Down to one match a day

It was a day of non-surprises at the All England Lawn Tennis tournament yesterday. Upstart Hubert Hurkacz from Poland didn't show up for the first hour and a half, and although he played well afer that, he still went down in four sets to Matteo Berrettini, who now will become the first Italian ever to play in a Wimbledon final match.

His opponent, to no one's surprise, will be Novak Djokovic from Serbia, an absolute ball-blasting machine. The Canadian kid Denis Shapovalov made him work for it, but Novak prevailed yesterday, 7-6, 7-5, 7-5. He leaves, and needs, little room for error.

Berrettini and the Djoker will play tomorrow for the men's title and a nice $2.4 million prize before taxes. The loser (almost certainly Berrettini) will have to settle for about half that. Hurkacz and Shapovalov each get about half of that half.

Today's the finals of the women's tournament: Ash Barty of Australia versus Karolina Pliskova from the Czech Republic. Barty is the favorite, according to Vegas this morning, but not nearly the favorite that Djokovic is. It will be a first Wimbledon final match for each of the women players.

When it's over, the winner will stand on the balcony showing off the grand trophy. It's a great tradition.

I wonder who they will roll out to represent the royals for the weekend. At the rate that family is going, it could be a night watchman from Buckingham.