5^th-11^th July 2010

By Our Sports Writer

The world’s number one tennis player Rafael Nadal romped to victory again to win the 2010 Wimbledon men’s singles title.  The 24yr old Spaniard destroyed the 12^th seed Czech Tomas Berdych in straight sets [6-3 7-5 6-4] to regain the Wimbledon crown that he failed to defend last year due to injury.

“It’s more than a dream for me.  After a difficult year for me, missing the tournament last year, this year I came back and to have this trophy in my hands is more than a dream….I want to say thank you to the crowd because I was playing the local player on Friday and the respect on the court was amazing…..that doesn’t happen on every court in the world so thank you very much,” added Nadal.  Nadal had despatched British hopeful Andy Murry on Friday; hence his tribute to the British crowd.

Nadal’s impressive record now includes two Wimbledon titles, five French Opens and one victory at the Australian Open.  With his latest win, Nadal has proved that he is currently the world’s best player and the one to beat.  At just 24yrs of age, he definitely has a lot of time on his hands to threaten the records held by some of the world’s greatest tennis players like Pete Sampras and Roger Federer; a man who has a mind blowing 16 Grand Slam titles.

The runner-up, Czech player Tomas Berdych, beat six time champion and world number two Roger Federer in the quarter-finals and third seed Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals to book his place in the just concluded final with Rafael Nadal.  Berdych paid tribute to Nadal and said: “It’s been a great two weeks for me, but he was really strong, he’s showing in the last few months he’s really the champion”.