Wimbledon

Murray over Raonic
Gotta hand it to Raonic: he battled. He has perhaps the best serve in the game right now, unfortunately for him Murray is perhaps the best returner in the game right now. Federer gets to every ball by good defensive play, Nadal gets to every ball by hustling like a maniac, Djokovic gets to every ball because he has a Gretzky-like sense of just knowing where every ball is gonna go but Murray gets to every ball because he is a giant crazy octopus-man who is never far away from anything on the court. He had the home court advantage (no love for the plucky underdog Roanic when up against a Brit at Wimbledon, sorry dude) and came into the Final rolling. Man, once Djokovic went out it was up for grabs but I thought only Federer could beat Murray. Murray is your Wimbeldon champion and a well deserved Slam for him.

Murray over Berdych
Berdych is good but he has that malady that top ten tennis players often suffer from: he's better than 99% of the planet at tennis but not that last 1%. (I think Ferrer, Tsonga and Gasquet are in that camp, as well, which is where Andy Roddick spent the bulk of his career) Berdych is a good athlete, good serve, good return, moves well around the court but tennis is a game of big plays and I just never felt like against Murray Berdych was gonna get any of those big plays. Murray had him stifled early and that was that.

Raonic over Federer
Raonic won the 1st set, Federer won the 2nd and then the 3rd. Then an interesting thing happened in the 4th set: Federer had his break chances but just couldn't take advantage and both players seemed resigned for a tie-break, when all of the sudden, Raonic stepped up and surprised Federer on his last serve and stole the 4th set from him. You could tell Federer never quite got over that moment and he floundered badly in the 5th. Raonic broke him early in the 5th and even though it felt like Federer would have a moment or two to put it on Raonic, he never really challenged him. Federer has this thing where he is such a super genius of tennis that he can see 4 or 5 steps ahead in the future and every once in a while he looks ahead and realizes he's lost. Federer's not the fighter he once was and if he can't win by playing the cleanest, neatest tennis on the planet (the Edberg-i-est tennis), then he just doesn't even wanna win. Federer is still a step ahead of Berdych and Gasquet, et al., but he doesn't have that fire any more and falters at the oddest times. This was (perhaps) his last best chance to win another Slam.

Serena over Kerber
This was a very even match coming down to a handful of points (as is often the case in high level tennis). Serena made the plays and Kerber did not. Kind of a mirrors of Kerber's defeat of Venus in the semis: Kerber made the plays that Venus couldn't make. Serena is still the best but there's a lot more competition out there for her these days than there was in the past. Kerber is a comer and was lucky enough to be born long enough after the Williams sisters that she seems on her way to having the great tennis career that Serena has mostly kept everyone else from having.