FINAL'S STATS

NESTOR WINS WIMBLEDON

                                                 Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia won their second straight Wimbledon men's doubles title Saturday, beating top-seeded American twins Bob and Mike Bryan 7-6 (7), 6-7 (3), 7-6 (3), 6-3.

Nestor and Zimonjic were playing in their third Grand Slam final together. Besides winning the Wimbledon title last year, they lost in the 2008 French Open final.

This year's final was the first time that Nestor and Zimonjic have played the Bryan brothers in a Grand Slam tournament.

The Bryan brothers, who have won seven major titles together, entered the match on Centre Court without having dropped a set at the All England Club this year. Despite holding serve throughout the first three sets, the brothers were broken in the second game of the fourth set and Nestor and Zimonjic held the rest of the way.

STRUNG OUT

After supervising around 3,000 re-strings during the Wimbledon fortnight one might think Roger Dalton could put his feet up with a bowl of strawberries on Sunday and watch the men's singles final in peace.

Not a bit of it. The grand slam tournament's head racket stringer will be poised next to his machine, fingers twitching, primed for action.

Last year when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal contested arguably the best final ever witnessed at Wimbledon, Dalton was the man keeping the Spaniard Nadal supplied with rackets.

"I was Nadal's stringer in last year's final," Dalton said from his busy office next to the practise courts.

"I did six for him in the morning, then after practise he sent some back again to be re-strung and during the match I did three for him.

"I was probably more stressed than he was. You're under pressure, the whole thing is going on out there and I was the only one working. Rafa has a habit of sending stuff back during the match which can be quite stressful."

Dalton and his large team of stringers can turn around a racket in about 15 minutes when pushed.

"Unless we have to we don't re-string rackets fast because we go for quality and a quick re-string is not generally a good re-string," he said while putting the finishing touches to a shiny white frame belonging to Serbia's Novak Djokovic.

During the first week of the tournament 12 machines are in permanent use from seven in the morning until long after the crowds have melted away from the All England Club.

"We look after around 500 players during a grand slam," said Dalton, who has been stringing during the Wimbledon championships for 12 years. "If you're not used to that workload it can be tough on the hands."

Getting the tension just right is vital, although players can also be particular about having the racket manufacturers logo stencilled in exactly the right place on each racket.

The Williams sisters, and he certainly does not want to upset them, hate having their new grips soiled by the sweating hands of the stringers.

"We have a team assigned to Venus and Serena, as soon as we see them put a racket down we are ready. We keep a machine free for them while they're on court.

"We wrap polythene round their grips so the guys don't get their grubby hands on them. The last thing they want is finding somebody's egg sandwich all over their grip!"

He also recalls 1992 runner-up Monica Seles asking for a frame-busting tension of 92 pounds (the average is just below 60) in her big-headed Yonex racket.

"That was pretty scary doing that one," he said.

Of his current customers American Vince Spadea has the highest tensions while five-times champion Roger Federer, who takes a dozen rackets on court, likes a mixture.

"Roger tends to like them fairly low although he will have a range so that he can go up and down."

The vast majority of players now use synthetic gut, although some have a mixture or use different quality strings in the mains for greater spin or power.

Natural gut is still requested, however, because it retains its tension longer, although with the innards of up to 15 cows needed to make enough high-quality string for one racket it does not come cheap.

REUTERS

MEN'S SEMIS ON FRIDAY

WEDNESDAY'S SCORES

MEN'S SEMIS - WEDNESDAY

QUARTERS - WEDNESDAY

QUARTERS - WEDNESDAY

QUARTERS - WEDNESDAY

RAIN ROOF

The wait is over. Rain finally arrived in south west London on Monday and Wimbledon got to show off its multi-million pound Centre Court roof in all its glory.

Never before has the sight of drizzle raised so many cheers as spectators stood up in anticipation when Amelie Mauresmo and Dinara Safina had to run for cover and groundsmen sprinted on to the arena to pull the covers on court for the first time during the two-week championships.

Once that formality was completed, 15,000 pairs of eyes glanced skywards with the sense of wonder that normally overcomes a visitor to the Sistine Chapel.

This may not have been a Michelangelo masterpiece on show but fans nevertheless clicked away with their cameras as the 1,000-tonne concertina structure over Centre Court started unfurling at eight inches a second.

About eight minutes later -- at precisely 16.47 pm local time (1547 GMT) -- the most famous tennis court in the world had become an indoor arena for the first time during competition time in its 87-year existence, complete with a translucent roof and bright floodlights.

The moment when the north and south sections of the roof locked together to block out the grey sky a spontaneous round of applause burst out.

REUTERS

QUARTERS - MONDAY

ACE KING KARLOVIC

Ninth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France could find no solution to the problem of Ivo Karlovic's massive serve as the Croatian ran out a 7-6 6-7 7-5 7-6 victory in their third-round clash at Wimbledon on Friday.

Tsonga failed to create a single break point against the 2.08m player from Zagreb, who blasted 46 aces and has this week spectacularly broken a run of four successive first-round exits at the All England Club.

After sharing the first two sets with tiebreaks, Karlovic carved out the match's only break in the 12th game of the third set to give him the initiative and he clinched the fourth set breaker 7-5 with his final ace after two hours and 44 minutes.

He will play seventh seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain for a place in the quarter-finals.

TENNIS SCHEDULE

TOP HALF

BOTTOM HALF

HEWITT PAST DELPO

Lleyton Hewitt returned to his old stomping ground at Wimbledon's Centre Court on Thursday to score the biggest upset in the men's draw so far with a 6-3 7-5 7-5 win over fifth seed Juan Martin Del Potro.

Australian Hewitt, ranked 56 in the world after a series of injuries but champion here in 2002, never allowed the Argentine an inch of breathing space with superb ground coverage and made the most of his opponent's discomfort at the net.

OMG - TSN2

OMG - TSN

DANCEVIC IN EASTBOURNE FINAL

Second seed Dmitry Tursunov will play Canadian qualifier Frank Dancevic in the final of the inaugural men's Eastbourne International after winning through in difficult, windy conditions on Friday.

Russian Tursunov, the world number 27, had a straightforward 6-2 6-2 victory over eighth-seeded Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez while Dancevic beat French fourth seed Fabrice Santoro 6-4 6-4.

The two finalists met two years ago in Dancevic's only previous ATP Tour final in Indianapolis where the Russian won.

Dancevic, ranked 126 in the world, surpassed his own expectations by surviving qualifying after falling and twisting his leg during a match.

After treatment, he went on to beat top seed Igor Andreev of Russia in the first round of the main draw of the grasscourt event.

NADAL'S DRAW TOUGH

Defending champion Rafael Nadal will face a tough draw at Wimbledon if his aching knees allow him to play, with a likely second-round matchup against former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Murray possibly waiting in the semifinals.

Five-time champion Roger Federer was placed in the same half of the draw as Novak Djokovic on Friday, and could face the Serb in the semifinals as he bids for a record 15th career Grand Slam title.