I’ve arrived at the beautiful campus of UCLA for the ATP Farmer’s Classic event. Novak Djokovic was supposed to join me here but he dropped out for personal reasons. That’s what you say when you change your mind about a lower level event. No medical condition required.

Luckily Andy Murray was looking to play and my home town event now has a bone fide top five player. This is Andy’s first trip to Los Angeles and he’s getting off easy. The highest projected temperature through Saturday is 81F/27C. I’m wearing thick black socks today and last night I considered throwing my thermal bean bag into the microwave to keep my toes toastie warm as I dropped off to sleep.

This is a 28 player event so Andy has a bye for the first round and won’t play until tomorrow. I have a few suggestions for the tourist. There’s the The Bunny Museum in Pasadena which has the largest (inanimate) bunny collection in the world and is open 365 day of the year as long as you call ahead since the museum is in a private home.

If that’s too tame Andy could always go to the Playboy Mansion and consort with live bunnies. Speaking of which, burlesque is making a comeback in a big way. The hottest burlesque star at the moment is Dita von Teese. You can see a classy G-rated tease for Perrier here According to my friend Deb, who is a rabid Dita fan, Dita lives in Los Angeles. I’m sure something could be arranged.

As for the tennis, I was hoping to see Mardy Fish this week because he’s reached the final in three of his last four events and won the last two, but he tweaked an ankle last week and dropped out. Fish apparently decided to clean up his act and stop eating pizza, fries, and cheeseburgers and generally pay close attention to when and what he eats. People don’t usually make such drastic changes for no reason and for Fish it was knee surgery last September.

Anyone my age can tell you extra weight is tough on knees, but the process catches up much faster to pro athletes. The pain we might experience in our fifties catches up to pro athletes towards the end of their careers which is the late twenties for most tennis players – Fish is 28. One piece of connective tissue stops sliding against another piece and stiffness and pain settle in. If you’d like it spelled out in cadaver-like detail, check out The Fuzz Speech by Gil Hedley courtesy of Lenny Parracino, tissue manipulator extraordinaire.

There’s another knee story this week. James Blake is playing Leonardo Mayer this afternoon and James had been slowly sliding off the ATP tour with knee pain. He’s currently ranked 117 after being in the top ten as recently as early last year.

While Fish seems to be grabbing onto tennis, James appeared to be letting go as recently as a month ago. After losing in the first round at Wimbledon this year, he mentioned retirement if his ailing knee didn’t improve. His advisors and doctors were telling him to take an anti-inflammatory but he’s always refused in the past because he thought it was bad for his health.

Maybe the specter of career mortality changed James’ mind because he finally agreed to dig into modern medicine and now his knee is healthy. He looked fast and mobile as he tore through Mayer 6-1, 6-4. The only exciting part was having Serena Williams in the house and, oh yes, that first set break when the speakers started blaring the Lou Reed song Walk on the Wild Side. Something about “he was a she” and “in the backroom she was everybody’s darlin’ but she never lost her head even when she was giving head…”

Do you think maybe the organizers forgot to tell the DJ that it’s Kids Day here at UCLA?

I remember James saying he doesn’t even take vitamins because he’s concerned about running afoul of the drug testing policy, so I asked him if he refused to take an anti-inflammatory for the same reason. No, it’s just the health nut thing. He’s also leery of taking painkillers because he wants to be able to feel his shoulder and his arm and his knee when he wrenches them.

That sound pretty intelligent to me but, hey, if the Veteran’s Administration now let’s its patients use medical marijuana, James should be able to dabble in drugs, right?

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It seems that following James Blake's defeat in the first round last week in Atlanta many are calling on the veteran American to hangup his racquet and call it a career. I've read numerous tennis blogs and chat forums where people are surprisingly coming to the conclusion that the thirty year old Blake is suddenly past due.

