ROBIN DAVEY SAYS: Time for the ultimate summer sporting event (From Campaign Series)

ROBIN DAVEY SAYS: Time for the ultimate summer sporting event

3:20pm Tuesday 7th July 2009

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AFTER two weeks of tennis we’ve got two months of cricket, not just any old cricket but the Ashes series.

There’s nothing quite like it in summer sporting terms and it’ll be war of a kind out there on the pitch starting in Cardiff tomorrow when England and Australia get to grips with one another over a five Test series.

If there is one unfamiliar place name in that list it’s Cardiff, staging an Ashes Test for the first time. It has caused resentment in some areas, but the ground has been developed into a 15,000 all-seater stadium for this very event, so it can’t afford to fail.

There have been teething problems and there are those prepared to see it fail.

For Welsh pride it can’t so it’s going to be fingers crossed for more than one reason.

On the pitch whether the restored Flintoff-Pietersen axis can work again is one of the big questions. Matchwinners both, they can turn the series if they remain injury free, but Ricky Ponting will have something to say about that while Brett Lee could turn out to be the man of the series (if he recovers from injury). It’s going to be tight right the way through with the Aussies maybe just edging it.

As for that Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick surely the wrong man won. Roddick all but ambushed the favourite, he was that rarity of a modest American and he really put his heart and soul into it.

I caught the beginning and end and was singularly unimpressed by the Federer brand, the logos, the gold embossed gear, that silly cloak he wore and particularly the number 15 he already had strategically placed as if he assumed he was going to reach that record 15th Grand Slam title.

Roddick so nearly spoilt the party, as he had done with sullen Andy Murray, surely not quite good enough to win the Wimbledon title.

As for yet another final between those Williams sisters, it’s enough to make you reach for the off button on the TV or, better still, take the dog for a walk.

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