By Ricky Dimon
The Wimbledon men’s singles final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer was all well and good. Okay, it was great. Downright epic, in fact. Just with a brutal ending for Federer fans.
But can we talk about Su-Wei Hsieh?
Hsieh is one of the most intriguing phenomenons in tennis right now, with an eclectic game that has her seeded in singles events in Grad Slams and at the top of the sport in doubles, She is the person you always want to be around off the court, but the one you never want to see on the other side of the net on the court.
Karolina Pliskova solved the Hsieh puzzle during third-round action in singles, but no one managed to beat her and Barbora Strycova in doubles. They captured the Wimbledon title by befuddling Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu for one hour and seven minutes en route to a 6-2, 6-4 triumph.
“Oh, my God, there is no word to describe the feeling,” said Strycova, who showcases a similar kind of junkballing style that also carried her to the semifinals in singles at the All-England Club. “It’s literally like 10 minutes right after; it’s (still) kind of like unreal. But in the same time it’s amazing.”
And it showed clear improvement from this pairing, which is in its first season and struggled at Roland Garros this spring.
“In Paris, we wanted to succeed really a lot,” Strycova explained. “So the stress was there. We didn’t really enjoy it. I felt like this tournament, especially Wimbledon, from the first moment we step on the court together we just laughed and we just enjoyed. We didn’t want to do the same mistake as we did at the French Open. We kept it through the whole tournament. I think that was also the biggest key we were playing the way we played.”
They played great again on Sunday night, winning a whole host of wild points despite prevailing by a routine scoreline.
“It was really fun,” Hsieh assured. “We need to try so hard to win every point.”
Earlier in the day, Shintaro Mochizuki triumphed by a similar 6-3, 6-2 scoreline to win the boys’ singles competition. Mochizuki, seeded eighth, got the best of unseeded Spaniard Carlos Gimeno Valero.
“Roger Federer,” Mochizuki when asked what player he looks up to. “I love watching him on TV, yeah. I don’t want to copy him, but I love watching him.”
The Japanese youngster can only hope to one day be playing in the same final in which Federer just played. But he’ll also hope four an outcome that Federer enjoyed on eight previous occasions but could not quite experience for a ninth time on Sunday.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.
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