Help me, Petra Kvitova, you're my only hope

The advantage to a blog versus writing in a newspaper is that I can write things like this: I don’t like Maria Sharapova. Plain and simple. She annoys the crap out of me. Therefore, I’ll be rooting for Petra Kvitova in Saturday’s Wimbledon final.

What do I dislike about Sharapova? Her I’m-violently-plunging-a-knife-into-another-human screams (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LawWhZcmV0) every time she hits the tennis ball are a great place to start. It’s almost unwatchable at times. I’m afraid to have the volume on Saturday for fear of terrifying my 14-month-old daughter. No living thing should make noises like that unless under severe duress, yet she does it when she hits a ball with a racket. Second, yelling “Come on!” after nearly every point, even opponent errors, is obnoxious and disrespectful. There are other, less tangible things that bother me about her (sense of entitlement, perhaps?), but the bottom line is, the next time I root for her in a tennis match will be the first.

Kvitova has the type of game that can challenge Sharapova on grass. So does Sabine Lisicki, but perhaps the moment of today’s Grand Slam semifinal was too much for the German in her 6-4, 6-3 loss to Sharapova. Kvitova is playing in her first final, so she may be awed by the occasion. But she’s clearly on the rise. At 21, she’s reached a career-high ranking of No. 8, and in her last five Grand Slam events, she’s reached a final (this one), a semifinal (2010 Wimbledon), a quarterfinal (2011 Australian) and the fourth round (2011 French). She’s made five finals this year — on three different surfaces — and won three of those. On Thursday, she rebounded after dropping the second set to decisively close out a very tough player in Victoria Azarenka. She’s a good player with a tough serve. She could win on Saturday.

I, for one, hope she does.

Murray-Nadal should be a classic

The time is now for Andy Murray. Britain’s latest hope for a Wimbledon championship has a realistic chance to get it done this weekend at the All-England Club after, as expected, he handled Feliciano Lopez with minimal difficulty. He may have to beat Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to win it all. It could happen.

Nadal is playing good tennis, but he’s beatable at Wimbledon. We’re not certain about the condition of his injured foot, though he showed no signs of trouble on Wednesday. But you just have to figure that, eventually, one of these Brits (Tim Henman, and now Murray) will break through and win the tournament, and if Murray plays well, he could beat Nadal on grass. Working to Murray’s advantage is that he did just face a excellent lefty serve against Lopez in the quarters, and while Lopez and countryman Nadal are totally different players, conquering the opponent’s serve is a big step toward winning a match on grass.

The big news of the day is Roger Federer’s loss to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, which is surprising, though not the most stunning event ever to happen on a tennis court. He hasn’t won any of the last six majors, and three times during that span, he’s been ousted in the quarters. I thought either he or Djokovic would win the tournament, but Tsonga is a talented guy whose game is suited to grass. What makes Thursday’s result most surprising is that Tsonga overcame a two-sets-to-love-down deficit against one of the greatest closers in tennis history. And no one who watched the fifth set could have any doubt that Tsonga was playing better tennis than Federer. It was no fluke.

I’d love to see a Nadal-Murray final, but since that’s not possible, the best-case scenario for me is Tsonga-Murray. It would be great to have some new blood contesting a major championship. For so many years it’s been Nadal and Federer, with Djokovic occasionally getting into the conversation. A change would be nice.

On the women’s side, I see Azarenka and Lisicki coming through in Thursday’s semis, though I admit the Lisicki pick involves some wishful thinking.

Get your ear plugs ready

This could be your Wimbledon finals matchup — Sharapova, who shrieks like she's violently stabbing someone, against Azarenka, who sounds like a wounded bird. All the more reason to root for Kvitova and Lisicki on Thursday?

Rain and a look ahead

• And I thought Wimbledon constructed a retractable roof over Centre Court to avoid problems like today. Victoria Azarenka and Tamira Paszek will finish their quarterfinal match on Centre Court, resuming at 8 p.m. London time. Only one game had been played before play was suspended this evening, and fortunately the decision was made to finish the match under the roof tonight.

Knowing that rain is so likely in London, I’m not sure why they didn’t simply schedule four women’s quarterfinals on Centre Court to ensure that no disruptions occurred. The Azarenka-Paszek match will conclude many hours after it was expected to end.

• The men’s quarterfinal matches tomorrow figure to be outstanding. The top four seeds all meet lower-ranked opponents, each of whom is dangerous to some degree. Roger Federer faces the toughest task against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga; Tsonga is a big hitter and an excellent athlete, and he could make things difficult for Federer if he’s on his game. Mardy Fish has the firepower to challenge Nadal on grass, especially if Nadal’s injured foot is an issue, but this is new territory for Fish and I don’t expect him to upset the defending champion.

