Federer, Djokovic and Murray must be thinking “If I get this bloke, WTF am I going to do about it?” 😯

Wasn’t just the serve though, in the middle of rallies he just powered some shots out of nowhere! Forehand and backhand.

Disgustingly nice in the interview afterwards too.

Federer, Djokovic and Murray

Three of the best returners of serve of all time. It’ll be interesting to see

Had a glance at Bounce by Matthew Syed at the weekend, he relates an interesting story about meeting Michael Stich – at the time, Syed was one of the best table-tennis players in the country, so he got Stich to serve at him full power, just to see if his uber-zippy table-tennis reactions would enable him to get anything on it. Stich served four times…

… And Syed didn’t even see it whistle past him.

Did I mention that I can’t bloody stand tennis? Hate it, in fact! And Wimbledon in Particular!

Its cringe-inducingly twee, up-its-own-jacksie, COME-ON-TIM, Daily Mail reading, Marks and Spencers wearing, middle-class, exclusively white, closet-racist UKIP voting, , Bridge Playing, Cliff Sodding Richards-singing, sycophantic royal box toadying, uniformed when-we-were-an-empire, small minded, hopelessly insular, flag-waving, middle-englander shtik represents all the very worst thing about this bloody country, and proudly broadcasts it to the world

Could I politely request that anyone else who doesn’t like tennis, particularly those who like foot wendyball, just take a moment to inform Wopster of this fact, repeatedly on this thread.

Its the very least we can do in return for his invaluable contributions to the footballing threads

Fanks 😀

Come on binners, tell us what you really think about Wimbledon 🙂

Great match though, good to see Nadal make an early exit again too.

Yeah, don’t sit on the fence!
😆

It’s going to be interesting to watch, I like that a lot of the tennis audience would cross the street to avoid walking past him too. So composed yesterday too, can you imagine if Andy Murray had a gameface like that? Serve is the least of it tbh.

Bless.

Which bloke?

Its cringe-inducingly twee, up-its-own-jacksie, COME-ON-TIM, Daily Mail reading, Marks and Spencers wearing, middle-class, exclusively white, closet-racist UKIP voting, , Bridge Playing, Cliff Sodding Richards-singing, sycophantic royal box toadying, uniformed when-we-were-an-empire, small minded, hopelessly insular, flag-waving, middle-englander shtik represents all the very worst thing about this bloody country, and proudly broadcasts it to the world

😀 While all true it still doesn’t stop me liking tennis. Of the big world sports I don’t think there are any other that offer the same battle of skill and fitness between two individuals

133mph isn’t particularly fast nowadays – is that number correct?

Venus Williams can reach 129mph and Roscoe Tanner hit 153mph in 1978 with a wooden racket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastest_recorded_tennis_serves

Shame about walking on wearing Dr Dre “Beats” though. They don’t work unless you’re facing magnetic north.

Shame about walking on wearing Dr Dre “Beats” though. They don’t work unless you’re facing magnetic north.

Like it or not, that is how product sponsorship works.
You would wear them too, if you had been paid a 5 or 6 figure sum.

Yeah, but I wouldn’t be listening to anything on them.

Not even Winston Churchills speeches?

Mr Woppit – Member
Yeah, but I wouldn’t be listening to anything on them.

One assumed you’d be listening to a loop of a voice saying “Argue, argue, argue..” over and over. 😉

Really. One does, does one? I say. Flashy to the forum. Soulmate alert. 😆

Soulmate alert.

Oi! That’s uncalled for.

Anyway, back on topic..

I had to leave the house when it was 1-1 and Nadal was starting to look good so I was very impressed to see he beat him.

I left work just as the second set started and by the time I got home, it was all over. 😥

iPlayer it is, then.

Had a glance at Bounce by Matthew Syed at the weekend, he relates an interesting story about meeting Michael Stich – at the time, Syed was one of the best table-tennis players in the country, so he got Stich to serve at him full power, just to see if his uber-zippy table-tennis reactions would enable him to get anything on it. Stich served four times…

… And Syed didn’t even see it whistle past him.

I’ve always thought serves look slower than they actually are on telly. My friend is pretty handy at tennis & had his serve measured around 120mph (ish) so I asked him to fire some serves at me once. Needless to say I was about 10ft behind the baseline & couldn’t get near any of them.

I am crap at tennis though so it was to be expected.

Not just tennis related; i don’t think you understand a sport until you’ve seen it played live, and ideally close up.

I went to Wimbledon a couple of years back and while watching on centre court is great, i enjoyed watching on an outside court where you can stand almost behind the players. Then you see not only the speed of the shots, but also the swerve and dip they can put on the ball.

Same in football, only close up do you see how fast players move, and also how fast the ball moves. In rugby, close up it’s how hard the tackles are and also the sound. At the velodrome, it’s the speed but also the closeness of a keirin or elimination race.

The one sport I’ve yet to see properly but you have to see and hear to understand is boxing. It’s on the must-do list.

