The official logo of the tournament.
The 125th edition of The Championships, Wimbledon, started on 20th June and will be going on until the 3rd of July. This is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and it is the third Grand Slam out of four in the year. The other three being, the Australian Open, French Open and US Open. It is held at the All England Club in London, which is in the suburbs of Wimbledon. The first ever Wimbledon tournament was played in 1877.
Wimbledon is most famous for having a strict dress code for the players (all white) and the eating of strawberries and cream, which is specifically sourced for the tournament. Also, there is no on court advertising as well. Lastly, in 2009, Wimbledon’s Centre Court was fitted with a retractable roof to prevent rain delays and interrupting matches. Also, the first Sunday of the tournament is always used as a rest day unless there are too many rain delays.
The first day of the tournament started pretty ordinarily. People were gearing up for the second day when John Isner and Nicolas Mahut were going to play once again, in the first round of Wimbledon, after there epic two years ago, which I wrote about here:
Day 1 started with the routine of the seeds winning one by one. Starting with Rafael Nadal winning easily in straight sets over Michael Russell to local hero Andy Murray winning in four over Daniel Gimeno-Traver. Big serving Ryan Sweeting though played an exciting five setter against Pablo Andujar. Only one seeded player fell on Day 1. Shahar Peer from Israel fell in a three setter. A few notable people fell though – Jelena Dokic, Tommy Hass and Philipp Kohlschreiber.
Day 2 was the most anticipated for the John Isner vs Nicolas Mahut match but that ended in a pretty quick match (around 2 hours) and resulted in a straight sets victory for Isner, who also won last years epic match. Serena, Roger, Novak and Maria all comfortably went through. A few more seeds fell on the second day. Jelena Jankovic, Marin Cillic, Janko Tipsarevic, Nikolay Davydenko and most notable, 10th seed, Samantha Stosur.
Day 3 was arguably the most boring of the opening three days. The only seed to fall was Roger Federer’s, fellow countrymen, Stanislas Wawrinka, who lost in straight sets. Other than that, not much really happened.
Day 4 provided entertainment when Robin Soderling and Lleyton Hewitt battled it out in a tough five setter. This was a real back and forth match until Robin Soderling eventually came through. The second match of the day on centre court, produced high drama, when Na Li lost 8-6 in the third seed and was knocked out by Sabine Liscki. Na Li had just won the French Open about a month ago, so this came as a surprise to her. A lot of seeds fell one by one but the most exciting match and heartbreaking one for a billion Indians was when Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi lost 21-19 in the third seed. They were heavily favored in this match.
Day 5 produced drama at the top of the hour when eight seed Andy Roddick was dumped out of the tournament by a Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez, in straight sets. Another shocker. On court No. 2, Vera Zvonareva (the 2nd seed) lost tamely in straight sets, only winning 5 games against Tsvetana Pironkova.
Each day gave some upsets and provided entertainment but nothing like the 6th and final day of the week at the Championships.
Day 6 started with the No. 1 seed, Wozniacki winning easily and then followed by No. 3 seed, Roger Federer winning easily. Rafael Nadal picked up speed and quickly completed his match. Serena Williams also looked untouched and won pretty easily. Maria Sharapova on a comeback trail also was looking deathly in a straight sets victory. Court No. 12 produced the most drama during the day session. First up was Marion Bartoli vs Flavia Pennetta. This was a back and forth tussle and one of the best matches of the tournament. Bartoli eventually holding on and knocking out the Italian, 9-7 in the final set. Right after that long match was, Tamira Paszek (unseeded) vs Francesca Schiavone (6) and this proved to be another epic. Sadly though, the Italian was on the losing side again. This time it was 11-9 in the final set. No one could take their eyes of these matches. After those two epics, Xavier Malisse produced a clinical performance and dismissed Jurgen Melzer (11) in straight sets.
Near the end of the day, came another two great matches. First was 18 year old qualifier, Bernard Tomic (AUS) vs Robin Soderling (SWE) (5). This was a shocker. The biggest upset in the tournament since day 1. Tomic the big serving teenager dismissed the 5th seed pretty easily, in straight sets. Soderling had no answer to the kid and bowed out. Then after that, the final match of the day, was Novak Djokovic (bidding to become the no. 1 seed) vs Marcos Baghdatis (who everyone on the circuit loves). Me and my dad were rooting for Baghdatis and after the second set, it looked like he would pull through but Novak has had his best year ever and wasn’t going to let it go. They bought fought and the crowd and went wild until eventually Novak pulled through and kept alive his dreams of becoming Number 1 in the world, in this tournament itself.
Which matches did you watch and which were your favorite? Is the player you support already out? Is your home hero out? Let me know in the comments section. That’s a recap of day 1. I initially intended to write this summary/analysis yesterday but some things came in the way. Today, I present it to you. I hope you enjoyed reading it and I hope Week 2 produced even more exciting and hard fought matches than Week 1.
Sharapova hitting a practice ball
Mon, Jun 27, 2011
Opinions, Sports