Tuesday 22 June 2010

Wimbledon 2010; Day 2

A few more shocks here and there but overall nothing too crazy has happened yet. On the men's side Fernando Verdasco lost in 4 sets to Fabio Fognini. I like Fognini but I was rather shocked that he beat Verdasco who has really lost his touch as of late - first 1st round defeat since 2005 Roland Garros! This leaves Tsonga the leading man of that section with Nicolas Almagro also losing, though I kind of see Tsonga struggling so we may get a shock quarter-final here. Jamie Baker, another British player, lost to Andreas Beck in straight sets - seems like we only have Murray to root for. Juan Carlos Ferrero, 14th seed, lost to Xavier Malisse in 5 sets, with this loss Andy Murray has basically nobody in his quarters that should threaten him, Sam Querrey and Tsonga are the only two players who I can realistically see taking Murray more time to dispatch but basically if Murray doesn't get to the semifinals here I think I'll lose hope in him - even one of the commentators said he had by far the easiest draw out of the Top 4.

Robin Soderling continued his Roland Garros form by thrashing Robby Ginepri (but you must remember Ginepri has lost in the 1st Round of Wimbledon since 2005!) Another middling seed, Marcos Baghdatis, also lost, slightly shocking considering Baghdatis normally does quite well here. Besides those listed there isn't anything too shocking today on the men's side,

On the women's side Maria Sharapova nearly made a double bagel out of Anastasia Pivovarova - is she back? That would make for an interesting 4th Round match up against Serena Williams. Serena actually has quite a tough draw in my opinion with potentially very good players, I personally think all her opponents in the early round could potentially cause some difficulties - Michelle Larcher De Brito, Anna Chakvetadze, Dominika Cibulkova.

What was extremely disappointing was the loss of Anne Keothavong, I only saw the first half of the match as BBC chose to air the Williams/De Brito match instead. I was actually quite shocked that Keothavong lost because she was playing well and it looked like Rodionova was imploding. That means we have no women in Wimbledon anymore.

Caroline Wozniacki in the next quarter looked good in her two set match against Tathiana Garbin but so did quite a few winners today, I still think Victoria Azarenka has better chances of making the quarter-final in this section. Heather Watson also lost to Romina Sarina Oprandi in 3 sets. Finally the shock of the day was Samantha Stosur's loss to Kaia Kanepi. Though Kaia Kanepi is possibly the toughest first round match for any of the seeds I still expected Stosur to make it in 3 sets, now both finalists from Roland Garros are out! That just shows how much of a fluke it was.

What really annoyed me was Petra Martic handing a Walkover to Marion Bartoli. Whilst I understand the reasons etc. I still find it annoying that players can just be handed a walkover to the next round without winning a match, they should let Elena Baltacha through!

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