Venus Williams kamshinda kwa set 2 kwa 0 Ana Ivanovic SRB (13)
Serena Williams mpaka sasa anaongoza kwa set 1kwa 0
Roger Federer (1) mpaka sasa anaongoza kwa set 2 kwa 0 dhidi ya Soderlin.
Yote inapatikana BBC 1, BBC 2,HD na online The Championships, Wimbledon 2009 - Grand Slam Tennis - Official Site by IBM
Baada ya game ya Federer itafuatiwa na game ya Andy Murray.
Tutaendelea kufahamishana kila linalojiri asanteni.
Last edited by Ng'wanza Madaso; 29th June 2009 at 05:26 PM..
Reason: Ana safina insited of Ana Ivanovic
Never say we never give you anything at the official Wimbledon website. In years to come, pub quizzes up and down the country will be won or lost on these two facts we are about to present to you gift wrapped and on a silver platter. Who won the first point on Centre Court when the roof was closed for the first time? Answer: Dinara Safina. And who won the first game when the roof was closed for the first time on Centre Court? Answer: Amelie Mauresmo.
History was finally made at 5.19pm on Monday, June 29 when Mauresmo struck the first serve under the cover of “5,200 square metres of a very strong, flexible, translucent waterproof material” as the roof is described in the official literature.
As luck would have it, it was not actually raining at the time but that was to be expected. From the moment the 123rd Championships started, the sun has been shining and even when the clouds have moved in, they have refused to leak on cue and allow the man with his finger poised over the button to try out the All England Club’s new toy.
For a couple of days now, we have all been wondering “will it, won’t it rain?” and “will they, won’t they close the roof?”. And until 4.35pm on Monday, the answer had been a frustrating and infuriating “no”. But that was the moment when the umpire, Kerrilyn Cramer (remember her name – she might be worth an extra point or two in that quiz), announced that play was suspended. The drizzle had become a little heavier. It was not a downpour but was it enough to try out the roof?
Alas, no. Not at first. Only the faithful old green tarpaulin was hauled over the grass while the roof stayed put. Sue Barker reported in authoritative tones on the BBC that the head groundsman had assured her the roof would only be called into play if the rain was heavy. And it was anything but that.
Still, there was an overwhelming feeling that someone, somewhere was desperate to give it a whirl. Go on, Bert, press the button. You know you want to.
This Centre Court cover-up-tease (the opposite to a striptease) had started on Saturday night. Then the lightest of light rain had hovered over Andy Murray’s match but it was not enough to cause the court-coverers concern. Murray wrapped up his match in double-quick time and the day’s play was done on Centre Court.
But just as people were filing out, the roof rolled into action, the lights came on and from the Tannoy came the announcement: “If the match on No.1 Court does not finish, there may be further play on Centre Court”. But as everyone scratched their heads and tried to work out what was going on, the rain stubbornly refused get any heavier and Juan Carlos Ferrero polished off Fernando Gonzalez before darkness fell. No need to move anything under the roof.
Mauresmo, the first on court, could not take her eyes off the roof above herBut as the Centre Court crowd sat and stared at the skies on Monday, suddenly the roof started to move. At 4.39pm, the two halves of the structure started to roll towards the middle of the court to gasps and cheers from below. And then it stopped. “I hope someone’s kept the receipt,” said one wag in the stands. Surely it cannot be broken? No, actually, the roof closes in the three stages with a slight pause between each phase. By 4.46pm the roof was finally shut and there was a huge round of applause. Outside, the drizzle had stopped.
“Play will resume in 20 to 30 minutes once the referee is closed,” said a disembodied voice over the public address system. Clearly, everyone was all of a tizzy in Roof Central. The referee, meanwhile, wandered round with a walkie-talkie, stopping only to check the dryness or otherwise of the grass.
At 5.11pm, the players returned to thunderous applause. Mauresmo, the first on court, could not take her eyes off the roof above her – and the floodlights that had now warmed up and were shining brightly – as she began her warm-up routine. Safina, meanwhile, kept her eyes firmly fixed on the grass beneath her feet and tried not to let the moment of history distract her.
And then at 5.19pm, they were ready to play. The brave new dawn of Wimbledon tennis had broken.
To all intents and purposes, it was exactly the same as playing with the roof off save for the slight echo of the sound of the ball striking the racket and the fact that the players’ grunts and sighs sound slightly louder with the roof shut. It’s just a good job the rain held off until Maria Sharapova and Michelle Larcher De Brito had gone home.
The only slight downside to this marvellous moment of history is the fact that the profits will never be the same again. If everyone is watching tennis from morning to night come rain or shine, who will be on hand to prop up the Pimms and champagne bar? No, life will never be the same again.
