Day 6: Semi-Final Part 1 Queen's


Day 6: Semi-Final Part 1

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A tale of Queen's 2017 is a tale of Kings. The reigning king was deposed

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early, his most likely successors felt too, and so just four remain.

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-- fell. Two have been king before, the Croat Marin Cilic in 2012. The

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Bulgarian record image of in 2014. How they would love to see a

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restoration of their respective monarchies. Two are men who would be

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King, a grand Duke of Luxembourg, Gilles Muller. And a Spanish

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aristocrat, Feliciano Lopez who came so close to Coronation three years

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ago. The tournament's very own Game of

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Thrones continues today. Four pretenders, but the Queen's crown

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can rest on just one man's head. So, today, will stay on course and

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left that famous trophy? It is not the semifinals we would have

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predicted at the start of the Championships but they are two

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interesting matchups just the same, some very big serving expected.

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Everyone here is arriving looking forward to another enjoyable day at

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the Aegon Championships, even though the weather has turned a little

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cooler. But we have a lot to look forward to. I say some big serving

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expected because three of the semifinalists, Cilic, Muller and

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Lopez have yet to have their serves broken this week, in the first match

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Cilic has more big match experience than his opponent but Muller is

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playing the best tennis of his career, his confidence high. In the

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second semifinal both players will be match fit because Dimitrov came

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from a break of serve down yesterday afternoon and Feliciano Lopez save a

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match point victory over Tomas Berdych. Those matches we are

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looking forward to and to and John and Andrew are with me. Two former

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champions here but the two players Muller and Lopez are the players in

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form on the service aren't they? Yes, obviously the semifinals we

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have is not what we expected but the one thing we can certainly say is we

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have four superb grass court players are here and the four players left

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our experts on this surface and we have seen some wonderful tennis from

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them already. Muller has been superb, he has managed his game so

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well and improved so much, won two tournaments and books world class on

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this surface. Feliciano Lopez, he was born to play on grass and his

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match against Berdych, just came through, he is a threat to anybody,

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here, Wimbledon, anywhere on grass and it is two tough matches today.

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Lopez, finalist in stud gut and Muller winning or so, they come in

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already two winning on this surface -- Stuttgart. They start in

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Australia early in the season and they go indoors and there is always

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a couple of matches where there is a transition phase and they go on to

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the clay and then from the clay onto the grass so the first couple of

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matches of those transition tournaments command this is one of

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them, you feel like the big players are slightly more vulnerable than

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they would be when they have their feet slightly more under them. These

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guys, all of them came in ready to play and winning is a habit, playing

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becomes an instinct on the big points. Particularly with Muller I

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have noticed it here. 34 years of age, he won his first two

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tournaments this year, won last week with his two sons at his side and he

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has everything to play for. The way he has played the big points so far

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this week it's like it's natural, he's just selecting whatever shot he

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wants to play and he is picking the right shot to play so there is

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belief for you. We have two great semifinals despite the fact we have

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not got Andy Murray. I know. You mention the Muller's little boys and

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they watched him in Sydney as well. He said they are so into tennis now

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that when he won last week they sat and watched the final, his wife had

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to watch it and the kids wanted to go and play tennis, this is tennis

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all day long, she is getting tennised out. You would never think

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at the start of your career that you would have your kids watching you

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but these guys are getting older. The average age of these guys is

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getting on, Dimitrov is the Young-gwon and he's my favourite. He

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is the favourite as well. Cilic is the highest ranked player and has

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looked so good, hasn't faced a break point this week. He is

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extraordinary, serving has been so good. I have noticed this week how

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much closer to the baseline he is standing in a lot of the rallies.

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Sometimes he is pushed back but it's almost like right on the baseline

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and sometimes edging inside and taking the ball on early, cutting

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off the angle and not giving his opponents time to breathe. He has

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been coming in a lot this week, is that because of his coach Jonas

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Bjorkman, I'm sure he has had an input. I've been impressed with his

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play. He said he has changed his training, he feels fitter and is

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more confident with his body. I was behind him the other day, not that I

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was stalking him, I was behind him and he was massive and blocking out

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the sun and looks like a feed, up top he looks like he has extra

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muscle and the way he took his backhand was a bit more open faced

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than I remember and his service is different. He's never been a man who

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is afraid to make one or two adjustments and with Jonas Bjorkman

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on board I think it is a wonderful pairing and he won a slam before.

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Did I say two days ago I didn't see him as a potential Wimbledon

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Championships Mac nonsense! In the other semifinal please two know each

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other. They have met a number of times and back in 2014 this was when

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Dimitrov got his revenge because Lopez had beaten him a couple of

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years before that. But this was the match point. Lopez had had a match

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point in this match himself. This is a player who every time he plays

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here because he was given a wildcard all those years ago, and it's an

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old-fashioned arena and the crowd know what they are looking at Andy

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Love is grass court sun represents tremendous tradition here, he loves

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it here and is not afraid to say so right away as soon as he arrives. He

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says, I love it, and from the word go he's been striking the ball

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superbly. That relationship happens to be over, he has another glamorous

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one on the go at the moment. He has that sort of star status. I like

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watching him play for that. He brings something to the court that

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you cannot take your eyes off and yesterday when he was a break down

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in the third set he had to fight against Medvedev and you never would

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have thought that because Medvedev had a bad shoulder at the beginning.

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I love it when Dimitrov is forced to dig deep but he will have to today

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if Lopez is walking all right because that was a big match

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yesterday. It was a big match and a long match and he had to save break

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point but eventually got to match point and I think we can see at the

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end of this, he is exhausted, we will stay on these pictures because

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there is no big celebration, just getting it over with, it is a long

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match. I have to say he is in amazing physical shape and he works

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very hard, you can see he looks exhausted but he will be ready to go

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today. His game is so fluid on grass, his serve is so magnificent.

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He is economical the way he plays, he knows what he must do and does so

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well. I don't think tiredness will effect from today, semifinal of

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Queen's, big tournament and he will be ready today. He does look

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exhausted because he got to the final last week. It's been a lot of

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matches. I believe he had three 3-set win is there before losing to

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Lucas Pouille who is another one to watch out for although he's not here

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this week, excellent French player, 15 in the world. Whether Lopez is in

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perfect physical shape today I have my doubts about that but we will

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see. You know how to manage your body and mind when you've been on

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the tour that long and there is another one, 35 years of age, wants

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to be here and wants to play everyday and I have huge respect for

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Feliciano Lopez who is playing the best tennis his career. Absolutely,

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he is and he will get lots of cheap points on his big serve, won't he?

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Monster serve. Moving away from Queen's Club, the big news yesterday

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was the British number three Dan Evans failed a drugs test having

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tested positive for cocaine in April. He said in a press conference

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yesterday I made a mistake and I must face up to it. It's really

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important that you know that this was taken out of competition and in

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a context completely unrelated to tennis. I've let a lot of people

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down, my family, my coach, my team, sponsors, British tennis and my

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fans. We have also had a response from the Lawn Tennis Association

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performance director Simon Timson who said we are very disappointed at

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the news that Dan Evans has tested positive for a recreational

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substance. We absolutely condemn any form of drug-taking and will support

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the process which needs to take place. We are in touch with Dan and

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will offer appropriate guidance, support and education to him on how

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best to address the issues that he now faces. Shocking news, Andrew.

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Disappointing news, and a huge mistake. We are a couple of miles

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away from the Grenfell Tower which was a tragedy. This is not a tragedy

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in that sense, this is a personal tragedy, and he's let himself down,

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it is a mistake. There will be no shortage of people who will condemn

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him totally for this. The bottom line is he has thrown away his

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career which is a great sadness because he went from somebody who

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always had talent who couldn't find the performances, to somebody who

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was actually pretty dedicated and had gone up to 50 in the world and

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was beginning to produce his best tennis, these were his best earning

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years, when he was creating his reputation, which will take him

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throughout the rest of his life and he has shattered all of that. I hope

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we can all understand that whilst we condemn and say he has acted

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foolishly and stupidly and he is an idiot, all of these things, I hope

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we give him a chance after he has served this ban. A chance to come

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back. Matas be honest, this drug is extremely prevalent, I don't

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consider it as performance-enhancing drug in a tennis sense, I like the

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way he apologised, he came out and make no excuses. I don't have any

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reason to doubt that he was genuine and sincere in what he said. Whether

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he will want to come back and play tennis, or whether he will be able

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to after what will probably be a two-year ban and this could be the

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end of his career. I still like him and I still think he did a pretty

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good job to get to where he did in a world, part of the winning Davis Cup

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team and I wish him well. I will condemn him and say he is silly but

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I hope he is OK for the next year or two. A Davis Cup star you must take

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responsibility, you are a role and must set an example. Absolutely, and

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he is going to get banned and torn apart in the press, which is already

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happening and he must take that on his shoulders and it's going to be a

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hard time for him. In theory they are saying he could be banned for

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four years under ITF rules but the tennis Andy guidelines is possible

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-- but under other guidelines it could be two years. They could be 15

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months or 18 months. If that's the case he might still have a chance.

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If it is two years upwards his career is over. To be honest I'm not

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so concerned about that. He has made huge mistakes in that area, he's had

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plenty of chances in many other ways. You keep thinking, why won't

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you learn? Now he's taken the ultimate with the drugs and been

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found. I'm concerned about him health-wise, all of the other side,

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tennis, OK, this is his career but it's what he does off the court that

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I'm concerned about and he needs guidance in that area. It's his

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health and the rest of his life that is of most concern to me because he

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has to be careful. We have seen in the past that he does have this

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tendency to go off and do other stuff. He's got to be careful.

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Particularly after his run at the Australian Open and playing so well,

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getting big sponsorship, this will be a big blow, sponsors will go

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away, time off, how do you motivate yourself and keep fit and healthy

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and come back strong after a year or so? I have no idea whether he will

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have any desire to do that and to climb the rankings again, to try and

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put together his reputation as well as his game. John may have a good

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point about his long-term health because cocaine is not good for you,

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and the fact you are in a position to have access to it and be stupid

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enough to take it, for all these reasons, health comes first. There

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were three tournaments he played in April? Monte Carlo, he was tested in

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Barcelona. He has made a mistake. A lot of people do a lot of days. That

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drug is way too prevalent in society generally. This guy is a pretty

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lively character. Like a moth to the flame he's been drawn. His health

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and secondly we will see about his tennis but his reputation is

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shattered and that's difficult to put together again. Think about

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travelling the world playing tennis, it's gone. You don't appreciate it

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until it's gone sometimes. With a bit of luck he will stick around and

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we will give him a chance to come back and we will welcome him back

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into the fold once again but for the moment it's over. Hopefully, a

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lesson learned. Back to the Aegon Championships and before we look

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ahead to the two semi-finals let's look back with John Inverdale

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because it's been quite an eventful week, one shot after another.

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If you're dazed an confused by the line-up for today's semi-finals,

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rest assured, it's not just the heat.

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Rafa and DelPo were no-shows. On Monday, the very first day, Kyrgios

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not quite famous enough yet to be known just by his Christian name,

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was down and ultimately out. So that was the end of the Australian

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challenge. But Andy, the world number one, our world number one,

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was playing an Aussie ranked 90 in the world. A landslide victory was a

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certainty, but like other landslide certainties... And he does it with

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an ace. What a win for Jordan Thompson. But what a shock. One of

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the greatest upsets that Queen's has seen, the man that's ruled this

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place so many times, five times a champion, the world number one, the

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Wimbledon champion, the Olympic champion and he's gone at the hands

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of Jordan Thompson, the lucky loser, the world number 90. Last year's

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finalist, Raonic, teetering on the almost nearly famous enough to be

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called Milos did this. Back and winning again at the highest level.

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And Stan, exhausted from his exertions in Paris, we've all felt

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like that sometimes Stan, succumbed to a Queen's veteran. That was all

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on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, big Joe was cut down to size. Maybe it's

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just the transition to grass but even so, since then, some semblance

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of normality's been restored. Two former champions have made it

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through. If at the start of the week you put money on Muller, Cilic,

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Dimitrov and Lopez being in the semis, you musts be be holding a

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betting slip that predicted Brexit, Trump, a hung Parliament and a Led

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Zeppelin reunion at Glastonbury tonight!

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The bad news is... You are right, no Led Zeppelin

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playing at Glastonbury tonight! But the good news is that we have Muller

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taking on Cilic here and a few moments ago the players made their

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way on to court and they are being led on to court by two very lucky

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youngsters, Lucas Hill and Sam Sharlon, both being treated at the

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Mars ten Centre in Sutton and they are representing the charity today.

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Lucas, whoa is with Marin Cilic was diagnosed with stage four

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neuroblastoma in 2014 and he's received chemotherapy radiotherapy

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and other therapies. Sam in Woking in Surrey was five when diagnosed

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with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in December 2013. So they've made

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their way on to the court and it looks like they're very happy to

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stay there actually. Go on, are you going to take the towel? No. What a

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lovely moment from them. A couple of lovely proud mums in the audience

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watching on as well. But that was just a few moments ago. No, he

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doesn't want to move, look. The players get ready for the coin toss

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now and let's hear from the man in form at the moment, the highest seed

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left in the Championships, Marin Cilic.

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This is my opponent's favourite surface and his most favourite time

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of the year. He played well last year. He came through the semis,

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always extremely dangerous with his serve. I don't think many things are

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going to divide us tomorrow so I'm just hoping to keep my cool and

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continue to serve and play well. 17 career titles, one of those came on

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grass here in 2012. The finals the following year. What would it mean

:19:15.:19:17.

to you to be back in the final here on Sunday? It would mean a lot in

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terms of confidence and in terms of also dealing with that match win in

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preparation for Wimbledon and also confirming that my form is extremely

:19:30.:19:35.

high and that I'm read dito do big things. We did that lovely build-up,

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we saw the lovely walk-on, the players have made their way on and

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then, after a wonderful week of weather, we have our first rain of

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the hundredship. So finally, the ground staff are making their way

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on. We haven't seen them all week. They have just been mowing the lawn

:19:51.:19:55.

and how disappointing for the all the mans, they have had a lovely

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lunch, just come in to watch some tennis and away they go again. Won't

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be gone for too long judging by the pace at which they're all going

:20:05.:20:08.

about their business, just a gentle jog. They haven't been doing

:20:09.:20:12.

anything all week, they've forgotten how to do it. They seem to be calm

:20:13.:20:16.

about the way they're going about it. There's Graham. And the courts

:20:17.:20:22.

are magnificent. Graham and the team do the most incredible job. Well

:20:23.:20:26.

done! They've been the stars of the show so far. But they really have,

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these courts are absolutely perfect and Graham's made that decision, he

:20:33.:20:36.

never likes to cover the courts unless he has to, unless he thinks

:20:37.:20:39.

it's going to blow over quickly so this isn't a great sight. Within

:20:40.:20:43.

they get a bit of water on the surface, they want the breeze just

:20:44.:20:46.

to go across to take that away before they put the cover on, that

:20:47.:20:50.

way it's a bit quicker until we can play again, but just a judgment call

:20:51.:20:55.

from him. Doesn't feel like it's going to be more than maybe 15 or 20

:20:56.:21:00.

minutes. He prepares a very different court than the courts

:21:01.:21:03.

prepared by Neil and the team at Wimbledon. There's more tennis over

:21:04.:21:08.

a longer period of time there. So they have to prepare a slightly

:21:09.:21:11.

different court in terms of how much play it's going to get on it. This

:21:12.:21:17.

one they go for it, it's perhaps more of a Formula One court, you

:21:18.:21:21.

only need to get seven days play out of it! Wimbledon is 13 days play

:21:22.:21:27.

with the rest day for it to recover. Wimbledon had to change the grass or

:21:28.:21:32.

the technique lches Look what we've learnt over the years. People say I

:21:33.:21:38.

thought the grass was fine, just mow it and there are so many different

:21:39.:21:42.

styles. This week it's been eventful. We have seen to many

:21:43.:21:45.

shots. We always thought that after the French, having that extra week

:21:46.:21:50.

going in, would sort of, this wouldn't happen. That's what I

:21:51.:21:53.

thought. I thought the extra week - I've said it before - I said we are

:21:54.:21:57.

going to get less and less shots on the grass because the top mayors

:21:58.:22:01.

who've had the extra week which we have cried out for for so many years

:22:02.:22:05.

is the most ridiculous part of the tennis calendar to have the Grand

:22:06.:22:09.

