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Wimbledon is disappearing in the rearview mirror quickly as the Aug. 6 start date of the tennis competition at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro bears down on us.Here are five things we learned at Wimbledon that, looking ahead, promise to make the action this summer spectacular -- and unpredictable.1. Serena Williams is poised to make Big HistoryAt the start of Wimbledon, a string of question marks still followed her name. Williams wiped them out with a commanding performance. She equaled Steffi Graf as the leader in Open era (starting in 1968) Grand Slam singles championships by securing No. 22. Now in her sights: Margaret Courts all-time record of 24 Grand Slam?singles titles.But Williams has set herself up for an achievement that may have even greater historical resonance. No tennis player, male or female, has won more than one Olympic gold medal in singles. Graf came close, with a gold in 1988 and a silver in 1992. Williams could add a second singles gold as well as a fourth in doubles (partnered with sister Venus). That would certainly make her one of the all-time great Olympians.2. Andy Murray upsets the Big Four applecartThe Big Four may be imploding. Closing quickly on age 35, Roger Federer wasted perhaps his last best chance to win that one more Wimbledon he has alluded to. Rafael Nadal is hurt -- again -- and sounding increasingly pessimistic about his future.Once the bottom member of the Big Four by a significant margin?(behind Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic), Murray has been in all three Grand Slam finals this year (he lost to Djokovic at the Australian and French Opens). Djokovic has been to two, failing at Wimbledon.At 29, Murray is acting and talking like hes just approaching his peak, and he has renewed his highly successful relationship with supercoach Ivan Lendl. Everyones time comes in different stages, Murray said after beating?Milos Raonic in the Wimbledon final. Hopefully mine is yet to come.3. The future of the womens game remains wide openBy reaching her second Grand Slam final of the year, 28-year old German Angelique Kerber showed that none of the highly touted young women of the WTA are ready to make a serious run at the top ranking. The most disappointing failure at Wimbledon was that of French Open champ and No. 2 seed Garbine Muguruza. She lost in the second round to Jana Cepelova, saying she had insufficient energy. No. 7 seed Belinda Bencic pulled out of her second-round match with a wrist injury.American women were particularly disappointing: Coco Vandeweghe failed to take advantage of her recent form and a great draw and lost in the fourth round; No. 18 seed Sloane Stephens fell just short against Svetlana Kuznetsova?in the third round;?and No. 9 seed Madison Keys lost in the fourth round to No. 5 Simona Halep -- just the kind of player she can and must sweep out of her path if shes headed for the top.4. The British are in a renaissanceGreat Britain seems to be waking from its big sleep as a tennis power, and it probably all owes to Murray and his exploits, starting with his Wimbledon win in 2013.The British have some good young players, led by Kyle Edmund, Johanna Konta?and Heather Watson. Edmund is just 21 but already No. 67 in the ATP rankings. He lost to Adrian Mannarino in the first round at Wimbledon. Konta, 25, lost a three-setter in the second round to Eugenie Bouchard. Watson lost a 12-10 heartbreaker in the first round to Annika Beck, but she went on to win the mixed doubles. Great Britain also was the dominant force in the wheelchair game, with Gordon Reid winning the mens singles.Ill remember this forever, Watson said after she won the mixed with Finnish player Henri Kontinen. Its been a dream of mine since I was a little girl to be a Grand Slam champion. I would take anything, singles, doubles, mixed doubles. Yeah, Ive got one of those now. I mean, Im just really happy.As Arthur Ashe often said, A rising tide lifts all boats. Expect more young British players to come out of the pipeline.5. Wimbledon needs a final-set tiebreakerThe miserable weather, play stoppages and backlog of matches that forced play on Wimbledons ordinarily silent middle Sunday underscored how silly the refusal to institute a final-set tiebreaker is. