Wimbledon takes a turn into the weird zone MyZA

Wimbledon has been an exceptionally strange tournament this year

The Wimbledon Championships. Photo: Eurosport

But only once you lay it all out do you realise just what an unusual edition of the tournament we are witnessing. And in the spirit of strange, could the strangest thing of all happen and a British winner be crowned?

Have a look at the signs and see if it might be Andy Murray’s time after all.

1. The American men’s disaster – for the first time since 1912, the USA didn’t have a single player in the third round of the men’s singles.

2. British woman makes it to the second week and still faces a player ranked lower than her – it’s amazing that Laura Robson became the first British woman to make it to the last-16 since 1998: it’s even more amazing that she still faced a player in world number 48 Kaia Kanepi who was ranked below her.

3. Sabine Lisicki: The French Open champion killer – the German’s wonderful win over Serena Williams wasn’t a shock if you take all the omens into account. In four of the last five years, Lisicki has knocked out the reigning French Open winner: Svetlana Kuznetsova, Li Na, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams.

4. 42-year-old wins a match – Kimiko Date-Krumm first played in Wimbledon’s main draw 24 years ago, retired in 1996, but eventually made a comeback and is still going aged 42.

5. Maria Sharapova and Michelle Larcher De Brito go head to head, but the loudest noise isn’t about grunting – the two loudest grunters in world tennis faced each other in the second round, but it was the unusually slippery grass that generated even more screaming.

6. It’s barely rained in a week and a half – barring a few hours lost to the weather on Thursday, it’s been almost perfect. That makes it the best Wimbledon weather since the rain-free event in 2010 – which itself was the first rain-free Wimbledon since 1995.

7. Roger Federer gets told off about his trainers.

8. Federer not the only legend to be reprimanded – Mo Farah provoked the ire of organisers when having the cheek to take a couple of pics of himself and his celebrity pals while in the Royal Box on Centre Court.

9. Crocked competitors dropping like flies – this year saw the casualties list reached record-equalling levels – six days in.

10. Gender lines blurred by Serena/Murray ‘battle of sexes’ challenge – do you remember those days when Wimbledon was the centrepiece of the tennis calendar? Now it’s just a vehicle to set up intergender exhibitions in Las Vegas.

11. Prime Minister and some pop band give birth to a megastar – Laura Robson will be disappointed that she wasn’t able to take her chances against Kanepi and make the quarter-finals, but at least she is a bona fide celebrity now – David Cameron and One Direction made sure of that.

12. Nadal, Federer and Serena all go out – lest we forget, the weirdest three twists of all: Nadal and Serena both came to Wimbledon in devastating form and Federer is, well, Federer. How on earth did they all go out before even making the last eight? – Eurosport