After a very difficult 2009 in which Rafael Nadal suffered through injury and personal difficulties questions were asked whether we would ever see the best of Nadal again. In the space of 3 months this year, Nadal has silenced those critics and was again is the King of clay and Grass!

Today he tore apart the 12th seed Tomas Berdych in straight sets to regain the Wimbledon crown after being unable to defend is 2008 title last year. The tearing apart of Berdych was done on every crucial point as Nadal cruised 6-3 7-5 6-4 in two hours 13 minutes.

It’s a cliche in tennis to say that the best players play thier best tennis on the points that matter – But that’s exactly what Nadal did today and Berdych simply was not able to raise his game when it came to the crunch points.

After winning his 8th grand slam, Nadal spoke to the world,

It’s more than a dream for me, After a difficult year for me, missing the tournament last year, this year I came back and to have this trophy in my hands is more than a dream. I want to say thank you to the crowd because I was playing the local player on Friday, and the respect on the court was amazing, and that doesn’t happen on every court in the world so thank you very much

For the second year in a row Andy Murray has crashed out of Wimbledon at the semi final stage. It’s also the second time he has lost in straight sets to Nadal at Wimbledon.

The Scot lost the centre court affair 6-4 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 to continue the long wait for a British winner at Wimbledon.

Murray had his chances to win and served for the second set at 6-5 in the tie break, but today was not Murray’s day and once again the question must be asked. Can Murray hold his nerve to take that major grand slam next from potential winner to actual champion.

Nadal goes on to face Tomas Berdych in the final on Sunday after the Czech star outclassed Novak Djockovic in the first semi final.

Murray will move on to the US hard court season with much to ponder after another agonising loss in a grand slam.

Two years ago Andy Murray was comprehensively beaten Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon quarter finals as the Spaniard swept aside all opponents that year on his way to winning his first Wimbledon title.

Murray will get his chance once again against Nadal as the pair will meet on Friday to contest the semi final this time. The match will be played on centre court and will be the second match on after the first semi final between Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych. Play begins at 1pm on centre court and so expect a start time for Murray from anytime after 3pm – Who knows how long that first match may take.

That defeat two years ago, although crushing on the day, it was not a bad defeat. It showed Murray that he still had some more to go before he could stand toe to toe with big boys. It took Murray just 2 months of intense training and honing his game before he would get his chance in the US Open semi final to beat Nadal.

With the departure of Roger Federer, Nadal is now favourite to win Wimbledon with Andy Murray the 2nd favorite. The Bookmakers firmly believe that the 2010 champion will come from this match, which puts even more pressure on the Scot as he bids to become the first British mens finalist in the modern era.

The Murray Nadal rivalry has been growing in recent years, with them already meeting 4 times in grand slams and 10 in total. The first 5 matches the played were won by Nadal, though Murray has some what turned that trend around winning 3 of the last 5 matches between the two.

The score is 2 each in grand slam matches with Murray having won their last 2 grand encounters, the US open semi final in 2008 and their most recent meeting this year at the Australian Open.

The Bookmakers have Nadal as favourite to win over Murray with best odds for a Murray win available at Betfair, they are currently offering you a free £25 bet when you sign up.

Previous Matches

For the second year in a row Andy Murray has reached the semi finals of Wimbledon after coming back from losing the first set to beat 10th seed Jo-Wilfred Tsonga 6-7( 5-7) 7-6(7-5) 6-2 6-2 in under 3 hours.

He now faces Rafael Nadal in the semi finals on Friday.

The result could have been so different and really hinged on just one point in the second set tie break. With Tsonga leading 5-4 in the breaker and serving the next two points. Tsonga looked in control of the match until he made the worst decision of the day to leave a Murray return of serve that he thought was going long.

As the ball dropped inside the baseline Tsonga’s game dismantled, that point only leveled things up in the tie break, but the damage was done to Tsonga. Murray would get the mini break his way on the next point before serving for the set.

The next two sets breezed by with Murray breaking twice in each and begin to play the entertaining relaxed tennis that he shows off from time to time. This was in stark contrast to the previous very tight sets.

No breaks in the first set meant that Murray would need to play his first tie break of the 2010 Wimbledon championships. His record in important tie breaks has not been great. He lost two vital tie break last year to Andy Roddick in the semi final and lost a tie break he should have won in the Oz open final this year. And the tie break he played in the first set did not give any signs that this trend would stop as Murray’s serve deserted him.

A break of serve in Tsonga’s opening service game of the second set seemed to signal a change in Murray, but Tsonga soon broke back and the set became as tight as the first and another tight break was needed. As the centre court crowd watched in horror as Murray once again played a poor tie break to find himself a mini break and Tsonga with two serves for a two set to love lead.

