Rob McLean - Queens plays second fiddle
If you had a ticket for Queen's at the weekend you may have felt ripped off and headed for the bar. For the first time in the history of tennis, the Halle grass court event in Germany overshadowed Queen's, the biggest grass event outside Wimbledon.
Grass-court tennis purists may welcome the serve-volley game served up by Sam Querrey and Mardy Fish. The majority of the punters who turned up at Queen's will only have felt short changed.
Those who had expected to see the main cast in West London ended up with a load of understudies who, with the exception of tennis aficionados, would know very little about.
No disrespect to Querrey, Fish, Rainer Schuettler and Feliciano Lopez, all fine players, but it was Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic that people had paid to see and they didn't even make it to Saturday. Empty seats dotted around the Centre Court summed up the apathy.
The Queen's event has often been a good guide to who might carry off the big one in July. Rest assured it would take a huge leap of faith to think of any of the semi-finalists getting close to the Wimbledon title (famous last words).
Nor, for that matter, will Andy Murray if he carries on in his present vein.
TV pundit John Lloyd was particularly unhappy with his attitude in his defeat by Fish. Lloyd may have had an axe to grind over their recent Davis Cup falling out and his criticisms were generally what we know about the Scot: when the going gets tough, he normally gets grumpy.
Murray is lacking belief at the moment, and if he needs advice or inspiration he should simply follow the lead of the the never-say-die attitude of Lleyton Hewitt, the former world No1, who pulled off one of the great victories in recent history when he beat Roger Federer in the final in Halle.
In January while Federer was winning the Australian Open, Hewitt was on crutches following hip surgery. Now, at 29, he appeared to have taken leave of his senses when he said he believed he could become world No 1 again. After beating Federer, it doesn't seem quite such a fanciful notion.
Hewitt hadn't beaten the Swiss since a Davis Cup tie in 2003 and had lost their last 15 encounters. Federer now goes into Wimbledon without a title win since the Australian Open in January.
Although Hewitt won his two Grand Slams back in 2001 and 2002, his head will never, ever drop however far behind he is in a match. The Australian comes from the same stock as Jimmy Connors and could well enjoy a long indian summer to his career reminiscent of the great American.
Date published :
16 Jun 2010 - 11:00:04
