TAG | Wimbledon
In women’s tennis the year 1966 was a great year. In Wimbledon, Billie Jean King took home her first Grand Slam victory. After showing what she was capable of in 1966, there were high expectations for her in 1967 also she was the favorite in sports betting odds in that year.
The Australian Open would be the first Grand Slam of the year. Previous to this year this event had been owned my Margaret Court. In that tournament for 8 consecutive years, Court had managed to take home the Grand Slam title. By winning the first Grand Slam of her career, Nancy Richey took the opportunity to make her name in tennis. In her career this would be the first of two Grand Slams that she would win. French Open would be the next Grand Slam of the year. Francoise Durr would be the woman to win the tournament. She would never go on to win another Grand Slam in her career.
Wimbledon would be the next tournament of the year. Billie Jean King advanced through the tournament and would take home the Grand Slam title. This was the 2nd Grand Slam of her career and the 2nd consecutive Wimbledon Grand Slam for her.
US Open would be the last Grand Slam of the year. In previous years, in this tournament Maria Bueno had been the dominating player. She managed to win the tournament in 3 of the previous 4 years. The victory the previous year would be her last career Grand Slam.
Billie Jean King had already earned the attention of everyone in the tennis world and she was ready to take the next step. Billie Jean King played great throughout the tournament and managed to take home the Grand Slam title at the US Open. This would be the first Grand Slam of her career that was not at Wimbledon.
Though Margaret Court stepped away from the National forefront for a while, Billie Jean King and Nancy Richey would continue to play well through the next year.
June 30 featured the men’s quarterfinal matches of the 2010 Wimbledon. All of the attention was focused on the four singles matches on Centre Court and Court 1.
The big swinging Czech Tomas Berdych defeated six time champion Roger Federer 6-4 3-6 6-1 6-4. This was without a doubt the biggest upset of the tournament. Berdych played aggressively throughout the entire match and produced 51 winners. He also won more than 80% of his first serves. On paper, it was shocking to see the king of grass knocked out early at Wimbledon. In reality, Federer has been suffering from minor injuries throughout the entire tournament. Overall, Berdych simply outplayed Federer in this match and full credit should be given to the young Czech.
The second quarterfinal match on Centre Court was between Andy Murray and Jo Wilfried Tsonga. Murray lost the first set in a tiebreak. The second set also came down to a critical tiebreak, which Murray won 7-5. After taking the second set, the young Scot was pumped up and used the home crowd to his advantage to easily win the next two sets 6-2 6-2.
The easiest quarterfinal win was by Novak Djokovic, who took out Yen-Hsun Lu 6-3 6-2 6-2 in less than two hours. Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal was challenged by Robin Soderling. This was a rematch of the French Open final, but it was a more competitive match. Nadal lost the first set 6-3 and then won the second set 6-3. Nadal then claimed the critical third set tiebreak and used the momentum to win the fourth set comfortably 6-1.
The elimination of Roger Federer makes this year’s Wimbledon title up for grabs by anyone. In the semifinals, Berdych will face Djokovic and Murray will take on Nadal.