If Murray goes on to win Wimbledon, it’s that next point that will stick out to me as the one that made it possible. After the match Murray spoke to the media,

It was really tough, The first couple of sets, we both had chances and neither of us could take them so we had the tie-breaks. I was having to do a lot of defending, but I played very well the last couple of sets.

With just a few days to go, the question on every one’s lips is not who will win the world cup, its…

Who will win Wimbledon 2010?

The 2010 Wimbledon draw has been made and the favorites to lift the title have safely made it through to the second week. Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Robin Soderling and Lleyton Hewitt have now been eliminated and there are just 4 men left.

Rafael Nadal in the last 3 months has returned to his very best, after a 10 month period that seen him lose for the first time at Roland Garros, unable to defend his Wimbledon title and a string of poor results, the Spaniard looks to be back to his best both physically and mentally. He has regained his French Open title and world number 1 spot and now looks to regain his Wimbledon Title. Though he disappointingly went out of Queens Club at the quarter final stage. In his first match he looked good, though was then pushed to 5 sets in next two matches and looked to be suffering from a recurring knee injury. A straight sets win in the 4th and an impressive quarter fianl win over many folks tournament dark horse Robin Soderling pit any injury doubts to bed.

Despite all this Federer was the favourite ahead of Nadal to lift the 2010 title, something that may seem it little strange when you consider that Rafael Nadal now holds a 14-7 record over Federer and has won 6 of their last 7 matches, but he is the favorite now.

Andy Murray is the bookmakers 2nd favourite to win Wimbledon this year and they certainly believe the event winner will come from winner of the Murray Nadal semi final. His odds were 3 or 4 times that of Nadal or Federer, but those odds have been reducing after five very impressive wins., dropping just 1 set all tournament to date. His form since reaching the final at the Australian Open has been woeful and the Scot was looking like he was suffering from the crushing defeat in Melbourne. That form looks to behind him now and he now looks to be in the right frame of mind to claim his first grand slam.

Novak Djokovic’s failure to ever mount a challenge at Wimbledon and recent average form had seen him drop to 6th favourite but after overcoming tough 4th round match against Lleyton Hewitt and cruising past Lu. Djokovic is now favorite to reach the final from his semi final match.

Tomas Berdych – If you placed a bet on Berdych to win Wimbledon this year at the start of the tournament, then you would be in the running for a mighty profit. The big serving check wasn’t really on anyone’s radar, always consider an “under performer” until he reached the semi finals of Roland Garros last month. He eliminated Roger Federer though so does he really deserve the least likely to win tag?

Betfair have been offering the best odds all week on just about all the potential winners and when you sign up, you’ll receive a free £25 bet.

Favorites already Eliminated…

Roger Federer – 2 years ago after losing to Rafael Nadal in that now infamous Wimbledon final, people started to question whether or not the career of Federer was now on a downward spiral – he proved his critics wrong then, coming back to claim his 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th grand slam titles – though most importantly he never had to face Rafael Nadal in any of those events. Those same question have now surfaced again. To add to his woes he lost the final of Halle where he had been unbeaten since 2002. He was just a few points from being eliminated in the first round by Falla and even struggled past Hasse in the 2nd before looking comfortable against Clement in the 3rd round and Melzer in the 4th Round. It would be Tomas Berdych who eliminated the now former champ.

Andy Roddick was last years champion and was the 4th favourite coming into Wimbledon though he had dropped to 5th favourite to win this year. He took out Britain’s great hope last year in the semi finals before losing an epic final to Roger Federer. He has since had a decent 12 months whilst still not really challenging the top players. Early knock out at Queens was not the best preparations, but had looked decent in the first 3 rounds. He was dumped out though on court 2 in the 4th round by journey man Lu.

Roddick dropped the 4th favourite tag to Robin Soderling – The French Open finalist has cemented his place inside the top 10 and has recent wins over Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray – He had been looking mighty impressive until he met Nadal that is.

The second Monday of Wimbledon is always a busy day, 8 men’s 4th round matches and 8 women’s 4th round matches need to be played and with just 3 matches assigned to each of the 2 main show courts it means that the public with ground passes get to see some potentially great matches. It also means that there is potential that a big star is going to be in unfamiliar territory on a smaller court and we may see an upset.

That’s what we got when Yen-Hsun Lu knocked out of the big favorites Andy Roddick on court 2 – Whether being on court 2 did affect Roddick or not is still in question, but Lu makes it through to his first Wimbledon quarter final to face Novak Djokovic.

