By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Wimbledon champion Andy Murray and finalist Milos Raonic were two of the top stories at SW19.
Photo credit: Stephen White/CameraSport
Since we missed out on the Champions' Dinner, we close the curtain on the 130th staging of The Championships hosting our own awards ceremony.
Our choices for the Top 10 Wimbledon Winners from the 2016 Championships.
Top 10: Wimbledon Losers
1. Serena Williams
Winning a pulsating final against Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber, the world No. 1 reminded the world why she is the Greatest Of All Time. Williams withstood the pressure of pursuing history and all challengers, capturing her seventh Wimbledon crown and 22nd Grand Slam championship to equal Steffi Graf's Open Era record and put herself in position to break the record in New York.
Along the way, Serena picked up her 300th career Grand Slam victory, re-established her closing power and authoritative serve.
When Williams swept Vera Zvonareva in the 2010 Wimbledon final to capture her 13th career Grand Slam title, she passed her former Fed Cup captain Billie Jean King for sixth place on the all-time list. King responded predicting Serena would someday be Grand Slam queen.
"There's no reason Serena Williams shouldn't be the greatest woman player that's ever played," said King, who was in the royal box when Serena raised the Rosewater Dish again.
While Serena says Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 major titles is not driving her at the moment, if she stays healthy and plays with the composure and clarity she showed through the second week, there's no reason why Williams can't win 25 Grand Slam titles.
2. Andy Murray
Withstanding what former Wimbledon champion John McEnroe called the most severe pressure he's ever seen a player endure in a Grand Slam, Murray shined producing some of the best tennis of his career sweeping Milos Raonic for his second Wimbledon title.
For years there was a tendency to define Murray by who he wasn't.
He wasn't a serve-and-volleyer like Tim Henman. He wasn't as graceful and beloved as Roger Federer. He wasn't the perpetually positive hurricane of fight that is Rafael Nadal and he wasn't as complete or as consistent on all surfaces as his junior rival Novak Djokovic.
The beauty of Andy Murray's success is he's achieved it all being true to himself. He's the guy who can grow ornery and sound whiny on the court barking at his box and yapping at chair umpires. He's also the man willing to take public stands on hot-button issues, eloquently supporting equal prize money, forcefully speaking out against tennis profiting from its advertising deals with gambling firms, emerging as one of the sport's most vocal anti-doping advocates and risking incurring the wrath of Maria Sharapova's most devoted fans and their shared racquet sponsor stating he believed the former No. 1 deserved to be banned after her positive drug test.
The sight of normally stoic coach Ivan Lendl, the father of five daughters who may view Murray as the son he never had, pinching back tears while Murray wept in his towel will remain a lasting image. There's probably a knighthood in the Scot's future.
Here's hoping Murray sticks around for a long time to remind us true tennis soldiers work diligently, endure moments of deep loss and profound pain and ultimately reinforce the fact there is honor in resilience.
3. Williams Sisters
Somewhere, proud father Richard Williams is probably raising that dry-erase board he used to bring to the AELTC with the message "2016 Williamsdon!" written on it.
The 36-year-old Venus and 34-year-old Serena joined forces to claim their sixth Wimbledon doubles championship and 14th Grand Slam doubles title, tying Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva for second place on the all-time list behind Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver.
Have there ever been two siblings in any sport matching the supremacy and longevity of Venus and Serena? They are two of the best ambassadors American sport has ever produced.
If these two ever decide to scale back their singles and focus solely on doubles, they could probably win the doubles Grand Slam in their 40s.
Contesting her 19th Wimbledon, Venus inspired the over-30 set to stay in the game.
"In life there is no such thing as impossible," Venus Williams said. "It's always possible. That's what you feel as an athlete. Pretty much our job is to make the impossible happen every day. It's like magic, you know. I like that."
Venus and Serena have been rebuked by skeptics since it all began, including those who dismissed them as "pure hype" when they opted to skip junior Grand Slams and jump to the pros. If you had a dollar for every time one or both sisters have been written off you could probably buy a piece of the All England Club.
Through it all they stick together, keep swinging with ambition and continue to triumph on the greatest stages. They realized long ago winning is the ultimate answer. Wimbledon should serve as ideal preparation for their Olympic gold medal defense in Rio where Venus and Serena will play for a record-extending—and mind-blowing—fifth gold medal.
4. Milos Raonic
In his Grand Slam final debut, Raonic didn't win the title, but won respect for the class and determination he displayed in defeat. He left Centre Court vowing to "make sure, as these courts are green, to do everything I can to be back here."
This is a man who owns two of the biggest weapons in the game—a ballistic serve and battering forehand—has bolstered his backhand and become a dangerous and dependable volleyer. He's intelligent, driven, willing to listen and learn and surrounds himself with some of the best minds in the game to achieve his Grand Slam goals. Prediction: Raonic wins Wimbledon within the next four years.
