Charles on… anything that comes along

Wife (to self, who had taped the chunk of the Wimbledon men’s final from the start of the third set): “Do you want to know who won Wimbledon?”

Me: “No.”

Daughter, leaving room: “It was the one with the headband.”

(Federer wears a headband, Roddick wears a cap.)

Revelation of the tournament: Jimmy Connors in the commentary box. So great to see him back. Connors was always one of the best post-match interviewees on the circuit. He had fantastic attitude.

Other thought: compared to Connors’s day, the men now hit the ball a lot harder - but it’s less precise, further from the lines. Connors and McEnroe could put an approach into a space four feet square from the corner, sliding it low, making the pass even harder. Nobody hits Connors’s style of shot anymore - incredibly flat, almost unspun, and guided like laser missiles around the court. By the time he was playing the US Open in 1991, already over 40, his style was a weird throwback, an anomaly. He beat lots of topspin-style players that year, coming back from the dead. “Do you think he’s got the right style to beat players like you?” I asked one of the topspin merchants. He replied, “If it were, then everyone would play it.” True; but if you’re the only person who plays that way..

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• A quick thought on Federer winning Wimbledon five times (8 July 2007; score: 76.25%)
• Tim Henman: a better player than everyone thinks (13 September 2004; score: 44.39%)
• A PHP/MySQL question - geeks only need apply: how to get a formatted date from an associative array (17 March 2007; score: 25.54%)