As suspected the 4th July weekend wasn't the greatest for the Americans with the Swiss coming out on top in both the Men's Wimbledon tournament and the first stage time trial of the Tour de France.
I'll start with the tennis where we knew an American by the name of Williams would prevail in the women's tournament, we just didn't know which one. Prior to the tournament my gut feel was Serena but after her close call against Dementieva in the semi-final and with the serene progress that Venus had made through the tournament and her history of dominating the tournament for much of the last few years I changed my mind. That was a wrong decision by me and like Serena I am perplexed by the fact that even though she holds three of the four majors now she is not the World Number 1 - maybe it is time for a change in the way the rankings are calculated! Also, congratulations to the sisters for defending their Doubles title.
Last year we were treated to one of the best and most memorable matches the men's tournament has ever produced and after Nadal's win many pundits saw it as the Federer era beginning to decline. However, history has proved that the pundits, and maybe I should include myself with them, were wrong as Federer has upped his game in the last twelve months and in addition to winning the US Open last summer he know holds the French Open and regained the Wimbledon title in another thrilling final. Andy Roddick played superbly throughout the tournament and came as close to not deserving to lose as is possible, but in sport there has to be a winner and Federer proved he is the best winner there has ever been in Men's Grand Slam tennis at least statistically.
The Lions on Saturday had the last game of their tour to South Africa and other than the rather pointless white armbands worn by the Springboks in protest about the ban received by Bakkies Botha, the match proved my theory that the Lions had more to play for and perhaps more importantly better depth of strength in their squad than the Boks. There were a number of immense performances from the Lions with Shaw yet again to the fore but two other forwards who showed prominently and have improved as players as the tour progressed were Andrew Sheridan and my man of the match for Saturday, Jamie Heaslip. With hindsight it is easy to recognise where things could have been done differently on the tour but all in all I believe that the Lions have proved themselves as a concept and I for one look forward four years to their next tour in Australia.
The Tour de France kicked into life with a very testing initial time trial on Saturday around Monaco and true to form the Olympic time-trial champion, Fabian Cancellera, rode a superb trial to win well ahead of most of the major contenders for overall tour victory. Britain's Bradley Wiggins put in an excellent performance in perhaps one of only two stages that he has a realistic chance of winning but what the trial really demonstrated was that the Astana team are going to be as good in action as they look on paper with four of their riders finishing in the top 10 including Lance Armstrong.
The second stage on Sunday was where the real action started as the peloton moved across the hilly South of France and after the initial breakaway was caught it always looked like a race that would come down to the sprinters. It didn't disappoint and the Columbia team superbly upped the pace and unleashed Mark Cavendish to victory and the green jersey - a jersey that he probably won't give up easily now.
My final predictions for the weekend were at the Moto GP in Laguna Seca (US) where the qualifying actually provided more incident as both Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner had big crashes which put them in doubt for the main event on Sunday. However, these motorcyclists are made of stern stuff and both lined up to start the race on Sunday after all the necessary medical checks and they finished third and fourth respectively (Lorenzo thereby equalling my prediction of finishing on the podium). With the injuries to his two key rivals it looked like Rossi would ride off into the distance to win (as I had predicted) but the reality was very different as Pedrosa who can normally be predicted to fall off, stayed on his bike and gave the Honda team their first win for over a year and perhaps signalled his intent to get back into the title race during the second part of the season.
Not a bad weekend on the prediction front therefore with four out of seven correct results for me leading to a profit of £1.50 and meaning overall losses down to £12.50 since the blog started.
In normal circumstances that would be the end but tomorrow the next great sporting event of the summer gets under way in Cardiff when the Ashes Cricket series between England and Australia begins. My early prediction for this match is an England win, mainly because of the withdrawal through injury of Brett Lee yesterday afternoon but after all the fine weather that Wimbledon experienced it looks like the weather could be the major deciding factor in a result being obtained in this match.
Ashes Cricket
England to win first test at 5/2.
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