Wimbledon 2014 has certainly seen the event live up to its billing as the ‘most social Wimbledon ever’, with the event organisers bringing people closer to the action with a string of cutting edge activations promoted via the @Wimbledon Twitter profile. Adding to this is the fact that 85% of the competing seeded players now have a presence on Twitter, and with this in mind I wanted to have a look at some of the themes emerging from the outbound activity published to Twitter by those competing in week one at this years event.

Celebrity Spotting

If you have an interest in our great sport then Wimbledon is the place to be, and that is consistently the case for a series of superstar actors, musicians and sports people who turn out annually to watch the action live, to the delight of the players

There happens to be World Cup Taking Place

Novak Djokovic has shown support for the countries neighboring his native Serbia, and appears to have taken a particular liking to Greece

As has Nick Kyrgios, who despite representing Australia has family roots in Greece

Given Spain’s early exit, Rafa Nadal has refrained from tweeting about the tournament, which is in contrast to Roger Federer, who has been ever so insightful in his live tweets during Switzerland’s matches

Maria Sharapova has been following Russia’s progress – luckily for Maria, should things not fair so well with Grigor, she will have no problems finding a new partner in her native homeland

Whilst Tomas Berdych weighed in on the discussion around the Luis Suarez ‘bite’ – Tomas, are you implying that Suarez is a vampire?

Players interacting with one another

Andrea Petkovic is always good value on Twitter and after the BBC referred to her as “an up and coming 20 year old rising star”, she took to the micro blog to highlight her secret to sustaining her youthful complexion, prompting replies from fellow players Ana Ivanovic and Angelique Kerber

The Sky

Tomas Berdych lost out to Marin Cilic in a match that ended at 21:38 in almost total darkness – the latest end time for an outdoor match in Wimbledon’s history. Despite the ‘Bird man’s’ protests to the umpire to suspend the match at the latter end of the third set and with Hawk Eye failing to operate given the lack of light, Berdych took to Twitter to congratulate Cilic on his victory

His tweet prompted humorous response from the @PseudoFed profile (in my opinion at least) one of the best parody accounts on Twitter

On the subject of Mr Federer, the Swiss maestro also appears to have a slight sky obsession this Wimbledon, and sparked conversation amongst his community with this ”what do you see?” tweet

Roger seemed to enjoy some of the responses too….

It is great to see players take to Twitter to give an insight into their thoughts, feelings and personalities at an event that ranks as the pinnacle of the sport, and the highlight in the annual ATP and WTA calendar. As we transition from the middle Sunday to the ‘business end’ of Wimbledon 2014, I look forward to seeing yet more fun, reactive and heart felt Twitter activity from the players.

Article written by Andreas Plastiras