Wimbledon Wrapup: Christine Brennan provides a good jumping off point for a Wimbledon wrap in today's typically brainless column. She whines that tennis has gotten boring. Sure, I have been on that hobby horse myself, but yesterday's match was no occasion for whining. She starts, typically, with a gripe about equal pay:

The male tennis players want more money. They're making millions, but they want more. The women, meanwhile, only want equal prize money, which they of course should receive but still don't get from the crusty old fuddy-duddies at the All England Club. (Perhaps it's time to forever abandon the old argument about the men spending more time on the court than the women. The Williamses toiled for 2 hours, 3 minutes before Serena beat the injured Venus in Saturday's final. The men played Sunday for just 1 hour, 56 minutes.)

Note that the length by which the women's game exceeded the men's is more than accounted for by Venus's injury delay. (Another was that Serena didn't seem to be able to take advantage of her injured sister's poor play. I won't psychoanalyze this, though.) And the men's final was so short because Federer put on a clinic. But Brennan can only carp about that, too:

Meanwhile, back to the game. If I see one more huge, unreturnable serve, or a big serve followed by a 10-stroke rally from the baseline, I'm going to scream.

Give me McEnroe. Give me Sampras. Give me Navratilova. Just once, I'd like to hear this announcement from the chair: "Attention, attention. Will someone please report to the net immediately."

Huh? Philippoussis plays a classic serve-and-volley game -- and he doesn't have the knees to scramble the baseline anyway. And Federer, while lacking the supersonic serve of a Philippoussis or a Roddick, still follows many of his serves to the net. (And on defense, who the hell approaches the net on Philippoussis's serve? Sampras? Get real.)

I thought yesterday's final was some of the best tennis all year. Yes, it was disappointing that Philippoussis wasn't able to get more of a foothold in the second set, but it was exciting tennis in the first and third. Brennan calls Federer a "moderate serve-and-volleyer but hardly one of the classics." To say that after the show he put on yesterday -- and to simultaneously complain about boring tennis -- is to lack understanding of the game. Federer may not hit 140 mph serves, but his choice and placement of serves yesterday got him twenty-some aces anyway. His passing shots were beautiful -- Agassi quality. His agility allowed him to compete while Philippoussis came at him with speed and accuracy (Phil was getting 80% of his first serves in during the first set).

I dunno. Maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it. But I hate boring tennis as much as the next fellow, but I wasn't bored yesterday. Federer was brilliant. For once, the men's show was a hell of a lot better than the ladies' show.