They don’t care about NBC’s broadcast, they’re reporting the news. I’m pretty sure NBC did broadcast the match live, by the way.
If they did, then they’ve got some pretty damn bright sunlight at 10pm in England. 
(The broadcast for the Nadal/Scheuttler match ended at 5pm Eastern, which I think is 10pm at Wimbledon. It was a pretty sunny night if there was no delay).
I was definitely watching Nadal-Schuettler before noon. I just realized it was on ESPN, though, not NBC. And ESPN probably aired the first match live as well.
The match finished at about 9.35pm IIRC - only about 15 mins later than tonight’s Federer/Nadal epic.
As I write this it is 9.30pm and still reasonably light, although it’s overcast. You have to remember that Wimbledon is quite a bit further north than the entire lower 48 states!
What a wonderful match! I started watching midway through the third set. On serve, on serve, tiebreaker - Federer! 4th set - on serve, on serve, tiebreaker - Federer! The fifth set was beautiful. Neither looked tired. Both deserved the win.
I wasn’t looking at the screen, but it sounded like McEnroe was about to cry when he interviewed Federer. He sounded like he was truly honored to watch the best match ever.
Sunset in London tonight was officially at 9:18 PM.
If the final had been a boxing match, it would probably have been tied. It really was a shame that someone had to lose. I really thought the balance had swung back in Federer’s favour, after he leveled the sets, but Nadal was relentless on every point, and it was like trying to slow down a runaway steamroller, as Federer tried desperately to break his opponents serve. A perfect advertisement for tennis, in my book.
Superb game… everything a final should be, two players absolutely at the top of their game (indeed, at the top of the game full-stop).
I thought Nadal had it sewn up in three sets - he did well to stick at it after blowing Championship Point.
Gutted for Federer - some of his pressure shots were amazing - but if you can’t stick away the break points you’re always gonna struggle.
I’ve been travelling back from Wales to London since 4pm, trying to snatch glimpses of as much of this as possible - nipping out of train stations to find pubs showing the match, hovering outside coffeeshops and so forth. What a match. That was the stuff of McEnroe/Borg, Foreman/Ali … we’ll be hearing about Federer/Nadal for decades to come. It’s ludicrously lucky that we’re treated to them both playing at the top at the same time.
Oh my goodness. I was utterly drained after sitting on my ass watching that. What on earth must it be like for their poor families? Mirka, Federer’s girlfriend looked utterly shattered. I agree that it is a shame there had to be a loser here - both players were amazing, battling way into the night. And also can both are a credit to the game in terms of graciousness and class - Nadal gracious in victory, Federer stoic in defeat, paying generous tribute when obviously heartbroken.
Sigh Now, Wimbledon over for another year. It’s possibly just because I live in the UK but it always seems to take so much more of a grip on me than all of the other grand slam tournaments.
I wanted Federer to win… but I couldn’t find it in me to be disappointed. The match was unbelievable.
Fantastic match, I wanted Nadal to win, thought he should have done it in the third set. After that I was convinced that Federer would win. Thankfully I was wrong.
On the subject of the commentary, we in the UK had Tim Henman, who’s narrative style is somewhere past coma inducing (almost as dull as his tennis). Would have much preferred to have McEnroe commentating, bit I guess he was doing it for the American audience. Even Boris Becker had more personality than Tim.
Ha! From all the shots of McEnroe in the commentary box doing his bit for NBC, I think the BBC cameramen agreed with you. It’s like they were wistfully saying “I wish you were back doing commentary for us again”. I know that’s what I was thinking anyway - McEnroe is never less than superb and his presence is always missed for the finals on the BBC. I would like to have seen his post match interview with Federer too. Sue Barker is lovely (and I thought she was very kind and tactful in her questions) but I would have preferred McEnroe.
A match to remember. Titans going at it, and unclear until the very end who would win.
This may be the defining moment for Federer. Does he decide at 26 that there is no point to continue trying to be the best, and hang it up? Or does he respond to the challenge of Nadal by kicking his own game up a noch? We shall see…
Never mind Federer and Nadal.
What about Laura Robson winning the girls championship.