Admittedly Blake is struggling with his game and as a result his confidence as well of late. His ranking has dropped to 115th in the world which often leaves him outside the direct acceptance list for ATP tournaments. His record on tour is a mediocre 8-10 and he has not made it past the second round of any event since returning from a knee injury in June that kept him off tour for three months.

Of any player on tour however, James Blake should be the last guy you would ever count out. Blake has proven time and time again throughout his life and his career that he is the ultimate come-back player. His resilience has seen him overcome a severe case of scoliosis as a child, partial paralysis following his battle with shingles and even a broken neck from an unlikely collision with the net-post in 2004.

I believe that Blake's recent struggles are simply a case of needing to shake off the rust from his three month absence from the tour this spring. He started the year by giving U.S. Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro a good run for his money at the Aussie Open where he ultimately lost the second-round match by a score of 10-8 in the fifth set. It was only a year ago that he made the finals of the Queen's Club grass-court tournament and he was still in the top-ten as of January 2009.

Blake's frustration is understandable and many saw this exchange at Wimbledon between he and broadcaster Pam Schriver which was quite out of character for him.

Regardless I believe that if he can stay healthy it is only a matter of time before he finds his rythm. While a return to the top-ten is unlikely, Blake can still compete on hard-courts and with all the top guns other than Rafael Nadal struggling with their games lately, a decent run at a Grand Slam on his favorite surface is not implaussible given the right draw.

Next up for Blake is a first round encounter with Leonardo Mayer at the Farmers Classic this week in Los Angeles. Sounds to me like the perfect opponent to turn the corner against.

I don’t think I’ve seen Florian Mayer lie down on the ground like this.  This is one of the high points of his career, and this image is symbolic of many things.  The inspired tennis that he played, how hard he fought and just how much it meant to him playing in front of his home crowd in Germany.  Mayer is into the semi-finals now, after defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero, who played a tough match but just got outplayed and run a little ragged by the end of it.

Mayer can be a frustratingly low key character sometimes, looking as if nothing could excite him.  When he’s not playing well, you wish he would just fire up a little bit.  Like yesterday, in the first set against Maximo Gonzalez, where he seemed to constantly walk little circles in between return of serves.  A sign of nerves, or confusion?  After taking an injury time-out late in the first set, he was a changed man and went on a roll.  It’s like he’s always walking a fine line between being the likeable vulnerable underdog, and the guy that doesn’t really know or believe in what he’s doing.

However it seemed like this time around, the slightly excitable Mayer turned up right from the start.  Because from an outsider’s point of view, I can’t really see why he can be so unfazed by his own play sometimes.  He plays a bit like a showman, but he doesn’t act much like one.  I watched him play in Wimbledon this year, and it came to my mind that I don’t think I’ve ever seen another player on the tour enjoy bamboozling their opponents as much as he does. 

It’s one thing to put disguise on your shots, and another to constantly try to make your opponents believe that you’re going to hit a different shot than you actually are.  I think, the main reason is that it’s incredibly difficult to pull off, and it seems easier to just try to hit winners instead.  For me, whenever I change my mind halfway through a stroke, it almost ends up with an error, or either it doesn’t really have anywhere near the effect I was hoping for.

Mayer is quite a talent on the backhand side.  Early on, he sets up for a backhand by jumping on it, then sets up to hit a dropshot and pushes a slice deep in the last minute.  That’s not one false backswing but two mindgames in the one shot, completely unheard of outside of exhibitions.  And that was good enough to get the job done.  It didn’t even matter that the slice backhand practically went mid-court deep, it forced an error from Ferrero because he had no idea where to set himself up.

Mayer can change the pace on the backhand crosscourt, create spectacular angles on it, hit cunning slice backhands, change directions down-the-line and hit jumping dropshots.  It really is one of the most difficult to read shots in the game.  Today, he seemed to be in a good mood.  Because he was jumping on a lot of backhands.  Definitely a good sign that plenty of energy was in reserves for today, and he really needed it.

