Andy Murray has taken his time winning over the tennis public, particularly in his native Britain. But the phenomenon which is Twitter has proved at long last the 25 year-old Scot is finding his way into the hearts of his countrymen.
A Twitter survey, commissioned by the All England Club in conjunction with their technology partners IBM who analyzed ‘the tweetbuzz’ showed that in more than British 1.2 million tweets about The Championships, Murray was the most popular male player. Agnieszka Radwanska, who lost in the women’s final to Serena Williams, was the most popular female player.
Criticism as well as praise figures highly on Twitter but the showed 87% of positive tweets about Murray came from outside of Scotland.
Men’s champion Roger Federer inspired the highest volume of positive words in tweets but surprisingly Samantha Stosur, the reigning US Open champion who met with an early demise in the second round, topped the women’s charts in this category.
The top three talking points of the competition were late running matches, “big serving” players and major upsets, which included the unexpected first week exit of two times champion Rafael Nadal. Mentions of strawberries peaked on July 2 during a free giveaway.
Mick Desmond, commercial director of the All England Club, said: “The way fans are engaging with Wimbledon has changed over the past few years – particularly in terms of using social media to enhance their experience.
“Fans now expect more and are hungry for information and statistics to analyze players’ performances.
“By working with IBM, we’ve been able to meet these needs, and are looking at what fans will need in the next decade to ensure that we can continue to devise new ways to enrich their Wimbledon experience.”
Topics: 10sballs.com, Agnieszka Radwanska, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Sports, tennis twitter news, Wimbledon 2012