Quidditch strategies in the Wimbledon

Quidditch strategies in the Wimbledon semifinals Daily Telegraph writer Sue Mott describes how Venus Williams used her “Harry Potter powers” in her semi-final win against fellow American Lindsay Davenport:

Williams won 6-2, 6-7, 6-1 because Davenport is twice the tennis player and half the athlete of her opponent. She knew where to put the ball but had no time to apply the knowledge. “Women’s tennis is just not used to the ball coming that hard,” said Davenport, politely shellshocked, afterwards.

J K Rowling, our cultural dominatrix, had a name for this in the Harry Potter books. She called it ‘the bludger’ in her fictional Quidditch game for young witches and wizards. It described a ball so malevolently bent on GBH it would knock the players off their broomsticks. Davenport was bludgeoned, mentally and physically, and did not even have the benefit of a broomstick to escape. If she had a black cat, she would probably be kind to it. She is a patently nice, decent, Californian girl.