Slam two weeks apart, one from clay going on to grass. I still think

:22:10.:22:14.

that's the toughest challenge in tennis for men or women to win the

:22:15.:22:19.

French Open on clay, completely different surface. Two weeks later

:22:20.:22:23.

in the old days, then having to win on grass. Then it was tough but at

:22:24.:22:28.

least now there's an extra week but it's not enough. How nice that, with

:22:29.:22:34.

the greatest of respect to Raonic and Wawrinka who we see week in week

:22:35.:22:47.

out, how nice to see Medvedev. A young player. Couldn't read his

:22:48.:22:54.

emotions yesterday but his tennis spoke quickly for him. On the grass

:22:55.:22:58.

it's so nice to see the youngsters coming through. Old Dennis will be

:22:59.:23:03.

around for a while. He is one seriously exciting player. I don't

:23:04.:23:07.

mind upsets. This is not a bad semi-final line-up. The cream has

:23:08.:23:11.

risen at the top, the grass court talent out there is undeniable but

:23:12.:23:15.

it's great to see so many great players. Murray went out in the

:23:16.:23:19.

first round, Jordan Thompson not a great result but he tweeted a

:23:20.:23:23.

picture today with all his Olympic medals. He is surrounded by all of

:23:24.:23:31.

Sofia's toys with a big smile on his face. Good, I haven't seen that one

:23:32.:23:33.

yet. Here it is, look. There you go, an upsetting build-up!

:23:34.:23:46.

Life seems wonderful. Delighted for him. You have to take the losses,

:23:47.:23:53.

you move on and go away, he said he's going to play a couple of

:23:54.:23:57.

exhibition matches next week and, you know, it's not a competition but

:23:58.:24:01.

it's still a match situation and hopefully he'll be hitting the

:24:02.:24:05.

forehand a little better than he did in his first round here. He's been

:24:06.:24:10.

doing a lot of drills with Ivan Lendl. I said the other day, I saw

:24:11.:24:17.

them taking two boxes to Lendl's house. Forehands and serve all day

:24:18.:24:24.

long until he gets his game. He got to the finals one year when he lost

:24:25.:24:30.

early on. He's a pro, a hard pronow, he knows how to play. I hope he

:24:31.:24:34.

doesn't get to play one of these youngsters that we have seen in the

:24:35.:24:38.

first couple of rounds at Wimbledon because it could be dangerous. If he

:24:39.:24:42.

gets a decent draw and works his way through a couple of rounds, after

:24:43.:24:49.

that he'll be fine. Also, when you look at the dangerous floaters that

:24:50.:24:53.

there are in the draw, you have mentioned the youngsters ranked

:24:54.:24:56.

outside the top 50, Tommy Haas as well. 39 years of age. He beat

:24:57.:25:04.

Federer. I didn't realise. Federer wins the Australian Open after not

:25:05.:25:09.

playing for six months then Tommy beating Roger was phenomenal. So it

:25:10.:25:13.

feels wide-open at the moment but it wouldn't surprise me at all if

:25:14.:25:18.

Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray get through to the semi-finals because,

:25:19.:25:21.

you know what, in the big tournaments, the big guys come

:25:22.:25:24.

through so much of the time. To be honest, what I really want to see,

:25:25.:25:30.

Andy doing well, but I just want to see Federer playing together again.

:25:31.:25:33.

He's putting together a sporting story this year which is beyond

:25:34.:25:36.

belief. As well as winning the Australian, the first of the slams,

:25:37.:25:42.

Nadal wins, two oldies, he also won Indian Wells in Miami. It's

:25:43.:25:45.

extraordinary. Those are the two biggest ones at the start of the

:25:46.:25:49.

year, then he says he's not going to play on clay at all. Talk about

:25:50.:25:52.

managing your schedule. This is a man not worried about his ranking,

:25:53.:25:56.

he wants to win the big event and still has appetite for it. To see

:25:57.:25:59.

Roger play for me is still a thrill. The way he played in Australia, he

:26:00.:26:03.

was attacking more, that's what you need to do on a grass court. He

:26:04.:26:07.

wants to keep the points shorter and be more aggressive. To me, the

:26:08.:26:12.

Australian Open, it was a joke how good he was. For me the best shot

:26:13.:26:17.

was the back hand. His high back hand. I've never seen him hit that

:26:18.:26:21.

that way. Nadal was getting that ball up high and in the old days,

:26:22.:26:26.

he'd struggle on that shot. He was hitting clean winners off the line

:26:27.:26:29.

off ridiculous shots. You look at that and think, wow he's got that

:26:30.:26:33.

shot as well. Federer's always said, there is not a day goes by where I

:26:34.:26:39.

think I can learn still from the game. That is what you love about

:26:40.:26:43.

it. You think he's perfect, he doesn't think so and that drives him

:26:44.:26:46.

to keep playing. He loves the game. I spoke to him last week and he

:26:47.:26:51.

said, I don't fear losing, I just love winning. You have spoken to

:26:52.:26:57.

everybody! Genuinely that is a good job, I hope you like it. I

:26:58.:27:05.

thoroughly appreciate it. Billie Jean King, John McEnRoy Virginia

:27:06.:27:12.

Wade, Andy at Wimbledon. If you see Rod play, it was just before

:27:13.:27:16.

television got going that he was around, he was unbelievable. You

:27:17.:27:24.

might have played him yourself... He was number one or two in world, I

:27:25.:27:30.

played him in a tournament in America, those days there wasn't

:27:31.:27:34.

much prize money around, I needed the money. I tripped down the stairs

:27:35.:27:39.

an hour before I played him and my ankle was blown up and I had to get

:27:40.:27:42.

an extra pair of shoes, a larger pair, to get my sock on. I went up

:27:43.:27:47.

to Rod and said, look, I need this money and I can't walk. He said, can

:27:48.:27:53.

you be nice to me in the first round. I was talking to the best. He

:27:54.:27:58.

said, don't worry, leave it to me. It was 6-3, 6-3, the crowd didn't

:27:59.:28:02.

know and I picked up my money. He's a gentleman. Who else would do that.

:28:03.:28:11.

You lost some though. Oh, yes, he's not that nice! The good news outside

:28:12.:28:16.

the window, a large round of applause because the ground staff

:28:17.:28:19.

have made their way back, meaning the covers are coming off. Still a

:28:20.:28:24.

few dark clouds around and a strong breeze blowing as well, so blowing

:28:25.:28:28.

the clouds away and hopefully we'll have much better weather to bring

:28:29.:28:32.

you in the two semi-finals today. Off they go. Great ground staff here

:28:33.:28:39.

and they'll have this court up and running very soon indeed. We await

:28:40.:28:44.

the players on court. We'll be back for that live. We are just going to

:28:45.:28:48.

briefly look back to last night and a match that finished almost in

:28:49.:29:00.

darkness here between Tomas Berdych and Feliciano Lopez.

:29:01.:30:10.

Masters soothsayer you made me, but alas you haven't been paying

:30:11.:30:16.

attention. Anything else you want to say?

:30:17.:30:43.

Berdych is two points from the match, from his first semifinal at

:30:44.:30:54.

Queen's. But Feliciano wants to be there too. He did get to the final

:30:55.:31:00.

here three years ago, the Spaniard. What a fantastic return of serve,

:31:01.:31:29.

the slider was bearing right in at his body and he somehow managed to

:31:30.:31:36.

get his forehand on the ball. That was almost out of self-preservation.

:31:37.:31:40.

Brilliant athleticism, it really was. Heaven knows what kind of spin

:31:41.:31:46.

was on that ball when it hit Lopez's racket.

:31:47.:32:00.

He went for it, he got it. And after two and a quarter hours Tomas

:32:01.:32:17.

Berdych has match point. For a place in the last four at Queen's and a

:32:18.:32:25.

semifinal against Grigor Dimitrov. He must just stand in the tramlines

:32:26.:32:27.

and take the slider away. What a shot. By the skin of the skin

:32:28.:32:48.

of his teeth Lopez got to that somehow. What a superb second serve

:32:49.:32:56.

it was from Lopez. How Berdych got it back I've no idea. Too good.

:32:57.:33:16.

He might have been worried fractionally as Berdych was hurtling

:33:17.:33:33.

towards the ball but he couldn't quite get there. Server chance of

:33:34.:33:36.

5-5. That is a magnificent shot from

:33:37.:34:07.

Lopez. So much bite. The crowd, who have enjoyed this, have suddenly

:34:08.:34:12.

sprung to life. As dusk descends at Queen's.

:34:13.:34:19.

Once again Lopez just feathers it over the net catching Berdych

:34:20.:34:28.

unawares. The way he shapes up to hit it it looks as if he's going to

:34:29.:34:38.

hit it deep. That was a steely look from Lopez. That is the kind of look

:34:39.:34:48.

at Andy Murray gives his box at times, you are not helping at all

:34:49.:34:50.

and I'm doing this all by myself. Surely you jest.

:34:51.:34:56.

Well, break here? Suddenly the energy that had

:34:57.:35:33.

deserted Lopez is suddenly coursing through his veins again. At 1-1, 2-2

:35:34.:35:39.

maybe you are thinking I need to conserve energy to get over the

:35:40.:35:42.

finish line and now he knows he can cross the line on fumes. It is

:35:43.:35:45.

everything to the fore. Suddenly, the first double fault of

:35:46.:36:13.

the match from Tomas Berdych. Lopez decided it was now or never.

:36:14.:37:29.

Took the initiative, chip and charge. For the first time in the

:37:30.:37:41.

match. Here he goes, look. He knows. Two break points on the Berdych

:37:42.:37:57.

serve from nowhere. Carmen down. -- calm down. One person not getting it

:37:58.:38:03.

cited in all of this is -- getting excited in all of this is Tomas

:38:04.:38:05.

Berdych. Will he do the same this time? Where

:38:06.:38:12.

will Berdych serve? He went for it. The arm was out

:38:13.:38:37.

instantly from the line judge. Berdych saying it's out. Lopez is

:38:38.:38:43.

challenging the call and his arms are out saying, how did I miss that,

:38:44.:38:50.

to himself. Wasn't the easiest passing shot in the world. If you

:38:51.:38:54.

are going to call it out, call it out. It's in any way!

:38:55.:38:59.

CHEERING Out of the blue. Feliciano Lopez has

:39:00.:39:13.

a break that nobody saw coming, least of all that man. And there is

:39:14.:39:26.

a real buzz around Centre Court now. Yes, and this match has turned on

:39:27.:39:35.

its head from a somewhat predictable serve holding... Fest. Yes. We've

:39:36.:39:50.

had two one half hours and most of the official floodlights have come

:39:51.:39:55.

on. We did say two and a half hours ago this would be close and it might

:39:56.:39:59.

go to three sets and it might be three very close sets and that is

:40:00.:40:03.

exactly how things have panned out. 6-7, 7-6. And now the match is in

:40:04.:40:15.

Feliciano Lopez's pounds. 18 aces so far in the match, six in this set,

:40:16.:40:25.

four in the last game. Four more here will do nicely.

:40:26.:40:40.

The photographer's lens eye on Lopez.

:40:41.:41:10.

It is a roar from Lopez but this time it's a positive a roar after

:41:11.:41:22.

the way he has been berating himself in this contest. That was a sort of

:41:23.:41:26.

forced unforced error from Berdych and the Spaniard is two points from

:41:27.:41:35.

victory now. But that most definitely was an unforced error. He

:41:36.:41:41.

would love just to creep over the line. He doesn't want to have to do

:41:42.:41:47.

it with ground strokes. Two first serves, por favor.

:41:48.:41:57.

That's the first one. Muchas gracias. Feliciano Lopez with two

:41:58.:42:11.

opportunities now to beat Tomas Berdych here in the quarterfinals at

:42:12.:42:13.

Queen's and make it through to a semifinal tomorrow. We have a

:42:14.:42:20.

sparrow. Is it a sparrow? Was that a sparrow? I'm told it was bigger than

:42:21.:42:31.

a sparrow. Match point. UMPIRE: Game, set and match, Lopez. He's

:42:32.:42:36.

done it. It seemed that the match was ebbing away from the Spaniard.

:42:37.:42:42.

Somehow in the space of two or three points the match changed direction

:42:43.:42:48.

180 degrees. The 35-year-old Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, who has

:42:49.:42:58.

got a great smile and he is smiling now.

:42:59.:43:00.

STUDIO: Great match, so competitive, the crowd loved it, I don't think

:43:01.:43:06.

they would have made the tie-break if it had gone on, it was so dark.

:43:07.:43:11.

Lopez guts sing it out, managing to change the game from 5-5. He's been

:43:12.:43:16.

winning recently, he loves this service and he comes here, comes out

:43:17.:43:26.

here and glides around the court and his serve and his touch, the match

:43:27.:43:31.

point, how did he get that backhand? That ridiculous shot. He is classy

:43:32.:43:35.

on this service and way better on this surface and his ranking,

:43:36.:43:39.

always. And about ten spots minimum to his ranking when he comes on this

:43:40.:43:43.

surface, he is so good. He will be on later on against Grigor Dimitrov

:43:44.:43:47.

but I'm pleased to say they are back on court, it's Marin Cilic up

:43:48.:43:51.

against Gilles Muller. Let's talk about Cilic. We talked about how he

:43:52.:43:56.

keeps improving and looks to be playing his best tennis. He got the

:43:57.:43:59.

big serve, of course. But he does back it up as well. He's still

:44:00.:44:05.

learning about his game forced up when I was speaking to Bob Brett

:44:06.:44:08.

four or five years ago. The years roll by. He was with Bob after Marin

:44:09.:44:14.

had made it into the top ten for the first time and I remember him saying

:44:15.:44:19.

he is quite a sensitive soul and started listening to people too much

:44:20.:44:22.

when he got into the top ten, you've got to change this, do that, but of

:44:23.:44:26.

course you should continue to do, you can add things you might need to

:44:27.:44:30.

do which are little but keep doing what you're doing and don't change a

:44:31.:44:34.

winning game plan, tinkered with one or two shots and lost confidence and

:44:35.:44:37.

went back down the rankings again. You get the feeling this time he's

:44:38.:44:41.

is therefore good. And he is looking to push on from here. There is no

:44:42.:44:47.

reason to think that he has not got three, four, five more years at the

:44:48.:44:51.

highest level. As I said before with Jonas Bjorkman on board and knowing

:44:52.:44:54.

your game and becoming an adult and growing up, you get to understand

:44:55.:44:58.

how to get the best performance out of yourself week in and week out.

