Saturday 15 July 2017

Wimbledon International

I just about remember the time when the Australians took over domination of the men's tournaments at Wimbledon from the Americans. I believe that before the transatlantic invasion, the All-England championships had been contested by the English and French, with the occasional German interloper. The Americans continued to prevail in the women's game and made a come-back in the men's when attritional baseline tennis won back over serve-and-volley. There was a brief incursion from Sweden, but it was probably the entry of east European competitors which broke the whole thing wide open and now there is a very healthy global competition. The 2017 men's final is to be contested by a Swiss and a Croat, an American and a Venezuelan Basque are in today's women's final while the doubles involve two Russians, a Scot, a Channel Islander, a Swiss, a Finn, a Pole, an Austrian, a Brazilian, a Croat, a Romanian and a lady from Taipei.


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