The much anticipated Wimbledon final saw Andy Murray take on Roger Federer in front of a home crowd.
This year’s competition has seen many unexpected results with No 2 seed Rafael Nadal being knocked out by Czech Lukas Rosol who was ranked only 100th in the world. In the female competition, No 1 player Maria Sharapova was surprisingly beaten in the fourth round to meet an early exit.
It wasn’t a surprise however, that two of the biggest names in tennis reached the final of one of the biggest grand slams in the sport. Murray went in to the match as the underdog, although he had previously won against his opponent an impressive 8 times, to Federer’s 7 wins against Murray. Federer had only lost one of his 8 previous Wimbledon Finals.
Britain was rooting for the second victory in two days off the back of Brit Jonathon Marray who won the doubles event with his partner Frederik Nielson the previous day, in what was an unexpected win as the pair had been included as a wildcard.
The match started strongly for Andy Murray as he won the all important first point of the game, Federer didn’t look as strong as was expected as Murray won the first game of the match.
This soon changed as Murray began to make some uncharacteristic mistakes towards the end of the first set, allowing Federer to show his excellence. Murray came through to win the first set however, much to the excitement of the crowd and the large crowd which had gathered on ‘Murray Mount’ outside.
From the beginning, it always looked like the match was going to be a long one as games continually bounced between deuce and advantage, which was frustrating for all involved.
Federer brought it back to end the second set 1-1, making Murray work extremely hard to stay in the match.
Rain then stopped play, as the controversial decision to take the roof off prior to the start of the match turned out to be a poor one. The break in most people’s opinions, was much needed for Murray who looked to be struggling to deal with the Swiss’ well placed shots, to lead 2 sets to 1.
Murray continued to give his all as the crowd supported him vocally, but he continued to make some easy shots which Roger Federer made full advantage of with his cool and collected nature.
To everyone’s disappointment, except the Murray haters, Murray couldn’t quite hold off such excellence, and lost 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 4-6. Although it may not be much comfort for him, Murray was the first British tennis player to make the final for 76 years, and if that’s not enough he always got the Olympics to look forward to just a few weeks’ time!