:44:59.:45:02.

He's interesting. His game has changed. If you look at pictures of

:45:03.:45:10.

him ten, 12 years ago, or more, his style is different now. The ball

:45:11.:45:13.

toss is in the same place the whole time which makes it more difficult

:45:14.:45:15.

for someone to read, he doesn't throw it over his head all the time,

:45:16.:45:18.

it is a quicker arc through the ball, a number of things he does

:45:19.:45:21.

extremely well now and he's improved since he won the US Open. Looking

:45:22.:45:25.

back at him throughout this week he's got such power. He has not

:45:26.:45:29.

faced a break point yet. Witty, keep talking about the serve, big heavy

:45:30.:45:37.

game. -- we keep talking about. Very heavy and he's always looking to

:45:38.:45:41.

attack, further in the baseline than he used to be. There is that Agassi

:45:42.:45:47.

position. There it is again, and the forehand is awesome. And how quick

:45:48.:45:52.

he is moving in. Hard to read on his shots. He can go both ways no

:45:53.:45:56.

problems on the forehand. I like his stance with where he is, moved back

:45:57.:46:00.

here, didn't have much choice on that one, but generally speaking

:46:01.:46:03.

he's right on top of the baseline taking the ball early and putting

:46:04.:46:06.

pressure on his opponent the whole time. He doesn't take it early

:46:07.:46:10.

compared to Jonas Bjorkman, his coach. Are a half-volley your serve

:46:11.:46:14.

and follow it in, you would look up and he would be smiling at you

:46:15.:46:18.

volley and when you were up one foot and a half of the baseline. What a

:46:19.:46:23.

story this is, he had an won Eto'o title until this year in Sydney and

:46:24.:46:27.

then last week and here he is in the semifinals. -- tour title. He said

:46:28.:46:32.

he reached the semis in 2004 but it's taken this long. He had a bad

:46:33.:46:37.

injury about five years ago and took a long time off and said he got

:46:38.:46:39.

himself really physically fit and now he trusts his body.

:46:40.:46:44.

You mentioned his two victories this year, one of them was in Sydney

:46:45.:46:53.

where he beat Dan Evans. It was his seventh, ATP final and, you know,

:46:54.:46:56.

you can get a little bit funny about that and start thinking it's never

:46:57.:47:00.

going to two your way and suddenly the clouds part. You don't know what

:47:01.:47:04.

you've got. Dan is going to find this out now, you don't know what

:47:05.:47:08.

it's got until it's gone. When you have an injury and you sit out, you

:47:09.:47:13.

realise how much you love the game. Delgado deserves a great deal of

:47:14.:47:17.

credit for getting to understand that and for adding to his game.

:47:18.:47:20.

Andrew you are going to have to make a move because he's sitting down and

:47:21.:47:23.

you are going to be picking up from me in about a minutes' time. This

:47:24.:47:32.

match-up, the big serves, you are going to see some long sets

:47:33.:47:35.

tie-breaks heading our way do you think? You would have thought so.

:47:36.:47:39.

Can't imagine there not being at least one tie-breaker here. Muller,

:47:40.:47:43.

the way he's managed his serves, it will be interesting to see how Cilic

:47:44.:47:48.

tries to anticipate, read it. Very difficult to read. He throws the

:47:49.:47:52.

ball in the same place, he can hit that swerver out wide. He can go

:47:53.:47:56.

into the body, down the middle, he can kick it. He has such variation.

:47:57.:48:01.

Interesting to see what Cilic does when he returns the ball. He has to

:48:02.:48:05.

do something because when Muller gets in a rhythm, he's brutal. He

:48:06.:48:12.

certainly is. Let's find out if an true's made it alongside Peter

:48:13.:48:13.

Fleming. No problem, Sue! Ready for the semi-final after a

:48:14.:48:31.

slight delay from rain which we hope will not return.

:48:32.:49:20.

That had to be a bit of a bad bounce.

:49:21.:50:11.

Clearly feeling very, very good on serve. In his first two rounds, he

:50:12.:50:28.

was unbelievable. Points won. Look at the accuracy. Not too many false

:50:29.:50:31.

serves. A good mix. Can y a time when they

:50:32.:50:52.

dropped serve. It's extraordinary. No.

:50:53.:52:43.

Forehand shot best do you think? Forehand, yes.

:52:44.:53:08.

Unable to recover Marin Cilic. A bit of rain before this match, a few

:53:09.:53:19.

minutes delay. Gave us a chance to watch sombre ditch v Lopez -- some B

:53:20.:53:25.

erdychv Lopez. Marin Cilic has a busy day. On

:53:26.:53:45.

schedule today for Murray and Soares.

:53:46.:54:18.

He's playing with clarity. Interesting whether you ask if his

:54:19.:54:23.

forehand is the best shot. I thought the back hand was the best a couple

:54:24.:54:30.

of years ago. He always has asserted that he prefers to hit forehand.

:54:31.:54:42.

Over the last year or two, his forehand's become a lot more

:54:43.:54:46.

consistent and it's now a very reliable weapon.

:54:47.:55:22.

Wonderful tennis Marin Cilic is playing. I really can see the way

:55:23.:55:33.

he's approaching this. You can see the poise coming forward, it's a low

:55:34.:55:37.

position, the willingness to attack, to be quick with the feet. This is

:55:38.:55:46.

everything that Bjorkman was. Seems very settled in that relationship.

:55:47.:55:52.

If you want to get in touch with us, you can do and we'll get to them

:55:53.:55:58.

later in the programme. He must know he is on. The camera

:55:59.:56:25.

was right in front of him. It's like an R2-D2 that camera.

:56:26.:57:13.

Muller tosses the ball to the left and looks like he'll slice every

:57:14.:57:16.

ball. Very neatly done. So little drama on

:57:17.:58:32.

these shots now. Not much to go wrong: Yes. He's become a lot more

:58:33.:58:37.

aware of when an opportunity might arise. There was no risks taken at

:58:38.:58:41.

all. Played very well across all surfaces

:58:42.:59:47.

this year. One of only two players able to reach ATP Tour finals this

:59:48.:59:53.

season on hard courts, on clay and on grass as well.

:59:54.:00:00.

Lucas Pouille also achieved that feat, he was a finalist in Estoril

:00:01.:00:08.

as well which surprised some people. His ground strokes very good and his

:00:09.:00:13.

serve works on every surface, naturally.

:00:14.:00:26.

First serve points won 7/7 bombers Cilic and for Merlo two

:00:27.:00:54.

seven out of seven. Interesting hearing you talk about Cilic in the

:00:55.:01:02.

old days, I never understood why he tossed the ball so far behind his

:01:03.:01:09.

head, six with that sort of leverage, you've got to hit some big

:01:10.:01:19.

serves and try and winsome points on serve, Goran Ivanisevic try to get

:01:20.:01:21.

that into his point and five months later he won the US Open. He has a

:01:22.:01:31.

fast racket head now, the ball gets up there and he hits it. Nobody

:01:32.:01:42.

threw it up and hit it any quicker than Goran Ivanisevic.

:01:43.:02:13.

Good to see him winning some doubles as well. Matkowski against Jamie

:02:14.:02:23.

Murray and Bruno Soares later on. Teaming for the first time. Often

:02:24.:02:29.

when players changed to a new surface, especially grass after

:02:30.:02:32.

playing almost a third of the season or a quarter of the season on clay.

:02:33.:02:38.

They like to get some matches on the surface and field the ball off the

:02:39.:02:42.

surface, particularly on the return, feel the ball coming onto the racket

:02:43.:02:47.

and how it is reacting to vigorous. Absolutely. It's a great plan. --

:02:48.:02:55.

reacting to the grass. I was amazed to hear you didn't win this

:02:56.:03:02.

competition with your doubles. It is higher bouncing, this Court,

:03:03.:03:07.

generally harder surface. Higher bouncing and faster. Or at least it

:03:08.:03:15.

was. The Centre Court is quite slow, it's not such a quick court. That

:03:16.:03:24.

suited my game better. I think the groundsman keeps the moisture

:03:25.:03:30.

content a little higher earlier in the tournament than Mr Kynton has to

:03:31.:03:34.

on this surface, seven days play on this surface. I think it has

:03:35.:03:40.

something to do with the undersoil. I feel it is just a bit harder here.

:03:41.:04:31.

Areas that willingness to come forward. -- there is that

:04:32.:04:38.

willingness to come forward. There it is, that's the ball toss

:04:39.:04:58.

well out of the left and yet still able to pump it flat out wide into

:04:59.:05:06.

the corner, and as a return you are moving the other way because you

:05:07.:05:07.

expect the slice. UMPIRE: Mr Muller is challenging the

:05:08.:05:17.

call. The ball was called out. There was good power on the serve

:05:18.:06:13.

that it wasn't directed quite well enough, went right into the hitting

:06:14.:06:17.

zone of Cilic and he returned it nicely, almost to the baseline.

:06:18.:06:49.

It just shows how confident Muller is, break point down and he thumped

:06:50.:06:56.

that. Cilic achieves what nobody else has

:06:57.:07:38.

done this week, breaking the Gilles Muller serve, clean pass. Explosive

:07:39.:07:48.

backhand down the line, Muller coming in, albeit on his weaker

:07:49.:07:51.

side. He doesn't miss too many backhands. Exactly. It appeared as

:07:52.:07:58.

though Muller wasn't expecting it dumb at a crosscourt passing shot

:07:59.:08:03.

because he wasn't covering the down the line one at all.

:08:04.:09:06.

He is sharp, right on top of that ball. Could be the final.

:09:07.:10:02.

Still only lost the one point on serve, second serve. Impressive

:10:03.:10:14.

tennis indeed. Second semifinal, Lopez versus Dimitrov, interesting

:10:15.:10:20.

to see how Dimitrov gets the ball past Lopez when he comes into the

:10:21.:10:25.

net, which he will surely do on the backhand slice. Let's look at who is

:10:26.:10:31.

in and around today. Hopefully we can recognise one or two people. Not

:10:32.:10:40.

quite the weather we had at the start of the week but that is a

:10:41.:10:43.

blessing relief, it was well over 100 inside this poll. It was really

:10:44.:10:57.

hot. Cilic, of the one point that he lost it was a double fault so he

:10:58.:11:07.

hasn't actually lost a point. It is this low movement, look how low he

:11:08.:11:12.

is getting, this is the essence of grass court tennis, for a guy who is

:11:13.:11:17.

six feet five inches, to move in like this, rapid face coming back

:11:18.:11:24.

and then coming through again, the minor adjustments he has never been

:11:25.:11:29.

afraid to make. At six he gets around the court so well. -- six

:11:30.:11:33.

foot and six inches. It is unlucky on the net cord.

:11:34.:11:53.

Taking it out wide on the angle. I'm really impressed with how

:11:54.:13:35.

aggressive Cilic has been on his forehand this week. He clearly has a

:13:36.:13:42.

lot of belief in that shot now. Hasn't quite settled in. Under

:13:43.:15:11.

pressure though, it must be said. You have to defend such width at the

:15:12.:15:56.

baseline with the Muller serve. He can drag you out wide to the left.

:15:57.:16:04.

Yet still going down the middle on this side.

:16:05.:16:33.

Had time to lean into that one. Hits that slice with a bit more power

:16:34.:16:48.

than he ordinarily would. Remember the lovely match Andy

:16:49.:17:46.

Murray put on with Boris Johnson for charity.

:17:47.:17:48.

Perfectly placed serve on the sideline. The bounce on the line

:17:49.:19:30.

really threw Mull Muller off. We talk about positive self-talk.

:19:31.:19:49.

Down in this game but not a moment's negativity. 5-3 and two set points

:19:50.:19:53.

to Cilic. One is all he needs. Excellent set

:19:54.:20:10.

of serving. In fact, a top all round set, 17 first serve points, one out

:20:11.:20:14.

of 17. In fact he only lost two points on serve at all. Wonderful

:20:15.:20:17.

stuff. Very much in control. Players at the

:20:18.:20:31.

Aegon Championships hoping to peak for Wimbledon. The all England Lawn

:20:32.:20:35.

Tennis Club must be sure everything is perfect for the opening day.

:20:36.:20:36.

They've been hard at work all year. Everything looking pristine and

:20:37.:21:14.

perfect. They control everything at the All England Club except the

:21:15.:21:18.

weather. Hopefully we'll have two wonderful weeks. Tennis for

:21:19.:21:22.

Wimbledon qualifying coming up next week live from Roehampton. That

:21:23.:21:29.

starts on Monday. You can watch that on the red button or on the website.

:21:30.:21:36.

Next week, we'll be down on the south coast, live coverage of the

:21:37.:21:44.

Aegon International. Eight of the world's top ten in action there in

:21:45.:21:46.

the women's game. The planting down there this year

:21:47.:21:59.

which I love every year, Martin Faulkner is in charge of it, the

:22:00.:22:03.

planting is sensational. It looks beautiful. I wish I knew the name of

:22:04.:22:09.

all of these. Monty Don would know, but I don't! They look more pretty.

:22:10.:22:20.

They varnished all the wood and they made sure there were no signs of

:22:21.:22:24.

anything that would ruin the look. There was one bloke in charge of

:22:25.:22:28.

vanishing all the bannisters and jutt side wood work and he was

:22:29.:22:33.

cursing saying, why didn't they make it out of metal.

:22:34.:22:47.

Second set. First set to Cilic. Three six.

:22:48.:23:43.

Oh. A total mis-hit. Drops rite on the line.

:23:44.:24:35.

More often than not, the longer the rally goes, the more it faves Cilic

:24:36.:24:43.

because, of course, he's a quicker guy around the baseline. -- favours

:24:44.:24:50.

Cilic. The greater the chance that he will outmanoeuvre.

:24:51.:26:06.

Federer beat his opponent to make the final again.

:26:07.:26:16.

Would you say that makes him the favourite to win at Wimbledon? I

:26:17.:26:21.

don't think you can bet against Federer winning. Yes. I think if

:26:22.:26:26.

he'd have lost early, then that adds a bit of doubt to it but now that

:26:27.:26:33.

he's won four matches, you have to think, all right, he's back in gear.

:26:34.:26:57.

Zverev is very good, keep an eye out for him. His younger brother too.

:26:58.:27:17.

Zverev Number Ten in the world on the rankings which take results from

:27:18.:27:23.

the last 12 months, but starting January 1 in the race, he's number

:27:24.:27:37.

five. Ahead of both Djokovic And Muller so he's having an incredible

:27:38.:27:39.

year. Muller wasn't sure whether to play

:27:40.:28:21.

this ball or leave it to go over the baseline.

:28:22.:29:14.

Leaned on the return well. Of course, the wrong footing ground

:29:15.:29:42.

stroke always effective on this surface. It's so easy to change

:29:43.:29:44.

directions. We almost saw something we have not

:29:45.:30:52.

seen in the tournament which was a dumb Cilic break point down, 30-30

:30:53.:30:56.

is pretty much as close as anybody gets. Yet to face a break point in

:30:57.:31:03.

this tournament. He is locked in, he is going for the lines, he is on top

:31:04.:31:11.

of the ball. UMPIRE: Fault. He is reacting quickly to everything.

:31:12.:31:59.

Cilic has come ready to play. Quarterfinalist at the recent French

:32:00.:32:07.

