The cream of the crop is slowly rising as most of the top contenders are still alive and playing well. For the women, top seeds Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams all move through today giving up only 5 games each to their opponents. For the men, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Tomas Berdych, David Ferrer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Juan Martin Del Potro also got through with straight-set wins. Nadal and Del Potro, however, had to dig deep to win their first two sets in tight tiebreaks, but was then able to close it out in the third much more easily. Federer faced long-time on-court foe and off-court friend, David Nalbandian.
Winning against 32nd seed Marcos Baghdatis, a relieved Novak Djokovic was happy to win by "playing ugly," losing his first set of the tournament. 9th seed Marion Bartoli also lost a set and had to come back to win it 9-7 in the third. Two former French Open champions weren't so lucky as 6th seed Francesca Schiavone and 18th seed Ana Ivanovic were ousted before the second week. Schiavone served for the match twice, but just couldn't finish it out. 16th seed Julia Georges was the only other women seed to go out early. And finally, if you had asked me a week ago if 10th seed Mardy Fish would reach his first ever Wimbledon fourth round while Robin Soderling, Gael Monfils, Jurgen Melzer, Gilles Simon, and even Nicolas Almagro won't (because they all lost today), I'd call you certifiable. And yet, here we are, even after Andy Roddick's shocking early-exit from the day before.
As I said, no tennis tomorrow, but I should be posting my general thoughts for what has happened so far and what it all means for the second week of the fortnight. Until then, time to rest.
It's interesting to see how the women that played tennis looked thirty years ago to those that play today. The women of today are as muscular if not more so than men. The sport is dominated by strength and if you don't have it, you won't go very far.
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