Wimbledon 2013: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Best...

It was a roller-coaster of a fortnight that culminated in a crescendo long awaited, and yet it was completely surreal. It was a fortnight that brought forth a series of firsts. A fortnight that sent the proverbial shockwaves soaring into the rafters and then when they had quieted down, brought the entirety of the sport to a standstill.

A galore of adjectives can be used to describe the action and momentousness contained in these two weeks, referred by the world simply as ‘Wimbledon’ in absolute veneration. But for now, we might as well to stick to the bare bones of the 2013 Wimbledon fortnight, with a look at the ‘Good, Bad and the Ugly.’

Murray poses with the Gentlemen’s Singles Trophy and Bartoli (R) poses with the Venus Rosewater Dish trophy at the Wimbledon Championships 2013 Winners Ball on July 7, 2013 in London, England. (Getty Images)

The Good

Andy Murray ending a 77-year wait for the men’s Wimbledon crown for his country is the biggest and the most obvious good that came out of the All England Club this year. He started off strong, and finished with aplomb, the latter of which was seemingly missing in the Murray of the past. Done with consummate finesse, nothing gets bigger than Murray’s 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 victory over Novak Djokovic in the finals.

We move onward then to Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli, who tasted her first Major success six years after reaching the finals for the first time.

German Sabine Lisicki may have been the favourite to win the title after her ouster of the top seed Serena Williams. But what transpired in the final was a complete volte-face. Bartoli, with her unconventionality, dominated the proceedings and reduced the German to tears. The end, when it came, couldn’t have come sooner for the German who had no answer for the Frenchwoman’s barrage of shots coming from all over the court.

There were a lot of feel-good stories too that made up the numbers.

Argentine Juan Martin del Potro battled his knee injury to blast his way past Spaniard David Ferrer in the quarterfinals. And he came close ousting the world number one in the semis too. It was a remarkable tale of fortitude as it was of determination, as del Potro continued to dig deep in a manner so resilient of his own.

So did diminutive Belgian Kirsten Flipkens, who did enough to snuff out the hopes of Petra Kvitova in their quarterfinal. As Flipkens knelt down and kissed the grass after her victory, Kvitova looked shell-shocked and completely bemused by her loss.

It was a great day indeed for the Belgian who had triumphed after a long battle with life and career threatening injuries. The icing on her cake: former Wimbledon finalist and countrywoman Kim Clijsters’s congratulatory tweet.