UNDERDOGS

People love underdogs in sport, and nobody loves underdogs more than the Brits. Particularly at Wimbledon, a curious mixture of a world-class tennis tournament in which British players rarely, if ever, do well.

Tonight I watched Heather Watson take on Serena Williams on Centre Court. Watson is the number one British player, but is still ranked only in the lower 50's in the world. Williams on the other hand is indisputably the world's number one, one of the best players ever (and certainly the strongest), and unbeaten in a grand slam tournament since Wimbledon last year. To put the odds even more in her favour, no British woman has beaten the world's number one player since Sue Barker beat Chris Evert way back in 1979!

Yet it's amazing what can happen when you have 15,000 partisan supporters cheering on your every shot. Williams won the first set easily 6-2, and looked to be cruising to victory in the second. Then Watson stepped up her game, the crowd got behind her, and she nicked the second. The crowd went nuts. In the decisive third, she broke Williams twice (itself an achievement), lost the plot, came back again, and found herself serving for the match at 5-4. Could Watson do it? From the quiet of my living room, you could feel those 15,000 people willing her to scrape together those four points. However, there's a reason why Williams is the world number one, she pulled some rabbits out of the hat, saved the game, and eventually won 7-5.

It was great to watch!

Walter Blotscher