Someone British Did Win

Wimbledon wraps up today and, once again, British hopes are dashed. The Williams Sister stormed to the Women's Final and Federer and Nadal go at it in the Men's Final today- as we speak, I think. But, I stumbled across a surprising article in the Independent which spoke of a little sliver of history slipping through that should give hope to British tennis fans everywhere.

Laura Robson, 14 won the junior championships- becoming the first Brit to win anything at Wimbledon since Annabel Croft won the junior title in 1984- and Virginia Wade won the Women's Title in 1977.

For those of you who haven't had the luck of being in the UK over the summer months, just know that the British are more tennis-mad than they seem. Sure, you hear about soccer riots, rugby and cricket, but Wimbledon is the highlight of the summer. Literally all the matches you could possibly want to see are broadcast all over the BBC and in the case of a rain delay, they actually went back into stock footage and showed one of the classic Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe matches while they waited. People remember the good matches at Wimbledon. They remember the personalities and, if you're a British tennis fan, you always hope that someone will break through and take the title. In recent years, Henman and Murray have been the twin British hopes on the Men's Side- and although Murray stormed into the quarterfinals with a fantastic match, he crashed against Nadal and that was that.

British luck has been on the side of women's tennis in recent decades: Virginia Wade actually won in 1977 and with Croft in 1984 and now Robson in 2008, little shards of hope spring up- being 14, we'll have to wait and see with Robson, but it's a bit of good news for the tennis fan in the UK in a typically disappointing year.

On the Men's Side, the situation is even worse: no British man has won since Fred Perry in 1936 and no British man has made the final since Bunny Austin in 1938. Quite honestly, it'd be something to see (like a Triple Crown) but I'm not holding my breath. I'll confine my tennis hopes to watching Wimbledon with Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany, since that's probably the only way I'll see a British man win Wimbledon any time soon.

But someone British won something at Wimbledon. An event worth noting, since it happens so rarely.