Andymonium

Who woulda thunk it? Two sets and a break down. You would have bet your house on Richard Gasquet winning it. And back Andy Murray comes. A five set battle. Some beautiful tennis. The crowd roaring like they were watching Man U. And a Brit into the quarter finals.

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I will be the first to admit that I am not the biggest Andy Murray fan. He seems to me sort of like a Scottish version of Lleyton Hewitt, personality wise. But that kid has got some serious game. The real litmus test of how well he is playing seems to be his first serve, and his percentage was majorly rubbish in the first two sets. But to his credit, he picked it up. He got his head in the game. And he thoroughly deserved that victory.

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Murray hasn't been as well beloved by the British public as Tim Henman was - much in the same way that while Lleyton is a tabloid star here, he isn't in people's hearts like Pat Rafter was. But poor Richou, shaking his head after the match in the presser, said that it was like playing a Davis Cup tie, and I agree with him. The crowd was insane. I was in Rod Laver Arena for one of Alicia Molik's matches at the Australian Open this year, and it was nothing like this. I saw Dmitry Tursunov beat Chris Guccione at the Medibank International, and although the crowd was totally behind Gooch, it wasn't like this. Of course, the stakes weren't quite as high as here, but I don't know if I have ever seen a crowd so absolutely electrified. Not even Gael Monfils, with his crazy eyes and weird acrobatic antics, lit up the crowd like this when he played Federer in the semis at Roland Garros.

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Henmania was a documentable phenomenon. Now we have Andymonium - and while Andy may not be beloved like Tim, that doesn't mean that the crowd at SW19 isn't getting right behind him.

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I'm not sure what I think about this, to be honest. I like Richou a lot, and I felt so sorry for him. Because if that crowd hadn't been there, pumping Murray up, would he have won?

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This is a question we cannot answer. Whatever the reason and however he did it, Murray pumped himself up and took the match back, and that is very much to his credit. And I picked him to win, so at least that vindicated me a little... yeah, my record in picking quarter finalists this time has not been quite so illustrious as it was at the French. Let's have a bit of a looksee... starting with matches I got right.

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Federer/Hewitt. I totally got that one right. As if I wasn't going to. There's this great article on the Wimbledon website today by Alix Ramsay, where she talks about a Swiss journalist coming into the bunker near the end of the first set and saying, 'Ah, the ankle-biter is playing well, yes?' That seems to me the perfect description of Lleyton Hewitt, especially now, with his injuries and his slide down the rankings. He plays annoying tennis. He gets a lot of balls back, and he runs around retrieving like a crazy person. There was another great line in the article where Ramsay described Hewitt like this:

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'A bundle of nervous energy, it looked like he would heat a bedsit for a week if you plugged him into the electricity grid.'

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Hewitt challenged, and he challenged bravely. He plays, as Ramsay described it, 'Come over here if you think you're hard enough' tennis. I like that about him. Like a terrier, he doesn't give up. But with his hip problem, his tennis was never going to be anything but annoying. He could do nothing but bite Federer's ankles.

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The first set was tight, but once Federer had that under his belt, he sailed away. He didn't bring his A-game, though he played very nicely nevertheless. What is most telling is these stats - 63% of first serves in, winning 85% of the time. He converted 3/3 break points, and defended 8/8. He shifted gears when he needed to. It was a consummately professional performance. The carpet slippers came off, but you can't really play Hewitt wearing them.

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I was right on the Safin match as well, much to my glee. He'd never beaten Wawrinka before, and I think he wanted a tiny bit of revenge. Not that Stan is a very revenge inducing guy - he's very nice. But Marat is always his angry self, inexorably. Actually, there was a great line in Kate Battersby's article about the match... she said that Wawrinka was looking unhappy, and then said this:

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'Of course, Safin also appeared outwardly unhappy, but only in that uniquely Safinesque way that actually means he is enjoying himself.'

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He played very well indeed, aside from that loose game at 5-5 all in the third when he gave the break straight back to Wawrinka, who promptly served out the set. I don't know if Marat is ever happy with himself, but I think this should go some way towards it - a little, anyway. He's not quite the Marat of years of yore, but he is the closest facsimile we're going to get, I think - and it's a pretty decent one. He stands a real chance of getting to the semis, I think, and he's never done that before. I would love for Marat to achieve a milestone now, when a lot of people have been talking like his career is over. He has won four matches in a row now, and that is something he has not done for at least a couple of years now. Can he take out Feliciano Lopez? Yes, I think he can.