This match wasn’t only about the high quality and varied play of Mayer today.  It was a great match all-round.  What makes the match even more spectacular is the physical ability that both players showed, in having to constantly chase wide balls and when you consider that means digging your feet into the ground and stretching wide all the time, that’s tough on the muscles.  This was a match full of long rallies, utilizing many angles, dropshots and changes of pace.  It was 3-1 in the first set, and even during those points, there were images of Mayer huffing and puffing, which in the end cost him his break of serve.

Ferrero was hitting the ball well, playing traditionally effective claycourt tennis which generally consists of a lot of side-to-side action and well-constructed points.  I’d say he is the epitome of a professional player, and I’m sure his experience has much to do with that.  His shots are consistently strong and he doesn’t give his opponents much to work with, when he’s hitting on the run.  They just don’t decrease in quality that easily. 

It was a battle on who would come out on top – whether Ferrero could keep Mayer on the run enough, or whether Mayer would throw just enough surprises to change the course of a rally.  In the first set, both players had their fair share of success in this area, but I did think that Ferrero would come through, mainly because Mayer was playing a little above himself while Ferrero looked like he could keep it up forever.

I wouldn’t have thought that as the match wore on that Mayer’s forehand would become more of a prominent feature than Ferrero’s.  I find it hard to believe that Mayer was having anything other than a spectacular day on this side, the way he cracked all these flat winners from up high in the second and third sets, often down-the-line. 

At first, he was lacking somewhat defensively on this side.  Often his elbow would lift up a little too much, and he’d float it into the middle of the court, and he’d have to work hard to turn the rally back around.  That was the exact weakness that he ironed out in the second and third sets, to manufacture a dramatic turnaround. 

He didn’t only improve his defensive forehand.  He tried to do more with it as soon as he had the chance to try to keep rallies more in his favour. I have to say I haven’t seen Mayer play this aggressively from the baseline before.  Usually he uses his strong shots to follow into the net, but this is clay, and perhaps he just can’t make it into the net as much. 

At times, he surprised himself just as much.  By the third set, he was occasionally smiling at some of his big shots.  Let’s hope that he can carry this form into the semi-finals, because he knows it’ll be a good opportunity, playing against Andrey Golubev.  If he can play anywhere near as well as he played today.

Ditch, an almost 20-year-old division 2 player, was finding himself losing matches not solely because the score said so, but because he departed the court too many times during the points. He might have physically been on the court for 2-3 hours, but mentally he showed up for less than an hour.

“I have three weeks off,” he moaned on the phone during the Christmas break.

“What are you doing today?”

“A doctor’s appointment and meeting some friends.”

“Wanna do your homework now for the tennis season?”

“I’m not playing this week.”

“Play off the court. Practice your focus; practice not being perfectly invested 100% of the time, but watch how you come back from being disengaged,” I suggested and asked, “What are you doing at the doctor?”

“Flu shot.”

“And friends?”

“Just a bunch of us getting together.”

“Easy. Take the flu shot with full engagement. Look at the needle.”

“I hate shots; I always look away.”

I heard my voice get louder, “Change your game plan.”

“I’ll watch the needle,” Ditch repeated, “and call you later.”

He wrote rather than spoke:

“I shook my arm, watched her prepare the needle with yellow fluid, watched it pierce my skin, watched the cylinder depress, and watched it being removed. My mind was surprisingly clear, and my arm was surprisingly relaxed. I thought beforehand that my arm would tense up, like it does in a match, and that it would hurt (as I usually expect a missed shot to feel). However, during the whole process, I had none of those thoughts. ‘In the zone’ came to mind.

And afterward, at the gathering of friends, I was engaged in the discussions among everybody.... but only for short periods of time. I was aware that every time (and frequently) I would ‘drift’ off into my own tangent fantasies about tennis or girls, or even a rare and random thought prompted by a line in the conversation. I do this on the court, but I usually focus on what I’m doing wrong rather than what I want next. But being aware of it helped my bounce back more quickly and I joined in... It didn't affect the amount of times I left (quite a large number), but it did affect the time it took to come back. Each return to the next part of the conversation took less time. Maybe it will take less time for me to get into the next point?”