Another stroll in the Wimbledon sunshine carried Venus Williams past opposition that varied between the overawed and the inadequate and into the semi-finals of the 2009 Championships.
The latest victim was Agnieszka Radwanska, the 20-year-old Pole seeded 11th, who managed to retrieve three games from the carnage as Venus won 6-1, 6-2 in 68 minutes.
It is the eighth time the five-time winner has reached the last four, and on seven occasions she went though to the final.
Once more, it was all so simple for Venus, who made light of the strapping she wears on her left knee by running down every short ball or dropshot that arrived on her side of the net. Like the previous four Williams opponents in this year's tournament, Radwanska was a set down almost before she had realised the match was under way.
Perhaps she was baffled at the sudden Venus departure from No.1 Court after the warm-up and before the match began. But Venus came back primed and professional, dropping just two points in four service games.
Radwanska was 5-0 down in 17 minutes before deciding to combat the bludgeoning power of Williams with some thumping efforts of her own. Rather balatedly the spectators were lifted from their torpor and treated to some strenuous rallies, though Radwanska was still a set behind 10 minutes later as Williams arrowed successive aces past the Pole.
Radwanska's greater commitment and application managed to make more of a match of it briefly in the second set and she profited from a spell of loose Williams tennis in which the defending champion dropped serve to love on three errors. But Venus has never been slow to heed a wake-up call and from a deficit of 0-2 she swept imperiously through the next six games, capturing the Radswanska serve seemingly at will.
If her radar had seemed a little wonky at the start of that second set, Venus had assembled her intimidating armoury well before the end and gave it an undemanding workout in the sunshine. The only time she appeared put out was when umpire Kader Nouni overruled what she clearly thought was a winner. Though Venus did not bother with a challenge, her judgment was shown by television to be correct.
Wimbledon Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva are through to the semifinals. Dinara will face Venus, Elena awaits the winner of the match between Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka.
Another year, another semi-final – Elena Dementieva is beginning to make a habit of appearing in the last four at Wimbledon. Given that she used to regard grass courts with suspicion, this is not a bad effort.
The Russian eased into her appointed place – she is the fourth seed, after all – with a 66-minute rout of Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-2.
It puts Dementieva through to her sixth Grand Slam semi-final and also flags up a rather frustrating statistic for her. This is her 43rd appearance at a major tournament and, despite reaching two finals – the US and French Opens in 2004 – she has never come home with the trophy. Now she is in danger of breaking Jana Novotna’s unwanted record – the Czech won Wimbledon at her 45th challenge at a Grand Slam tournament. No one Grand Slam champion has ever had to wait as long for their first title.
Certainly getting to the last four seemed simple enough. Dementieva has yet to drop a set as she has tripped lightly through the draw. No one has managed to stretch her, much less threaten her so far. Schiavone, then, never really had much of a chance.
At the age of 29, Schiavone is what you might call a veteran campaigner. She has been living out of a suitcase for the past 12 years, travelling the world in pursuit of titles and ranking points. So far it has brought her nearly $4million in prize money but only the one, solitary title won back in 2007.
Where Schiavone shines is in a team environment and as the linchpin of the Italian Fed Cup team. Her fighting spirit and simple refusal to give up on any cause, however forlorn, has helped her lead her country to three finals in four years. This year, she is gearing her season to be ready for the final in November – and that makes losing a Grand Slam quarter-final a little easier to bear.
Schiavone has been coming to Wimbledon for nine years but, until now, had never got beyond the third round – and even then, she only got that far once. This year, though, she finally seems to have got the hang of this grass court mularky and reached the semi-finals in ‘S-Hertogenbosch. It was enough to give her confidence but not enough to trouble Dementieva.
As the Russian moved swiftly to a 5-0 lead, the wheels fell off Schiavone’s game plan. Dementieva simply hit the ball harder, cleaner and more consistently than Schiavone.
It took the Italian 24 minutes to win her first game – an achievement that brought a ripple of relieved applause from the crowd. But from that starting point, she could never really work up any head of steam. If an opportunity presented itself, she failed to take it and on the rare occasion that she did capitalise, she could not hang on to her advantage.
Dementieva finally put her foot on the gas as she broke for a 3-1 lead in the second set. Until that point, Schiavone had tried gamely to stay with Dementieva on the Russian’s service games in that set, and she had held her own serve with relative ease. But that was as far as she got
Even Dementieva’s nine double faults did not give the Italian enough of a toehold from which to launch a serious assault on her rival. She did hold eight break points on the Russian’s serve but, converting only one of them, she could never catch Dementieva on her march through to the semi-final.
29th June 2009, 04:44 PM
Re: Wimbledon 2009
29th June 2009, 04:44 PM
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