Open on the clay. That concludes his set of at least quarterfinals in all

:32:08.:32:10.

of the Grand Slam Championships. Record be proud of. Another

:32:11.:32:17.

milestone reached in 400 career wins this year.

:32:18.:33:15.

The penultimate forehand from Cilic was really clever. He put a lot of

:33:16.:33:22.

top-spin on it, gave himself time to recover his position.

:33:23.:33:51.

He's got a look about him, there is some menace about his tennis.

:33:52.:34:06.

Well served. The most underutilised serve in tennis. Left-hander coming

:34:07.:34:19.

into the right here. That is long. If there is one reason

:34:20.:34:39.

why Cilic has not won Wimbledon before, has not been more dominant

:34:40.:34:44.

on grass it's that. He just doesn't put quite as many returns interplay

:34:45.:34:46.

has the very best. He's making all sorts of noises,

:34:47.:36:21.

grunting, very focused. That serve was maybe three inches from the

:36:22.:36:25.

centreline and it have to be that good, or Cilic was on it.

:36:26.:36:44.

That is the way you charge on a sitting volley, don't let it drop in

:36:45.:36:48.

the least. I swear there was a court around

:36:49.:37:05.

here with some seeds on it! The game continues, what a tough

:37:06.:37:19.

little mini contest within a contest this is. Cilic refusing to open the

:37:20.:37:30.

door on his own serve, the pressure is really on a server on the grass

:37:31.:37:34.

court, inside the baseline with his left foot, simple rotation, Cilic's

:37:35.:37:39.

game looks pristine at the moment. There is a little bit of rain

:37:40.:37:50.

around. I don't know whether it is just in the hair floating about,

:37:51.:37:55.

there seems to be a bit of murmuring in the crowd, people reaching for

:37:56.:38:00.

jackets and suchlike. I think he quite liked that other

:38:01.:38:07.

pigeon. That is a tremendous game. Superb.

:38:08.:38:34.

The concentration was there and the serving was at the end as well.

:38:35.:38:38.

Lovely half-volley in there. Halfway through the game, old-fashioned

:38:39.:38:44.

skill. What is it like to break the Muller serve, to receive this serve?

:38:45.:38:51.

It's fantastic out wide, down the middle on the teak. It is this

:38:52.:38:56.

variation that you have to prepare yourself for, you can be dragged way

:38:57.:39:00.

out wide or cover the one down the middle. -- down the middle on the T.

:39:01.:39:10.

Let's demonstrate that now. This is on the left-hand side, taking it out

:39:11.:39:15.

wide, this is a standard ball from Muller on the left-hand side. The

:39:16.:39:19.

ball on the left-hand side, as it crosses the baseline, in other words

:39:20.:39:22.

where you are receiving it, you don't want to give away space and

:39:23.:39:26.

stop it before it gets too far away from you, you've got to cover the

:39:27.:39:30.

one on the left with the slice and with exactly the same ball toss he

:39:31.:39:33.

can go straight down the middle. I don't know what that distances

:39:34.:39:37.

between the ball on the left and the one on the right, the wide and flat

:39:38.:39:42.

one but it is a fair distance and requires anticipation. Rather like a

:39:43.:39:45.

well taken penalty in football, nothing you can do if he's going to

:39:46.:39:51.

serve well. In fact, those two serves were conservative and placed.

:39:52.:39:55.

Muller would hope to get the serve up the middle much closer to the

:39:56.:39:58.

centreline and that makes it obviously much tougher to return it

:39:59.:40:04.

and one out wide again, if that is on the line it is unreturnable. When

:40:05.:40:08.

you were playing with John McEnroe in the singles and doubles this was

:40:09.:40:13.

a great left-handed serve, the greatest of all time. Did you tell

:40:14.:40:17.

him, or request where he was going to serve? Did he tell you when you

:40:18.:40:21.

were playing doubles? How did you direct fire? You mean when we played

:40:22.:40:29.

together? Yes. Very rarely, only on a huge point would he say, OK, I'm

:40:30.:40:34.

going here. Usually it would just be he is going to serve, I am going to

:40:35.:40:42.

react, and vice versa. So you never requested that he serve into the

:40:43.:40:45.

body or anything like that? Did he use that body serve? Yes, he had a

:40:46.:40:51.

great body serve. Yes because he had six and a half foot tall you at the

:40:52.:40:57.

next to clean up. Yes but it was more the other way around, to be

:40:58.:41:04.

honest. His serve, he got into the net so quickly behind it and he

:41:05.:41:10.

varied it well. He didn't really have a kick-serve but he would hit

:41:11.:41:17.

the slice and body serve is really effectively. I know you played him

:41:18.:41:21.

in singles a lot. Was that the best delivery you have played against?

:41:22.:41:25.

How fast was Roscoe Tabac in the day? His serve was much quicker. He

:41:26.:41:37.

was 135-140 tops. The greatness of his serve was in its placement. He

:41:38.:41:46.

could put it on a dime. Just waiting for the wind to pick up the moisture

:41:47.:41:49.

off the top of the service they're service. This is why the players are

:41:50.:41:55.

not going back to the locker room which is just under the stairs, up

:41:56.:42:01.

the external stairs and then the internal stairs. I don't think we

:42:02.:42:06.

will be off for long. Just a little pulse of light rain getting onto the

:42:07.:42:13.

court surface, which is right Dan Maguire grass is played on very

:42:14.:42:21.

rarely. -- which is why grass. It doesn't make a lot of economic sense

:42:22.:42:25.

to play on grass courts. Back in the old days I remember playing a match

:42:26.:42:30.

in the national and meta- grass courts in Southampton. Southampton,

:42:31.:42:39.

America? And it was a drizzle throughout the match. Much harder

:42:40.:42:47.

rain than this. A two-hour match played throughout like that. It was

:42:48.:42:51.

really slippery and you would just sliding around. There were no grass

:42:52.:42:56.

court shoes with studs on in those days. It's when men were men. It's

:42:57.:43:02.

interesting how the game has changed the more professional it has become.

:43:03.:43:09.

The players have basically said, I'm not doing that, I am not playing in

:43:10.:43:13.

those conditions anymore. Ireland a tournament pre-Wimbledon in Reading,

:43:14.:43:20.

when Nastase played in pouring rain, it was on TV in those days. They

:43:21.:43:27.

said we want to come said they must play on. And he said give me your

:43:28.:43:31.

umbrella, play with one hand holding the umbrella. I think they got their

:43:32.:43:40.

point across. If you don't have grass court shoes, you could always

:43:41.:43:44.

have one of these guys dragging him brush along but quite rare. Put

:43:45.:43:48.

socks over the shoes, that works. You need very large shop dark socks

:43:49.:43:53.

to get over your shoes, but you never know. -- very large socks. He

:43:54.:44:07.

has ordinary grass court shoes on, Marin Cilic. They are quite heavily

:44:08.:44:14.

regulated, the studs on the bottom, these pimples. You cannot have them

:44:15.:44:17.

wrapping around the edges and up the shoe because that damages the court

:44:18.:44:24.

to match. There were two years when Bjorn Borg had those shoes and no

:44:25.:44:33.

one else did. No! Yes, and he used to walk on court with normal tennis

:44:34.:44:37.

shoes on and he would have the grass court shoes in his bag and when he

:44:38.:44:42.

got out on court he would change his shoes. Really? That is gaining an

:44:43.:44:48.

unfair advantage. The pimples on a table tennis bat. Yes. Said he

:44:49.:44:57.

gained that advantage? They would work superbly on a clay-court.

:44:58.:45:04.

Except some players prefer to slide and therefore it's sort of defeats

:45:05.:45:12.

that purpose. Lars Graff is the supervisor this week, Dave Kimpton

:45:13.:45:18.

on the right, in charge of the courts.

:45:19.:45:22.

Get in touch, #BBC tennis. That's the way to get in contact with us. I

:45:23.:45:33.

will get to those, I promise. When I am sent them I will definitely have

:45:34.:45:39.

a look. No hard questions, though. Interesting to see the blank look on

:45:40.:45:47.

Gilles Muller's face. Just that exhausted... Just spaced out look.

:45:48.:45:52.

It was a great hold after seven or eight minutes on the service game.

:45:53.:45:55.

When the rain comes down is the last time you want to lose your serve.

:45:56.:46:02.

ANNOUNCER: There is slight moisture and rain in the air and we are going

:46:03.:46:06.

to hold the players for a few more minutes until it is safe for them to

:46:07.:46:10.

resume play. Thank you for your patience.

:46:11.:46:30.

Of course, a five-ten minute delay is not much of a problem. But if the

:46:31.:46:38.

players have to go off for half an hour or so, then it becomes a little

:46:39.:46:42.

more problematic. Just approaching ten minutes since

:46:43.:46:59.

the last point. Training has changed.

:47:00.:47:02.

Such a lot in the last few years or so, players do an awful lot more

:47:03.:47:11.

weightlifting and hammer stretching than they ever used to, particularly

:47:12.:47:15.

hitting the weights though these days.

:47:16.:47:33.

Dimitrov and Lopez next up for us on this court. Cilic is out there and

:47:34.:47:47.

ready to play. With this breeze and even the sun is attempting to peer

:47:48.:47:54.

through any surface water will evaporate quickly.

:47:55.:50:10.

That is only the fifth point that Cilic has dropped on serve.

:50:11.:50:17.

Including two double faults. On the other hand, Muller has lost 19 on

:50:18.:50:22.

his serve. You would have thought that this would be a rout, wouldn't

:50:23.:50:29.

you. All you're doing is looking at stats. The scoreline still a bit

:50:30.:50:31.

tight. That is a much easier game on the

:50:32.:50:45.

last one. Muller 3-2. Very pleased that rain delay wasn't

:50:46.:52:59.

too long. We still have play here at the Queen's Club. But there are

:53:00.:53:03.

tournaments happening elsewhere, including the ladies, the WTA event

:53:04.:53:07.

up in Edgbaston. Two results to bring you from there. Kvitova is

:53:08.:53:18.

continuing her impressive form. Safarova was forced to retire

:53:19.:53:23.

because of a leg injury. Everyone saying Kvitova looked very, very

:53:24.:53:26.

strong from the first set of that match. And Muguruza has gone out,

:53:27.:53:38.

beaten lie Barty. Barty was the Wimbledon junior champion in 2011.

:53:39.:53:43.

She walked away from the game in 2014, went to play cricket for

:53:44.:53:47.

Brisbane in the Big Bash league and returned to tennis last year and is

:53:48.:53:54.

now racing up the rankings. A big scalp at the Aegon classic this

:53:55.:53:59.

week. Eastbourne next week. Live coverage there from Monday. Back we

:54:00.:54:05.

go to the first semi-final. Barty tremendous athlete. Great hand-eye

:54:06.:54:09.

coordination. Always loves the grass court. So good for her.

:54:10.:54:59.

Total mis-hit from Cilic. Managed to propel the ball forwards. Look at

:55:00.:55:10.

this one. It's a virtuoso point from Muller right up until the last

:55:11.:55:15.

passing shot which sailed low. This remarkable run continues on

:55:16.:55:44.

first serve. 23 points played and 23 won.

:55:45.:56:03.

Loss of concentration, nothing more here. Tried to make a perfect drop

:56:04.:56:18.

volley when actually anything inside the surface line probably would have

:56:19.:56:22.

done. An hour and eight minutes to lose a point.

:56:23.:57:18.

We were talking about great service a moment ago. We are watching two

:57:19.:57:29.

fine serves here. One viewer says, how fast did Borg serve. He played

:57:30.:57:34.

long before radar guns were popular. I would have thought his serve was

:57:35.:57:42.

somewhere 125-130. But he had a great first serve, he could place it

:57:43.:57:50.

on a dime, much like McEnroe's. He won a lot of points behind his free

:57:51.:57:56.

serve. That was the difference, you know. One year. In that year, in

:57:57.:58:06.

1976, he said something just fell into place and in Paris he always

:58:07.:58:17.

just rolled it in. And suddenly he came to Wimbledon and he had a huge

:58:18.:58:19.

first serve. Once again from the end that Muller

:58:20.:58:35.

is serving now there's pressure on his serve. Served break points the

:58:36.:58:38.

last time he was down there. Well played. The ball hit the

:58:39.:59:48.

baseline and stopped dead. Cilic's forehand on the play. No arguing

:59:49.:59:51.

with that one. Just right on it, Muller doesn't hit

:59:52.:01:29.

the serve in the corner he is in trouble. Just long. UMPIRE: Mr Cilic

:01:30.:01:43.

is challenging the call on the left side baseline. The ball was called

:01:44.:01:48.

out. Five break points in the second set, Cilic is trying to put this to

:01:49.:01:49.

bed and get to the final. Advantage Muller, Mr Cilic has two

:01:50.:02:29.

challenges remaining. That is a difficult return, taking

:02:30.:02:33.

the sliding serve in your body, to try and push it back down the line.

:02:34.:03:50.

Another tough hold from Gilles Muller who is hanging in to save

:03:51.:03:54.

this second set. 4-3 up. STUDIO: We will be right back with

:03:55.:04:04.

the semifinal on the Centre Court at the egg on Championships, still the

:04:05.:04:09.

second semifinal players waiting in the clubhouse, Grigor Dimitrov,

:04:10.:04:12.

champion here in 2014, up against the man he beat in that final,

:04:13.:04:16.

Feliciano Lopez. La Paz had a match point when they played in 2014 so

:04:17.:04:23.

that could be close. -- La Paz. Wait on this court, Jamie Murray and his

:04:24.:04:26.

partner Bruno Soares who won the Australian Open doubles title last

:04:27.:04:32.

year in action and we will bring you that, if we can bring, exquisite

:04:33.:04:36.

into the coverage on BBC One because of the red -- rain, it will be on

:04:37.:04:43.

the red button. Loss of tennis still to come.

:04:44.:04:47.

COMMENTATOR: Absolutely, we had some rain earlier ten minutes into the

:04:48.:04:51.

match, a couple of minutes delay, or a few minutes delay, before they got

:04:52.:04:58.

under way, so a couple of rain delays. Harry Long says I wish there

:04:59.:05:02.

had been some rain when I was at Queen's on Sunday, still nursing the

:05:03.:05:07.

sunburn. Harry, silly, should have put something on. Thomas Scullion,

:05:08.:05:14.

maybe miserable this afternoon, every other sport continues in the

:05:15.:05:22.

rain, so continue. -- Harry Colleen -- Thomas Colin.

:05:23.:05:31.

11 o'clock, red button on Monday for Wimbledon qualifying, men's and

:05:32.:05:37.

women's, for the first time televised. Join us next week. Jon

:05:38.:05:42.

Voight and Mary Pierce join the force and commentary down there. --

:05:43.:05:48.

John Lloyd. It's been a long time since Mary

:05:49.:06:02.

Pierce saw a qualifying event. Grand Slam champion.

:06:03.:07:52.

That was a half-hearted attempt at tapas. -- at Web Pass -- at Dave

:07:53.:08:44.

half-hearted attempt at a pass. Still, doing a wonderful job of

:08:45.:08:53.

taking Muller's time away from him, standing on the baseline to return

:08:54.:09:00.

and following any return into the net.

:09:01.:09:32.

The frustration will build for Cilic. He's had so many

:09:33.:09:38.

opportunities in this set. Muller has found his way through his

:09:39.:09:42.

service games to survive. He has broken once but had eight

:09:43.:09:46.

opportunities to break, eight break points throughout the match, Cilic.