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had to win three matches in four days, including a 19-17 third-round victory over?John Isner, to reach the quarterfinals (where he fell to Murray).Most players ESPN.com spoke with at Wimbledon like the idea of playing a tiebreaker in the final set at some point (Federer floated the idea of 12-all). Those 19-17, 22-20 and 14-12 fifth-set scores just seem to belabor a point and, in terms of generating excitement, cant compare with a tiebreaker.The ITF took the plunge and adopted the final-set tiebreaker for Davis Cup. Wimbledon should follow suit. Fake Basketball Jerseys . 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TORONTO -- Michael Saunders was born in Victoria, British Columbia -- about as close to Seattle as you can get without being in the United States.Yet when it came to his baseball allegiance growing up, nationality mattered at least as much as geography.Proximity-wise, I guess everyone felt like Seattle would be my hometown team, but it was really the Jays, Saunders said. My whole family was Jays fans growing up.Now an outfielder for those Toronto Blue Jays, Saunders is uniquely qualified to explain how Canadas lone major league team has cultivated a following among baseball fans all across the country. When the Blue Jays try to avoid elimination Tuesday in Game 4 of the AL Championship Series against Cleveland, theyll have support in provinces near and far.Just ask the Mariners how much Canadians love their Blue Jays. Seattle is three time zones from Toronto, but since its close to Canada, Blue Jays fans show up in droves when the Mariners host Toronto. They also make their presence felt in Detroit, which is just across the river from southern Ontario.It is a very unique situation when you have a whole country as opposed to 29 teams that are localized to a state, Blue Jays reliever Jason Grilli said. The United States is where baseball thrives, of course, but there is one team in Canada that everyone here supports. Its truly incredible. People dont know what its like until they experience a game here and see the support.A winning team always helps, of course, and Toronto is in the postseason for a second consecutive year after a dry spell that stretched back to the teams most recent World Series title in 1993. Sportsnet reported that Game 3 of this months AL Division Series between the Blue Jays and Texas Rangers drew an average audience of 4.73 million, making it Sportsnets most-watched program of the year to that point.Canadas obsession, of course, is with hockey, but thats largely divided among the countrys NHL teams. Toronto has been Canadas only big league team since the Montreal Expos left after the 2004 season, and the support the Blue Jayys receive from far-flung Canadian areas wouldnt necessarily be there for, say, the more polarizing Toronto Maple Leafs.ddddddddddddIt would be the exact opposite, actually, said 31-year-old Stephen Safinuk, a Blue Jays fan from Saskatchewan. Theyd be wishing them a quick exit from the playoffs, if they ever make it.Safinuk was in Toronto for the ALCS, and he was visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday -- while wearing a shirt with Blue Jays slugger Josh Donaldsons name on the back. He said hes seen the Blue Jays play on the road against the Los Angeles Angels, and hed like to be among the throngs of Toronto fans in Seattle sometime soon.Seattle next year is my goal, he said. Its a must-do trip, absolutely.Saunders spent his first six seasons with the Mariners before playing these past two for the Blue Jays.Were not just representing Toronto, were representing all of Canada, he said. Its a really neat experience to see that kind of fan support, and you really see it when you go to Seattle and play the Mariners. I spent my entire career with the Mariners, so I saw kind of the other end of the spectrum. It was a different experience for me to be wearing a Jays uniform this time around.A couple offseasons ago, the Blue Jays made stops in Alberta (Calgary and Banff) and Vancouver, British Columbia, on their winter tour itinerary, the equivalent of the Reds trying to reach out to fans in, say, San Diego. As long as the Blue Jays are Canadas only team, theyll continue to have substantial territory to claim as their own.Itll never overtake hockey here, but the passion is very similar, Safinuk said. You dont see this kind of singular team support for anything other than -- you see it for the Raptors, too, when they were doing good the last couple years, but thats because in Canada, we only have the Raptors and the Blue Jays in NBA and MLB. You dont get that anywhere else.---Follow Noah Trister at www.Twitter.com/noahtrister ' ' '