The second week of Wimbledon was somehow so much better than the first but also really quite frustrating. The singles action got really interesting and good, but it felt much harder to keep track of everything else. It was a really, really wet fortnight and it’s so impressive that the schedule didn’t slip very much considering there were a few days with basically no play. But the concertina effect did make it hard to find anything outside of the main show courts.

Nevertheless, the highlight of the second week for me was the ladies semi-finals, which was one match after the other of absolute top quality tennis and three sets of each of tension, nerves and emotion. When Rybakina won the first set against Krejcikova, I thought that was it, she was probably going to dominate the rest of the match and win the title again, because she can do that. But it turned on its head and we saw the Czechia player come through and win from a set down. Then she shared her emotions on the court interview, having been coached by the lovely Novotna previously.

If that wasn’t enough, following on from that we had the incredible battle between Paolini and Vekic both of whom clearly wanted it SO badly. Vekic was playing better for most of the match but was really struggling by the end and Paolini won it really from sheer obstinance and force of nature. That set us up for a final which would see a new Wimbledon winner crowned, and in the end, the final couldn’t live up to those two matches, despite also going to three.

I thought the men’s semi-finals day was going to go the same way when the brutal battle between Medvedev and Alcaraz got underway. I don’t follow the men’s game religiously but even I could see that was some quality playing. I did notice that there were several occasions when the call of ’not up’ had to be announced by the umpire (ie. the ball bouncing twice before the player can get to it) which you don’t see so much on the women’s side. Either they know not to bother to run for it or the men are just that bit quicker. Interesting.

Anyway, the second semi-final was much less interesting, as tends to be the case when Djokovic gets involved, so yay for him not winning the title! And now tennis switches back to the clay for the Olympics and we get to basically do Roland Garros all over again!