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Sunday 3 July 2011

Wimblemund 2011, day 13

Novak Djokovic bt. Rafael Nadal 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3
Whilst the women's tennis rankings continue to be a complete nonsense - mainly as a consequence of the two most dominant female players being in semi-retirement from the tour, emerging only for the biggest events - there's at least an ongoing semblance of sanity in the men's. This was emphasised today as the man who will be the new World number 1 tomorrow defeated the man he will replace to win his first Wimbledon.

It's been a magnificent year for Djokovic. He's lost only one match, and that was in a Grand Slam semi final to Roger Federer. Today he went toe-to-toe with Rafael Nadal and out-punched, outran and out-thought him. Nadal looked rather forlorn at times, having to resort to hitting risky winners and in so doing ramping up his normally meagre unforced error count. I consider Nadal to be the best player in the world at the moment, but, on the men's tour at least, the numbers perhaps don't lie.

We've all been told to expect Djokovic to make the step up to the top table for years. But in the rarified atmosphere of professional tennis, I think people were starting to believe that - at the grand old age of 24 - he'd missed his chance. However, here he is in form which, if he's able to sustain it, will see him start to add significant numbers of majors to his burgeoning collection.

He still looks like Screech from Saved By The Bell, mind you.

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