Halfway There

Well, getting up at 6:30 AM and not watching or listening to any tennis certainly wasn't in my day's plan, but I ended getting a lot of cleaning and packing done, and also took in a lot of reading and poking around the web. Not a bad morning at all.

What a first week we've had at Wimbledon. Some champions have risen to the occasion, while others have exposed gaping holes in their tennis armor that we didn't really know exist. Overall, it was a week of quality tennis. Lots of three set matches on the women's side (40) and five setters on the men's (17).

Fellow blogger and the much more fashionably-minded Erwin Ong was interviewed by the Globe and Mail in Saturday's issue talking about fashion in the world of tennis. A big kudos to Erwin for this interview as he continues to emerge as one of the sport's most knowledgeable fashion critics.

One of those fashion-wearing tennis players Erwin often talks about is Miss Jelena Jankovic, who avoided the upset bug and is into week two of Wimbledon following a three-set win over Caroline Wozniacki today. Lately I've been all superstitious when it comes to Janky, and wrote an article for Sportingo.com comparing her to Jennifer Capriati and her "early years."

Now, this might be a stretch, but in 2001, in the "later years" (will there be "later later years?") of Capriati's career, she fell to Justine Henin in the semifinals of Wimbledon. She did so by losing the match 2-6 6-4 6-2 after winning the first two slams of the year. Today, Jankovic (or, as I like to call her, Jelena Capriankovic), beat Wozy 2-6 6-4 6-2. Yes, more Capriankovic-ing going on, but Justine did go on to win the tournament after that scoreline. Same result for Jelena? Venus is one who certainly stands in her way.

Superstitions aside, my favorite Kiwi, Marina Erakovic ended her bid at Wimby today with a tight, three-set loss to tour veteran Tamarine Tanasugarn 4-6 6-4 6-4. It's great to see such a young and spirited player like Erakovic play consistent and tough tennis over the last two grand slams. One thing I really appreciated about this match was two women representing such nations that aren't traditionally tennis havens in Thailand and New Zealand. For a couple hours on Court 11 today, Wimbledon was the Official Grand Slam of the Asia Pacific!

(Note: I said the Globe and Mail was based in London - that's the London Globe - in my video post. It is located in Toronto.)