how Janowicz had imploded – to finish, the Scot does have a point. Certainly the British pundits and fans on Twitter were generally disgusted by the decision. After all, our man was winning and winning well at that point.

But I think that a little patriotic bias crept into the minds of everyone watching. Personally I think it’s a lot fairer to have a full set played with the same conditions then one where conditions change half way through. What would have happened if somebody broke serve and then had to go off for bad light? What if it was 4-3 and then the players were called off for bad light just as they prepare for the final push to win the set.

Momentum swings so much in tennis that it’s better to start reasonably afresh at the start of a set rather than in the middle. It was a judgement call by the tournament referee that on this occasion didn’t benefit the home town favourite and that shouldn’t be the wrong thing to do. In the end, there was no harm done for Murray and the home crowd but it has raised a new talking point about the roof to discuss.