Andy Murray was cheered on by a packed Centre Court in Sunday' final. Was he equally well supported online? Photograph: Gerry Penny/EPA
Data analysts from Meltwater Buzz (on behalf of Freeview) and IBM have each been monitoring online reactions to the 2012 Wimbledon Championships to find out which players are most admired on social media platforms.
Both projects used sentiment analysis - a form of measuring whether a message uses generally positive or negative language - to see not only which players were the most talked-about, but whether this dialogue was overly positive or negative.
IBM analysed almost 3 million Tweets over the course of the tournament, gathering data on a variety of measures including the total number of times a player was mentioned, the proportion of messages that were either positive or negative and the most discussed topics that emerged over the two weeks.
Key statistics from IBM's analysis of social media data concerning the 2012 Wimbledon Championships. Click for full size image. Illustration: IBM The graphic above (click for full image) shows some of IBM's key findings. The statistics used were accurate as of midnight on 4 July.
Along the top are daily totals for the number of Tweets referencing Wimbledon, going back to a few days before the Tournament proper began.
Also shown are the top five men and women in terms of positive Tweets and a comparison of positive online sentiment volumes between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
IBM also provided figures on sentiment ratings and total mentions for the six most discussed players in men's and women's singles draws. This data was accurate at midnight on 8 July (after the men's final).
The chart below shows overall sentiment (positive Tweets minus negative Tweets, both as percentages of all mentions) for the men's players, with Andy Murray's 33% putting him in top spot. Rafael Nadal came third in terms of volume of Tweets, but his shock loss to Lukas Rosol left him with net negative sentiment.
Double title-winning Serena Williams scored a higher positive rating than any other player - male or female - in the tournament, with a sentiment score of 55%. Agnieska Radwanska, her beaten opponent in the singles, came in second, just ahead of last year's champion, Petra Kvitova.
Meltwater Buzz are analysing social media sentiment regarding Britain's sport-filled summer for Freeview's British Pride Index. They focused their analysis on changes in sentiment over time. The chart below shows online perceptions of- and reactions to the Championships as a whole as well as the performances of Andy Murray and Heather Watson (there was insufficient data on Watson for sentiment calculations after the 27th).
Watson's relatively unexpected success - she was the first British woman to reach the third round of the singles since 2002 - brought overwhelmingly positive reactions on social media. Her overall sentiment rate topped 80% after her straight sets win over Jamie Lee Hampton.
Conversations centering on Wimbledon itself were generally positive throughout the tournament despite the many rain delays, with sentiment dropping away only as the tournament drew to a close.
It wasn't only Andy Murray's confidence that grew as he progressed through the early rounds - online conversations around the British number one also grew in positivity, peaking as the Scot raced to a 7-5 3-1 lead over Marin Cilic in the last sixteen before rain stopped play.
Attitudes toward Murray improved again following his quarter-final victory over David Ferrer, but after he despatched Jo-Wilfired Tsonga the spectre of Roger Federer loomed large - Murray's overall sentiment tone dropped to -13% on the eve of the final.
Despite losing to the Swiss in his first Wimbledon final, Murray's performance and comportment in the encounter were well received across social media, and his overall rating soared by almost 30% following the match.
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