:09:47.:09:53.

He is just beginning to shake his head a little. This is the way

:09:54.:09:59.

scoring is in tennis. You can have the upper hand, you can be playing

:10:00.:10:03.

the better tennis but you can be ambushed. It looks like we might be

:10:04.:10:06.

heading for a tie-break. A quick result from Ilkley and the

:10:07.:10:31.

challenge of being played up there. Jade Clarke from Derby who had a

:10:32.:10:35.

great week winning his first two matches in Challenger play has lost

:10:36.:10:37.

in the quarterfinals but he is one to watch, J Clarke. Such a good

:10:38.:10:45.

opportunity this time of the year to play in front of home crowds. Take

:10:46.:10:53.

some opportunities to get some computer points. Nothing like

:10:54.:10:59.

playing at home. The US Open was your home tournament, wasn't it? It

:11:00.:11:06.

was, yes. Not 1 million miles away from here, where you? Still not. The

:11:07.:11:14.

US Open never really felt like a home tournament, though. Actually

:11:15.:11:22.

there was another one in Orange that was just around the corner from my

:11:23.:11:24.

house and that was fun. The clay-court season finished in a

:11:25.:11:36.

flourish for Rafa Nadal for supper can't wait to see him play. I hope

:11:37.:11:39.

his knees hold up for the whole thing. How can you win ten French

:11:40.:11:46.

opens? One of the great sporting achievements, la decima, as they

:11:47.:11:51.

called it. He didn't lose a set in winning the French Open, not even

:11:52.:11:54.

sure he got taken past four games in a set. Didn't play Wimbledon last

:11:55.:12:00.

year and lost to Dustin Brown the year before. Nadal back at Wimbledon

:12:01.:12:05.

fit and well. Muller, I am sure, just feels it's

:12:06.:12:31.

an achievement to put the return back into play and get in a rally

:12:32.:12:35.

but he needs to do even more than that. He needs to take a few more

:12:36.:12:42.

risks to see if he can force Cilic to defend.

:12:43.:13:11.

That time Muller flat-out guessed that the serve would go out wide and

:13:12.:13:14.

guessed wrong, as it happened. This is the end that Muller has

:13:15.:13:44.

struggled with his serve. Did you see where Cilic was to

:13:45.:14:20.

receive that? Virtually in the front row.

:14:21.:14:31.

Nice job of putting pace on the return. Forcing Muller to try and

:14:32.:14:38.

fend off an awkward bounce. That is the wide serve on the

:14:39.:15:25.

sideline. And it's strictly unplayable.

:15:26.:16:26.

So the least he'll get from this set is a tie-breaker.

:16:27.:16:36.

We have another left-right contest coming up. Lopez, three times

:16:37.:16:43.

quarter-finalist at Wimbledon against grippingor Dimitrov. That

:16:44.:16:48.

will be a highlight -- Grigor Dimitrov.

:16:49.:16:55.

We have just been talking about Nadal, talking about great

:16:56.:17:03.

left-handers, his last four Wimbledons, his losses have come to

:17:04.:17:13.

Kyrgios, Darcey and Brown included in those four. It's really odd that

:17:14.:17:21.

he should have such deep dips considering he's won the tournament

:17:22.:17:28.

twice, right. But he did go through a patch there when his confidence

:17:29.:17:36.

was pretty fragile. That no longer appears to be the case.

:17:37.:18:19.

A helicopter overhead. Cilic taking us into a tie-break in the second

:18:20.:18:27.

set. That's a rare lead in a Cilic game.

:18:28.:18:54.

Something for Muller to work with. Wow, what a surprise! Well taken,

:18:55.:20:34.

Muller. There's the opportunity presenting itself and he was ready.

:20:35.:20:40.

That's the first time that Marin Cilic has lost his serve during the

:20:41.:21:48.

course of this tournament. Well done Muller. In some ways against play.

:21:49.:21:58.

We are going to distance here. Where did that come from, Cilic losing his

:21:59.:22:02.

serve. It's game on here. Plenty of tennis still to come today and over

:22:03.:22:06.

the next few weeks as we build up to the finals of Wimbledon. But there's

:22:07.:22:09.

plenty of sport on the BBC right the way through the summer as well.

:22:10.:22:22.

That all looks good. Wonderful. Some of the numbers then from this

:22:23.:23:19.

semi-final. Muller putting together an

:23:20.:23:36.

inspirational game. Back in the old days if it wasn't

:23:37.:24:44.

Borg, you would say, I can't lose to this guy. Why can't people play that

:24:45.:24:50.

is the of tennis now? Well, the players return serve so much better

:24:51.:24:56.

now and hit passing shots. So much more powerfully and accurately. And

:24:57.:25:03.

conversely, because the players never serve and volley they're not

:25:04.:25:16.

very good at it any more. Good response Marin Cilic.

:25:17.:25:25.

He played David Nalbandian. He was disqualified.

:25:26.:25:41.

Oh, terrific defending from Muller. We have not seen this sort of

:25:42.:27:02.

all-court play from him ever. A career high at the age of 34, it's

:27:03.:27:08.

pretty unusual. The trend continues. Three have gone

:27:09.:27:29.

begging here in the third. That 's the first time all week we

:27:30.:28:18.

have seen Cilic shout out in anger. Often exhorted himself to come on

:28:19.:28:20.

after he's hit a good shot. That is a line ball. Having lost his

:28:21.:29:31.

serve and having had 40-0 in this game, this ricin tension is more

:29:32.:29:39.

evident than it has been, as Peter has been saying. Button well played,

:29:40.:29:46.

she'll Mola. Tremendous defence. This successful brand may continue,

:29:47.:30:11.

winning last week in Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands on a grass court.

:30:12.:30:14.

, he had his sons there with him. He is the best player ever from

:30:15.:30:35.

Luxembourg, that's for sure. Finished last year at number 34, a

:30:36.:30:38.

career high, and immediately won in Sydney and now that victory in

:30:39.:30:46.

Holland, great successful Muller, playing with confidence. How old are

:30:47.:30:47.

his sons? Seven and five. He is on a roll now. If Cilic isn't

:30:48.:31:44.

careful this match could get away from him. Who would have thought

:31:45.:31:45.

that an hour ago. ? Talk about a guy that's been around,

:31:46.:33:00.

she'll Mola has been injured a bit, but he was a finalist in Washington

:33:01.:33:07.

in 2004, 13 years ago. It took him a long time to get his first

:33:08.:33:14.

tournament victory this year in Sydney. He defeated Agassi that week

:33:15.:33:21.

and lost to Hewitt. Absolutely a different generation. Mr Cilic is

:33:22.:33:24.

challenging the call on the service line, the ball was called in.

:33:25.:33:37.

The call was in on the serve. 15-0. The call stands. 15-0. Mr Cilic has

:33:38.:33:41.

two challenges remaining. Let's Seve that well timed return

:33:42.:34:34.

gets Cilic going once again. -- see if that well timed return.

:34:35.:34:46.

There is nothing more than moralising than playing against a

:34:47.:34:51.

guy who is serving bombs at you, placing them in the corners, you

:34:52.:34:59.

have a chance to put the Paul -- ball back into play. Cilic tasting a

:35:00.:35:07.

bit of his own medicine. What a strange old start to the week

:35:08.:35:24.

we had here, with Andy Murray going out early against Jordan Thompson.

:35:25.:35:28.

Jordan Thompson got into the draw having lost in qualifying because

:35:29.:35:33.

somebody pulled out so he was the highest ranked guy in the qualifying

:35:34.:35:37.

at the time who hadn't got in so in he goes, beats Andy Murray, Jordan

:35:38.:35:41.

Thompson plays a good match against Sam Querrey but loses, Sam Querrey

:35:42.:35:45.

loses to Muller, this is the Murray section, the top half of the draw.

:35:46.:35:50.

Also going out, Nick Kyrgios hurt his hip, I saw him here with Jack

:35:51.:35:57.

Sock, the American number one. Hopefully Nick Kyrgios will be fine.

:35:58.:36:03.

Who else went out? The wildcard Australian Kokkinakis but to

:36:04.:36:11.

Medvedev and Ben Dimitrov. Stan Wawrinka, that is more

:36:12.:36:13.

understandable, the loss to Feliciano Lopez in round one -- and

:36:14.:36:19.

then Dimitrov. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga lost as well do she'll Mola. -- lost

:36:20.:36:30.

to Gilles Muller. Pretty good quarterfinal line-up now. They're

:36:31.:36:36.

all guys playing well on grass courts. Cilic and Muller were both

:36:37.:36:43.

in last week's finals. Muller women in Holland as you noted, Cilic

:36:44.:36:48.

losing in the finals in Stuttgart. He will change his racket for the

:36:49.:39:19.

new tennis balls. It is getting overcast at Queen's Club. A couple

:39:20.:39:26.

of rain delays but these yellow balls of bright. This is a darker

:39:27.:39:31.

day than we have enjoyed this week. Should be OK from here. The wind

:39:32.:39:34.

whipping in from the West which is to the left as we looked down the

:39:35.:39:43.

court behind Muller. Muller's serve will be even more venomous from this

:39:44.:39:47.

end. Cilic caught out sprinting to the

:39:48.:40:04.

open court. Didn't even have to put much pace on that at all.

:40:05.:41:34.

It is a quiet -ish bar area for the members at Queen's today. Two more

:41:35.:41:42.

matches to come after with Lopez playing Dimitrov with Dimmock and

:41:43.:41:49.

Jamie Murray and his Brazilian partner Bruno Soares our inaction

:41:50.:41:52.

against Marin Cilic who is going to be having a very long day and Marcin

:41:53.:41:57.

Matkowski, who is a doubles specialist. He's from Poland.

:41:58.:42:05.

As well as Olympic day which Sue Barker told us about because Andy

:42:06.:42:10.

Murray tweeted a picture of himself with his medals and teddy bears and

:42:11.:42:15.

bits and bobs if you saw that. What is Olympic day? I don't know but if

:42:16.:42:20.

you've won lots of Olympic medals then you can wear them all. They

:42:21.:42:25.

cannot do it any other day? No and it is armed services day and it is

:42:26.:42:33.

centring around Liverpool. I spoke to Scotty Sears, Andy Murray's

:42:34.:42:37.

brother-in-law, raising money for the Gurkhas. He is in the Gurkhas

:42:38.:42:40.

and I want to wish him well because he is heading to the South Pole

:42:41.:42:45.

unassisted, unaided, alone in November. I spoke to him on the

:42:46.:42:50.

radio this morning. Silly boy. But he is raising money for a fantastic

:42:51.:42:59.

course. Wow. Brave, isn't it? Yes. It is 3-2 to Muller, no breaks in

:43:00.:43:04.

this third and deciding set. So Cilic hoping to bring a little

:43:05.:45:31.

energy to the proceedings, up on the baseline, drills that background,

:45:32.:45:34.

can he get a few more returns into play?

:45:35.:45:48.

Such a different concentration that is required from the surface they

:45:49.:45:56.

have been playing on recently, clay - staccato, half chances, quick

:45:57.:46:02.

pace. Absolutely, a couple of games without getting any chance at all,

:46:03.:46:03.

and you still have to be ready. That is the sort of intensity that

:46:04.:47:15.

we have seen from Cilic throughout the week.

:47:16.:47:24.

He has not been able to show it too often today, such as being the

:47:25.:47:30.

Muller service dominance. World number seven trying to press

:47:31.:48:13.

home this advantage. Just getting in Muller's face a little bit.

:48:14.:48:44.

Oh! The entire Croatian player box support close to him just about

:48:45.:48:59.

managed to find their way to their feed and then sunk back down again.

:49:00.:49:04.

Yeah, he did well to track the ball down, did not miss it by much, just

:49:05.:49:06.

a couple of inches. A mean looking player box! Break

:49:07.:49:32.

point. And this time he gains the break!

:49:33.:50:27.

And he's doing it as much by willpower as anything else, really

:50:28.:50:29.

broadcasting the message that he is ready to break. Yeah, and after

:50:30.:50:36.

winning the very first point of that game, Cilic really pumped himself

:50:37.:50:46.

up, and you know that that got into Muller's head just a little bit. The

:50:47.:50:54.

body language can play a big role in a match like this. And taken out

:50:55.:51:01.

wide and chasing down these swinging left-handed serves, he has been very

:51:02.:51:05.

effective in making a play, you mentioned it earlier, getting pace

:51:06.:51:09.

on it. No point chipping it back, you will lose, and you have to

:51:10.:51:13.

commit. I have a feeling he was cheating his way in, knowing that

:51:14.:51:19.

Muller would go to his favoured serve on such a big point. Here

:51:20.:51:25.

certainly going to be a threat, no matter what happens here at Queen's

:51:26.:51:29.

Club this week, two games away from going through to the final. He has

:51:30.:51:33.

been a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon three years in a row, last year two

:51:34.:51:39.

sets up on Federer before losing in five.

:51:40.:51:45.

The year before that, he lost to Djokovic, had a massive match with

:51:46.:51:58.

John Isner, like everybody else! The year before that, a quarterfinal

:51:59.:52:01.

loss in five sets to Novak Djokovic, so some pedigree on grass. 4-3.

:52:02.:53:10.

Have done the hard bit, making an effective return of serve.

:53:11.:54:17.

Exactly right. Didn't miss it by much - but same result.

:54:18.:54:57.

It is as though the error forced into lose the concentration, a total

:54:58.:55:07.

mis-hit. Muller just hitting his head with

:55:08.:55:58.

his racket, that 0-30 point, a painful forehand miss, fleeting

:55:59.:56:01.

chances. Whatever happens in this surface

:56:02.:56:05.

game, Cilic will serve for a place in the final.

:56:06.:57:04.

I love the way Cilic ghosts win after hitting an aggressive ground

:57:05.:57:18.

strokes. Any different in a thought process

:57:19.:59:34.

when you're serving a big game like this, or are you an automatic pilot

:59:35.:59:38.

when you've won this amount of matches? The big prize, does that

:59:39.:59:42.

make you a bit more nervous or do you follow the process? Well, both.

:59:43.:59:51.

But, yeah, sure he will be a little bit aware of what he does on this

:59:52.:59:55.

first point, get your first serve in on the first point, perhaps. Right

:59:56.:00:03.

from the word go in this tournament, the 2012 champion has been so sharp.

:00:04.:00:08.

The footwork, moving on, knocking the ball off when it's there to be

:00:09.:00:11.

knocked off, and choosing the right shot and serving it magnificently.

:00:12.:00:19.

First-round victory over John is and Stephane Kozlov, the qualifier from

:00:20.:00:23.

the United States -- John Isner. He beat Donald Young 6-4, 7-5. Now a

:00:24.:00:33.

chance for a final place. It really has been just the one game where

:00:34.:00:40.

Cilic just lost his Mojo, momentarily.

:00:41.:01:16.

Well, nice to see that the forehand error at 0-30 in the last Cilic

:01:17.:01:37.

service game hasn't put him off. Really going after that return.

:01:38.:01:49.

Oh, what a magnificent way to close it out! The second serve, that wide,

:01:50.:04:23.

103 mph. The final will feature Marin Cilic, a magnificent grass

:04:24.:04:28.

court player and with a magnificent attitude this week, popular with the

:04:29.:04:37.

crowd, of course. Finally, a smile! More than the competitive grimace

:04:38.:04:41.

which he's been wearing. A wonderful performance.

