[Note : If it looks like I’ve had nothing serious to say the last few days, you’re right. 🙂 Thanks in advance for reading ! ]
AFTER TWO straight 12-hour shifts, sleep becomes a little more important to you, and the distinction between fatigue and sleepiness becomes a little more blurred. Despite this, I still couldn’t rest well early Wednesday morning (shift ended 3 am) and at around seven-ish was roused by the extra-cheery voice of the morning deejay.
Her words tap-tap-tapped my temples, yet made no sense.
Massive upset again at Wimbledon. Serena Williams loses to (indistinct).
Notwithstanding all the upsets and injuries at the most famous tennis tournament, the one-liner sounded like an April Fool’s joke. But the dispassionate internet update said it all : 6-2, 1-6, 6-4. Serena lost to someone who turned out to be Sabine Lisicki in a tournament that was hers from Day One.
I had to get out of bed just to verify how the challenger (Serena’s the defending champion) won. Sure she won the first, but got flattened in the second, and came back from 0-3 in the deciding third???? Whoa.
To get past Serena, Sabine needed two victories: she needed to triumph over the concept of Freight Train Serena, who had bulldozed three opponents on what previously looked like a victory match to the Wimbledon trophy stand. After that psychological hurdle, she had to actually produce the miracle of vanquishing probably the best player of the tounament, the best player of the year, the best player of the decade, and probably the best player of her generation.
Morever, after a tight first set against Lisicki, she got flattened in the second set 1-6, which lasted probably as long as a toilet break you make between sets. Except that by the time you returned, said set was already over. (Actually, the set time was between 15 and 18 minutes, but I haven’t checked.)
Like all great matches, the pretty German played the game of her life, broke Serena’s serve in the fourth game, produced winner after winner, paradoxically causing Serena to back up from her usual killer aggressive game.
It helped that Sabine plays exceptionally well on grass and is considered one of the few players who (obviously) can compete with Serena. If you believe pictures can tell a thousand words, moving pictures tell even more, and the video above speaks eloquently of Sabine’s unabashed pleasure over her win.
And just to show you how generous Serena was with her words, despite her loss, here’s what she said at the post-game conference:
As for me, at the rate I’m going, it’s gonna take a little more than a Wimbledon upset to rouse me from sleep tonight. Maybe a Pinoy drafted in the NBA first round, or winning a Grand Slam, but knowing the odds of those happening, I’m finally gonna get my 8 hours, good night!
Related articles
- Wild Wimbledon: Serena bounced (nbcsports.msnbc.com)
- Serena Williams stunned at Wimbledon by German Sabine Lisicki (sykose.com)
- Poll: What Was The Bigger Wimbledon Upset: Nadal, Federer Or Serena? (tennis-x.com)
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