And maybe Ditch’s workouts will be happening no matter where he is – on or off the court – at the doctor’s or on a date.

P.S.: Ditch got his name a few years ago from his first girlfriend. Though she didn’t stick around, (“For obvious reasons,” she said.) the name did.

I've made no secret over the years about my admiration for American Taylor Dent. As a kid I was a big Boris Becker fan - serve and volley at all costs and with a booming serve to back it all up, how could one not be drawn to such a game? Fast forward twenty or so years and very few players still employ a serve and volley strategy on the ATP Tour.

Taylor Dent is one of the remaining throw-back players who lives and dies with his ability to control and capture the net. An all-round nice guy on and off the court, Dent is a genuine guy who has always been candid with the media. The fact that he can effectively use his 6'2'', 195lbs frame to volley as often as he does is quite the feat.

Reaching a career-high of 21st in the world in August of 2005, Dent has had some decent results in the past. He has won four career ATP Titles and made another three finals. Twice he has made it to the fourth round of a Grand Slam, and last year he made it to the third round of the U.S. Open which gave him the confidence to pursue his comeback even further. After losing to Andy Murray there he said, "It's nothing but positive for me. This is a huge step forward in my progression."

I had the good-fortune to talk one-on-one with Dent during the summer of 2008 as he was just beginning his comeback to the ATP Tour. Sidelined for two years with a serious back injury, Dent did not even think that returning to the professional tour was an option.He spoke to me about a visit with his doctor who surprisingly one day gave him the thumbs up to return to the court.

"All of a sudden the doctor goes, "you know, it looks really good, you should just go give it a shot." I was like, whoa - out of nowhere. It was kind of fortunate that it worked out that way because I didn't have to worry about coming back. And then all of a sudden it was just like, "you know, you can go play some ball, play some tennis."

I’ve been looking at the subject of trending topics and journalism lately. The conversation goes like this: Traditional media outlets such as newspapers and magazines are drowning in the world of the online mediasphere. Blogs and websites dedicated to such subjects as sports and celebrities with little or no subscription costs short of a video ad or text ads running down the side of the page are taking over the news world.

In order to catch up and make a profit instead of continuing to lose money, media outlets are replacing editors with search engines. Instead of a group of gray suited editors meeting in the newsroom each morning and handing out writing assignments – and essentially dictating the subject of discussion for its readers which used to be much of the population – new media sites are looking at hot search topics on Twitter, Google, and Yahoo and assigning articles based on those results.

No matter what you might think of this turn of events, and I certainly find it distressing that TMZ.com was valued at $100 millions dollars earlier this year while the LA Times is slowly fading away, let’s see what this might look like in the world of tennis media.

I went to monitter.com and entered the search term “tennis” and found the following trending topics on twitter: Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, and the ATP grass court event in Newport. Serena is trending because she’s on the front of Sports Illustrated this week, Rafa because he’s taking over Roger Federer’s place as the best player in the game, and Newport because Nicolas Mahut is playing and that, my friends, comes from the biggest tennis topic of the year so far – as decided by google’s trend tracker - that never ending match between Mahut and John Isner in the first round of Wimbledon.

Next I went over to Google’s Hot Searches and looked at their list of most searched items. As you could probably guess, no tennis item was high on the list. So I decided to pair one of the trending tennis topics with one of Google’s Hot Searches to push my blog post closer to the top of Google’s search page – that’s the goal right?

I started with Hot Search topic Caster Semenya. After winning the African Junior Championships in both the 800 meter and 1500 meter races last year, Semenya was barred from competing while her gender was verified. Competitors claimed that she is built like a man and so competing against her is unfair. She’s a trending topic today because the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced that Semenya has been cleared to return to competition as a woman.