So far the Roger Federer has looked a little shaky in the first 2 rounds and looked supremely good in the next two rounds, so when he faces Tomas Berdych on Wednesday which Federer will we get. Or will it be Berdych who decides who wins this one, a considered “under achiever” so far can the Czech player finally perform on the biggest stage.

In the bottom half of the draw, Murray has been making smooth progress and faces 10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter finals, which should be the toughest match to date for the Scot. Meanwhile in the final match Nadal and Soderling renew there now growing rivalry can Soderling record another win over Nadal?

The third round of matches are now complete and the line up for the round of 16 is known. Of the 4 favorites to win Wimbledon, In the top half Roger Federer and in the bottom half Andy Murray have the toughest matches, whilst Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal both have unseeded opponents.

Federer takes on the resurgent Jurgen Meltzer, in recent months, the talented Jurgen Melzer has produced some of his best tennis and has risen to a career high of 16 in the world. He reached a career best semi final at Roland Garros last month only losing to Rafael Nadal and along the way came back from two sets down to eliminate Novak Djokovic. If Federer  is not on the top of his game, then this one could well be another stonker!

Andy Roddick faces unseeded Yen-Hsun Lu and the winner of that match will play the winner of probably the match ofthe day between two of the best outside bets for the title. 3rd seed Novak Djokovic will take on former Wimbledon winner and former world number 1 Lleyton Hewitt.

In the bottom half of the draw Andy Murray will take on the winner of Queens this year and 18th seed Sam Querrey, see a Murray Querrey preview here. The winner of that match will definitely play a Frenchman as 32nd seed Julien Benneteau takes on 10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Meanwhile Rafael Nadal will face another Frenchman, Paul-Henri Mathieu and will play the winner of what should be another great match between 6th seed Robin Soderling and 9th seed David Ferrer. Soderling as so far negotiated his way through the first 3 rounds with consummate ease and is looking supremely good – Watch out the rest of the draw for this Swedish dark-horse!

Andy Murray once again brushed aside an opponent at this years Wimbledon cruising past Gilles Simon in straight sets to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon.

The world number never once looked in trouble as he saw of the former top 10 player 6-1 6-4 6-4.

The Scot will now face big serving Sam Querrey on Monday and too many this will be Murray’s toughest match so far. Querrey is the Queen’s Club winner from two weeks ago, though he struggled past Xavier Malisse in the third round needing five sets to get past the Belgian who broke back in the last set with Querrey serving for the match and forced it to 9-7 in the final set.

After Murray’s win today he spoke to reporters,

In terms of the way this week has gone, it’s been great, and I’ll try and build on it next week, It was really good. I didn’t lose a set and didn’t lose my serve since my second service game of the first match. Tonight was tough because it was getting pretty dark towards the end and if I hadn’t closed it out in the third set I would have had to go off and wait for the roof to close, so I got a little bit tentative around 3-3, It makes you a little more nervous because you want to get it done.

Murray broke the Frenchman’s serve in his opening service game and from then on the result of the match looked in very little doubt largely down the Scot’s serve. He dropped just 15 points in his own 14 service games and didn’t face one break point for the whole of the match.

Meanwhile Simon’s serve looked under constant threat and actually did well to limit it to 4 breaks of serve in the match. Murray won 40 points on the Simon’s serve almost as many as won on his own serve.

Match Preview

Andy Murray will take Giles Simon on the third round of the 2010 Wimbledon championships. The match will be last on centre court after the women’s singles match between  Serena Williams & Cibulkova and the men’s singles match between world number 1 Rafael Nadal and Germany’s Philip Petzschner.

Centre court play will start at 1pm, so barring no Marathons Murray should be starting his third round match around the 5-6pm mark, giving the BBC some prime time Saturday evening TV.

Murray’s opponent Giles Simon has not played since Tuesday after his second round opponent withdrew due to injury. Simon himself is on the injury comeback trail from a right knee injury that has been troubling the Frenchman since November 2009.

The former French Number 1 has slipped from a career high of 7 in the world down to his current 32, largely down the mentioned injury and has only managed to play in 6 events this year only getting by the first match in two of them.

During 2008 Simon met 3 times with Murray the victor in straight sets in all three matches, two on hard and one on clay. The pair did not play each other at any point in 2009 or 2010. Their only other meeting was their first match, this was on the clay courts in Rome back in 2007 and is the only match that Simon has posted a win over Murray.

Murray is aiming to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon for the fourth time, whilst it will be Simon’s second time in the 4th round should he win tomorrow after he reached that stage last year, but lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero.

The bookmakers have Murray as odds on favorite to reach the second week, the best odds you’ll get is 1/10 and that’s available from many boomakers including Betfair. The best odds you’ll get on Simon win is 19/2 and that’s only available at Betfair, who are offering a free £25 to new customers.