Lisicki vs. Bartoli - Women's Final

First topic message reminder :

Even though the women's competition has been very entertaining this year, yesterday the men reminded us why they are favoured by so many on this board.

Even so - a potentially interesting Final awaits between two players whose personal and playing styles are contrasting.

Bartoli (15) is for the 7th match in a row facing someone seeded lower than her in Lisicki (23).

Seedings apart, the other indicators are that Lisicki is not merely the new CC darling and object of heavy breathing in teenagers' rooms and mid-life crisis stricken boardrooms the length and breadth of the country (and in Canada  ), but also the genuine favourite to win:

* H2H is 3:1 to Lisicki, including an encounter at Wimbledon in 2011, her only defeat was at Wimbledon in 2008 when she was a mere teenager and Bartoli was the previous year's finalist;

* Her form this tournament in beating 3 former slam winners including Serena, as well as Radwanska (4) is formidable.  She is able to call upon the confidence she must gain from coming back from the near dead against both of those two by showing an astonishing ability to lurch from rubbish play to unbeatable in seconds when needed.

If, as I expect, Lisicki can keep her concentration up for long enough (i.e. sufficient to win two sets) she will merit her tag as the favourite - but nobody should underestimate Bartoli's ability to pounce on any lapse quickly and efficiently and I don't expect it to be done in two sets, that's not seemingly Lisicki's way. If Lisicki surprises me and freezes for too long she will be bundled out unceremoniously and quickly.

There is every prospect of a good final - I'd be pleased for either of them, but ultimately I'd like to see the nerveless conqueror of Serena Williams get her reward.

The girl beat 3 top players and probably cracked up partly due to being mentally frazzled, especially after that semi. Give her a break.

It's such a huge occasion the Wimbledon final - even on television, the atmosphere around Centre Court is so different that it is almost tangible, like you can see it.

Still think they should make the ladies final b05 and then nerves would settle and we would see much better finals. Too often, the final is over very quickly.

Sad thing is she was just starting to get through it. From 1-5 and mp down she started playing great. That damn first point at 4-5 when she should really have put it away.....

I know, it was painful to see that she was so overcome. It all started to slide away too quickly and she ran out of time to make a comeback. It is strange that even on television you are aware that the action is concentrated on this one court and the other courts are quiet - it must feel like the whole World is watching.

Bartoli
Lisicki

Agree with Bo5. Sorry and to be frank, if an overweight sportsperson can win a major title like this then the format is clearly too short. Plus it's generally all over in an hour, not great value for money.

Anyway, the quirky, one-off Bartoli becomes the first woman in history to win Wimbledon without facing a Top 10 player. Kind of caps off an odd-ball Wimbledon fortnight.

What a shame that Lisicki did surprise me and froze for too long so that she was indeed bundled out unceremoniously and quickly.

Let's hope that she takes this experience as an incentive to get herself a second chance - but she needs to be more consistent, which I suspect has a lot to do with her head and lack of maturity and absence of a plan.

Lisicki played similarly , albeit not so poorly, for long periods of the quarter final and semi final. It was just that she left herself too much to do this time. In those games she still made a large amount of unforced errors but this time she couldn't make up for it with winners until it was too late. I'm not a huge fan of Bartoli but fair play to her, she did what she had to do to win the tournament and did so without dropping a set. Finally whilst the final was bitterly disappointing Lisicki's quarter and semi finals were some of the best women's matches I have seen in a long time and got me interested in the women's game a bit more.

I think the difference s that in those matches she made errors but was ok mentally. In the final she got very nervous and upset. Pity on many levels, truly she 'deserved' the title, Bartoli faced nobody in the top 15 whereas Lisicki beat Stosur, Williams and Radwanska.

Lisicki got me interested in the women's event all right.