Which brings me back to Serena. Did anyone ever complain that it’s unfair to compete against Serena because she’s just too strong? She definitely got a bosom and a big butt, but if her game was jello wrestling rather than tennis – which requires at least a bit of finesse, would she be facing a gender test before being allowed to compete in the next event? Or, as @dollfacebarbie put it, “Why do Serena Williams look so Hard?”

And then there’s LeBron James and his pals Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. These athletes are the most valuable free agents in the NBA this summer and they are dictating the lives of many other NBA players at the moment. Salivating teams are dumping and trading players left and right to free up enough money to sign one, two, or maybe all three of these bigtime free agents.

What’s interesting about this process is the circus surrounding it. Particularly the cameras following Wade and Bosh who are being filmed as part of a documentary. Teams ask the players to turn the cameras off during their sales pitches to Wade and Bosh but you have to think that some of them feel more like fodder for a new Borat movie than a serious contender for either player’s services.

Which leads me to wonder, what about tennis documentaries or reality shows? We had a Serena and Venus reality show and that was nice, but what about a reality show that follows a player on tour, or a reality show that works the coaching merry go-round on the ATP and WTA tour by choosing a player’s next coach?

Marcos Baghdatis fired both his coach and his trainer this past week. Baggy’s a great subject for a reality show because he’s good looking and he’s an emotional and charismatic player. He also has a history of playing well on big stages and the American audience knows him from a captivating five set thriller with Andre Agassi during Agassi’s last U.S. Open.

John McEnroe could be Donald Trump and fire prospective coaches until there’s only one left. Tennis magazines could follow the burgeoning relationship between Baggy and his newly chosen coach. For sure the topic should trend high when they break up – honest, the top two stories on Yahoo today involve the breakup of Jake and Vienna, the resulting couple of ABC’s reality show The Bachelor.

Look, reality shows make their own news. That’s the point. The point is to generate a looping news cycle by creating a product that involves the audience and thus creates a trending topic. Media sites then assign stories on the trending topic and celebrity magazines join in and you’re golden.

Whaddya think? Short of bringing back Anna Kournikova, how can we make tennis trend?

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Did Wimbly deliver for you all?  I like to think it did; I hope it did.  But I am uncertain, and feeling a bit like the little kid sitting atop the heap of Christmas toys in the New Yorker cartoon, who turns to his parents forlornly and says, "Is this all?"

Somehow I wanted more.  Am I teed off because my man Roger Federer lost again, I wondered.  No, I decided, I'm getting used to his losses now, and Berdych is a real contender, no shame there in Federer losing to him. 

If you think Roger is crying, how must Andy Roddick be feeling?  Has someone checked in with him just to see he hasn't slashed his wrists or done anything foolish?  He went out to a qualifier for heaven's sake. 

Sam Stosur lost in the first round; I had good hopes of her going deep here, but she spent herself perhaps unwisely coming into Wimbly. 

Venus Williams repeated a pattern she has shown us more than a little of lately - she plays solid for a few rounds, then she has just an awful day and away she goes.   Rather mystifying.

Andy Murray came up short yet again, so he gets a new nickname:  Shorty.   In fact, both semi-finals were disappointing.  Novak Djokovic couldn't derail Tomas Berdych and his game now seems to be resting in a state of somewhat suspended animation; he doesn't ever play that poorly that he starts to slump in the rankings, but he doesn't seem ready to leap up another level either.  So the Lads In Waiting are, still, keeping us waiting.  I thought the crowd atmosphere at the Murray semi-final was muted nearly from the beginning, as if the Brits were already resigned to their man not getting through.   And somehow by the end of the match with Nadal they were ok with things.  The writing on the wall was that clear.

No waiting around with Serena Williams or Rafael Nadal however.  They performed above and beyond the call of duty.  When the chips are down and your life depends on the outcome of a match, I would want to bet on either one of these two to save the day.  Desire and determination are so etched into their characters when they walk on court that the opponents may as well not bother, just keep heading over to the strawberries and cream concession stand.

