Do not bother the sleeping giant
And Marat is in the quarterfinals! Before Wimbledon he couldn’t win two matches in a row, and he always says grass is not his best surface. (Was it last year that he led a revolt against the food?) Last night he beat the 13th seed Stanislas Wawrinka. That match wasn’t aired because they showed the Murray-Gasquet five-set thriller. British number one vs. French number one. I thought Gasquet had it—he was on in the first two sets, then in the third set Murray got pumped up, which got the crowd pumped up, which got him really pumped up. I think the Brits are finally warming to Murray as the replacement for their beloved Tim Henman. Will their adulation carry him past the Nadal juggernaut in the quarters? Earlier, The Fed beat former Wimbledon winner Lleyton Hewitt—there was some difficulty in the first set, then it was a stroll. The media has really pounded Roger over his vulnerability this year (so he gets testy in the press conference, and they say, See? He’s really vulnerable!)—many predicted that Hewitt would win despite having lost their last 11 matches. There goes number 12.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 1st, 2008 at 13:35
Yes, he was complaining about how expensive the strawberries were and how there weren’t enough desserts. Funny guy.
July 3rd, 2008 at 06:06
Marat seems to be channeling the spirit of Goran, who also came in unseeded, unwinning to be the surprise 2001 champion. I bet you he’s got Teletubbies on his BBC every morning (Goran’s odd but apparently effective pre-match relaxation ritual, remember?). Reality check though: he’s goiing to need more than be relaxed to win the next 2 rounds. Goran only had to dispatch Henman then Rafter, not Agassi and Sampras; which is what beating Federer and Nadal back to back would have been like. He just might need to summon up his own Good, Bad, and Emergency Marat.