The best of the best at Wimbledon

Since the dawn of Open Era, the top 2 seeds have met in the Wimbledon Championship match 12 times, with the top seed edging the second seed 7 times for the title.

The last time the top 2 seeds met in the final was last year, when Rafael Nadal took on Novak Djokovic. Djokovic was the second seed and he took out Nadal to win his first Wimbledon crown. Enjoy some of the highlights.

The first time top 2 seeds met in the final of Wimbledon was in 1972 when Stan Smith, the top seed defeated Ilie Năstase 46 63 63 46 75.

The last 2 times the top 2 seeds have faced each other for Wimbledon title, the second seed has been victorious. To find the last top seed who defeated the second seed for the championship, you have to go back to 2007, when Federer defeated Nadal to claim his 5th straight Wimbledon crown. Enjoy some of the highlights.

Let us have a look at who were the other top 2 seeds who met in the final and in which years they faced each other. The winner is indicated in bold.

Year	Top Seed	Second Seed	Score
1972	Stan Smith	Ilie Năstase	46 63 63 46 75
1977	Jimmy Connors	Bjorn Borg	36 62 61 57 64
1978	Bjorn Borg	Jimmy Connors	62 62 63
1980	Bjorn Borg	John McEnroe	16 75 63 67 86
1981	Bjorn Borg	John McEnroe	46 76 76 64
1982	John McEnroe	Jimmy Connors	36 63 67 76 64
2004	Roger Federer	Andy Roddick	46 75 76 64
2005	Roger Federer	Andy Roddick	62 76 64
2006	Roger Federer	Rafael Nadal	60 76 67 63
2007	Roger Federer	Rafael Nadal	76 46 76 26 62
2008	Roger Federer	Rafael Nadal	64 64 67 67 97
2011	Rafael Nadal	Novak Djokovic	64 61 16 63

The 1980 encounter of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe is considered as one of the greatest matches of all time. McEnroe saved 5 championship points in the 4th set tie-break before winning the tie break 18-16. However, McEnroe failed to break Borg's serve in the decider loosing the decisive set 8-6.

In 2008 Rafael Nadal won his first Wimbledon crown by defeating the top seed Federer. The match is considered by many tennis experts as the best match ever played in the tennis history. At 4 hours and 48 minutes, the match was the longest singles final at a Wimbledon in terms of time played. Enjoy the highlights of the match.

Will it be the 13th time that the top seeds meet each other in the final? Or will Roger Federer and Andy Murray will have their say? Or will it be a player outside of the BIG 4 who will have his say? What do you say?
* I don't own any of these videos and they can be found on you-tube.

The 4 wheels and their performance at Wimbledon

When you look into the Wimbledon history, a few things grab your attention, like the fact that a top seed has never lost the opener at Wimbledon since the dawn of Open Era, but only once. A top seed has lost only once in each of 2nd and 3rd round of Wimbledon in the past 44 years. 2nd and 3rd seeds each twice dropped out in the opener since 1968. To find a 3rd seed who won the Wimbledon crown, you have to go all the way back to 1990.

Lleyton Hewitt is the only top seed since 1968 to date to have dropped the opener at Wimbledon. Hewitt was the defending champion when he set his foot onto the court in 2003 Wimbledon but was overwhelmed by the missiles fired by Ivo Karlovic. In bowing out to Karlovic, Hewitt also became the first defending champion since the beginning of Open Era to loose in the first round.

The only top seed to have dropped out of Wimbledon in the second round was Boris Becker who lost to Peter Doohan back in 1987 in 4 sets. Becker was the two time defending champion having won the trophy in 1985 and 1986.

Andrei Olhovskiy became the first and only player to date to have beaten a top seed in the 3rd round of Wimbledon when he took out Jim Courier, the then world no.1 in 4 sets.

Michael Stich, the 1991 Wimbledon champion, was the first player seeded 2nd to loose his opener at Wimbledon in 1994 when he was defeated by Bryan Shelton in straight sets. Marcelo Rios was the 2nd player, seeded 2nd at Wimbledon to drop his opener. He lost to Francisco Clavet in 5 sets in 1998.

In 1997 Goran Ivanesevic became the first player seeded 2nd at Wimbledon to drop out in the 2nd round. He lost to Magnus Norman in 5 sets. The final score being 62 26 76(4) 46 1412. Ivanesevic went on to win his only Wimbledon crown in 2001. Marat Safin is the only other player seeded second to loose in the second round of Wimbledon. He lost to Belgian Olivier Rochus 26 24 63 67(1).

Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi are the only players seeded 3rd to have dropped out in the opener in Wimbledon since 1968. Connors was defeated by Robert Seguso in 1986 in the first round, while Agassi lost to Doug Flach in 1996 to mark the decade of Connors first round loss at Wimbledon.

Another thing that stands out is the fact that top 2 seeds have combined to win 30 of the last 44 championships, while the 3rd and 4th seed have won only 4 and 3 times respectively. What implication will it have on our current BIG 4???? Will it have any implication or will it not have any implication?

Federer, the winner of 6 Wimbledon crowns, is one of the 3 players who can win the top spot at the end of the Wimbledon this year, the other 2 players being Nadal and Djokovic. Federer is motivated to win a record equalling 7th Wimbledon title and to win the top spot as well to break Samprass's record of 286 weeks spent at the coveted no.1 ranking. But is motivation the only factor? Federer's cause won't be helped by the fact that he failed to progress beyond the quarter-finals of Wimbledon during the last 2 years and add the recent loss at the hands of Haas in the Halle final to this as well. Not to disappoint Federer fans, the last player seeded 3rd who went on to claim the Wimbledon trophy was Stefan Edgberg, who defeated the top seed Lendl in the semi-finals and second seed Becker in the final. Will Federer become the first man seeded 3rd to win Wimbledon since 1990?

Will we see an early exit by our top 4 seeds (Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray) or will it be one of them holding the trophy at the end of the fortnight? Only time will tell us.