:04:42.:04:49.

Really, a super week for Marin Cilic. Former champion at Grand Slam

:04:50.:04:56.

level, and such a consistent performer on the grass courts.

:04:57.:04:59.

Gilles Muller, excellent week for him as well. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the

:05:00.:05:05.

number five seed, found him too hot to handle. And Sam Querrey lost to

:05:06.:05:13.

him 6-4, 7-6. Sam Querrey will make his way of like the court. A big

:05:14.:05:18.

contribution from the 34-year-old. -- of the court. He has had a career

:05:19.:05:24.

high up the moment, and his tennis reflected that, certainly, such is

:05:25.:05:28.

the confident in his game. But in the final analysis, just the one

:05:29.:05:33.

break of serve in the third set was enough for Cilic to go through. And

:05:34.:05:41.

then there were three. Cilic and the semifinalists coming up. They are

:05:42.:05:46.

the only three remaining. Feliciano Lopez has been playing some inspired

:05:47.:05:50.

tennis himself, against Grigor Dimitrov, always a great

:05:51.:05:54.

entertainer. Don't go anywhere, stay tuned for that. And later on, don't

:05:55.:05:58.

forget that here on BBC One or the red button and you can see Jamie

:05:59.:06:02.

Murray in action with Bruno Soares against this man, Marin Cilic, and

:06:03.:06:09.

Marcin Matkowski. So he will be back after the second semifinal. Whether

:06:10.:06:13.

he wants to be playing quite that much tennis today before a final,

:06:14.:06:16.

I'm not so sure. But I'm sure he will take to the court, so have a

:06:17.:06:19.

look at Jamie Murray later on, it's worth watching him playing doubles.

:06:20.:06:26.

Competing like I've hardly ever seen him compete, with such focus.

:06:27.:06:29.

Bjorkman deserves much credit for that. His coach. He seems to have

:06:30.:06:36.

made a big difference to his mental attitude.

:06:37.:06:41.

And there is no reaction. From the box. So there is the Wii action.

:06:42.:06:54.

Marin Cilic is talking to Katherine. Marin, many, many congratulations. A

:06:55.:06:59.

third Aegon Championships final, it is clear that means a lot to use.

:07:00.:07:06.

Definitely. It is amazing to get the final, considering that today's

:07:07.:07:10.

match was extremely high-level, I was playing good throughout all the

:07:11.:07:14.

match. Gilles was just pushing me to the limits. It wasn't easy to keep

:07:15.:07:20.

calm after all of the break points I had in the second set and then

:07:21.:07:23.

losing it, and the beginning of the tour I had 0-40. But eventually I

:07:24.:07:29.

got the break. And I really played a great match. Gilles managed to do

:07:30.:07:33.

something today which no other man has done this week, which is create

:07:34.:07:37.

a break point on your server. He only did it in one game. Do you feel

:07:38.:07:42.

like Superman when you step up to serve?! No, I don't! But this week I

:07:43.:07:50.

was feeling really good on my serve. Especially on the shots afterwards,

:07:51.:07:52.

I was playing really well. Against Gilles Muller today, I was mixing it

:07:53.:07:56.

up. I was just playing really well, really spot. And some critical

:07:57.:08:02.

points. -- really smart. Usually I would ask you what you will do to

:08:03.:08:06.

the powerful the final. But you have a doubles semifinal coming up later

:08:07.:08:11.

on today. Only one man has ever done the singles and doubles double, that

:08:12.:08:15.

was Pete Sampras in 1995. How much would you like to be the second?

:08:16.:08:19.

That would mean a lot, for sure. I don't have a title in doubles in my

:08:20.:08:23.

career, so that would be nice, absolutely. But we are playing later

:08:24.:08:28.

probably the best team, one the best teams in the world, against Suarez

:08:29.:08:33.

and Jamie Murray. It will be an interesting match. I'm going to

:08:34.:08:37.

enjoy that, and hope that we will go through. We will see you out here

:08:38.:08:41.

later, best of luck. Thank you. He has got a very busy day here at the

:08:42.:08:47.

Aegon Championships. Another superb performance and another superb

:08:48.:08:49.

serving performance from Marin Cilic. He really does look a

:08:50.:08:54.

complete player with all of the work he has done alongside Jonas

:08:55.:08:59.

Bjorkman. Certainly a man in form. Peter and John are with me. John, we

:09:00.:09:03.

have been watching that, she is so hard to beat, isn't he? He has

:09:04.:09:09.

served so well, I like the way he backs up his serve. He is very

:09:10.:09:13.

aggressive, standing close inside the baseline, he is not afraid to

:09:14.:09:17.

Bobby, his return of serve is excellent. I like his attitude, too

:09:18.:09:22.

-- he is not afraid to volley. He is this pumping every time he got a

:09:23.:09:26.

break point. It shows how much the appointment means, as well as

:09:27.:09:29.

obviously Wimbledon coming up. He is in form and he wants to win this

:09:30.:09:36.

again and he is desperate to do so. With so many of the big names going

:09:37.:09:39.

out, this is a huge opportunity to get a lot of ranking points and

:09:40.:09:43.

improve your world ranking. No question about it. A win at a 500

:09:44.:09:47.

level tournament, you know, that's a good week. But even more

:09:48.:09:52.

importantly, you know, I think Marin will be thinking, the way that he's

:09:53.:09:58.

playing right now, that his chances really do skyrocket for Wimbledon in

:09:59.:10:03.

a couple of weeks' time. He, I think, is playing as well as he's

:10:04.:10:07.

ever played. And of course he's a former US Open champion. You know,

:10:08.:10:14.

nobody's going to want to play him, nobody's going to want to see him in

:10:15.:10:17.

that quarter in a couple of weeks' time. We just picked out a couple of

:10:18.:10:22.

points. It was in that game when he actually managed to break Gilles

:10:23.:10:26.

Muller's serve. Look at this point, she just knew that this was his

:10:27.:10:30.

chance and he was going to take it. Magnificent tennis he played. He

:10:31.:10:34.

really did. How close he is, getting inside that baseline. I don't think

:10:35.:10:40.

he would have done that a few years back, he would have waited and

:10:41.:10:44.

hesitated. There's no hesitation. That return of serve is pretty

:10:45.:10:49.

awesome. That serve he has whether he does it on the first serve all

:10:50.:10:54.

the second, it is such a difficult serve because it goes up so high.

:10:55.:10:58.

That's the thing, unless you are really tall, you're going to be

:10:59.:11:01.

playing something well over your shoulders. If you are one-handed,

:11:02.:11:06.

you have got no chance on it. He varies it, he does the same ball

:11:07.:11:10.

toss when he arches his back, you think it is going to be a kick out

:11:11.:11:14.

wide and then he smashes it down the middle, a very good disguise. Such a

:11:15.:11:19.

big weapon. We saw Rafa Nadal at the Clay, he was making people play

:11:20.:11:24.

shots so high with the spin, it is difficult to get any power and

:11:25.:11:26.

strength and control when you are playing above your shoulder. He is

:11:27.:11:31.

serving very confidently. The thing that I like about Cilic, much more

:11:32.:11:37.

so now than in previous years, he is hitting his forehand really

:11:38.:11:39.

confidently. And he's hitting it hard. He is dominant with it. So he

:11:40.:11:44.

puts his first serve into play, and if you don't time the return

:11:45.:11:48.

perfectly, then he's dumping you with a forehand. And, you know, it's

:11:49.:11:54.

a rough combination -- he is something you. Cilic is through to

:11:55.:11:58.

tomorrow's final. The second semifinal will be in court in a

:11:59.:12:04.

moment. Grigor Dimitrov against Feliciano Lopez. Andy Murray went

:12:05.:12:09.

out in the opening round. He is playing two exhibition matches next

:12:10.:12:13.

week. This week no doubt he has been practising down at Wimbledon, it is

:12:14.:12:16.

almost like a home club for him. A few weeks ago I went down to visit

:12:17.:12:20.

him, and I met him in the members lounge. Hello! How are you? How's

:12:21.:12:30.

things? All right, yeah, it's nice being around this club. The waiting

:12:31.:12:35.

is over! Finals day, how nerve-racking is

:12:36.:12:50.

this walk? 24 hours before, you know, you're OK, and then as it gets

:12:51.:12:54.

to like an hour before, it gets worse. And as you start to make the

:12:55.:12:58.

walk, you think, you know, can I actually play tennis? I'm terrible!

:12:59.:13:04.

Get this over with! As soon as you are on the court, I've done that my

:13:05.:13:08.

whole life, it's OK once I'm out there, it's more the getting onto

:13:09.:13:12.

the court that the hard bit. Is it the longest walk of the Grand Slam?

:13:13.:13:17.

The US Open is very close, the French Open, but by far the longest

:13:18.:13:22.

walk. Pugh Weigl heroes when you were growing up? We would always

:13:23.:13:27.

support the British -- who will work your heroes. We watched Tim Henman

:13:28.:13:30.

four years at Wimbledon. I loved watching Andre Agassi as well, just

:13:31.:13:35.

because he was a bit different. Obviously a big personality. You

:13:36.:13:39.

know, a great shot maker. He didn't play the same way as a lot of other

:13:40.:13:44.

players did. At that time he wasn't playing serve and volley tennis. He

:13:45.:13:50.

was a bit different. Are you a regular snooker player here? I was

:13:51.:13:57.

until I lost in the semifinals at the club championships. Me and my

:13:58.:14:01.

coach, Jamie Delgado, put the snooker a way after that and I

:14:02.:14:04.

haven't played since. Whose fault was it? To be honest, we were a bit

:14:05.:14:12.

unlucky, it was one frame all, but we were terrible! We played for

:14:13.:14:17.

about four hours for three frames. We needed to pot on the last hole,

:14:18.:14:22.

to either pot the blue, the pink or the black. Jamie Potter and the blue

:14:23.:14:26.

to win the game but also went in off the pot. And then we lost. And,

:14:27.:14:34.

yeah, that's been it, we gave up. This is such a magical place. Do you

:14:35.:14:38.

have a little glance off to the right as you come down? Yes, it's a

:14:39.:14:43.

shame we don't get to keep that one! That amazing trophy, is literally

:14:44.:14:46.

never leaves their eggs at an finals day. We get a replica, probably

:14:47.:14:51.

about a third of the size of that one -- it never leaves their an

:14:52.:14:56.

finals they. They won't let me touch it! As soon as you take a photo with

:14:57.:15:00.

it, they snatch it back of you and put it back in its box and off it

:15:01.:15:02.

goes. We will hear more from Andy in the

:15:03.:15:11.

documentary on Sunday just before Wimbledon gets under way. Jamie

:15:12.:15:17.

Delgado's fold eczema I was shocked he didn't say that, because he told

:15:18.:15:29.

the story, yes, it was Jamie's fault! As far as Wimbledon is

:15:30.:15:34.

concerned, he would be there practising now - what he did here on

:15:35.:15:38.

Tuesday or forgotten. Probably, it might be fuel on the fire, I am

:15:39.:15:47.

terrible! But he uses that to drive him, and you are right, he will be

:15:48.:15:51.

down at Wimbledon practising all this week and next, and you would

:15:52.:15:58.

have to think that he will settle in to a pretty good frame of mind by

:15:59.:16:01.

the time the tournament rolls around. I think it will be key, how

:16:02.:16:06.

the draw pans out, he will be the first match on the first day, and we

:16:07.:16:12.

have talked about so many of these dangerous floaters, he will be

:16:13.:16:15.

keeping a keen eye on the draw. Best of five sets, to beat Andy Murray on

:16:16.:16:22.

any surface, grass almost impossible, it would take an immense

:16:23.:16:25.

performance for someone to knock him out of the first or second round in

:16:26.:16:30.

best of five said in his own home. I cannot see it happening, but there

:16:31.:16:34.

are some very dangerous floaters around. The depth in the men's game

:16:35.:16:39.

is soaked up now. We can have a look at the betting odds as far as it

:16:40.:16:44.

goes. He is second favourite, no doubt who is the favourite, Roger

:16:45.:16:48.

Federer, after the six months he has had since coming back. Marin Cilic

:16:49.:16:52.

was not in the top ten a few days ago, but moving up a bit. Rafael

:16:53.:17:00.

Nadal, who would you put as your overall favourite, Federer? Well, I

:17:01.:17:07.

am actually still sticking with Andy, but barely. I like the first

:17:08.:17:13.

two, but I also like Cilic and Dimitrov at 25-1. Rafa is the

:17:14.:17:21.

interesting one, won the French, playing awesome tennis, he is slow

:17:22.:17:26.

to get used to grass, but he could be brutal again, and Novak Djokovic,

:17:27.:17:31.

who knows with him? He has gone down in his form, but he is the

:17:32.:17:35.

unpredictable one of the four. It is the widest open Wimbledon in

:17:36.:17:41.

decades, really. There are ten people you could make an argument

:17:42.:17:46.

for. But as you say, the way that Roger Federer has played over the

:17:47.:17:51.

last year, taking six months after macro, first tournament back, wins

:17:52.:17:56.

the Australian. And the manner in which he won! He didn't creep over

:17:57.:18:01.

the line, he played a flawless tennis. Then Indian Wells, Miami,

:18:02.:18:07.

takes three or four months off, fine, this is a good thing for me!

:18:08.:18:17.

And now in the final in Halle, so it clearly has not affected him at all.

:18:18.:18:22.

And other player they will not want to meet two early on, Feliciano

:18:23.:18:28.

Lopez has been an awesome form, he is out on court right now, a repeat

:18:29.:18:33.

of the 2014 final, as he takes on Grigor Dimitrov. And there is

:18:34.:18:40.

Dimitrov, such a class player, isn't he, John? He is, and he had to dig

:18:41.:18:46.

deep in his last round, an interesting match against Medvedev,

:18:47.:18:50.

he was winning so easily, it looked like his opponent was going to

:18:51.:18:56.

default. He took his foot off the pedal for a second, he lost the

:18:57.:18:59.

second and was down a break and had to come up with a couple of amazing

:19:00.:19:03.

shots to get back up in the match. But he will take from that that you

:19:04.:19:07.

cannot take any match easy, but also the strength of character to come

:19:08.:19:10.

back when he looked like he was about to lose the match. And when

:19:11.:19:15.

you say play a couple of great shots, he really upped his game,

:19:16.:19:19.

which is what you're looking for. Let's hear what Grigor had to say

:19:20.:19:22.

after the match when he spoke to Catherine.

:19:23.:19:27.

When you last won here in 2014, you went on to have your best ever

:19:28.:19:32.

Wimbledon. How much do you want to win here? It is a very special

:19:33.:19:37.

tournament for me, and I kind of feel very relaxed, at the same time

:19:38.:19:42.

I am trying to put that pressure on myself, but that is the beauty of

:19:43.:19:46.

tennis. When you win once, you want to do it again, every tournament

:19:47.:19:51.

that you have done well, you kind of want to repeat that. All athletes,

:19:52.:19:57.

in general, we are so superstitious, I am doing the same things I did in

:19:58.:20:03.