I saw no chance at all for Vera Zvonareva to do anything else but lose to Serena in straight sets.  I just hoped that the Russian would be very happy to get to her first Slam final and at least she didn't get bageled.  She appeared to leave the court in a decent disposition, and that's a good thing.  I can remember her leaving the court about a year or so ago after blowing a horrendous chance against Flavia Pennetta in a night match; Vera physically started to beat on her own body before she had even left the court. 

Berdy I had a little more hope for.  Someone mentioned Safin upsetting Sampras at the Open ten years ago, and I liked that analogy; Berdych has the game to do that, but not on this Sunday.  Still, I was hoping he might have taken a page from Pete's playbook and just try to stay close to Nadal and aim for the tiebreaks, then, once there, he could amp up the serving like Pete used to do and sneak off with the set.   Didn't quite work out that way - the big Czech gave up a single break in each of the three sets, so he never got to those chances in the tiebreak.  Still, his nerves mostly looked under control, and he got to show off a lot of his stuff.  Maybe next time we will get more out of him.  I like Berdych a lot; I have been waiting around for like forever on this guy.  Such a smooth, powerful talent!  I want more stuff out of him now!

Many folks seemed to respond to the Isner-Mahut match-up.  For my money though I would rather pick my way over burning coals on hands and knees than sit through ALL of this match.   The shotmaking goes away and it becomes all about the serve and who can stand up straighter for longer and fire bullets endlessly.   That's not tennis, that is torture.  So sue me.  At least Isner got some good press play from that endless endless match.  OK, John, now we expect stuff out of you too going forward!

Can Roger Federer win another Slam?  I was thinking he had several more left after he won the Australian this year, but since then he has shown us much cause for concern.  I wonder if he will keep talking up how much he loves the game and how he wants to play until his mid-late 30s.  We may not hear so much of that now.  Reality may be sinking in, slowly, reality being the level of the men's game now, and how hard it is for the top guys to stay on top.  I thought Federer looked so poorly early on that I wondered if he had practiced enough; he looked pretty rusty against Falla.  

Federer may turn out to be more of a Leo that he realizes:  Leos like to be kings of the world; they EXPECT it.  When things don't work out, they have a marked propensity to pack up the marbles and go home.   Look at the handshake Fed gave Berdy after the match.   He hated losing that match.

"Oh, Come on!” I replied. “I bet twice a year, at most, once on the Grand National (horse racing), and maybe once on the tennis," I said, in self-defense.

"Look, fourteen-to-one. Fourteen-to-one on any other player apart from Federer, Nadal and Murray." I said with a little persuasion, "That’s gotta be worth a bet. My gut tells me so." I continued attempting to back up my decision with some intuition. Something I felt that my girlfriend would understand.

"The likes of Berdych or Soderling, or maybe even Andy Roddick are gonna upset the seedings this year, I can feel it." I carried on, "Seeing Berdych destroy Murray in the third round of the French (Open), and then reaching the semis, I just fancy his chances."

"Anyway," I continued, backing my case further like an unconvincing lawyer, "you bet on the stock market, so what’s the difference with me betting on the tennis?" I said, realising the weakness of my argument as soon as I clocked what I was implying,"Well that’s hardly the same thing."

She replied, "I get dividends and I can pull out whenever I like. And there's always options, which means I can gain even when the market is falling," she said, with conviction.

"Well I'm going to have a bet anyway," I said, with a stubborn tone, realising that any counter argument was futile.

"Well it’s your money," she said with a slightly smug tone. And our mini-episode was over. I felt thoroughly defeated, in straight sets.

Unfortunately when it came to placing my bet, I felt another defeat. After three credit card rejections on-line and some rather bad language I decided I was getting a sign that it wasn't meant to be, and maybe (dread of dreads) that my girlfriend was right. Gut instinct was just an excuse for my little whim where I was going to waste 100 Euros.

