Half-Crazy Monday

Sometimes, it turns out, even persistence isn’t enough. On Monday Maria Sharapova joined her fellow French Open champion Rafael Nadal on the Wimbledon shelf. That’s the norm on the WTA side. No woman has won the two events in the same year since Serena Williams did it to kick off her Serena Slam in 2002. On the men’s side, it's a return to the norm. The Channel Slam has been completed three times since 2008 (twice by Nadal, once by Federer), but that came after a 28-year drought.

Maria’s and Rafa’s losses are one more sign, as if we needed any more, that the time the pros are allotted to make the transition from clay to grass is absurdly short—they pretty much, as Jeff Spicoli might put it, wing it over to London. There are only four Grand Slams; we should give the players a chance to be at their best for all of them.

For the moment, though, the fact that we don’t isn’t bothering me. There’s something to be said for the sport having a few fresh faces and different characters in contention from one major to the next. I felt bad for Nadal and Sharapova as they walked off, having had so little time to savor their wins. But it also was a healthy reminder: Nothing is set in stone.

Today was Wimbledon's fabled Manic Monday, though this one grew pretty calm about halfway through. Rain cut the day short, except on Centre Court, where the roof gave us plenty to talk about and kvetch over. Here are a few of the day’s developments, some more complicated than others.

Best Face
Sabine Lisicki appears to snarl when she tosses the ball up to serve. She raises her upper lip a little with the effort of starting her motion. It takes half a second to realize that there’s no menace in the expression.

Today Lisicki gave us another face, one she showed here last year when she beat Li Na, but which I can’t remember seeing since. I'll call it Sabine’s Flushed, Teary, Toothy, Overwhelmed Look of Stunned Joy (SFTTOLSJ for short). That’s what she flashed when, unable to hit a forehand winner on her first two match points against Sharapova, she just went ahead and drilled a second serve ace for the upset. Lisicki plays fellow German Angelique Kerber next. I’m not sure she’ll pull out the SFTTOLSJ for that if she wins, but here’s hoping we get to see it again soon.

Best Half-Hearted Attempt at the Wave
Serena Williams and Yaroslava Shvedova played a superb three-setter on Court 2 today (See my Racquet Reaction on it here.) Shvedova played with enough conviction and aggression that Serena herself gave her a little extra show of respect when they shook hands. But my favorite moment had nothing to do with the shotmaking.

During the changeover at 6-5 in the third, before Serena came out to serve for the match, the crowd began to do the Wave (known, apparently, as the Mexican Wave in the U.K.). The people in Shvedova’s camp enthusiastically joined in, including her mother, who managed to raise her left hand as the Wave came around a second time. Shvedova, despite having just been broken at 5-5 in the third, saw her and cracked up.

Golden or not, she’s a player to watch for the future, for her personality and her athletic game.

Best Improv Performance
Grass, or at least the “new” grass, helps a variety of styles thrive, and creativity is rewarded. Angelique Kerber is nothing if not creative. Her 6-1, 6-1 drubbing of Kim Clijsters featured a number of what you might call ad-libbed shots. There was a return of serve hit while she was in a crouch, with her racquet straight up in the air. There was a strange, stiff-armed forehand, and another hit while she was standing straight up. You don’t know what’s coming next with Kerber, other than the fact, these days, that it’s going to work. She now has 44 wins in 2012, the most in the WTA, and she’s in her first Wimbledon quarterfinal, with a good chance of going farther.

Saddest Farewell
I’d say that Kim Clijsters was “strangely unemotional” in her final match at Wimbledon, a 1 and 1 loss to Kerber. Except that it wasn’t strange at all. Kim did what she had done many times before when things weren’t going her way—she kept her head down and rushed herself off the court as quickly as possible. A meek wave was all she had left for the fans as she exited the court, and the tournament, for good. More than anything else, she looked embarrassed. Retirement can’t seem to come soon enough for her.

Best Line
Viktor Troicki, after making an incorrect challenge, raised his hand in apology to his friend and opponent, Novak Djokovic. To which John McEnroe said, “He’s apologizing for challenging. What is this, a friendly or a match?” It was certainly a friendly performance from Troicki, who went down mildly 3, 1, and 3.

Talking Point that Won’t Go Away
Last week Wimbledon organizers were criticized for leaving the roof on when the sun was shining. Today they were criticized for keep it open while it was raining. If I’m with the USTA, I’m loving this: See what you get, Wimbledon, for building one of those things.

The ongoing issue is that the roof and London’s rain could combine to make Wimbledon  essentially an indoor event for the biggest names, something that no one, maybe not even indoor king Roger Federer, wants to see happen. A different issue, and unintended consequence, arose today. With a roof, Centre Court becomes by far the most desirable court, because your match is guaranteed to finish. This leaves organizers with a tough choice when it comes to Andy Murray. Do they, in the interests of giving the U.K.‘s top player the best chance to win, always assign him Centre Court? Or, in the interests of fairness, do you assign him to roofless Court 1 at least once during the fortnight, like the other top guys?

Today Wimbledon tried the latter for the first time in 2012. This allowed the two top men’s seeds on the opposite side of the draw from Murray, Federer and Djokovic, to play on Centre and be guaranteed of finishing on the same day. In the process, though, Murray’s match with Marin Cilic was held over to tomorrow because of rain, potentially forcing the winner to have to play on consecutive days (there’s more rain forecast tomorrow).

The U.S. Open has been rightly accused of helping its own with its scheduling decisions in the past, and some British observers thought Wimbledon blew it by not doing the same for Murray today. But I think you have to applaud their fairness to his main rivals.

Still with me? Still awake? The first bottom line is that, with a roof, discussions over court assignments aren’t just about status and respect—snagging one of those three Centre Court assignments can help a player’s chances in the long run. The second bottom line is that once the tournament is over, no one will remember or care who played where.