At last we have a champ…yay!! go us
I find the same, probably because I don’t have cable/Sky and in the UK we get very little, if any terrestrial coverage of the other 3 slams. Luckily, grass is my favourite surface, though I wish there was more serve-volley. With the passing shots that can be hit now (even with the last two strings of the racquet), I’m not surprised by this, though.
My sentiments exactly. Some of the rallies defied description.
Indeed, definitely one for the future - and I don’t just mean tennis :).
Not much of a tennis fan but my that final was incredible. Edge of the seat stuff. I have to ask a real tennis fan, does Nadal winning on grass pretty much mean he’s the new number 1? Federer will not be able to beat him on clay and it now looks like the crown is moving to Nadal. Can Federer come back from this now that he’s lost on “his surface”.
Hard to give you a factual response on this one due to the two different rankings used by the ATP. One is the ATP Race which only takes into account the calendar year events and it’s fairly straight forward to understand – just look for the player with the highest earnings at any one point during the season and that’s where you’ll find the current Number 1. Which is, of course, where you’ll find Rafa at the moment – by quite a $ margin over #2 Djokovic I might add.
But then you have something called The South African Airways ATP Ranking, which is a rolling ranking that goes back further than the actual calendar year. In it, players not only gain points but also have to defend them based on past performances at the same event. IOW, if the made say, the semis of an event, they are expected to do at least as well in order to keep the same ranking points. By and large this is the ranking used to determine the “real number 1” over an extended period of time as it allows for certain fluctuations in a player’s game – IOW, even if it is not as exacting as the ATP Race, some would claim and do, that overall is it the better system of the two as it rewards stability over hot-streaks.
If interested, you can read about the two systems in further depth here:
ATP Ranking and Race Frequently Asked Questions
Personally, I have no truck with either system and their own idiosyncrasies, but right this minute I also don’t think that there’d be many who’d disagree with saying that Rafael Nadal is the best tennis player in the world. Not for nothing has he just performed a feat not seen since Borg in 1980 (he did it three consecutive? times) – the Summer Double (or RG and Wimbly)
Now, if Rafa manages to carry forth some of his incredible momentum (and health) into the Olympics and hard-court season (his worse surface so far), since he doesn’t have nearly as many points to defend as opposed to his front-loaded first half of the season, I can easily see him top both charts at years end.
Regardless of whether he does it or not this year, I honestly think it’s only a matter of time. Kid’s a force of nature and at 22, already the best ever at that age – no reason to think that coming into the best years of his tennis career he won’t keep improving and setting all sorts of records. Of course, this being sports, nothing is written in stone…he could get injured (frail knees, punishing style of play) or simply pull a Borg or, more recently, a Henin.
Here’s hoping none of those things happen.
Vamos Rafa! Y con un par.
PS-On you Fed query, the way I see it, it might even help him to lose the Number One tag along with all the talk about him being the GOAT. I think the mental pressure along with some of the physical problems he’s had this year have hurt his game. Should he drop a couple of standings in the rank it might actually benefit him as he won’t be under the kind of unreal pressure he’s been in for the past 4/5 years. From there, yes, I honestly think he has it in him to get two or three more Slams. Guy’s class – no doubt about that.
I think the way sportscasters talk about “defending” points makes that system sound even more arcane than it really is. The ATP ranking system is based on the results over the last 12 months. So the points from Wimbledon 2007 are now gone and replaced by this year’s edition. If I remember how it works, Nadal gets 200 points for winning and Federer gets 100 for reaching the final. When you take out the points that have aged out of the system - that’d be 200 for Federer and 100 for Nadal if I’m right - that means Fed has 100 fewer points than he did at the same time last year and Nadal has 100 more. The gap between them is still something like 1400 points, I think, but because Federer’s hard court results have always been much better than Nadal’s, Nadal gets a smaller contribution from that part of the season and has more room for improvement (compared to his current totals) than Federer does.
I was out celebrating my girlfriend’s birthday yesterday, so I didn’t see this match. I’m disappointed for Federer because I’ve been a big fan for the last few years. I’m sorry I missed the match, but I did have a wonderful day. We’ll see if I can make myself watch knowing the outcome.