Seeded

Is it merely coincidence that the four finalists in the women's competition at Wimbledon were the first four seeds, i.e. no.1 Dinara Safina, no. 2 Serena Williams, no. 3 Venus Williams and no. 4 Elena Dementieva? A cynic might say, why bother to have the whole tournament at all, if you know who is going to be in the finals, why not just skip directly to them?
Was there any doubt that that the final would be an all-Williams affair again? It's true that Serena nearly muffed it with a lackluster performance in the semifinal against Dementieva, who had a match point against Serena but failed to capitalize on it and went down after a close third set. By contrast, Venus blew away Safina with a 6-1 6-0 performance of undoubted mastery. Yet, it was Serena who prevailed as the champion. The question must be asked, why is it that Venus, who lost not one set in the whole tournament, lost two to her sister in the final?
You might say, well the men's result shows that the outcome cannot be predicted, except that 3 of the top seeds were also in the men's tournament. In the absence of no. 1 Raphael Nadal, Roger Federer at no. 2, Andy Murray at no. 3 and Andy Roddick at no. 6 were in the semis. The missing players were no. 4 Djokovic and no. 5 Del Potro, who were beaten by Tommy Haas no. 24 and Lleyton Hewitt no. 56, respectively. But, Haas was duly beaten in the semis by Federer and Hewitt was in turn defeated by Roddick. So it is mainly Tommy Haas, the German veteran (aged 31), who we have to thank for making the competition less predictable.
Nevertheless, Roddick (6) beat Murray (3) in the semis. All England, and not only the All England Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club, were watching. Murray said that he was beaten by the "narrowest of margins," and that's true, Murray had more winners than Roddick (76 to 64) and fewer unforced errors (20 to 24), yet Roddick won only a few more points than Murray (143 to 141) (by contrast Federer won 112 points to Hass' 81). Ah well, maybe next year!
Then Roddick went down to Federer in a close-fought final, in which neither could easily penetrate the other's service game. Nevertheless, Federer was patient and consistent and out-waited Roddick in the last set and won it 16-14! It is interesting to note that a year ago, both Federer and Roddick were thought to be on their way out. Federer was fading relative to Nadal and had a bad back and lost several matches, and Roddick was considered to be a has-been. But, Federer started fighting back and then won the French Open before Wimbledon and Roddick started with a new coach and re-dedicated himself to lose weight and improve his game. Both succeeded. Now Federer on the basis of this win can be considered the greatest tennis player ever, having won 15 Grand Slams and 6 Wimbledon finals and has now recaptured the no. 1 spot.