2014. So far, I think everything is going well, I am looking match after

:20:04.:20:08.

match, I have very solid opponents in the next two rounds potentially,

:20:09.:20:14.

so I need to stay focused, stay grounded, look at what is ahead of

:20:15.:20:19.

me. The superstitions are certainly working, he has played some great

:20:20.:20:25.

tennis, and when he is on, Peter, he is so beautiful to watch, and if he

:20:26.:20:28.

can build on that confidence, he is capable of going through any player.

:20:29.:20:34.

He is beautiful to watch all of the time, such a graceful player, better

:20:35.:20:38.

on this surface, and he defends supremely well. It is interesting,

:20:39.:20:43.

though, the one semifinal is too has not been dominant to get to this

:20:44.:20:48.

point. The other three all got here without dropping serve at all. At

:20:49.:20:54.

that has almost been the good news for Dimitrov, because he has had to

:20:55.:20:59.

fight, and he has shown that he is able to come through under pressure.

:21:00.:21:05.

He is up against Feliciano Lopez, it will be interesting to see how much

:21:06.:21:10.

he has got in his legs as well, because that is going to be

:21:11.:21:13.

important. They have met so many times before, here, and the last

:21:14.:21:18.

meeting was in Cincinnati, and that was a long one, we have been

:21:19.:21:21.

predicting this could be a long match, it will be interesting to see

:21:22.:21:24.

how Lopez comes back from his match. Although Grigor played three sets,

:21:25.:21:29.

Lopez had a much more testing match against Berdych. Much more, and he

:21:30.:21:34.

has had a tough couple of weeks, he is amazingly fit, but grass takes it

:21:35.:21:40.

out of you, a lot of bending and stretching wide fourballs, very

:21:41.:21:43.

tough matches. He has had a lot of tough matches in the last ten or 12

:21:44.:21:48.

days, and I have got to favour Dimitrov, but this man, on is

:21:49.:21:55.

called, is so good. So affective, Peter, his serve. One of the great

:21:56.:22:04.

serves in the game, and if he can fire it down consistently well, he

:22:05.:22:08.

will hold serve most of the time. The one thing that Dimitrov brings

:22:09.:22:13.

to the game is the ability to put returns into play, so he will force

:22:14.:22:17.

Lopez to play more backcourt points, and maybe over time that might wear

:22:18.:22:22.

him down a little bit, we will have to wait and see. Interesting

:22:23.:22:27.

watching the practice court, Balbirnie working with Dimitrov,

:22:28.:22:31.

trying to be really aggressive, he wants him to be attacking, take the

:22:32.:22:39.

match away from Lopez today. Well, yeah, and I think when they get into

:22:40.:22:43.

a backcourt rally, if Dimitrov can work is way into the net, he forces

:22:44.:22:49.

Lopez to hit passing shots puff the backhand, which he is not that keen

:22:50.:22:54.

on doing. Lopez can slice the backhand until the cows come home,

:22:55.:22:59.

but if you force him to hit passing shots, topspin shots, he is less

:23:00.:23:04.

comfortable, so get in the net, put pressure on, falls into... Dominate

:23:05.:23:12.

from your side of the court, Lopez has such incredible feel with the

:23:13.:23:16.

racket, he can do all sorts of spins and slices, and if you let him take

:23:17.:23:21.

charge, you will be doing a lot of running. Absolutely, and Grigor is

:23:22.:23:25.

such a marvellous defender, sometimes he gets lulled into that,

:23:26.:23:29.

he likes chasing balls down and running for lost causes. And a lot

:23:30.:23:38.

of time he pulls it off, but I don't think that is the sort of game that

:23:39.:23:43.

he can play to beat the very best. No, but good to see him close back

:23:44.:23:49.

to his best. He might not be where he was in 2014, when he won here,

:23:50.:23:55.

Dimitrov we are talking about, went through to the semifinal of

:23:56.:23:58.

Wimbledon - not quite at that form but not far away. Not yet, and that

:23:59.:24:03.

is not necessarily the bad news, because of course Marin Cilic, I

:24:04.:24:07.

think, has peaked, he is playing about as well as he can play, and

:24:08.:24:11.

can he maintain that form for another three weeks? That remains to

:24:12.:24:17.

be seen. Whereas Dimitrov is growing, slowly and steadily full

:24:18.:24:21.

stop you think, OK, if you can maintain that growth through the

:24:22.:24:26.

first week in Wimbledon, then he is a real danger. Do you feel this is

:24:27.:24:31.

possibly one match too far for Lopez today? Well, possibly, it depends.

:24:32.:24:37.

If his shoulder is still all right and he can still bang down some

:24:38.:24:44.

first serves, then why not? You can get through two sets. If it is a

:24:45.:24:47.

long drawn-out affair and he has to play a lot from the backcourt, maybe

:24:48.:24:52.

so. OK, Peter, thank you. John has made his way to the commentary box

:24:53.:24:55.

to join Andrew Castle. Sue, thank you very much, playing

:24:56.:25:03.

for the privilege to meet Marin Cilic in the final, it was 2014 when

:25:04.:25:08.

Dimitrov won. What am I talking about? This is the repeat of the

:25:09.:25:12.

2014 final! Dimitrov to serve. He was 0-30 down against Medvedev in

:25:13.:27:14.

yesterday's quarterfinal in his first service game before settling.

:27:15.:27:22.

Oh, that is a perfect serve. UMPIRE: Mr Lopez is challenging the

:27:23.:27:58.

call on the centre service line. Lopez just hoping that the

:27:59.:28:01.

centreline might have spread a little bit, the dust flying

:28:02.:28:05.

everywhere, but no joy for him. Amazing how far he gets round and

:28:06.:28:35.

not forehand - I thought when Lopez hit that backhand slice that

:28:36.:28:39.

Dimitrov would have to hit a backhand, but he even got round that

:28:40.:28:45.

one, so low, almost at the line, he got rounded and with the forehand,

:28:46.:28:53.

such a big shot. Oh, well, that is painting the lines, from 15-40 down,

:28:54.:28:57.

he has served his way out of trouble straightaway, that will be a relief

:28:58.:29:05.

for the coaching box, the first game of this second semifinal concluded.

:29:06.:29:08.

There is a fellow called George in Hawk-Eye, and he has been putting

:29:09.:29:14.

this together, this is the 2014 final against Lopez, Dimitrov

:29:15.:29:21.

against Lopez. These are crucial points, the first big hit after the

:29:22.:29:28.

serve, look at the red, that is the forehand, 81% after the returns.

:29:29.:29:34.

Look at the wits, on both sides. And where does he hit it? Right into the

:29:35.:29:35.

corners. That's what Dimitrov can do, such as

:29:36.:29:43.

the footwork we were just talking about.

:29:44.:30:03.

91 mph forehand! I don't remember any of those with a wooden racket! I

:30:04.:30:30.

don't from the serve. Let alone a ground stroke. Cars didn't even use

:30:31.:30:32.

to go that fast! Oh, what a lovely rally that was!

:30:33.:31:03.

Dimitrov knows going into that backhand side he hasn't got too much

:31:04.:31:06.

to worry about in terms of being threatened on the backhand. He knows

:31:07.:31:11.

he is not going to get easy point of Maximo has sliced backhand, but he

:31:12.:31:14.

can go there all day long if he wants to. He has to hit it pretty

:31:15.:31:19.

deep though, otherwise Lopez can chip in on that shot. Lopez I think

:31:20.:31:25.

has one of the best approach shot on grass in the game, he slices it, the

:31:26.:31:27.

depth that he has. Oh, what a game! Well, I like what

:31:28.:31:46.

I'm seeing so far from both players. Just in case there's any doubt as to

:31:47.:31:49.

what you get on the Lopez backhand side. Uncle George and his Hawk-Eye

:31:50.:32:01.

and their have put this together, 92% of the time, the backhands are

:32:02.:32:07.

slicing. He might come across it on a passing shot.

:32:08.:32:22.

He's actually sort of a bit of an old-time player in that respect,

:32:23.:32:28.

there's not many players on the Tour, if any, that would hit this

:32:29.:32:32.

life that much and without coming over the ball in today's game, I

:32:33.:32:36.

can't think of anybody else even close to that many sliced backhand.

:32:37.:32:41.

Federer did go through a phase of slicing a lot. Not now, though. No.

:32:42.:32:52.

I remember Matt philander playing against Lendl in the Open, he played

:32:53.:33:03.

the fifth set and he only hit one-handed slices. He didn't come of

:33:04.:33:07.

it backhand. He knew that Lendl didn't want to play against the

:33:08.:33:11.

slice. Fabulous set of tennis that was.

:33:12.:33:22.

Oh! That's why he doesn't come over it! It's a rotten thing... Through

:33:23.:33:31.

that one out, we won't see another one again for the rest of the day

:33:32.:33:33.

after that effort! Just a slight lack of poor use there

:33:34.:33:48.

for a second, and that will be the last time we see that as well --

:33:49.:34:00.

lack of -- poise. There's another one! The coach is probably looking

:34:01.:34:05.

at him now saying, please, what are you doing?! There is the 8% rule.

:34:06.:34:09.

That was so good the way that he knifed that one across. He got

:34:10.:34:14.

ambitious, she just changes his grip a bit, coming over the ball. There's

:34:15.:34:19.

no height on that one. Leaning back a little bit as well. He looks down

:34:20.:34:21.

the racket. I think everyone will come back in.

:34:22.:35:00.

I think they've all gone. The first semifinal, seeing Marin Cilic here

:35:01.:35:06.

to the final here at Queen's Cup. -- Queen's Club.

:35:07.:35:17.

The world's first multisports club, this. Football, rugby and athletics

:35:18.:35:24.

all played here to international and world level. They played England

:35:25.:35:28.

football matches here. Then that moved to Wembley. Rugby moved to

:35:29.:35:32.

Twickenham, and athletics moved to White city. But it all started here.

:35:33.:35:38.

It's been remodelled a number of times. I was thinking it's been

:35:39.:35:44.

remodelled quite a lot, but I've been coming here for 45 years! John,

:35:45.:35:48.

you've probably been coming here even longer! Just slightly! We are

:35:49.:35:56.

on the 84 heading out of London, Heathrow is ten or 11 miles away.

:35:57.:36:00.

You can see why spectators love this. It is a very intimate arena.

:36:01.:36:05.

You feel like you're very close to the players. Sometimes in stadiums

:36:06.:36:09.

these days, particularly at the US Open, if you happen to have friends

:36:10.:36:13.

who are not very nice and they get you tickets, you have to have

:36:14.:36:18.

binoculars to see the ball, it's so high! Whereas you come to replace

:36:19.:36:22.

like Queen's, look how close they are to the players. There is not a

:36:23.:36:26.

bad seat in the house here. You can see where the actual Borges. It is

:36:27.:36:30.

like football stadiums that have an athletic track around them, it is

:36:31.:36:33.

too far away. White Hart Lane has gone now, that was a wonderful

:36:34.:36:38.

stadium to watch close by. Wembley is good, by the way. Wembley's. --

:36:39.:36:47.

Wembley's fantastic. The players like to feel the action around, not

:36:48.:36:53.

being too distant away for all the applause and everything else.

:36:54.:36:58.

Wimbledon is the same. Centre Court, you go there when there is no one in

:36:59.:37:02.

there, and you say, well, there's actually 15,000 that can get him

:37:03.:37:06.

here, and you think, no, but it grows with people.

:37:07.:37:22.

Just that one example in that rally, the Dimitrov forehand, where he did

:37:23.:37:38.

the looping forehand with the amazing spin. When you are sitting

:37:39.:37:41.

there caught sight watching that, you think it's going to go out. And

:37:42.:37:45.

then the strings just brings the ball down, it dips.

:37:46.:38:04.

He's been wearing that shirt all week, the Dennis the Menace shirt.

:38:05.:38:21.

I've never known anybody go to work more than Feliciano Lopez, a huge

:38:22.:38:29.

respect for his appetite for competing, week in, week out.

:38:30.:38:33.

Watching him arriving on Monday morning, exhausted from his efforts

:38:34.:38:37.

the week before, thinking, you probably won't be around long. One!

:38:38.:38:45.

-- wrong. Oh, that is a gorgeous drive from labours. I thought, when

:38:46.:38:50.

he went to hit this, he's in trouble, here. You don't want to be

:38:51.:38:53.

hitting it from there. Look... That just amazing. I'm not too sure he's

:38:54.:39:01.

feeling that fresh at the moment. I'm watching him between points. He

:39:02.:39:05.

always walks with a certain air about him, quite slowly. He's just

:39:06.:39:10.

taking his time between points at the moment.

:39:11.:39:48.

The mis-hit was caught from his friend. There's Jonas Bjorkman,

:39:49.:39:55.

doing scouting. And who's that on the right? A friend of yours, John?

:39:56.:40:07.

Yes. You don't see this sort of shot very

:40:08.:40:35.

often. You can see the way he sneaks in here. Lopez did see him at the

:40:36.:40:39.

end, but it was so low, and by that time he had got close to the top of

:40:40.:40:43.

the net. He knew he was in big trouble.

:40:44.:41:03.

APPLAUSE A lot easier service game than the

:41:04.:41:14.

first two. He is settling into his rhythm now. Practising at Wimbledon

:41:15.:41:18.

last Saturday. The sunshine and the heat, he was playing with Jamie

:41:19.:41:23.

Baker. The former British Davis Cup player and our colleague in the BBC

:41:24.:41:27.

commentary box. First with Jamie, then with Ross Hutchins. He's just

:41:28.:41:32.

watching Dimitrov practice at the moment. There's a great intensity

:41:33.:41:35.

about him which he brought to the tournament court. Clearly hitting

:41:36.:41:40.

the ball well and enjoying his tennis. Cilic is exactly the same,

:41:41.:41:45.

he brought that positivity to the court. And not everybody did this

:41:46.:41:49.

week. A couple of slow starters. When Andy Murray tried to get going

:41:50.:41:53.

against Jordan Thompson in his first-round match here, he actually

:41:54.:41:56.

played very well, but Jordan Thomson played out of his mind. Heeded. You

:41:57.:42:01.

do have to start a match, particularly on grass, quickly. One

:42:02.:42:06.

break down between these two, the break is off best-of-3,

:42:07.:42:09.

particularly. The best-of-5. You have got to focus right from the

:42:10.:42:15.

beginning, best-of-3 matches can go quite quickly. That is why Lopez, he

:42:16.:42:23.

had two 0-30s, in the second service game he played a couple of slack

:42:24.:42:27.

points. He tried to go into the backhand. He could have had a chance

:42:28.:42:28.

of a break there. APPLAUSE

:42:29.:43:50.

So good! That is just so good. A lot of

:43:51.:43:57.

players, well, not many people Borlee as well as he does, but a lot

:43:58.:44:02.

of players would have bullied into the open court. But Lopez and he

:44:03.:44:06.

went behind his man, forced Dimitrov to hit the -- the lob.

:44:07.:44:21.

He's been on four winning Davis Cup teams. Amazing, what a career. It

:44:22.:44:30.

does help when you've got Rafa Nadal and David Ferrer... And a few

:44:31.:44:32.

others. A great warrior on the Spanish team.

:44:33.:44:44.

Rain coming down again. Third time we've had to wait and see.

:44:45.:44:54.

Dimitrov clearly does not fancy and, the French umpire is perfectly happy

:44:55.:45:00.

to go with the players on this, just a little pulse of rain, I do not

:45:01.:45:07.

think we will be too long. On the phone to the referee and various

:45:08.:45:13.

others, and we will just have a little weight here. I suspect the

:45:14.:45:15.

players will not go off court. It remains to be seen whether they

:45:16.:45:28.

will want to cover the court. He does not like to, because it seals

:45:29.:45:33.

in the moisture, but here he comes, Graham, at the end of the court.

