Good afternoon. Yesterday's "Your Call" is currently at 800+ comments, so if nothing else, TW seems to be building up a head of steam before the Masters Series event in Toronto begins next week. Glad to see that so many of you are around to talk - and there should be some live tennis on TV today for many of us to discuss.
As I mentioned yesterday, after the most recent Wimbledon men's final, I decided to watch the Wimbledon 1980 final again, between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. So far, I'm two sets and one game into viewing the match. That's because the convention then was to sit down at the change of ends only, so the third set commenced as soon as the second had ended, with no sit-down. Bjorn Borg took the second set, and, without a pause, began serving to start the third. It's years since I watched this match in full, so I had completely forgotten how good McEnroe looked in the first two sets, controlling the net, and giving Borg all kinds of problems with his unreadable lefty sliced serve. At some moments, even Borg looked slow. In addition, he had obviously decided that staying back and relying on his groundstrokes wouldn't be good enough, and was missing all kinds of volleys when coming in. After losing the first set 1-6, Borg hung on in the second set, saving break points along the way, some courtesy of his heavy serve. Eventually, he brought himself to 6-5 in the second set, with McEnroe to serve. Suddenly, after Borg made a key volley, and followed it up with a characteristic passing shot return over the high part of the net, he found himself with break points - and claimed the second set. For most of that set, McEnroe was the better player.
I'm glad that I don't remember the details of the rest of the match (at least, not until the fourth-set tiebreaker, which has been played countless times during Wimbledon rain delays), because it's been enthralling and fast-moving to watch, even though I found myself despairing at Borg's inability to land a first serve in the box often enough for my liking. I am really looking forward to seeing the rest. I have also been enjoying the killer combination of Dan "Oh I say!" Maskell and John Barrett in the commentary box. JB sounded exactly the same then as he did until retiring two years ago at Wimbledon. But apart from the presence of the much-loved late Dan Maskell, one thing that definitely tells the viewer that this match happened some 28 years ago is that there wasn't a no-smoking rule at Wimbledon then, and Mariana Simionescu, Borg's then-fiancee, in the players' box, is taking full advantage.
-- Rosangel Valenti
Note: As always, "Your Call" is the daily thread specifically for the purpose of getting together on the cyber-sofa to discuss or call ongoing matches, or hot tennis topics of the day; It's the"Crisis Center" thread for those weeks when there are no Grand Slams, Masters, or Fed or Davis Cup in progress. You can go off-topic here if you like as well. This makes it easier for you to stay on-topic at "premium" posts. For going off-topic, you also have Monday Net Posts and Deuce Club on a regular basis.