But then I thought, right I'll back it with a hundred on Nadal as well, for ‘security.' His odds were 3-to-1, so I’d be in for a healthy payback as long as Federer or Murray, (whom my gut wasn’t responding to), didn’t win. Alas on the fourth try, my card still didn't work, so I reluctantly accepted defeat once more.

So here I sit, two weeks later, on the eve of the Wimbledon 2010 tennis final, facing my third (or is it fourth) successive defeat as Rafael Nadal is to face Thomas Berdych in the Final on Sunday. Life can be so cruel, as Murray can testify after yesterday’s semi-final:

Our great British hope, Andy Murray, faced Rafael Nadal in his second consecutive Wimbledon semi-final. Unfortunately for Murray he has found Nadal in the form of his life, with the Midas touch to boot.

In the first two sets Nadal displayed a standard of tennis that Murray could do nothing about. Nadal took the first set 6-4, though performances from both players were world-class throughout. Murray continued to elevate his standard and his second set performance was of an even higher standard than his first. He outstripped Nadal in virtually every statistical department; more winners, less unforced errors, a higher first serve percentage, more aces and so on. Neither player was able to break serve. At six games all, the unpredictable tie break ensued. Alas, for Murray luck seemed to favour the world number one as a net cord at 6-6 gave Nadal set point. Nadal apologised with a customary hand gesture, and duly went on to smash him on the next point, thanks for the apology! Murray couldn't hide his disappointment and hurled his racquet into the dirt with the force he delivers his blistering 130mph plus first serve. Fortunately the racket landed harmlessly on the baseline about 10 feet away and no-one was hurt, only his pride.
All credit to him, Murray again came out fighting and took an early break in the third set to take a 2-0 advantage and raced to a 4-2 lead. There it seemed he completely ran out of ideas and possibly energy, no doubt daunted by the task that was ahead of him. Errors started to creep back in as the fatigue was clear for all to see. Nadal broke back and didn't drop another game to take the set 6-4. Nadal won 6-4 7-6(6).
It will be of little consolation for Andy that he did in fact win more points than Nadal in the whole match. However, as well as Murray played, he didn’t provide the viewer with the belief that he could really beat Nadal at the key moments, when it matters most. With 72 years without a Wimbledon finalist, let alone a champion, it seems that British tennis is still as far away as ever.

In the other Semi-Final the Czech Thomas Berdych convincingly beat the Serbian Novak Djokovic in straight sets 6-3 7-6(9) 6-3. After out-powering Djokovic in the first set, Berdych had a minor wobble in the second set tie-break where he failed to take any of his four consecutive set points, but was strong enough to put it behind him and close the set 11-9.

Djokovic looked empty and thoroughly beaten at the beginning of the third set, as he continued to struggle with the unrelenting pace of the 6ft 5inch Czech. Berdych took the final set from a despondent Djokovic 6-3.

Berdych puts his most recent successes down to his victory over Federer earlier this year in the Miami masters series, when he came back from match point down to take the match. He said it was a turning point for him and it certainly seems his results since have backed that notion. His game has, for some time, shown that it has all the technical and tactical components of a top-5 player. He certainly hits the ball harder and more precisely than just about anyone on tour, even harder than the brutal Robin Soderling.

It seems Berdych’s belief and persistence have been the only thing lacking, but surely no longer. With the tools in his game and his results that have followed, Berdych must feel that ‘the sky’s the limit.' In his post match interview Berdych said he "fears no-one." Well he hasn’t faced Nadal in a Grand-Slam final yet, so let’s see!

What has become clearer, at least to me, is that persistence and belief really are key. And that gut instinct often has a value much stronger than most of us may realise. I, for one, will be making sure that the next time my gut talks to me, I listen more intently. As for the final on Sunday I’m rooting for a moral victory. Come on Berdych!