0 for July

     Riddick's little bro, Roddick
 

Answer: Better keep my day job.  Question: How good have your skills at prognosticating been this past week, Mrs. Linklater?

Let's see Mrs. Linklater promised clear blue skies and 80 degrees for the 4th of July here in Chicagoland. 

Naturally, it's raining. We used up five days of absolutely perfect weather last week.

She also predicted that Serena Williams would win the women's finals at Wimbledon in two sets.  Or, if it went three, Maria Sharapova would take it all.

Naturally, Sharapova won in two sets.

Mrs. Linklater forgot that at age 17 and as a lowly 13th seed, Sharapova wasn't supposed to even be in the finals, let alone win.  So she had nothing, zero, nada to lose. Actually, it was almost comical how she knocked off a very slowmoving, often out of position champion in two ho-hum sets, 1 and 4.

That made the tall teen the lowest seed and the third youngest to win the ladies' title [Hingis was 16 and some girl in 1887 was 15. Isn't there a statute of limitations for holding records in a sport after 100 years?]. 

Serena didn't just lose -- she got the worst beating of anyone since Graf bludgeoned Seles a generation ago.

Mrs. Linklater also predicted that Federer would win the men's finals. She made this bold prediction before he played his semi-final match. So the jury's still out on this one last opportunity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

On centre court, even as she types this, Federer and Roddick are at it. Roddick has come out playing serve and volley. He took the first set with 145 mph serves and fierce determination, breaking Federer and going up 3-1 right away.Winning the first set, 6-4. 

Hold it. Not so fast, Fourth of July Boy. 

In the second set, Federer has regained his compusure -- actually he never really loses it -- he's up two breaks on Roddick in the second set.

Would somebody please tell Andy that you have to win more than one set to be the champion?

To be continued. . .