Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Wimbledon Report: Day 1

© Getty

The top half of the men's draw led by Roger Federer played on Monday and to most of the seeded men, it was the longest day of their lives.

Top seed Federer was down two sets to love to Alejandro Falla before he managed to stage a miraculous comeback saving four break points in a crucial game during the third set and then breaking Falla as the Colombian was serving for the match in the fourth set. Federer took care of business in the final set by winning six straight games, but he was only a couple of points away from exiting early. Fellow top ten players, Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko also had to come back from 2 sets to 1 down, but both managed to squeezed out a win. Djokovic and Olivier Rochus played under the roof due to bad light.

Top players that weren't so lucky include 11th seed Marin Cilic, 17th seed Ivan Ljubicic, 20th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, and 30th seed Tommy Robredo. Others such as 5th seed Andy Roddick, 12th seed Tomas Berdych, 15th seed Lleyton Hewitt, 21st seed Gael Monfils, among others, moved on much more routinely.

© AELTC

For the women, the bottom half of the draw led by Venus Williams saw a pretty uneventul Monday as most of the seeds went through.

The favorites such as Williams, 4th seed Jelena Jankovic, 8th seed Kim Clijsters, 11th seed Marion Bartoli, 12th seed Nadia Petrova, and 17th seed Justine Henin all moved on without dropping a set. Other seeded winners include 13th Shahar Peer who defeated former number one Ana Ivanovic, 33rd seed Melanie Oudin, 21st seed Vera Zvonareva, and 15th seed Yanina Wickmayer. Kirsten Flipkens join Wickmayer and their more popular Belgian counterparts into the second round.

The lone upset of the day in the woman's side was the ouster of recent French Open champion and 5th seed Francesca Schiavone, losing to Russia's Vera Dushevina. While grass is not her favored surface, this must be quite disappointing for the Italian after her results at Roland Garros and her quarterfinal showing here the year prior. Like Ivanovic, other recent former top players exited early including Patty Schnyder and Agnes Szavay.

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