:45:34.:45:46.

Everybody sees him, oh, he is back! I hope this break is not long. You

:45:47.:45:51.

don't want the players to cool down, this was such a good start to this

:45:52.:45:55.

match, the quality we have seen in the first six games, phenomenal

:45:56.:46:00.

points, grass court tennis at its best. We have seen a backhand of 90

:46:01.:46:11.

mph and a forehand over that from Dimitrov already, slicing and

:46:12.:46:14.

dicing, as we have come to expect from Feliciano Lopez, and the art of

:46:15.:46:22.

Ollie behind an opponent. Pat Cash was a great exponent of that, if you

:46:23.:46:27.

ever get stuck in club tennis, wondering where to volley, or second

:46:28.:46:31.

guessing yourself, put it back behind the opponent, so even if you

:46:32.:46:35.

look up and you think they are there, just volley back to where

:46:36.:46:38.

they have come from, you should get a lovely reward from that. Any time

:46:39.:46:46.

you can take decision-making out of it. Absolutely! We have already seen

:46:47.:46:54.

the Lopez drop volley is just fantastic, the defensive skills of

:46:55.:47:03.

Dimitrov, the way glides and nudges that sliced backhand out wide,

:47:04.:47:07.

getting back into a deep position, immediately occupying the middle of

:47:08.:47:12.

the court to take over the rally, really fantastic play. I think it

:47:13.:47:21.

might have stopped raining now, suddenly weakened a bit, so we

:47:22.:47:26.

shouldn't be too far away here. Are you as surprised as I am that

:47:27.:47:29.

Dimitrov has only been as high as number eight in the world? Back in

:47:30.:47:34.

2014, when Andy Murray was defending Wimbledon champion, I know he was

:47:35.:47:39.

not at his best then, but Dimitrov was playing unbelievable tennis, a

:47:40.:47:42.

very windy day, he lost to Djokovic in the semifinal. Not quite able to

:47:43.:47:49.

give his best, four tight sets, but a bit of an ugly match. Later on

:47:50.:47:54.

that year, he was at number eight, but since then he has not been able

:47:55.:48:00.

to achieve that. You are right, but at the level we are talking about,

:48:01.:48:04.

talking about Grand Slam winners here, the mental side is so

:48:05.:48:09.

important. I don't think that he believed in himself at crucial

:48:10.:48:14.

moments. I think he does now, and I think that semifinal at the

:48:15.:48:17.

Australian Open has helped him a lot, even though we lost, because it

:48:18.:48:22.

was one of the great matches of all time. Against Nadal. And he did

:48:23.:48:27.

nothing there to lose, and I think he has that belief that he could go

:48:28.:48:34.

to the next step. Five hours, five sets, and overshadowed by the

:48:35.:48:39.

Nadal-Federer final, which was a wonderful contest, but the first 17

:48:40.:48:42.

matches of the year for Dimitrov, just that one loss, he was the man.

:48:43.:48:51.

Yeah. I think those two back-to-back matches at the Australian Open, two

:48:52.:48:57.

of the best that I have ever seen. Very rarely do you get that sort of

:48:58.:49:03.

stuff happening in one tournament, back-to-back, what a tournament that

:49:04.:49:12.

was, what a Slam. #bbctennis if you want to get in touch, Allen says,

:49:13.:49:15.

when is the draw for Wimbledon taking place? I was thinking, I must

:49:16.:49:21.

look that up. The seeding comes out on Tuesday, or is it Wednesday? And

:49:22.:49:29.

then I think don't they have a day off to have a look at it, and then

:49:30.:49:33.

they do the draw on Thursday? Thursday, that is right. The big

:49:34.:49:41.

being there, when you look at the quarters, who is in which half of

:49:42.:49:46.

the draw, it is always fun to look at that - maybe not so for the

:49:47.:49:50.

players, but for the spectators, to look for the danger man, the

:49:51.:49:54.

dangerous women, where they are in the draw. I must say, the women's

:49:55.:49:59.

draw, there is about 15 women who could win Wimbledon this year, one

:50:00.:50:03.

of the most open ever. The men's, I don't think quite that many, but

:50:04.:50:09.

still extremely open as well. Petra Kvitova playing his back into form

:50:10.:50:13.

after protecting herself from a burglar at home around Christmas and

:50:14.:50:18.

New Year, who was armed. She defended herself and cut her hand

:50:19.:50:22.

and had to have surgery, so she has been out for months, and as she goes

:50:23.:50:27.

about her business in such a quiet way, so her comeback has been quiet,

:50:28.:50:30.

but is delighted to have her back. She says she is fine and has put

:50:31.:50:35.

that behind her, but certainly a very dramatic moment in anybody's

:50:36.:50:39.

life, so delighted to see her back and playing well. What else have we

:50:40.:50:47.

got here? #bbctennis, like I say, does anyone think a fit Nadal can

:50:48.:50:52.

get into the second week at Wimbledon? Well, yes! Absolutely,

:50:53.:50:57.

but I was talking with Peter Fleming, his last four losses,

:50:58.:51:05.

stretching back to 2011, Rosol, Nick Kyrgios, Steve Darcis. It is a good

:51:06.:51:11.

question, because he hasn't done, but can he now? Absolutely, the

:51:12.:51:17.

confidence in his game. John said he enjoyed the previous semifinal, out

:51:18.:51:21.

of all the tennis players, who has the slowest serve? I don't know

:51:22.:51:29.

that! It is a good question. The slowest of my generation was Ramage

:51:30.:51:32.

Krishnan, the Indian player, very fine player, he was so slow, it

:51:33.:51:40.

would hit him in the back of the head, he would be waiting for a

:51:41.:51:43.

volley and his own serve would hit him. Quite a few years before that,

:51:44.:52:03.

Ken Rosewall! Tiny serve! What else have we got here? Why are there no

:52:04.:52:07.

ATP 1000 tournaments on grass, the nine big tournaments on the tour?

:52:08.:52:13.

Well, no room on the calendar for them.

:52:14.:52:18.

UMPIRE: Please take your seats quickly. I suppose this and Halle

:52:19.:52:26.

would be the nearest, it is the date in the calendar.

:52:27.:54:04.

That was a long way out! Comfortable hold for Dimitrov.

:54:05.:54:15.

We were talking about Lopez, sometimes between points, he seems

:54:16.:54:23.

to be a bit slow. Very slow getting to the changeover, if you have

:54:24.:54:27.

noticed that, he is about twice as slow as Dimitrov, it almost looks

:54:28.:54:31.

like he wants to sit down but he cannot quite get there! It is

:54:32.:54:39.

interesting, he has had a busy week, six and five against Stan Wawrinka,

:54:40.:54:50.

one and six against Chardy, and then that long match against Tomas

:54:51.:54:56.

Berdych. As he entered into Eastbourne? I was just wondering the

:54:57.:55:03.

same thing. If he has, he is going, oh... Really?! This again?! You know

:55:04.:55:06.

he will give it everything. Is brother, Francisco Clavet, was

:55:07.:55:31.

the final of the Clavet brothers. Second semifinal, Cilic won the

:55:32.:55:34.

first, this is the man who has not lost his serve all tournament. The

:55:35.:55:38.

only manner amazing not to do so. On this surface, that approach is

:55:39.:56:34.

just deadly. You would need a spade to dig this one up, that is a daisy

:56:35.:56:37.

cutter. He's coming over his backhand more,

:56:38.:57:02.

Feliciano Lopez, than I have seen him in previous matches. Trying to

:57:03.:57:06.

keep these points short. It just shows you the power these

:57:07.:57:38.

players have, look how far he is behind the baseline, 95 mph against

:57:39.:57:43.

Dimitrov, who is so fast, and it is a clean winner from there.

:57:44.:58:37.

A stretch from Lopez, no doubt feeling that long match yesterday.

:58:38.:01:22.

But we are still on serve in this second semifinal. The other was --

:01:23.:01:29.

grass court tournament is being played in Halle at the moment. Roger

:01:30.:01:37.

Federer is through to the semifinal, due to plate Sascha Zverev, who came

:01:38.:01:40.

from a set down to defeat Richard Gasquet. Zverev beating Federer in

:01:41.:01:43.

the semifinals last year. COMMENTATOR: Thank you, soon. It

:01:44.:01:56.

will be great seeing that, Federer back in form, and Zverev is the real

:01:57.:01:59.

deal, no doubt about that. He has demonstrated that on the clay-court

:02:00.:02:05.

season. Peter Fleming inform me, extensive research, clearly hitting

:02:06.:02:09.

the computer hard, if you look at the year to date results, there is a

:02:10.:02:17.

slightly different ranking than the 12 month ranking. There has actually

:02:18.:02:21.

had the fifth best year of anybody. He is number five in the race

:02:22.:02:23.

rankings, as they are called. We've been introduced to Daniel

:02:24.:02:35.

Medvedev, the 21-year-old from Russia.

:02:36.:02:56.

We have seen some good youngsters here this week. Dimitrov, the

:02:57.:03:05.

youngest semifinalist. Playing here at Queen's this year. 26 years old.

:03:06.:03:53.

Quick game. Just what you want. A momentum builder, perhaps, with one

:03:54.:04:09.

of those first two points, or both. Off a slice like that from Lopez,

:04:10.:05:23.

the timing has to be so pinpoint if you are going to come up and over

:05:24.:05:25.

the ball. With top-spin. APPLAUSE

:05:26.:05:55.

You have to go close to the backhand side there.

:05:56.:07:36.

Too many errors from Grigor Dimitrov, unforced errors mounting

:07:37.:07:47.

up. His coach used to coach Tomas Berdych. And before that, he was

:07:48.:07:53.

with Andy Murray, his close friend, coaching him.

:07:54.:08:15.

Here is a big moment coming up. It is a third break point. Feliciano

:08:16.:08:22.

Lopez, the first two in the first game. Here we are, some 40 minutes

:08:23.:08:30.

later, it is a virtual set point the way that Lopez has been serving.

:08:31.:08:46.

And that pressure tells! Lopez coming in on the sliced backhand,

:08:47.:08:55.

can you pass me on a big point? Absolutely not! Lopez serves for the

:08:56.:08:57.

first set. STUDIO: We will be right back with

:08:58.:09:01.

that but we only have a few minutes left here on BBC One, so the match

:09:02.:09:05.

will go on to the red button in just a few moments. If you are just

:09:06.:09:09.

joining us here, one result to bring you from the first dummy final.

:09:10.:09:17.

Marin -- the first semifinal. Marin Cilic worked very hard, winning 6-4

:09:18.:09:23.

in the third. A long, long match. He is through to the final once again.

:09:24.:09:27.

And that victory means he will move up to six in the world rankings, at

:09:28.:09:33.

least six in the world rankings, his career high. Marin Cilic back in the

:09:34.:09:37.

final at Queen's once again. And we will be here for the final tomorrow

:09:38.:09:42.

on BBC One here from 2pm. The men's final, live from Queen's Cup, TPM

:09:43.:09:48.

here on BBC One. Just a few moments left, -- on 2pm. Lopez serving for

:09:49.:09:53.

the set. COMMENTATOR: It is 2pm for that

:09:54.:09:59.

final. After that, John, don't forget to bring your shorts, shoes

:10:00.:10:03.

and tennis rackets, because you and me are going to try and play for

:10:04.:10:07.

half an hour! We will find a grass court if they will let us. 15

:10:08.:10:15.

minutes for me! It is just a wonderful surface here. Beautifully

:10:16.:10:19.

prepared. Now then, Lopez serving for the first set.

:10:20.:11:37.

Dimitrov had to come back from one set down against Julien Benneteau,

:11:38.:11:46.

the qualifier from France. It looked like it could be the same task again

:11:47.:11:47.

here. And that's it! What a great effort

:11:48.:12:06.

from Feliciano Lopez. He might be struggling physically a little, but

:12:07.:12:10.

even if he is, he has enough know-how on this service to get the

:12:11.:12:14.

job done. Just the one break of serve at 5-5. And he takes his

:12:15.:12:22.

chance, serving magnificently. I think the only thing, if I was his

:12:23.:12:27.

coach, Dimitrov's coach, he's just been guilty in the last couple of

:12:28.:12:31.

matches, he did this against Medvedev and of the last service

:12:32.:12:38.

game against Lopez, just guilty of a lapse of concentration. But with two

:12:39.:12:41.

or three points in a row, it is big enough to lose the break against

:12:42.:12:46.

Medvedev, he got it back again. The same thing against Lopez. And you

:12:47.:12:49.

can't do that at this level on grass, you just can't. He has two

:12:50.:12:54.

iron that out if he is going to just win this big match. Do you think

:12:55.:12:59.

there is a sense that he is trying to prepare for Wimbledon with this?

:13:00.:13:04.

I've noticed this week he has been returning harder, quicker. Maybe. I

:13:05.:13:10.

don't know whether he is taking anything from the practice court out

:13:11.:13:14.

onto the match court, I might be wrong on that. You can see the

:13:15.:13:20.

enforced errors -- the unforced errors. You can see, Lopez is very

:13:21.:13:26.

solid and Dimitrov, more unforced errors. Particularly on some big

:13:27.:13:29.

points, that is really what cost him that set. Both players getting

:13:30.:13:36.

effectively perfect, but Dimitrov only getting in wants. If you don't

:13:37.:13:43.

get in, Lopez well. One of them was break point 5-5, he's lost it to

:13:44.:13:49.

Dimitrov's backhand. If you can pass from your angles, then good luck.

:13:50.:13:55.

The racket will get stuck on your laces that low! Imagine what he

:13:56.:14:01.

would be like on the old-fashioned brass chords! Put him on Felixstowe

:14:02.:14:03.

or Southsea! -- grass courts. No sign of crew go Dimitrov's

:14:04.:16:07.

partner, Nicole Scherzinger. I don't spend much time on those social

:16:08.:16:11.

pages, but we saw pictures at the beginning of the show, Sharapova,

:16:12.:16:19.

his former partner, watching. He has certainly got crossover status, Greg

:16:20.:16:21.

Owen Dimitrov, into the mainstream, he has got a celebrity. If he wins a

:16:22.:16:32.

slam, I agree, potential for a real crossover star.

:16:33.:16:47.

Ireland are seeing Maria Sharapova here want fairly bleak Monday

:16:48.:17:02.

evening, arriving on the Tube to see her boyfriend, good commitment. I

:17:03.:17:06.

saw Nicole should sing on the back of a bus advertising something! --

:17:07.:17:13.

Nicole Scherzinger. It's not really the same thing, is it? Not quite! I

:17:14.:17:21.

almost wrote in to her on my motorbike, actually!

:17:22.:17:53.

If he is a bit tired after this week's exertions, Lopez, still

:17:54.:18:02.

throwing this ball in at 130 mph plus, consistently, and left-handed.

:18:03.:18:05.

Yes. SUE BARKER: We have come to the end

:18:06.:18:34.

of our transmission on BBC One, but this match will be available on the

:18:35.:18:37.

red button and the BBC Sport website. We will be back tomorrow

:18:38.:18:41.

for the final, Marin Cilic is already there, who will

:18:42.:18:49.

MUSIC: Fight For Your Right by Beastie Boys

:18:50.:18:52.

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