Not just tennis related; i don’t think you understand a sport until you’ve seen it played live, and ideally close up.

+1 Used the think the same about the long jump many years ago. I mean its just running really fast & jumping into a sand pit isn’t it. That was until I measured the distance they jump and compared it to my own efforts 😳

133mph isn’t particularly fast nowadays – is that number correct?

Are you suggesting that Mr W is posting something in the belief that it’s current news, unaware that it’s old news?

No, that would never happen.

[cough]2011londonbombings[/cough]

Just doing some wiki’ing and I was surprised how many of the fastest serves are from people I’ve never heard of. You might say 133mph isn’t fast but looking at the stats of the current top players, there’s few that have beaten 140mph.

Northwind – it’s almost like the raw ball speed isn’t the deciding factor in a serve’s effectiveness.

Sampras was a great example. Well disguised ball toss, a lot of spin plus massive consistency, and second serve almost identical to first.

Yup. Skill better than power basically. But still, of the current crop it’s basically Tsonga and Murray, I didn’t have Murray down as a power server compared to say Nadal.

theotherjonv – Member
Not just tennis related; i don’t think you understand a sport until you’ve seen it played live, and ideally close up.

Agree, I went to see Annabel Croft when she first blow onto the scene (bloody ages ago now) She had a habbit of not wearing very much at all.

It was close up too.

Not just tennis related; i don’t think you understand a sport until you’ve seen it played live, and ideally close up.

I went to Wimbledon a couple of years back and while watching on centre court is great, i enjoyed watching on an outside court where you can stand almost behind the players. Then you see not only the speed of the shots, but also the swerve and dip they can put on the ball.

Same in football, only close up do you see how fast players move, and also how fast the ball moves. In rugby, close up it’s how hard the tackles are and also the sound. At the velodrome, it’s the speed but also the closeness of a keirin or elimination race.

The one sport I’ve yet to see properly but you have to see and hear to understand is boxing. It’s on the must-do list.

Agreed.

I played cricket to a reasonable standard and had the ‘pleasure’ of batting against one or two top-class quick bowlers and bloody hell they were noticeably quicker than anything I had faced before, made the ball kick and bounce higher and did more with it off the pitch. To say (as a tailender) I was out of my depth would be an understatement.

There is something very, very attention-grabbling about having a hard cricket fizz past you before you have reacted!

Court 14 on the 2nd monday was always a good bet for visiting Wimbledon, although now it is charged at a higher rate than it was.

The draws were normally closely matched seeds and the stands weren’t/aren’t huge so you are near the court and therefore involved much more than you are on centre unless you are also close to the action.

Saw Becker play someone like Mayotte or Chang, maybe on his way to his first title, and several other really long and closely fought matches on that court.

as a former league hockey goalie, can I mention hockey ball speeds here?

Our best striker could clock in the order of 90mph with a ball coming at you from around 11-13 metres away (tennis court is c.24m). The hockey ball weighs three times as much as a tennis ball.

I sometimes used to train with a cricket bowling machine on the floor and the dial turned up to 11.

To make it easier though a hockey ball doesnt move much through the air and generally travels in a straight line (more or less).

few people ever get to watch a senior league hockey game live and witness the speed, reactions and stick control that the players have. With the growth in HD TV Im hoping we will see more on TV now the technology is more capable of keeping up – old CRT screens at 50Hz can’t track a hockey ball during the game 😯

Starting to look like the Lendl/Mauresmo substitution wasn’t one of Murray’s better ideas.

Stoner +1 Played for Mill Hill and Radlet ages ago and when you trained with the firsts the speed the ball was being hit at was bewildering 😯 I remember being hit on the shoulder and it literally knocked me on my ass.

The Fedmeister is a good example of placement over power. He can go wide, on the T and at the body with effortless ease. It’s beautiful to watch.

So Binners, you would not be interested in a free ticket to centre court? Tut, tut, you don’t enjoy the splendours of bridge either…..? 😉

(I had the pleasure of talking tennis with AC recently – wearing a lot that day – our sons were playing each other. Very pleasant but the other mums were a bit prickly!)

Starting to look like the Lendl/Mauresmo substitution wasn’t one of Murray’s better ideas.

rooting for Dimitrov as I like his stokes a lot more, especially his single-handed backhand.

rooting for Dimitrov as I like his stokes a lot more, especially his single-handed backhand.

Suit you, sir. 😀 😉

I had the pleasure of talking tennis with AC recently

Andrew Castle ? – the best times for his commentary are when Eurosport are also showing the same match so that I can change channels and hear some sensible comments and less fawning over Andy Murray.

Murray has solved one problem: I didn’t know whether to watch the Wimbledon final or go up to Cragg Vale to watch Le Tour.

Dream final: Federer vs Kyrgios.

Close Federer win.

Based on some simple maths that gives the returner about 1/3 of a second to work out where the serve is going, decide what shot to play, move to the right place and hit it back into the court. Thats not very long to do all that