Andy Murray and Feliciano Lopez will square off in the second match on Centre Court, and while the atmosphere figures to be electric, Lopez doesn’t have this in him. He’s got the big lefty serve and his last two matches have been especially impressive in different ways (routing Andy Roddick and then winning a tough five-setter), but Murray will get through to the semis. I also don’t expect 18-year-old Aussie Bernard Tomic to defeat 2011’s best player, Novak Djokovic.

But these matches all have the potential to be close, exciting matches. The last three rounds of the men’s draw promises plenty of drama and great tennis.

Women's field: Big names sent home

This has been some kind of crazy day in the women’s field at Wimbledon. Both Williams sisters are gone, and so is top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki. You’d have to call Maria Sharapova the favorite heading into the quarterfinals, since she’s won a few majors, but either Sabine Lisicki and her big serve or Marion Bartoli and her tenaciousness could pose problems for Sharapova in the semifinals.

I like fourth-seeded Victoria Azarenka to win her first major. And I caution fans against abandoning the tournament with only one household name among the final eight; Petra Kvitova and Lisicki have games suited to grass, and Azarenka is a really good player. There will be some entertaining matches the rest of the way.

Wanted: More grasscourt tennis

I’m watching Andy Murray’s third-round Wimbledon match against Ivan Ljubicic (and his odd, vein-covered bald head), partly because it’s the only match being played, thanks to yet another rainy day in London. Ljubicic won’t make this easy for Murray, but I expect the Scotsman to advance to the fourth round, and probably reach the semifinals, where he’ll be outclassed by one of the Big Three (in this case, Nadal is likely to be waiting for him).

But that’s not the point here. I’m using my first blog post to complain about something that’s been on my mind for years — the insufficiently short grasscourt season. Truthfully, you can’t even call it a “season.” It lasts five weeks; after the French Open ends in early June, there are two weeks of Wimbledon tuneups, and most top players compete in only one of those weeks. Then there’s Wimbledon, followed by the low-level tournament in Newport, R.I., an event whose biggest name is always among the Hall of Fame inductees, not the players.

It used to be that you had to be able to win on grass to be a top men’s player, but that’s simply no longer the case. Most players will play two grasscourt tournaments in the whole year. If Novak Djokovic loses in the fourth round of Wimbledon every year, he’ll still be in the top three. He merely has to hold his own that week because of the big chunk of ranking points available. But if he struggles through the entire European claycourt season? His ranking would plummet.

On the other hand, if a player plays well only on clay, he can make quite a career for himself. Case in point: Nicolas Almagro. The Spaniard remarkably is ranked No. 15 in the world. Why? Clay. Despite his impressive win over John Isner yesterday at Wimbledon, Almagro owes most of his 2011 success to his claycourt prowess: a title at Nice, round of 16 in Rome, semifinal in Barcelona, round of 16 in Monte Carlo. Where it becomes unfair is that he won two titles and reached a third final in the weeks following the Australian Open, which is not really even claycourt season. The ATP just makes so many claycourt tournaments available (including some after Wimbledon) that dirtball specialists only venture off of clay when they absolutely have to, usually to unimpressive results.

I’m not a huge Andy Roddick fan by any means, but imagine how his career might look if there were several months of grasscourt events that he could play. And aside from big servers like Roddick, grass rewards artistry more than other surfaces. For every Roddick, Richard Krajicek and Goran Ivanisevic  — guys whose serves were the primary reasons for their grasscourt success — there’s a John McEnroe, Patrick Rafter and Tim Henman. Henman was good on grass because of his serve-and-volley style and his touch around the net. Same with Rafter, who was a brilliant volleyer and great athlete. McEnroe’s genius around the net is indisputable.

I understand that many players who succeed on grass are just as successful on fast hardcourts or indoor courts, but there are certain skills needed to thrive on grass. The ball doesn’t bounce very high. Soft volleys die on the grass. Various spins can be effective. And while the condition of the courts has improved dramatically over the years, making baseline exchanges more possible, players still engage in them at their own peril. Aggressiveness and variety are rewarded on grass.

My suggestion would be to simply add two weeks to the period between the French Open and Wimbledon. I realize it’s not that simple, and will probably never happen, but it would improve the game and allow it to visit its grasscourt roots more frequently. After the French Open, there would be four weeks of grasscourt tournaments before Wimbledon, mostly played in western/northern Europe and, possibly, the U.S. east coast (move Newport to the week after the French Open, so there’s a chance some prominent players would compete).

To do this, you can trim a week each off the spring claycourt and summer hardcourt seasons. Each has plenty of events, and players get ample opportunity to play on both of those surfaces all throughout the year. Players would be more prepared for Wimbledon, and perhaps fewer of them would consider grass little more than a brief interruption, a necessary evil.

That being said, I have some more tennis to watch. Grasscourt tennis. Wimbledon tennis.