Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Wimbledon Report: Fourth Round

© AELTC

The biggest upset of the tournament happened this Monday when 82nd ranked Yen-Hsun Lu defeated last year's finalist Andy Roddick in five grueling sets. Lu was able to go up 2 sets to 1 winning tiebreaks in the second and third set. Robin Soderling was also pushed to a fifth set, but he was able to edge out David Ferrer in the end.

Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Murray won in straight sets with the latter defeating Sam Querrey. Murray is the only man to have not lost a single set this tournament. Other fourth round winners include Novak Djokovic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Tomas Berdych. Djokovic defeated Lleyton Hewitt as well as promptly ripped his shirt open after he won.

Quarterfinal Preview: The match to watch will be the rematch of this year's French Open final between Soderling and Nadal. Nadal won comfortably on clay, but Soderling's pace will be much more difficult to handle on grass. Federer should win over Berdych, but do remember that the Czech recently defeated the Swiss last time they met. Murray should be the favorite against Tsonga while Yen-Hsun Lu should cost Djokovic all kinds of trouble.

© AELTC

Kim Clijsters continues her dominant return to the game by defeating Justine Henin for the third time since her comeback. Their H2H now stands at 13-12 in Clijsters' favor and it's back to the drawing board for Henin and her quest to capture that elusive Wimbledon crown. Serena Williams managed to edge Maria Sharapova in the other blockbuster match up, winning a tight first set tiebreak and breaking the Russian in the second. Venus Williams followed suit and won in her match.

While the Williams sisters and Clijsters defeated their lower-ranked opponents, the other matches all went to the lower-ranked player. 3rd seed Caroline Wozniacki (d. by Petra Kvitova) and 4th seed Jelena Jankovic (d. by Vera Zvonareva) crashed out winning only three games between the two of them. Jankovic retired due to injury. Other winners include Kaia Kanepi, Tsvetana Pironkova (d. Marion Bartoli), and Na Li (d. Agnieska Radwanska).

Quarterfinal Preview: The bottom half of the draw seems to be opening up for Clijsters and Venus as both should be favored to win their match against Zvonareva and Pironkova respectively to setup a semifinal blockbuster match. Na Li has the skills to trouble Serena, but probably not enough to actually defeat the defending champion. Finally, flip a coin for Kvitova vs. Kanepi!

Swiss Miss Sighting: Martina Hingis is set to play the Ladies' Invitational Doubles with old partner Anna Kournikova. I'm so jealous for those with Court 2 tickets tomorrow!

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