The old King is dead, long live the King?

   

                                             The top two in the world fought it out in the open air stadium but it wasn’t a classic. Perhaps it never would be with the title holder carrying an injury; however we can take nothing away from the new world number one, Djokovic fully deserving his maiden Wimbledon. A world championship boxing match took place on Saturday night last weekend also but it certainly won’t live long in the memory. Wladimir Klitschko systematically took apart David Haye in Hamburg and won a unanimous points decision. Haye can have few complaints and although carrying (not literally) a broken toe into the ring, the Ukranian was far the classier pugilist and utilised his jab with monotonous regularity, wearing Haye down without even having to unleash the right. Obviously all athletes want to perform at 100% and Haye has made much of the fact that his broken toe didn’t allow him to throw his ‘Hayemaker’ with as much ferocity as he would have wished. If he truly believes that a broken toe weakened his punching power to the extent that he was unable to land any telling blows on Klitschko, then he is very much mistaken. The reason he didn’t land any blows was because ‘Dr Steelhammer’ never let him get inside and when Klitschko feared that Haye was getting too close he used his ring nous and pushed him away. The Londoner made the most of this ‘leaning in’ and the referee did take a point away from Klitschko in the seventh because of this. This didn’t affect Wladimir’s confidence whatsoever and Haye knew by the eleventh that it was all over barring a knockout on his part. The really surprising thing was that Haye didn’t really come out swinging in the final round. He knew that he was behind yet didn’t throw wild swings with reckless abandonment. In this blogger’s opinion, if you want to be regarded as the world’s best, then you have to be willing to show blatant disregard for your own well-being when the time is right. Just ask the likes of Brian O’Driscoll and Ray Lewis (Ravens linebacker). Haye seemed intent on leaving the ring with only his ego bruised and was ready with his broken toe excuse the moment the decision was read out. On reflection, he will admit that he was outclassed and outfought and while he will be remembered as a great Cruiserweight, a great heavyweight he will not. “It is what it is”, as Haye would say.

                                          The Klitschko brothers now officially rule the heavyweight boxing world. Is it now time to say that Djokovic rules the tennis world? According to the world rankings he does, having overtaken Nadal just by reaching the Wimbledon final where he dispatched the 10 time grand slam winner for the fifth time in a final this year, winning in four sets. The Serb has had an outstanding season, winning every match bar one (a semi-final defeat to Federer in the French). He has beaten Nadal twice on both clay and hard courts and now on the grass of SW 19. Just as it appears that Nadal has the mental edge over Federer, it seems as though Djokovic has the psychological advantage over the man from Majorca. Nadal has admitted as much, “Probably the mental part is a little bit dangerous for me, because when I was at 5-4 (in the first set); I played a bad game from 30-0. When I was 4-3 down in the fourth set, I played another bad game with my serve.” This is quite a startling thing for him to admit and may go some way to explaining why the Spaniard had 15 unforced errors as opposed to the 7 he had against Murray in the semi. Djokovic covered the court brilliantly yesterday and took the ball early, especially on his backhand, to negate Nadal’s deep, topspin-laden ground strokes. His return of serve was excellent and he attacked Nadal’s second serves, the former no. 1 only winning 44% of the points on his second. In contrast to Haye, Nadal was gracious in defeat, never once mentioning his ankle injury which he had been carrying (again not literally) since his fourth round match against Del Potro.

                                            We now go back into hardcourt mode in the tennis season, culminating in the final grand slam in Flushing Meadows in September. Naturally, Djokovic and Nadal are the top two in the betting; 7/4 and 5/2 respectively, with Federer a best priced 9/2. They are undoubtedly the best three in the world at the moment but Andy Murray is not that far off them and could be a bit big at 15/2. He reached the US Open final in 2008 and the last two Australian Open finals. If Djokovic continues his fine run then he will play plenty more tennis in the intervening weeks and there are now more question marks over Nadal’s fitness, his ankle now joining his knees as an on-going concern. Federer will always be a danger, as will Juan Martin del Potro (15/2) but I believe that Murray could be inspired by Djokovic’s success, the Serb having been the world number three last year and the advice in an each way flutter on the Scot.