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Feliciano 'Fidgiano' Lopez took out Marcos Baghdatis in a five set thriller - and I totally didn't expect that. Fidgiano has a great grass court game, but I didn't think he had anything on Marcos. Looks like I was wrong. It was a big big battle, to be sure, but it was Fidgiano who held his nerve and came out on top. Marcos must be bitterly disappointed. With Djokovic and Nalbandian out of the quarter, he must have really fancied his chances to get to the semis. After he lost to Federer at Halle, someone asked him what his expectations were for Wimbledon, and he replied, 'to win it.' He must be very sad.

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Another five set battle was the Verdasco/Ancic match - which I did predict correctly, although I certainly wasn't expecting it to be 13-11 in the fifth! Ancic got through that marathon match, and he'll face Federer. I hope it hasn't taken too much out of him, because I'd like him to play well. I think it'll be good for Federer to have a tough match - though I think he should still win in straight sets. People keep going on about how Ancic was the last man to beat Federer on grass - but what they forget was that that was in 2002, and Federer was not yet Federer then. Mario knows that, though. It won't stop him trying, however, and that's a good thing. I'd pick Federer, obviously, to get through that one relatively unscathed.

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Rafa beat Youzhny, which was pretty expected, even though I picked Youzhny to win. A bit of a scare, though, with the knee - I was really worried he was going to have to default. But no, he played on. It will be interesting to see how he shapes up after he cools down. You can bet Andy Murray will be exploiting it, if there is anything there to exploit. Rafa said he felt something crack, so I hope, for his sake, it's not too bad.

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I was thoroughly unimpressed with Youzhny, though. He didn't totally suck, but he did a pretty good impression of it, especially with his crap drop shots. Seriously, did any of them work? I think they did not.

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And then the two old guys got through! Schuettler beat Tipsarevic and Clement beat Cilic. Once again, I was totally wrong in this quarter. I want Clement to get through to be this Slam's random Frenchman, and so I'm going to pick Schuettler to win as sort of insurance.

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I didn't do too bad picking out the women, though - both my upsets came to pass! Tanasugarn took out Jankovic and Radwanska took out Kuznetsova. I was a bit sad for Sveta... I like her, and the wheels fell off her game, to an extent. Radwanska deserved that win, though - good on her! That's all top four seeds out now.

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I suppose Vaidisova's win over Chakvetadze could be considered an upset too, and I picked that one. I picked the Williams sisters to win as well - but really, who wouldn't? The match I'm really looking forward to is Dementieva/Petrova - I'm quite fond of Petrova, so I hope she does well! My semi final picks are going to be... hmmm... Vaidisova/Serena and Petrova/Venus. I wouldn't mind it if A-Rad pulled an upset over Serena, though!

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Ladies' Day tomorrow, so all those matches will come to pass... and I might get to bed at a reasonable hour, because they can go no longer than three sets! These last six weeks have put me on such a bizarre sleeping pattern... I'm going to have jetlag!

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Wimbledon Results - Day #7

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Men's Draw

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Roger Federer def. Lleyton Hewitt, 7-6 (9-7) 6-2 6-4

Rafael Nadal def. Mikhail Youzhny, 6-3 6-3 6-1

Marat Safin def. Stanislas Wawrinka, 6-4 6-3 5-7 6-1

Andy Murray def. Richard Gasquet, 5-7 3-6 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 6-4

Rainer Schuettler def. Janko Tipsarevic, 6-4 3-6 6-4 7-6 (7-4)

Mario Ancic def. Fernando Verdasco, 3-6 4-6 6-3 6-4 13-11

Arnaud Clement def. Marin Cilic, 6-3 7-5 6-2

Feliciano Lopez def. Marcos Baghdatis, 5-7 6-2 3-6 7-6 (7-4) 8-6

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Women's Draw

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Agnieszka Radwanska def. Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-4 1-6 7-5

Nicole Vaidisova def. Anna Chakvetadze, 4-6 7-6 (7-0) 6-3

Serena Williams def. Bethanie Mattek, 6-3 6-3

Venus Williams def. Alisa Kleybanova, 6-3 6-4

Jie Zheng def. Agnes Szavay, 6-3 6-4

Nadia Petrova def. Alla Kudryavtseva, 6-1 6-4

Elena Dementieva def. Shahar Peer, 6-2 6-1

Tamarine Tanasugarn def. Jelena Jankovic, 6-3 6-2