5. Angelique Kerber
Shrugging off her French Open first-round loss, Kerber attacked the grass with vigor.The Australian Open champion knocked off Simona Halep and five-time champion Venus Williams in straight sets to reach her first Wimbledon final without dropping a set.
The Australian Open champion stood toe-to-toe with world No. 1 Serena Williams in a high-quality final. Kerber's superb return, ability to take the ball early and flat strikes evoke comparisons to another Wimbledon finalist, David Nalbandian. While Kerber is not nearly as comfortable around net as Nalbandian was, she is a fit, fearless fighter, who has risen to a career-high rank of No. 2 and showed she has another major in her.
6. Yui Kamiji and Jordanne Whiley
The top-seeded team of Japan's Kamiji and Great Britain's Whiley won their third consecutive Wimbledon wheelchair championship. It is their eighth major title overall.
"Today, I felt we played the best tennis we ever played in a Grand Slam," Whiley said after the final. Watching them cover the court, it's hard to find any fault in that assessment.
6. Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert
In the first all-French men's Wimbledon doubles final of the Open Era, the top seeds defeated compatriots Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.
It was their first Wimbledon championship, second Grand Slam title following the US Open and cemented marathon man Mahut, well-known for his epic 70-68 in the fifth-set loss to John Isner in the longest match ever played, as a champion.
7. Heather Watson
Few players can cauterize the sting of their most painful loss by achieving a career high less than 10 days later as Heather Watson did.
The British No. 2 blew three match points in an excruciating 3-6, 6-0, 12-10 first-round defeat to Annika Beck. Compounding that career lowlight she called one of her "worst", Watson was hit with a $12,000 fine—about a third of her singles prize money—for slamming her racquet into the lawn and was ravaged on Twitter for the loss by irate gamblers.
Watson, who played through clay-court season with a torn abdominal muscle, showed stomach for the fight. "I get motivated quickly with losses like this," Watson told the media.
Then she made good on her word.
Playing together for the first time, Watson and Finland's Henri Kontinen knocked off defending mixed doubles champs Martina Hingis and Leander Paes in the quarterfinals then won the mixed doubles crown. The victory, which followed Andy Murray's triumph over Milos Raonic on Centre Court, gave Great Britain two champions on the final Sunday of Wimbledon for the first time.
8. Sam Querrey
The powerful American's Grand Slam history reads like Sisyphus' struggles against the rock.
Contesting his 38th career Grand Slam, Querrey arrived at SW19 failing to survive the second round in 10 of his last 12 major appearances. He had reached a Grand Slam fourth round just three times and suffered several gut-wrenching Wimbledon defeats, including a 14-12 in the fifth set loss to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga two years ago and a grueling 17-15 in the fifth set defeat to Marin Cilic at the 2012 Championships.
A bold Querrey clubbed 31 aces scoring a seismic 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (5) third-round upset of reigning Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic denying the world No. 1's bid for a calendar Grand Slam and snapping the Serbian's 30-match Grand Slam winning streak.
Will this win spur Q-Ball to late career success and possibly a major championship run reminiscent of veterans Andres Gomez, Albert Costa and Thomas Johansson? Or will Querrey follow in the path of players who have pulled off massive Wimbledon upsets in recent years—Dustin Brown, Steve Darcis and Lukas Rosol—but struggled to sustain consistency afterward?
That remains to be seen for a man many view as an underachiever. But the 28-year-old Querrey has won titles on all surfaces, is in the prime of his career, possesses the weapons to be a perennial Top 20 player, returned to the Top 30 with his surge to the Wimbledon quarterfinals and should face less scrutiny as the next wave of American men, including Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul and Reilly Opelka emerge.
9. Marcus Willis
In an underdog story so remarkable Hollywood would have likely rejected it as wholly unbelievable. Willis, who had been teaching tennis lessons to juniors and senior citizens for about $45 an hour and was ranked No. 775 before Wimbledon began, captivated a nation gutted by a Euro Cup loss with his inspired run through pre-qualifying and qualifying winning the first Grand Slam match of his career.
Willis' feel-good story climaxed with a festive loss to Roger Federer on Centre Court, but the man with exactly two Grand Slam main-draw matches to his credit emerged as the People's Champion and a media sensation.
Oh, and that happy ending just got a whole lot happier: Willis says an engagement to girlfriend Jennifer Bate, who inspired his run persuading him to give tennis another shot, is in the works.
10. Lines Crew & Ball Kids
There's a reason players often thank the ball kids and lines crew for their work: Both are tough jobs.
Showing a commitment to duty that would make the Queen's Royal Guard proud, this lines woman and ball boy both kept stiff upper lips after painful moments.
It's a visual reminder neither role is as easy as it appears. The Wimbledon ball kids and lines people, unlike the temperamental weather patterns, are positive constants for The Championships.
Remember the lineswoman surviving this collision with an Ivo Karlovic missile last year?