As usual, I took some time off work this year over the Wimbledon fortnight to watch as much tennis as I possibly could. This time, I decided to shift the days a bit and focus more on the second week rather than the first… so typical that this was a year in which most of the top seeds went out super early and so I was left watching rather random people instead.

However, the random-ness of it is all part of the fun, and here are five things to takeaway from this year’s tournament:

• The finals were not quite the best representation of the sport that they could have been, were they? Quite apart from the fact that both the men’s and the women’s champions have had recent drugs-related bans, but also the women’s final. Look, people run out of energy, two weeks is a long tournament, and sometimes it’s just not your day. But I can’t imagine how frustrating it must have been to buy a pretty expensive ticket for the women’s final only for it to be done and dusted in less than an hour 6-0 6-0. Awkward.
• Electronic line calling continues to be a dominant topic of conversation, with Wimbledon having no human line judges for the first time. I don’t mind it, but the teething problems didn’t exactly help convince detractors that it’s all fine and working. Two significant events happened over the week that proved it to be fallible, so they’re definitely things to be tightened up on. The only other problem for me was that commentators have relied so much on looking at the outstretched arm of a line judge to call a play out or not that they were left flummoxed quite a lot of the time, which isn’t so helpful.
• Wimbledon Radio was amazing this year, with new names and voices to get to know and a much steadier stream than experienced on the Radio Roland Garros app. I do love the dedicated commentary on Centre and Court 1, alongside the main overall stream, which just gives you that extra bit of choice depending on what’s happening and what information you need to know.
• I watched a lot more men’s tennis this time and found it really interesting. Again most of the people I was focused on went out quite early, but a few made it through the rounds to get good results. I had started watching the men in the build up tournaments so I did find the switch to five setters a bit of a ballache, but I think I’ll try and watch more from both sides of the draw in future, rather than just focusing on the ladies.
• It was a lot of fun watching the Brits this year - usually we cheer on and don’t expect much but it felt like there was some actual hope of great results this year. And sure, they didn’t get to the biggest rounds but there were some exceptional performances. Sonay Kartal and Cam Norrie pushed as far as they possibly could in impressive style, whilst Raducanu’s match against Sabalenka was exceptional. A lot of fun… and let’s do it all again next year!